Books of Educational and Informational Comics from Larry Paros

"Let's get physical, physical/I wanna get physical/Let's get into physical/Let me hear your body talk/Your body talk/Let me hear your body talk."
--- Olivia Newton-John

Physicality is an important facet of who we are. We often say there's nothing more important than our physical well-being, something to which we pay tribute with our annual physical.

What makes us physical is the Greek Physis — a principle that describes the progressive change a subject undergoes in its development towards a particular end — for example, the acorn developing into an oak tree. It's that special path towards fulfillment of individual destiny that every living thing is destined to take.

Physis is also a "healing power," the self-adjusting force within the subject, that which keeps it in balance as it moves down its pre-ordained path. We need only tap into it and trust it. As pointed out by the Greek physician Hippocrates: "It is nature that finds the way... though untaught and uninstructed, it does what is proper... to preserve perfect equilibrium and to re-establish order and harmony."

When you fall ill, you have fallen into a state of disharmony. The task of the first physician was to help tap into the power within in order to help you to regain your balance and resume your journey.

The primary goal of today's physician is not to place it in a larger physical, emotional, or spiritual context, but to narrow things down by identifying the problem, isolating it, and then treating it through the application of specific external remedies. The patient is less an active participant in this process than a passive receiver of treatment. Inner guidance is not part of that model. One can only wonder what would it take to get them to model Hippocrates and be in tune with Newton John.