
De Luz María López
La medicina moderna actúa de acuerdo a un paradigma físico que se aleja,
lamentablemente, de la visión holística de la vida que incorpora la ciencia,
hombre, mujer, espiritualidad. Si se aborda al ser humano sólo como si fuera
una máquina que deja de funcionar, entonces no se está considerando a la
persona como un todo. “Los médicos y profesionales de la salud que busquen
estar a la vanguardia en cuanto a tratamientos, no deben desenvolverse
únicamente en los campos “clásicos” de la medicina sino que deben permitirse
abrir su mente para comprender que la salud y el bienestar humano dependen de factores
que van más allá de lo concreto y lo evidente.” (Vega, 2007). Numerosos
estudios científicos apoyan el concepto de que atender la salud espiritual
ayuda a la recuperación integral, sobre todo a prevenir trastornos posteriores
(Osío, 2007).
En Puerto Rico varios investigadores han recomendado la colaboración entre los
sanadores folclóricos tradicionales y el sistema profesional de ayuda con el
propósito de proveer un tratamiento armónico, completo. Por sistema folclórico
se debe entender aquel sistema que ha sido desarrollado y que es practicado por
personas que no tienen un grado académico que los capacite para la tarea de
sanación. A estas personas se les denomina “sanadores folclóricos”. Una seria
dificultad para que se establezca tal colaboración entre profesionales de la
salud y sanadores folclóricos es “el hecho de que la medicina moderna se ha
resistido a considerar el rol de la dimensión espiritual en la prevención y el
tratamiento de las enfermedades”, afirma Núñez (2007).
¿Es viable la colaboración entre los sanadores folclóricos y los profesionales
de la salud? Si bien es cierto que las sanaciones tradicionales han existido
desde tiempos muy antiguos, también es cierto que no hay cultura que no haya
desarrollado un sistema para lidiar con asuntos relacionados a la enfermedad y
la sanación dentro de un contexto socio-cultural. Un aspecto a considerar es
que la medicina profesional no necesariamente es efectiva al ayudar a personas
con diferentes trasfondos étnicos. Los profesionales de la salud tratan la
enfermedad con sus síntomas con un protocolo ya establecido, validado
empíricamente. No se explora otras alternativas como lo sería, por ejemplo, la
religión u otras creencias. Un aspecto a considerar es que las prácticas
espirituales tradicionales desvían, por lo tanto fallan en transformar, los
patrones sicológicos condicionales y creencias inconscientes que surgen de
nuestras historias personales y adaptaciones, reitera Neddermeyer (2005). Lo
espiritual, por tanto, parece definirse de diversas maneras en diferentes
contextos, al igual que la enfermedad.
El término “enfermedad” posee un significado amplio que incluye no sólo la
dolencia específica sino también la percepción cabal de la persona enferma,
tanto respecto de sí misma como en sus relaciones inmediatas, esto es familia y
sociedad. Las ideas modernas sobre la enfermedad y la curación no ayudan mucho
a entender la naturaleza de la enfermedad más allá de los síntomas. La
preocupación por la enfermedad se percibe como una experiencia de no estar
completo física, fisiológica, espiritualmente, de no ser una parte integral de
una totalidad (Pilch, 2000). Las personas enfermas necesitan volver a su estado
previo de bienestar, lo que no se percibe en términos de la restauración de la sanidad
únicamente sino de la reincorporación de la persona en la sociedad. Es en este
aspecto que la colaboración entre los profesionales de la salud y los sanadores
folclóricos podrían viabilizar la pronta reintegración física y espiritual de
la persona enferma a su medioambiente socio-cultural.
Gaia and the
New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet
Gaia and the new politics of love
y Serena Anderlini
Meandering through steel night to the fire,
seeking out her eternal light inflamed.
She is calling at some secret desire,
to silence and burn at the heart untamed.
Earth Believer by Todd Nelsen

Gaia
theory argues that the flora and fauna of the planet operate in a
self-regulating web that keeps the world livable. According to this theory,
shaped and voiced by Serena Anderlini, humankind is the most powerful species
in this web and also its biggest threat. In her book, which is an echo of her
theory, she explores ways to minimize and ultimately eliminate this threat with
love and intimacy in a sort of a global ecology based on an analysis of human
health, particularly the oxytoxin hormone. The remedy for the threat is
identified within the context of her Gaia theory. She re-envisions it as a more
inclusive philosophy that surely impacts not only relationships, but world
ecology under threat. The key point is that the author links human sexuality to
the global ecosystem, claiming that freedom from fear will stimulate a holistic
health movement powerful enough to heal relationships and restore a planetary
balance.
Gaia and the New Politics of Love weaves together issues of human and global
health, sexuality and ecology and practices and styles of love. She also
focuses on the changing roles of eroticism and gender in our lives. She talks
about a polyamorous bisexuality and links it, somehow, to the AIDS prevention
movement. From a sex-positive, eco-feminist perspective, she argues that love,
life, sex and a global ecology, as a whole, will turn into world joy, peace,
and health. Dr. Anderlini explains why bisexual and polyamorous love practices,
with their sharing of emotional resources, enrich and sustain emotional lives.
When practiced on a global scale, this abundance of love would then produce
personal emotional and global ecological sustainability. It is evident that she
considers sexual freedom a human right and a key to unlock healthiness for the
Planet, by way of abundant bi and poly love.
I totally agree with the idea that the Earth is an ecosystem that pulses in
tandem with all living and non living organisms. What hurts here, hurts there.
Being polyamorous towards our Blue Bubble certainly is worth the whole theory.
We are not conscious, seriously conscious, of the harm we produce to our
ecosystem. Maybe we should learn something valuable from the Gaia concept: the
Earth needs to be loved in a totally human bisexual way, that is men and women
alike loving and caring for it.
Now, what I feel that has to be seriously considered is the sexual aspect of
the theory - that polyamorous bisexuality call the author proposes. The whole
perspective seems unfocused, a bit wild, if you will. A giant orgy does not
seem to me the way to heal a planet. I actually doubt it can heal the planet.
It would if being sexually amorous towards anyone and everyone leads to no
prejudice, no intolerance, no jealousy, no bad feelings, no sense of
possession, no egoisms, no wars, no destruction, no garbage, no pollution… The
list would be endless. But this not the nature of human beings! The total
sexual freedom idea to heal the Planet won’t save it!
As for the sexual freedom per se, I am not totally into it. We need values,
mores and order. We need rules to live by, because chaos in terms of
relationships turns into social chaos as well. We need to be polyamorous, I
agree, but at a social level more than at a sexual level. True, the force of
erotic love can also turn into a creative urge, a flowing nature, the coming
into being, a sense of a satisfaction and a good flow, but there is a slim
chance that it will work in such a harmonic way for a mass that is less than
uniform in all senses. She sees the sexual freedom in terms of an idealistic
kind of occurrence that is not likely to happen and not likely to heal the
Planet, and humankind either.
Healing Gaia seems to be a masterpiece of vision and thought, on the other
hand. Through the aid of a power point presentation of the aspects of Earth's
many life cycle systems, pinpointing to what a self-regulating life support
system is and how it works, we were guided to some thinking. When we understand
life cycle processes and understand what we as humans are doing to upset and
alter them, we then have a sense of which direction to go in order to modify
our life styles and bad environmental habits. I guess this in part the idea.
Anderlini’s philosophy seems to cover a spectrum from a discourse in Earth life
support cycles to avenues of approach to healing Gaia.
The approach seems exhaustively researched and carefully put together,
philosophy and mythology (Eros in particular) considered as well. Of course, at
least from what I heard there, religious believes were not even a factor
considered in this new theory. Probably the author sees this thinking as a new
religion, or sort of.
Not to be ignored in this personal assessment is the audience: mostly traditional,
mostly Christians, mostly conservatives, mostly monogamous, mostly unprepared
for polyamorous adventures to heal the Planet or themselves... Out of
curiosity, I would like to know if those polyamorous friends have been able to
change to eco-friendliness and human-friendliness, once embraced to Gaia and
its politics of love. I know, but we are from the scientific era! See,
bacteria, ryzomas or amoebas can get all entwined, and maybe the Earth gets
better or maybe not. The whole system will adapt to one or the other
circumstance. But if we do, I don’t see how that will help to regulate or heal
the Planet, even ourselves as a matter of fact. Ecologists and Naturalists
maybe have a better clue.
As a final thought I can ascertain that exposition to such lines of thinking
open new avenues to our own thinking. To be able to critically, or
passionately, accept or refuse new approaches, new possibilities, expands our
limited horizons, restricted in terms of our culture, mores, insularism, among
others. No doubt that each one of us left the conference with an ebullition of
contradictory opinions. I must admit that Serena Anderlini is a woman of
convictions, which merits praise. To live by your own standards is not an easy
task.