“The first principle of the exploitive mind is to divide and conquer. And surely there has never been a people more ominously and painfully divided than we are – both against each other and within ourselves.  Once the revolution of exploitation is under way, statesmanship and craftsmanship are gradually replaced by salesmanship (the craft of persuading people to buy what they do not need, and do not want, for more than it is worth). Its stock in trade in politics is to sell despotism and avarice as freedom and democracy. In business it sells sham and frustration as luxury and satisfaction.”

—  Wendell Berry,  “The Unsettling of America.”

Berry, like Plato and Jefferson, writes that the body and the soul cannot be dealt with separately – spiritually, medically, politically. I am coming to understand this in terms of health. I was always told of the impact the mind had on the body, but until I experienced it firsthand, I never grasped the power of the idea. I spent much of my life in a strange state – my inner life and the world beyond were never introduced to one another. I am working to bridge that divide. I have seen that the body and soul cannot be healthy apart from one another.