In traditional Chinese medicine, there is a belief that what occurs ecologically in the environment is reflected in our health.

This is most obvious with the increased use of toxic pesticides and herbicides, degradation of the soil, and disruption of the gut microbiome—the soil of our bodies. The concept is further evidenced by the link between pervasive exposure to chemical toxicants and epidemic cancer rates, as with the proliferation of nonnative electromagnetic fields and the manifestation of a variety of health issues.

If electropollution is a direct cause of illness, as has been proposed with COVID-19, the virulence of the virus needs to placed in the greater context of environment and the health of the population encountering these external risk factors. Detractors of the speculation surrounding electropollution are quick to point out the contagious nature of disease transmission, which appears to occur despite other environmental exposures. The thesis of this blog post is less about the ultimate origins of the pandemic than a theoretical framework for how contagion is possible without infection.

Conceptualizing the contagious impact of infectious disease has historically been divided into two camps: germ theory and terrain theory. Germ theory posits that microbes cause illness, while terrain theory upholds that the health of the body determines presence and severity of illness. Both are correct, but terrain theory is largely ignored by a conventional medical model that emphasizes the more economically viable intervention of drugs and vaccines.

As any experienced gardener knows, the health of the soil determines the fate of the planted seed. With COVID-19, it is possible that the activity of the virus is not the root cause of illness and death but a proximate cause. A breakdown in the relationship between our health and our relationship with nature is the true reason so many have fallen ill.

CC0 Merlin Lightpainting/Pexels

This conventional hypothesis is that the virus is the sole agent of disease. This also assumes that the transmission of illness occurs by viral contagion. In contrast, a small group of fringe researchers have asserted that the virus may in fact be an exosome—an enveloped piece of genetic material emitted from a cell damaged by some other means. Instead of causing the disease, it is an effect. If this is true, then perhaps sick individuals are expressing genetic material that is contagious via communication of the ecological change but not infectious to others in the literal sense of the word.

Connecting the dots between radiation poisoning and the expression of genetic material, the key insight is that exosomes may be agents communicating a looming environmental threat. From this perspective, it is possible—and in fact preferable—that an individual whose health is compromised from some external cause spread the message of that exposure to others so that their bodies can adequately adapt before facing the challenge themselves.

Consider the implications of this hypothesis. Humans cannot solely rely on adaptation passed on through procreation to survive a massive ecological change. The species must communicate through nonphysical means, and within the energetic model of traditional Chinese medicine, we have a clear means to do so. This vitalist wisdom tradition acknowledges a human biofield of information that conveys everything from mood to threat of a cataclysm and everything in between. In this model, exosomes may be a tangible counterpart to this subtle means of communication.

If your neighbor is looking ashen and suffering from a raspy cough after an hourlong cellphone conversation, your body might (in a subsequent interaction) take these physical and nonphysical cues to prepare for a similar challenge, even if you choose to never hold a cellphone to your own head. In this way, exosomes may prepare human physiology with information regarding the nature of a health challenge so that it can adapt accordingly.

Why then the severity of symptoms and death attributed to COVID-19? If the human biofield and its mechanistic release of exosomes are designed for healthy adaptation, why the widespread havoc like what we have witnessed the last few years? 

Answering this question, we come full circle to the primacy of environment and the resilience of our species. In a less polluted environment inhabited by people with robust health, the ecological pressure and subsequent exposure to human-generated exosomes would either produce mild symptoms or be a total nonevent. Instead, our increasingly polluted environment and population of preinflamed citizens with multiple comorbidities can’t adequately adapt and ultimately succumb to the combined onslaught of direct pressures (environmental) and indirect signals (biofield/exosome).

CC0 Ben White/Unsplah

It is at this crossroads that a philosophical divide occurs. Even if the above speculation regarding exosomes proves to be false and we are experiencing the rare event of a genuinely virulent piece of free-floating genetic material, that does not negate the need to work assiduously on optimizing the health and integrity of the environment and human terrain.

Everything we breathe, drink, and eat is subject to the cause and effect of our global actions. With every new 5G tower installation or satellite launch, the strain on ecology and biology compounds. It is shortsighted to think that a floating piece of genetic material is the absolute cause of this or any future pandemic.

I choose to take the long view afforded to me following the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. It’s not about this pandemic or the next—or the cancer epidemic. It’s the loss of traditional wisdom that begs us to look deeper into ourselves and tend the garden of human and ecological health.