The elements of this planet are incorporated into the very structure of our bodies, the fluidity of our minds. We need the earth mineral magnesium to activate more than 300 different enzymes that conduct the metabolic processes of life. Magnesium is also required by each of our trillions of cells to construct microtubules, the tiny passageways that distribute nutrients within a cell. We get magnesium from the plants we eat. Plants used those same magnesium atoms to capture solar electrons, materializing the energy of the sun to create our food.
Plants get magnesium from the earth, thanks to the bacteria in healthy topsoil.
Evolutionary cousins of those bacteria reside inside each of our cells. Called mitochondria, these tiny power plants need magnesium to generate the energy that animates us. It would be foolish to think that we could ever function without the elements of our world that shape and sustain us. Without an adequate supply of these essential nutriments, our very humanity disintegrates. Our brains would be dead, if it were not for the dynamic interplay of sodium and potassium ions across the membranes of our brain cells.