michaelsharrington (Hridayam)

In 2021, one morning, I watched a 20-something hispanic man walk pass our apartment with one of those pesticide packs with the clear plastic bottle containing a liquid. He wore no mask and was indiscriminately spraying a substance on many surfaces around the homes in our vicinity.

“Oh God”, I thought, “it must be Roundup”. Sure enough moments later I called the maintenance department and spoke to Veronica. She confirmed my intuition. Roundup, the ubiquitous weed-controlling agent. Killer of all things, plant, animal, and human.

To have this immaculate looking appearance all around them, the residents at this prestigious community are lavishly poisoning themselves. All week a steady stream of mostly hispanic workers sprays what must be gallons of the stuff across the golf course, the walking paths and around their homes in order to maintain an idealistic vision of beauty. And what most of the residence do not realize, the sheer toxic power of Roundup.

This is not the first time I have lived in San Jose but the first in 48 years. From age 4 to age 10, our family lived in southwest San Jose. California. This was the mid to late 1960’s. At that time, Santa Clara County was still considered one of the most fertile valleys in the world. Fruit groves were everywhere; wildlife and healthy ecosystems flourished. This all changed quickly as the 1970’s and 80’s arrived. The soil, once black and rich became contaminated with toxic chemical residues as pollutants infiltrated the region. The fertility of technology and greed replaced the natural; the countryside transformed into the Silicon Valley.

In those days my dad worked for the tech giant IBM and on weekends and week day evenings, he created the best lawn in the area. In fact, dad’s entire yard was the envy of the neighborhood. His lawn-edger, produced circa 1950, was a ramshackle device requiring physical dexterity and strength. Dad manually mowed the lawn with an even more archaic push mower, the original blades needed to be hand sharpened weekly. Dad enjoyed working in the yard though he was not a fan of weeding.

When we moved into redwood trees just north of Scotts Valley, yard maintenance changed. Hand weeding ended. Dad still had a small lawn to care for, yet beginning in 1974, a modern alternative herbicide arrived. It promised to ease the strain of weeding while being non-toxic to the environment. This new herbicidal invention was called Roundup. A stealth bomb had been dropped on us without a sound but its impact was atomic.

I thought nothing of dad applying one of the early versions of the increasingly popular Roundup around the house and yard. In a world driven by the next quick fix, Roundup was king, promising to destroy weeds fast while you relaxed and watched TV. One no longer needed to touch the soil, perspire or even get dirty.

It wasn’t until years later that I learned the power inherent in a living ecosystem, like a vegetable garden. It’s healing to touch an organic earthen soil that has not been contaminated by chemical poisons. Putting my hands into the soil, I became part of the dynamic life inside this microcosmic environment. As a practicing massage therapist, I found that placing my hands into the earth was no less sacred than touching another human being or animal. The Earth Mother feeds and sustains all forms. The relish of one day consuming the bounty of simple food grown in your own garden was equally appealing.

Chemical herbicidal research started in the early 20th century. During the Second World War these early ‘products’ were originally designed as biological warfare agents.

Roundup was designed by Monsanto Company. Monsanto, for those who may not be familiar, began about 1900 as a chemical company which created saccharin (an artificial sweetener and known carcinogen linked to cancer) for Coca Cola. Monsanto has been exposed in several documentaries: The Future of Food, The World According to Monsanto, and Sweet Misery: A poisoned world.

Monsanto is an agricultural biotechnology company that claims to be saving the world with their GMO seeds. This business conglomerate is responsible for chemically poisoning the planet in myriad ways: herbicides (DDT, Agent Orange), through its pharmaceutical wing (attempting to crack the genetic code and takeover of the world seed market), and poisonous food additives, like Nutrasweet (a known neurotoxin).

In the 1930’s Monsanto bought the chemical company that invented PCB’s (toxic chemical compound) and disseminated these toxins all over the world, leading to wide scale industrial-chemical contamination, now linked to many diseases.

Monsanto, now owned with Mosanto-Bayer had such bad name recognition that the company was taken under the wing of another evil empire (Bayer) that is less despised, has monopolized the world seed market. Roundup has been sprayed all over the world creating genetically modified seed strains which Monsanto now claims ‘patent ownership’ of. Crops sprayed with Roundup then contaminate nearby seed beds which are then claimed by Monsanto via patent. Monsanto continues to sue farmers in India (and elsewhere) creating a wild scale epidemic of suicides when farm saved seeds were no longer allowed. Over 25,000 peasant farmers, in India alone, have committed suicide in the last 15 years when these poisonous, mutated Corporatized seeds were forced on the farmers.

Roundup’s main ingredient, Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine) is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide used to kill weeds. Glyphosate kills insects, aquatic invertebrates (via runoff), mice and other small creatures. Glyphosate was initially classified as environmentally safe. It is now known to cause numerous diseases. Besides the glyphosate, the other so called ‘inert’ ingredients in Roundup create a synergistic amplification of toxicity. Glyphosate binds to heavy metals and evades the detoxification pathways in the liver, instead being filtered through the kidneys, where high acidity breaks the metal’s bond, releasing the herbicide and destroying the kidney tubules.

In 2013, the country of El Salvador banned Roundup because of an epidemic of Kidney disease which has been clearly linked to Roundup overexposure. Many people, from Central American, Sri Lanka and other countries, have reported similar incidents. According to researchers at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, glyphosate wipes out the navigational ability of bees. After being exposed bees are unable to return to their hive.

In America Roundup’s glyphosate has been found in honey (because it has been sprayed so much bees are picking it up during pollen collection). And worse, glyphosate has now been found as one of the poisonous ‘inert’ ingredients in vaccines. And the monarch butterfly populations have been in rapid decline. Research has shown that more than a million acres of Midwest grassland (abundant in milkweed and the monarch’s primary nesting grounds) has been plowed under to make room for Roundup soybean and corn production. Iowa alone, as of 2014, has lost 98 percent of its milkweed. Over the last 20 years the decline of monarch butterflies coming to nest in the eucalyptus forests of Santa Cruz and Pacific Grove California have dropped 74 percent.

Dietricht Klinghart, M.D., Ph.D. in recent years spoke about the deleterious effects of glyphosate (from Roundup) which acts in a negatively synergistic way with the nano-aluminum particles which are being spray regularly as part of the Chemtrails used in the name of ‘global warming prevention.’ Dr. Klinghardt did not speak of the depopulation agenda associated with such spraying but it seems obvious that the real reason we are being sprayed is to sicken mankind (thus reducing the population while maximizing profits for the Establishment players (increased sickness leads to more hospital visits, doctor appointments and pharmaceutical drug use, etc).  Dr. Klinghardt believes we are all being slowly killed by this ubiquitous rampage of chemicals. Almost all of us have mercury amalgam fillings. And laboratory analysis has shown that 1 of 100 rats when exposed to mercury or aluminum at a set dose, will die. When mercury and aluminum are combined there is a 100 percent mortality rate: all the rats die.

Animal sickness and death, lesser known poisonous pathways, related to Roundup usage affect both wild and domestic animals whose deaths can be attributed directly or indirectly to Roundup.

As an example, I visited my friend Victoria a few years back. She was preparing to move. During the course of our conversation, she said with eyes, equal parts moist and tired:

“Moving is challenging enough but then my baby, my beloved Tasha almost died.”

Tasha is Victoria’s cat. Both Victoria and I are healing arts practitioners: my background as a health coach and former acupuncturist, hers as an enzyme therapist and nutritional consultant. As we began discussing some details related to Tasha’s acute illness, suddenly a flash of intuition came rushing in:

“Could Tasha have been chemically poisoned?” I asked. Victoria’s eyes widened as recognition arrived.

“She got sick the same day they sprayed the building with Roundup…”. She gasped.

Victoria cast her eyes in my direction but at the same time her gaze was inward. After a short pause, with energy open, alert, but aghast, she continued:

“They spray Roundup once a week around the sides of the apartment buildings.” She stopped. “Her symptoms started that day. She loves to play in the plants and then she, oh my god, licks herself!” She exclaimed.

Tasha would go outside and come back into the house and vomit a stringy plant substance. It was not food. She vomited a clear liquid with little pieces of long strings of plant in them. Over the course of a few days she got weaker and weaker and then her left eye got bloody and puffy and almost fully shut.

Victoria took Tasha to a vet and they ran a blood test. She told me:

“Her blood work showed hyperthyroidism, liver dysfunction based on elevated liver blood markers. The vet simply gave me three choices: cut out the thyroid, radiate the thyroid to kill it, or heavily medicate the thyroid so it stops functioning and producing its hormones.”

Cats, dogs and other wild animals are attracted to the chemical scent in Roundup and if they lick their fur after a recent coating of Roundup, they will become very sick or die.

In our appearance driven society, no one wants to see weeds cropping up to ruin their vision of what beauty is. Instead we put chemicals on. We do it everywhere: with perfume and cologne, paint on the walls and exterior of the house, while the sofa is dipped in chemical fire retardants, as are almost all mattresses.

Cleaning agents, soap and even the blue sky above is sprayed with chemicals to engineer the weather. And it has long been socially acceptable to allow our food crops to be dusted in the name of pest eradication. Chemicals have infiltrated our lives to the point that in one 2009 study of U.S. minority infants, the umbilical cord blood of a newborn fetus contained over 200 chemicals.

Tasha survived her scare, thanks to grace, love and innovative nutritional support which included high grade intestinal supplements, pet-specific probiotics, natural antibiotics and homemade non-grain based food. Tasha has gained 8 ounces, up to 7.5 pounds and is showing signs of playfulness and authentic well-being again. As Victoria said to me then:

“She’s my little daughter, and meowing at me right now to feed her and give her some attention- so I will go now.”

*NOTE: In 2020, advertisements from law firms in the United States through TV and internet are seeking people that might have been harmed. (That would be all of us).

“Bayer is facing legal claims in the United States brought by roughly 52,500 plaintiffs alleging that exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). They allege Monsanto was aware of the risks and should have warned consumers but instead sought to manipulate the scientific record and regulators.

Three trials have been held to date and Bayer lost all three as juries awarded more than $2 billion to four plaintiffs, though trial judges later reduced the awards. The trial losses angered investors and pushed share prices to the lowest levels in roughly seven years, erasing more than 40 percent of Bayer’s market value at one point. Some investors called for Bayer CEO Werner Baumann to be ousted for championing the Monsanto acquisition, which closed in June of 2018 just as the first trial was getting underway.

Bayer and plaintiffs’ attorneys have been engaged in settlement talks for the last year and appeared close to a deal that would resolve a majority of the claims before the onset of Covid-19….”

Virus-related government closures, including of U.S. courthouses, have eliminated the possibility of additional trials in the near future, and Bayer has seized on its fresh leverage to walk back some of its negotiated settlements, according to sources close to the talks.

At this point Roundup commercials continue; high use of the poison is still allowed. And the mere pittance that Bayer (once Monsanto) are paying out in court cases and lawyer fees is miniscule compared to the billion they are making off of this poison that continues injure, maim and kill people, animals, insects and much of life on this planet in an indiscriminate and often covert fashion. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not found the active chemical, glyphosate to be harmful to humans. And the only way this happens is that the executives at the EPA also work with Bayer through a revolving door of executives shuttling back and forth between companies. The breech of ethics and lack of integrity involved in this poison still being allowed boggles the mind.)

Does it not amaze one that this proven poison is not banned once and for all. We need only look at the super-billionaire families who own Bayer and run the company like an Aushwitz training camp, as this company has intimate ties to Nazism and ruthless crimes against humanity.

(Update: In 2020,Bayer (formerly Monsanto) settled over 100,000 lawsuits for over 10 Billion and the spraying continues… Roundup is still being sold because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not found the active chemical, glyphosate to be harmful to humans. And the only way this happens is that the executives at the EPA also work with Bayer through a revolving door of executives shuttling back and forth between companies.The level of ethics and integrity involved in this poison boggles the mind.)