Once a year Lausanne hosts a big natural/holistic medicine fair called “Mednat.”  I went a couple of years ago and picked up some essential oils that smelled like the pine forests back in New Mexico. This year, the headline promised an “Agrobiorama Expo” which, to me, sounded like organic farm type stuff. (“Bio” is French for organic.)

Maybe the woman with heavy green eye shadow and ivy growing in her hair on the expo’s homepage should have clued me in …

Thanks to my friend Matt, who gave me a copy of “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer, I can no longer eat factory farmed meat (even in Switzerland, where rules and regulations are at least 300% stricter than in the US). So, thinking I would find some sources of organic produce, chickens, eggs and beef, I paid the 17-franc entry fee.

I wandered around, enjoying the smell of incense and the sound of Tibetan bowls and didgeridoos. A crowd of rapt housewives watched in amazement as a charismatic man turned an ordinary carrot into a corkscrew and shredded cabbage and onions with the flick of a wrist using an amazing miracle apparatus.

I found a pair of purple socks with individual toe pockets, just like my friend Anni’s. I’ve had sock envy for quite a while in our yoga classes. No longer.

For a natural medicine fair, there was very little attention paid to food. No kefir grains in sight. No probiotics at all, in fact. No organic eggs, chickens, or produce. No raw milk. There was one stand with organic beef/pork from Chateau d’Oex. I bought a sausage and discussed the merits of grass-fed beef with them.

The book section was packed with people; there were books on every imaginable diet, and indeed, any imaginable interpretation of anything that could possibly be going on in the human body or psyche (but all in French).

As I wandered the stands, it dawned on me: I didn’t need anything here.  I don’t need Chinese medicine or Ayurveda. I don’t need crystals. I don’t need to have my Tarot read or my chakra tweaked or my spirit soothed with essential oils. Hypnotherapy sounds intriguing, but I don’t need to lose weight or quit smoking. (Maybe I could address my pathological weed aversion, though…)

I’m not interested in a meditation and massage-based vacation in India or erasing my wrinkles with an amazing sea-salt elixir. The 2:30 conference on reincarnation was tempting, I admit. But I’m not really worried. If it happens, it happens. I feel like I’m making karmic progress, but if I end up coming back as a newt, I’m okay with it.

In short, I’m not broken, hurting, or in need of outside assistance in deciphering my inner self at the moment. At home, I’ve got two kinds of kefir brewing, two healthy, wonderful teenagers, two slightly overweight but very affectionate cats, and one amusing and amenable husband. Life is sweet.

I’m just fine.

I went home, drank some kefir and pulled a bunch of weeds.