In my teens, an old man told me, "If you follow just one of the Ten Commandments, the rest will take care of themselves."
I went over the commandments that I remembered, and shrugged.
"Honor the Sabbath," this elder said. "In Hebrew, that means 'not to interfere with Nature.' Don't light a fire, touch money or build anything. On the other six days of the week, you collaborate with nature."
And so, my collection of instructions for survival began.
Hippocrates advised physicians to "First, do no harm-- "but we can take the advice personally, regarding food, for example. Don't stuff yourself. Avoid heated oil, which leads to inflammation. Avoid sugar, which creates a surge of energy, then depression. Vegan diets or meat-heavy diets also create extremes. Go for balance.
When a radio show host asked the Cheyenne-Muscogee writer Suzan Harjo, "What's the most important thing that's happened in Native American history?" Harjo didn't hesitate to say: "We learned which herbs heal wounds and diseases."
United Plant Savers advises, "Don't harvest all the herbs. Leave enough plants so that they go to seed, you can harvest again in a year, and they won't go extinct."
For a lasting marriage, several Indigenous cultures and Judaism advise couples to avoid sexual relations while the woman menstruates and for several days after bleeding. This guarantees the woman solitude every month-- and keeps a relationship juicy.
Taoists clarify that nature is our teacher. We're not here to conquer it. We don't know the Big picture. Avoid extremes and aim for humility.
In 1969, the U.S. established the Environmental Protection Agency, a government regulator, to protect ecosystems and public health. The EPA imposed limits on use of some chemicals and electromagnetic radiation frequencies. They imposed fines when industries violated these regulations.
Whenever we're agitated, Byron Katie suggests we write down what we consider the agitation a gift, write down our thoughts-- and investigate them with four questions to make peace with our minds.
Ecological economist Herman Daly wrote: Don't take from the Earth faster than it can replenish. Don't waste faster than the Earth can absorb the waste.
Bioregionalists suggest keeping local: limit your consumption to the water, food and fuel offered by your watershed. Study plant-soil-water relationships.
Uniformly, these instructions clarify that survival requires limits.
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