I’m a mom, a wife, a doula, an urban chicken farmer, a life coach, an extended breast-feeder, a weaver, a kombucha brewer, a yogini, and a Therapeutic Healing Touch practitioner. But most importantly, I’m a mom. And as a mom, I know what’s best for the health of my family: magical thinking.

I’m not stupid. I went to college. I took science classes. So I know about microbiology, infection control, anatomy, physiology, and all that. I am fully aware that the scientific method – including use of a control group, randomization, double-blind studies, and the peer review method – is the best tool we humans have of unlocking the secrets of the natural world to find ways of curing disease.

Science is great. It’s done a lot of good for the world, to be sure. It’s just not right for me or my family.

We have opted for a more controversial but totally natural method called “Please No Bad.” Periodically, as a family, we’ll squeeze our eyes shut, cover our ears, and chant, “Please no bad.” This chemical-free protective measure has worked for us so far and we’re going to keep on using it, despite the hatred we receive from others.

I’m not just talking about vaccines, but we can start there. A lot of people have judged us harshly in recent days for not vaccinating our nine young children. That’s fine. I myself was held down and vaccinated when I was young. I understand that vaccines bolster vulnerable immune systems by stimulating your body’s natural defenses against disease without actually giving you the disease. I understand that vaccines are safe and effective, and that herd immunity is the best way we have to ensure that young or immunocompromised children don’t get sick and die from terrible infectious diseases that, until relatively recently, were commonplace. I get it. And if you want to live and die by the wholly effective, risk-free, and affordable breakthroughs that Western medicine has produced, that’s fine. That’s your right.

But don’t expect me to come along on that joyride of lies.

Here’s what I do believe in: toxins. I believe that toxins are in everything, and even though I can’t exactly articulate what these toxins are or where they come from or where they live in my body or what they’re doing that’s apparently threatening my life, I know they’re there. And as a mother, you can be damned sure I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that these imaginary toxins don’t get into the pure white light embodiment of the physical plane occupied by my nine beautiful children. My husband and I practiced magical thinking as a form of birth control, and we have had sex way more than nine times. How’s that for proof?

I believe most illnesses can be cured by eating garlic. Yes, even scoliosis. It’s something about the pH balance being off, and garlic fixes that. When in doubt, eat more garlic. I eat it raw, like a tiny apple, sixteen to seventeen heads of garlic a day. My skin has never felt so soft.

Whenever a friend gets cancer, I make sure to tell her about the power of vitamin C and a can-do attitude. I’ve lost so many friends to the acidic nightmare of chemotherapy. They’re still alive; we just don’t talk anymore. Thanks a lot, Big Pharma.

Don’t get me started about sugar. Don’t get me started about gluten. Don’t get me started about mercury or fluoride. Because I will literally never stop talking about it.

Do get me started about the healing vibrations of singing anything in the key of A major. Do get me started about eating for your blood type, skin type, and hair color. I could go on for days about the mystical properties of a dried tangerine peel. These are the things that I believe, and it’s my right. It’s also what my children believe, because they have to.

I don’t expect you slaves to the mainstream Western corporate industrial complex to understand this. I don’t go around forcing my beliefs on you like you go around forcing your vaccines on helpless unsuspecting children who want nothing more than to overcome measles, mumps, and rubella the natural way. Blindness isn’t even that bad. If my child were to become blind, at least he wouldn’t see all the glares from ignorant outsiders who wish I’d bring him to the doctor. At least he wouldn’t see that.

So if you don’t let my kids back into the public schools on Monday, I’m going to get a lawyer and sue this school district so hard it won’t know what hit it. What hit it, in fact, will be polio.

Hey, here’s a crazy idea: Let’s all learn to live in peace with everyone, even the life-threatening virulent microorganisms with whom we share this precious and astounding earth plane. Life is so magical, and we honor that magic only when we engage in magical thinking.