ADAM OLSEN -- Although the Berenstain Bears didn’t win the Bear Country 3 Mile Race, they did get the prize for being the first family to cross the finish line

I am no biologist or astronomer but I did read the “Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food” with Ella the other night. Sister Bear and Brother Bear were eating too many sweets and were starting to pack on extra weight.

As it turns out, Papa Bear was also very attached to his sugary snacks and it became evident that there is a range of standards in the Bear Family. In the story Papa supports limiting the snacks for his little bears. However, he was far less supportive of Mama Bear’s effort to address her family’s nutrition when he learned that it was also going to impact him personally.

“Integration” is a common theme running through my blog posts. It showed up again as Dr. Grizzly explained a simplified version of the circulatory and respiratory, musculoskeletal, digestive and excretory, nervous and endocrine, reproductive and immune systems to Sister, Brother and Papa.

The grand collection of systems

It appears Stan and Jan Berenstain were doing their part to stem the rising tide of obesity. However, as Ella and I were working our way through the story, my mind was churning over the grand collection of systems, finely tuned and working together, that make up our wonderfully bizarre reality.

At a very local level, it’s the reminder that our physical bodies are a complex network of systems. Removal or damage to the function of any one of the systems critically impairs the entire body. Apply this to any of the seemingly infinite other systems around us and we will get, to a greater or lesser extent, the same result.

The challenge of constantly working to balance and improve my mental, emotional and spiritual states relies on paying close attention to the wellbeing of the physical systems that Dr. Grizzly encouraged the Bear Family to look after.

While our individual survival requires fully integrated and inter-dependent systems to function well, the scope of integration and inter-dependence in our reality is unfathomable, whether it’s the massive bodies that make up our solar system, or the understanding that the Milky Way is just one of countless solar systems in the universe.

Being integrated

Drawing back from grandest example to our work in the Legislature I am highlighting the unfolding environmental disaster that comes from humans not respecting the balance of ecosystems. The wealth we are extracting recklessly from the respiratory, the circulatory, digestive, nervous and immune systems of nature is then being used to fix the mess we are creating through our extractions.

The most recent example of this from my blog is the logging of a watershed followed with a hundred million dollar announcement for a water treatment facility required because of the logging. We are taking too much and what we are putting back is a corrective that wouldn’t be necessary if we took an integrated approach.

From the vast to the microscopic, each one of us is a significant part of a diverse collection of inter-connected systems. Life thrives when these systems respectfully co-exist with each other. However, it’s in the absence of cooperation, when one takes more than they give, when these systems all begin to collapse.

The Berenstain Bears reformed their habits. It required discipline and restraint. Although they didn’t win the Bear Country 3 Mile Race, they did get the prize for being the first family to cross the finish line.

It’s a valuable lesson in working together, supporting each other and understanding there are no special exceptions.

In the beginning Papa thought he could continue drinking soda pops and sugar dodo’s but nature’s rules do not discriminate, they are same for all and now the Dodo is extinct.

Adam Olsen ... is a Green Party Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Saanich North and the Islands.

Born in Victoria, BC in 1976, Adam has lived, worked and played his entire life on the Saanich Peninsula. He is a member of Tsartlip First Nation (W̱JOȽEȽP), where he and his wife, Emily, are raising their two children, Silas and Ella.