Against the Tide?

When you enter the well-insulated home of Judith and Jeremiah Hoad, you re greeted by a radiating warmth. For nearly 20 years, this creative couple (Jeremiah is a landscape painter and dowser, Judith a practitioner of vibrational medicine, a writer and a craftsworker) have lived in their remote Donegal cottage with no electricity and no indoor plumbing. Their most high-tech appliance is a radio-phone run on the electricity coming from a wind-vane which twirls above their house in the fresh Atlantic breeze.
Living so close to nature drinking water from a well nearby, washing in the plentiful rainwater which they collect off their roof, and gathering the firewood which supplies them with warmth and hot water all day has given the Hoads a practical knowledge now rare. This wisdom shines through the pages of Judith s latest book.
Written in a personal, poetic style, Need Or Greed? Our Practical Choices For The Earth reflects its author s personality. Judith is one of the most erudite people that I know. Fascinating books on a massive variety of subjects line the walls of her home. As well as the knowledge garnered from her lifestyle, Need Or Greed? filters, distills and makes highly accessible a huge number of cutting edge ideas in the areas of ecology, politics and culture. Offering autobiography, philosophy, polemic and solutions, this important book brings us right up to date with environmental concerns and the many sustainable projects happening here and abroad.
Judith found that a publisher for Need or Greed? almost fell into her lap. Nearly five years ago, Gill & Macmillan asked me to write a book called Healing With Herbs. And when I d completed that, I had given out at length in a very short book about things like GATT. I like changing the acronym to mean something else, so the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade becomes Global Attack on Traditional Trading.
I was speaking to my editor one day on the telephone and she said, I d like you to write another book. I think you ve got a polemic inside you. And at the time that I was thinking about the broad basis of Need or Greed?, I had a formula in my mind and I didn t know how to sell it to a publisher. And here she was saying to me, I want you to write a polemic , and here was I wanting to polemicise all over the map!
In Need or Greed, Judith analyses why the earth s natural systems and native cultures are rapidly deteriorating, and points to ways out of the quagmire. Globalisation the economic ideology which has raised multinational corporations and their profit motive beyond the control of even national governments comes in for a particularly harsh critique. A rebel at heart, Judith presents an unusual picture. There she is, living in the wilds of Donegal in much the same way that people a hundred years ago would have (she and her husband have only just bought their first car), yet far from being isolated, Judith has her finger firmly on the pulse.
It s a paradox, she laughs. It s down to networking. I network all over the world with lots of people.
Judith s long experience as a vibrational medicine practitioner (she uses Shen Tao acupressure, essences, herbs and some homeopathy) complements her sharp inquisitive mind. The pharmaceutical companies better watch out with Judith around.
We now have a medicine that has medicalised natural phenomena like puberty, birthing and menopause, she says. In this district, certainly, every woman over 40 who makes a casual visit to her doctor is asked, how old are you? You re over 40 you should be on HRT [hormone replacement therapy] . . . No question about whether or not you re actually experiencing any downside effects of being menopausal and the change in your hormonal structure. And it has to be said that it s to do with the way we live, because Asian women and African women and Aboriginal women do not have the menopausal symptoms that western women have.
We fuck about with our reproductive systems, exclaims Judith passionately. Why do we have so many genital cancers? Perhaps it s because of the spermicidal creams we use. We re killing sperm all the time. So we re probably killing other cells at the same time, so they just give up this exercise of regenerating themselves and give in and let the cancer take over. I mean, this is a private opinion, and I don t voice it to people who come to me on consultations if they re suffering in that region, because I think people can feel oh, it s my fault , but I think in general terms, that s one of the reasons.
I would add to that something else, which very much relates to Need Or Greed? I have a whole chapter devoted to our language and our culture of killing. My sense is that in the English language and I m sure it exists in other languages our metaphor is predominantly militaristic. The names of conditions, and the names of things like pesticides are so often military. The military language has even gone into agriculture.
So then what do we do domestically? We pour Harpic down the jacks to kill the bacteria, we put disinfectant on the floor, we put killer soap-suds into the washing-up pan, if we have a fly in the house we go demented with a spray, and we end up with multiple chemical sensitivity. Where s the sense in that? But it s all to do with killing! And then we have spermicidal creams.
I use this all the time when I m teaching. If you were to be found out for homicide, matricide, genocide or whatever, and you were convicted, you would have very severe penalties brought against you. But you can perform pesticide, herbicide or fungicide all the time.
Respect for all life and our mutual dependence in the ecological web permeates Judith Hoad s thoughts. Though Need Or Greed? deals with heavy-duty and at times depressing subjects, positivity also shines through. I ask Judith what she thinks of the many diverse prophecies which point to this time as one of chaotic transition.
What we re seeing now, she resumes, is a polarisation between the elements of good and of bad. Because the potential here for enormous evil . . . I feel that this talk about three military blocs, Europe, America, and Russia nobody thought about China this notion that after this war in Yugoslavia, this is what should happen. This is not what should happen at all! This should be the final reminder that this is not the way to go that co-operation is the way to go. But I believe, because of what s happening at groundroots level, for example, the move in Britain where the people growing GM crops are actually destroying them and pulling out of the trials because of the pressure that s brought to bear on them by the general public. Well, that is people power. That s what brought the Berlin wall down, that s what got Mandela into the presidency. We, the people, are making the decisions.
And I think that s actually what s down the line. That s what I believe is ahead.
Need Or Greed? Our Practical Choices for the Earth by Judith Hoad is published by Gill & Macmillan.