Mission

Nature Wants to Help Us, Why Don’t We Let Her?

My mission with ZirYab’s is to free us from corporate and industrial manufacturing by bringing locally available natural solutions that are easier to use, work better, are healthier for the body and  holistically benefit our body, mind, community and the earth.

SOCIAL CONTEXT

The twentieth century saw us mesmerized by the miracles of science and industry and we understandably placed our trust in the discovery of never-before-possible solutions.

We embraced  newfangled chemically complex products that worked in wondrous ways to clean, deodorize and lubricate our world and our bodies. So impressive were some of these introductions that we lost touch with the  traditions and knowledge of our cultures.

We forgot the simple, easy and effective solutions while embracing the miracles of the 20th century that eliminated typhus, controlled malaria, spun cloth out of chemicals, increased gluten in wheat and preserved food for years. New technologies solved so many problems that we understandably embraced scientific, technologically produced solutions that included such diverse personal products as things to disintegrated unwanted body hair and stop perspiration.

While we probably recognized that there was usually a give and take within nature, and that benefits often come with costs, there was little incentive for folks to seriously seek the less blatant negative impacts of  implementing exciting modern solutions.

I would say our love affair with scientific products manufactured by big corporations continued flourishing all the way into the 1960’s.

It wasn’t until then that the negative consequences of long term use of some of our technological advances began to become apparent. Rivers combusted spontaneously from pollution,  birds disappeared, and children were born showing the impact of exposure to chemicals like mercury and DDT.

Empowering Ourselves

Since then, we are no longer innocent of many of the costs of technological advances but, for many of us, we feel helpless at finding other solutions.

At least I do.  There are so many things to worry about in this modern American life  that I am often overwhelmed and defeated.  I sometimes feel there are dark clouds gathering over my head but I have no power to divert them. I find that when I feel like a failure and powerless to change my fate, I am more vulnerable to all the lovely (but sometimes destructive) distractions and diversions available to me (shopping, eating, drinking, watching tv…)

One day I found an easy solution to a problem I have had ever since puberty, my underm smell. As I’ve discussed in other posts, I sweat a lot and I get pretty smelly quickly. Antiperspirants worked okay at combating the smell but the body odor smell was replaced with smelling like old deodorant. Yuck!  Also, I stained almost everything I owned yellow within weeks of owning it.

One day I made my own and voila! After 30 years of going home early to change, washing in bathrooms, and other coping mechanisms, the problem was solved by making my own deodorant!

My deodorant was so easy to use, so much more effective,  smelled better, worked longer, didn’t stain my whites, was affordable and contained familiar and healthy ingredients.

Talk about a Paradigm Shift

I have to ask myself, why wasn’t this solution available to me when I was an embarrassed teenager, when I was a waitress? When I went out on my first date? There are so many times I could have used a natural deodorant and been more comfortable and confident but instead I was using two brands of corporate-made deodorants that smelled stale on me after 4 hours.

Not only that but since I would always put on more deodorant after 4 hours, I unnecessarily exposed myself to chemicals by putting on layer after layer of chemically infused deodorant on a part of my body that I imagine is particularly open to absorbing chemicals through the skin. I did this for 30 years and didn’t need to do it!

Why? Well, originally it is at this point that I launch into a diatribe about the clever manipulations of corporations on our lives but plenty of people can write about this more intelligently then I can.  Suffice it to say that I turned a corner on the day I made a better deodorant then I had ever found in a drugstore. How could this be since I have no scientific training, no laboratory equipment, no experimental animals, no unpronounceable  chemicals and no human trials except myself?

Honestly, I can’t be sure how I did it but I believe it is the power of the internet. Our ability and willingness to share information.

Of course, once I’d found one thing that helped me so much, I caught the bug to seek out more things. And I’ve found some really great things.

Communicating with each other, we’re re-discovering things that our ancestors knew and we’re learning about natural things that other aboriginal cultures around the world have known and utilized for eons. So called “Miracle” substances and plants like baking soda, epsom salts, activated charcoal, aloe vera, apple cider vinegar, orange peels, cinnamon, rose-hip, Neem and garlic have been around for centuries and would no more sound like miracle cures to our great grandparents then a machine that permanently removes hair sounds like a miracle cure to us.

Ziryab’s celebrates the utility, practicality and efficacy of our own cultural traditions and cures. We aim to collect and apply the best knowledge from around the world to our products.

What is so exciting about being alive and creating today is how we can embrace knowledge from other cultures about their local cures. The explosion of the very effective tea tree oil is one small example. I believe Neem Tree Oil will be the next tea tree oil because it is a truly awesome oil that many people are becoming aware of.  Also, I’ve been hearing a lot about Peelu and I’m going to be researching that soon.

But it all relies on us working together and sharing our information and realizing that a few centuries of scientific research is a mere drop in the bucket in comparison to all the “miracles” the earth provides us with.