You are now entering the spin cycle of 2025. You might also call it “calendar shedding”. In the next three weeks, there are so many public holidays, it makes your head spin. You never know whether to set an alarm or not. You drive to work in 10 minutes instead of two hours, only to find the office locked.
Topping off the crazy, VAT is increasing (we think) by half a percentage on 1 May. We have no idea how this is going to pan out. We will keep our prices stable. Adding half a percent might just be the straw that breaks the nation’s back. Oh, the things the ANC will do to save our beloved country from rack and ruin…
With the ANC’s approval ratings now also in the half percent region, we may still expect the GNU to come up with some surprising moves. We will ride out the rodeo with the rest of our nation until the GNU is finally laid to rest.
Since we find ourselves smack-bang in the middle of both Passover week and Holy Week, we thought it a good idea to talk a bit about blood.
Blood is an astonishing organ. Yes, it is an organ just like the liver, kidneys, lungs or brain. Unlike them, this organ has no fixed shape. It is made up of so many parts that it takes years to understand them all, and how they interact with each other.
At your pathology laboratory, they will perform something called a Full Blood Count (FBC). Don’t believe a word of it. There is nothing “full” about that report. Even if they listed 3,000 separate items on that report, it would still not be the “full” report. Blood is vastly more complicated than we can grasp.
Most of us first encounter blood when we, or someone near us, gets hurt enough to damage the skin. If you grew up on a farm, you probably first encountered blood in the context of slaughtering an animal. However it happened, the message of blood remains the same: Blood is essential for life. Lose enough of it and you lose your life.
Yes, yes, all organs matter, but a relatively small injury can cause the loss of a life-threatening amount of blood in a short time. Long before the other organs are in danger, a life can ebb away due to blood loss. This forms the basis of blood transfusion. If you replace the lost blood quickly enough, the other organs will be spared and life will continue.
The mineral composition of blood bears a striking resemblance to that of sea water. It is as if you’re carrying a bit of the ocean inside of you. If you cup your hands over your ears, you can even hear the sea roar inside of you. OK, that’s cold comfort to those of us who wanted to have a seaside holiday over Easter. Sitting under a solar lamp with your hands cupped over your ears just doesn’t seem the same as Margate beach. Maybe that’s why we like holidays by the sea so much – a bit of us never left.
All of this tells us that blood (and, by implication, life) is more mysterious and much wilder than we normally give it credit for. Our blood carries in it the history of our entire ancestry, like some vast biological blockchain. In the end, blood unites all of us into one family.
How come, then, that we humans have shed so much blood over so many millennia? In a vain effort to elevate one part of humanity over another, tyrants and brutes rage and kill. In the end, death levels all our ambitions anyway. The age-old tension between kingship and kinship dissolves when kings and paupers alike return to the dust they were made of – their kinship now undeniable.
Reach across the many artificial barriers humans have created between “Us” and “Them”. Not only is blood a river of life in us, it is also the wellspring of love. Take some time to ponder the many mysteries of blood.
To strengthen your blood, we have produced HemaFit. There is no other blood support product like it in South Africa or anywhere else in the world.
Read more about HemaFit here.
The Team at Integrow Health
