Himalayan Crystal Salt for Life
Himalayan Crystal Salt is a Crystal Rock Salt, from the Salt Range of Pakistan, which is geologically part of the greater Himalayas. The salt was formed from an ancient sea which evaporated, and the remaining salt crystallized over millions of years through tectonic movement and pressure. However, Mother Nature seems to have a way of restoring balance, and, with the salt being discovered by horses, we now have the opportunity to experience its pleasurable health benefits. The salt is mined using traditional mining methods, which involves, to a large degree, manual intervention. The local people harvest the salt using a light drilling and blasting method to loosen and release the solid and compact salt from the salt mine walls. The large loosened pieces are then loaded onto trucks, or trailers pulled by tractors, to take the salt out of the mountain. The salt is not processed, heated, refined or bleached, and no chemicals are added.
Salt is essential for life and is key to the healthy, efficient and optimal functioning of the human system on all levels. Our bodies consist of a 70% (approx.) saline solution which facilitates vital cellular and metabolic processes, ensuring the efficient functioning of the internal organs and systems. It is vital to ensure that one is obtaining enough good quality salt in one’s diet on a daily basis. It is important to choose a natural salt that is in a form which allows for the elements to be absorbed and utilized by the cells, thereby supporting the body’s physiology and facilitating one’s optimal development, growth and thinking.
The salt that one uses on a regular basis determines the quality of one’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being.
Many people assume that “salt is salt” and are only now becoming aware of the subtle, yet significant differences between the various salts available to us. A salt’s source, form, age, mineral content, method of extraction and processing (if any) are the main differentiating factors which determine a salt’s health effects and value as a nutritional asset. These factors should be carefully considered in order to make an informed and discerning choice. Are you worth your salt?
What most people commonly call salt today, is processed sodium chloride with chemical additives, such as bleaching and flowing agents. Widely sold as Table salt, sometimes with iodine added, this salt is the reason that salt in general has received a bad reputation with regards to health. Unnaturally processed chemical substances are foreign to our bodies and are essentially poisons. Salt got into this position through the birth of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as it was considered convenient and profitable for large chemical companies to pass off the excesses of the massive quantities of sodium chloride they required for industrial processes as something supposedly fit for human consumption. Salt used in this form has serious health implications, especially if used on a long term basis.
We can be grateful that salt is being restored to its rightful status and is receiving the reverence it deserves, with natural salts once again available to us. When considering the various natural salts now available, how the salt “comes into being” and the resultant form in which we use it can be considered the most significant factors in determining the effect of the salt on our well being. Our understanding of, and relationship with, the mineral kingdom, through salt, can help guide our choices.
According to Rudolf Steiner, the mineral kingdom experiences pain and pleasure differently to the plant, animal and human kingdoms, and since salt is part of the mineral kingdom, it is worth understanding and taking this into consideration when determining which form of salt we are going to use. Steiner suggests: “The salt crystal is a manifestation of that spiritual reality which permeates the whole universe; it is a world unto itself. With the actual splitting of stone, there gushes out in all directions a feeling of pleasure. Out of the quarry from which the blocks are being cut there streams deep satisfaction on every side. And if we put salt into a glass of water so that it dissolves, then, too, a feeling of pleasure flows through the water. We see this pleasure stream through the water if, with eyes of the spirit, we watch the salt dissolve. The being belonging to the mineral, experiences great happiness when stones are crushed.”
So Steiner observed and concluded that the mineral kingdom receives pleasure from a splitting, crushing or dissolution process. One can imagine the relief they feel from being “let free”. If one crushes a salt crystal, what is left is smaller salt crystals, each one still whole in itself. The same cannot be said of the other kingdoms. This would mean that the mining of the salt, breaking up of the rock crystal and grinding it on our food, is pleasurable to the salt being, and may explain why this crystal salt offers the healing benefits it does.
If one contrasts this with how other salts are harvested through evaporation of a salt solution, whether it be sea water, lake water or underground water, and a crystallizing of the salt occurs, and if we accept Steiner’s view that, ”when the salt is becoming crystallized again the pleasure turns to pain”, salts that come into being through this process have been through an experience of pain. The subsequent exposure to solar or artificial heat also potentially affects the final vibrational state and nutritional value of the salt. Using salts in this form potentially does not have favourable long term effects for the human.
Perhaps we can more easily relate to this process if we consider the contraction (crystallizing) of the salt in one case and the expansion (release of the crystal) of the salt in the other case. Similarly, in the human, an experience of contraction often brings anxiety, fear or pain, while one of expansion (release) brings freedom, love or pleasure. Steiner also said, “Now it is not without purpose that we add salt to our food. We salt our food in order to adjust ourselves properly to nature”.
We seem to be going through a process of restoration of balance on the planet as we adjust ourselves to nature and learn to live in harmony with all life. Some evolutionary theories speculate that salt has always been essential to life, and that life as we know it emerged from the sea. As such, we became the salt of the earth, so it would be wise to consider the significance that salt plays in our essential existence and optimal development. It would make sense to use only the best quality natural salt available, and at this stage, it would seem that that salt is the crystal rock salt from the Himalayan region, known as Himalayan Crystal Salt.