I remember when my family went to the beach. Life was so simple then—a chair, a towel, a bagged lunch, and sometimes ice in a cooler if we could carry it through the sand. That was it.

Nowadays, things are a bit different. Take today for instance. I am writing this with my feet poised in a sun chair at the beach. What do I see? To the right there are two women and six kids none of which are really in a bathing suit yet swathed from head to toe with cover-up garments and doubled-on sunscreen. Each kid has sunglasses and beach shoes, and just about every surface inch of skin covered. And if skin is showing, it’s not flesh colored, it’s pure white lotion as the child is encased in layers and layers of sunscreen SPF #6900 (or whatever the highest number is, as they keep increasing!).

It was clear to me that these mothers are teaching their kids that every aspect of the environment is dangerous. They even stood in the water keeping a wary eye on the kids playing in the sand—with life preservers on! Why would anyone need a life preserver on dry land? I guess you can never be too safe. Once again, they are communicating to these kids that the world as a whole is a terrifyingly frightening and dangerous place.

I didn’t see one person teaching a kid how to swim in the water or actually giving them the skills to survive in our world. The emphasis is to create a barrier of safety, which equals: a wall of protection between us and Mother Nature. What irony!

So it is any wonder that children and adults have First Chakra illnesses: twitchy immune systems, asthma, and allergies of all kinds. (Note: First Chakra is a theme that we usually pick up from our families.) All this hyper-vigilance against Mother Nature leads to problems developing an immune system that can live in harmony with our world rather than needing to constantly fight against it and reject it.

But all is not lost. It is refreshing to see to my left a wonderful woman from New Jersey. New Jersey, mind you—is a place not usually known for nature, although I know there are many rural parts of the state. This woman’s daughter has on only a bathing suit, is sitting on a towel, and is happily taking all the seaweed from the beach to make a sculpture. How wonderful and simple—a First Chakra basic rule. The New Jersey mother and her daughter look as healthy as horses. They stand out in comparison to the sickly crew to my right, the kids with full-length bathing suits, hats AND shoes—and don’t forget the SPF 6900 sunscreen either! Those kids look anemic, thin, and are screaming anxiously.

I have always learned a lot about First Chakras and medical intuition at the beach!