The Spirit of “No”

“‘I entered the sweat lodge. I made my prayers strong and clear: to turn things around . Ideas and  thoughts came , then and later . They askedto be written.
An omen signed they be published. Thus have I done.
Jeffrey Strong-On-The-Path

Joseph Rael, a Pueblo indian, once gave a talk on what he called the “Spirit of No.” He explained that in ancient times the word “no” did not have the connotation
it does today as meaning definitively no. Rather, when the elders told someone “no”
it meant, not yet, we do not fully understand the implication and impact of what you wish to do, essentially tabling the matter for future consideration. In surveying the environmental mess of today, it would seem that somewhere along the line this “soirit of no” has been sadly forgotten. Indeed, in today’s paper (Flint Journal, 1/21/90) I read “Michigan has 2,687 identified sites where toxics have polluted land or water and more are added each year. Removing pollution at the known sites will cost about $4 billion.” No small potatoes to pay for our ignorance. The problem is however sicker than this: most of these hazardous and auestionable chemicals are s t i l l in production and not only that, the chemical industry each year “discovers” thousands of new chemi- cals for which it seeks applications and markets, ready to gear up for production of who knows what new environmental or health time bomb.
It sounds like a pack of mad scientists who have lost touch with reality to me. Sure, the technocrats counter that there are some hoops to jump through the USDA , the FDA , the EPA , etc . . . but I am one who heard the talk  on the spirit of “No” and besides, do we really need this stuff? Really? What I see is that  we are all just a bunch of guinea pigs. First they test the stuff on rats or monkeys, then some brave (usually poor destitute) control group of humans and then, bing, it’s on the market and let’s see what happens…

Take Nutrasweet, for example. What is this stuff for? It’s for people who like sweet stuff but shouldn’t eat sweets. Hein? Run that by me again. Is that like methadone for heroin addicts? For real? Diet Coke, etc. Give me a break — why don’t they just drink something that isn’t sweet, like tea or just have a glass of water – – zero calories. Yeah, I understand, it’s hard to find good water these days, but maybe Pepsi or someone could bottle it.
Try reading a label on the food you buy, like bread or ice cream, even apple pie, these standards of an American diet. “Bleached,” “processed,” “added as a pre- servative”–enough to scare me off, not to mention the “poly” this and the “di” those, besides the chemical stuff. As Dick Gregory Dut it: “If you can’t pronounce it,
don’t eat i t . ” My viewpoint is simple: my body was made to process food.
Somewhere along the line the spirit of “no” was dropped by the wayside. Some- where along the line, the American farmer stopped rotating crops, started growing one single crop, using a r t i fi c i a l fertilizers and pesticides, all because of those dana blasted God-like scientists in their labs. As I remember from history classes, crop rotation was an achievement of the early middle ages, the result
of hundreds of years of trial and error and observation. I have a hunch that back
then when the benefits of crop rotation were recognized, the elders sanctioned it with a “yes, it is good.”
Not that I am saying that scientists are not well intended. Indeed, many bene-
ficial things have come of their efforts, marticularly in the medical field. However, on the whole, these beneficial products account for a small percentile of the vast number of exotic chemicals. What I am saying is that I’m tired of being lied to;
one week it’s okay, the next it’s off the shelf, so how about a moratorium on further senseless chemical research. How about trying to sort out what’s really essential and abandoning that which we can do without. As Sitting Bull put it, “take the
best and leave the rest.” How about getting the scientists out of the labs, letting
them take care of children of thalimolide, giving them decontamination suits and shovels to clean up super fund sites, figuring out ways to remove those pesticides metals from our ground water. How about it? I t ‘ s time for a massive re- and heavy e v a l u a t i o n .
How about some caution . How about  getting  t h e” S p i r i t of No” back in  t o the process to balance things out. How about it? I t ‘ d be about time, by Jove.
Let’s turn things around.