It's too bad humans gave up hibernation. I read an interesting book review the other day about how our bodies still prepare for winter, taking on extra weight, lengthening sleep pat terns, changing metabolic rates. The author went on to say that much of the stress we feel during the winter months comes from the disjunction of what our bodies are prepared to do and what we, in our modern rush, push them to do. Natural law again loses out to cultural law: Slow Down loses out to Make A Buck.
But imagine the benefits if humans restored their ability to hibernate. Think of the simple physical blessings. First, we'd be choreographed into nature's own cycle of recuperation. We wouldn't be stressed by imposed chronologies, such as eastern standard time. Our bodies would move to their own rhythms and there would be a comfortable buffer between the necessities of the outside world and our own universe of heartbeat and breathing. We would become full of health.
There would be social advantages as well. We could avoid the strain of the holidays, celebrating thanks and gifts in the spring when the world alarms us to become fully alive once more. We would be able to take a time-out from each other. We could indulge a required truce and get away for a while from the narrow view we have of each other's faults and insufficiencies. We could build some tolerance for the inevitable disappointments our imperfect natures seem to promise. A lengthy absence from social tangling might go a long way toward making us all less defensive, less afraid, more forgiving.
There might be economic dislocations, of course, when most of the world in the far northern and southern latitudes decide to sleep for six months or so, but they could be adjusted for. Or we could simple say that those who wish to work can, and those who wish to hibernate can hibernate, gradually hoping to convince the Type A's that hibernation is not a personal insult to their vision of the future. Politically, a long lull in international tensions would only be to the good.
Think how this hibernation would feel, this movement of the individual body towards its own North Star, towards its own center from which the rest of the world radiates. Having reached that center the self can begin to build its own peace, sleeping hour by sleeping hour, not only refreshing the machinery but also giving pause to the army of fears and wounds that too often threaten to overawe all of who we are. Shakespeare said that sleep was a rehearsal for death. Not so here - hibernation would be a dress run for living again.
Just Say No To This Drug Bill
Thanksgiving