Seeing the Stars and Our Health
Light pollution obliterates the stars and has become a menace to our good health. A couple hundred years ago, anyone could walk outside at night and see the whole Milky Way Galaxy and be in awe of all the billions of stars stretched out across the sky. I can remember going camp up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, by the North Fork of the Yuba River, and laying down on the ground in my sleeping bag, where I would look up through the pine trees and see the eternal endless nature of the cosmos. It was one of the most amazing parts of my life…something I will never forget.
But in the here and now–in San Juan, in New York, in Chicago, in Miami, in Belgium, and thousands upon thousands of other places around the globe–there are few stars that light up the night sky because of so much light pollution. The lighting we generate travels for hundreds of miles polluting the sky of cities out into the countryside. This light goes up into the atmosphere, hitting particles of dust and obscuring the night sky, the stars, the planets, and all of the cosmos.
Every culture, every civilization from the beginning of man’s journey here on earth, has talked about the night sky, mapped the stars, and made up great stories about all the celestial bodies in the sky. We have learned to navigate with the stars and create calendars using the stars as guides.
Most of all, the vastness of the stars in the night sky it made us feel small. It added to our sense of awe, and allowed for us to think of ourselves as part of a greater whole and let go of our ego. Rituals were built around the stars at night. Special sites, such as Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids were built in alignment with the stars.
What about our present culture? What about our modern myths, our new stories, our ability to be in awe, to let go of our ego, and know we are part of a greater whole? In some ways, that has been lost.
In contrast to the light pollution that exists, darkness is important for health. In our brain, we have hormonal responses that take place when we have 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. With 12 hours of darkness, melatonin is released in large amounts into our brain and that helps us to sleep deeply and replenish our bodies. This same hormone helps keep cancer away.
With so much light pollution at night, we become overwhelmed with the imbalance. Our hormonal dispersion of melatonin throughout the body is compromised, because we have very little production of the hormone. This reduced capacity can affect people whose bodies are predisposed to disease.
Studies with rats show that if a rat has a tumor and it is injected with blood from a person who has 12 hours of darkness the cancer does not spread or grow larger. However, if that same rat is given blood from a person who has subjected to large amounts of light at night and has very low melatonin levels in their blood, that same tumor will grow large and spread. Light pollution is just another way that cancer is promoted in our modern society. This is being studied more and more because of the fact that our light pollution is getting out of hand.
Even from space, places like Brussels and San Juan can be seen as the brightest spots on the globe. The epidemic of cancer we experience may be caused by a number of things, and light pollution is one of them. We have lights now that only focus on lighting up the ground and do not allow light to be expelled out into the night sky. These new lights can take care of light pollution and still provide protection from the problems of living in a big city. We have to take on this challenge as our own, and make changes in how we view our planet and what it looks like from space.
We cannot escape our circadian rhythms of life. The body knows that it should be working in accordance with nature. Those who work shift work in hospitals and 24-hour stores have a life expectancy that is 10 to 15 years shorter than the norm. This means we cannot fool Mother Nature. Our bodies have great wisdom, but are we listening?
Eventually, we will have to create a new night sky full of stars by getting rid of light pollution. And help people to work according to their bodies natural rhythms so we live long, healthy, happy lives in awe of the stars.
I want everyone to be able to walk at night and see the great Milky Way Galaxy. I want to see this happen in my lifetime. Like I’ve been saying for years, we have to go back to a natural way of living.
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About the Author
Dr. Paul Haider – Master Herbalist and Spiritual Teacher for over 20 years, helping people to recover and feel healthy. He is on FB under Dr. Paul Haider, Healing Herbs, and at www.paulhaider.com – feel free to contact him any time. Here is a short video bio – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK6Eg-xlX3U And Google+ address if you would like to connect. — http://plus.google.com/+PaulHaider–drpaulhaider
