Friday, May 30, 2008

Friday, May 23, 2008

The Mad Cowboy Speaks

Ladies & Gentlemen: Mr. Howard Lyman

A Farmer's Redemtpion

Ye shall cherish and protect the weak, and those who are oppressed, and all creatures that suffer wrong. Ye shall work with your hands the things that are good and seemly; so shall ye eat the fruits of the earth, and live long in the land.





thank you to Compassion in Action, for bringing this beautiful and sweet story to my/our attention.

MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE DOCUMENTARY "EARTHLING" Narrated by Joachin Phoenix.
is a feature length documentary about humanity's absolute dependence on animals (for pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific research) but also illustrates our complete disrespect for these so-called "non-human providers."

It is this kind of thing that makes many uncomfortable... because it challenges their ideas of responsibility, accountability and ethics. It is important to remember, there is always karma... for every decision. There are consequences (good or bad) for ever action AHIMSA. AHIMSA; be harmless.

Other links for more information concerning Religious and Spiritual ethical approaches:

Thursday, May 22, 2008

The Botany of Desire Says "Corn"



also check out Al Gore's most recent update on Climate Change, watch it (if for nothing else) the geographical comparison of missing arctic ice and the landmass of the US.

AND Mark Bittman's: What's Wrong with What we Eat?

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Puppetji

I have just discovered the "wizdumb" of puppetji, thanks to Beth of Bunny Berry. She has been on a 100 day Raw Food Challenge and is nearly at day 40! Huzzah! I just wanted to give her the

Because she truly is an inspiration and is so gorgeous, so sincere, so present in her experience and so I feel that this award must be hers, and frankly, am astounded she has not received it already. And so Bunny Berry! This one's for you, keep your chin up; you are wonderful and amazing, and brilliant and all those other good and glorious things! In honor of you, I am stealing your post from yesterday. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti: Puppetji!


Monday, May 19, 2008

Another Reason to Go Vegan


These days you have to do more than closely read labels to keep from poisoning yourself and family. From the New York Times:

A federal judge has ordered Tyson Foods to withdraw advertisements claiming its chickens are “raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans.


Two competitors said the ads were untrue because Tyson injects it eggs with antibiotics and used antibiotic molecules in its feed.


Tyson maintained that its claim was truthful, and intends to appeal the decision.
The claim we’re making is ‘raised without.’

And our consumer research would say that ‘raised without’ in the consumer’s mind, is from hatchery to when they buy the chicken in the store,” said Dave Hogberg, senior vice president for consumer products at Tyson.


The New York Times April 23, 2008

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,

what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again

in a new way
on the earth!
That's what it said
as it dropped,

smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches

and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing

under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment

my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars

and the soft rain -
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

-Mary Oliver, from What Do We Know

So, question: What has the rain been saying to me (and it rained for two days here, so the poem and theme is justified)?

Answer: My body likes juiciness, it likes rawness much better than cooked-ness.

What has been so interesting is the anger. By Day 4 of juice, my emotional detox had begun... and it continues. For those who don't know, I am one of those few who actually has a thyroid condition. I have blogged about this before ... and so, no matter what I have done for the past year, my weight doesn't really budge much. The juice makes me feel lighter and more flexible but weight is slow to move. And it's very frustrating. Here's why: I eat better than anyone I know. And there is a fury in me that wants to be normal, to eat whatever I want (cooked or not, meat being entirely excluded on all accounts) and be happy and healthy. But my body, which has always been sensitive and spiritually inclined is pushingpushingpushing to raw and the energy of Mother that I am so good at pushing out. And the raw thing, I know is good, I know that raw is good for me, and even Gabriel Cousens' book Conscious Eating, says that being a Kapha/Vata person (which I am and he is himself, actually), do best on 80% raw. And when I read that, I KNOW it's true and correct, but...

it doesn't mean that the addictive emotional turmoil of past food foibles surrenders easily or even willingly. It's hard. And the anger and hurt I am feeling, I KNOW is emotional because all I want to do is just stuff my face like I have in the past to quell emotional pinches that I would rather numb out, than deal with. Well, now I am having to deal with it. It's hard, but I also know that it's good. It's just hard.

As soon as I have some cash, I am booking it to the Tree of Life and get my RAW on.
*sigh.

Here's to dreaming of Patagonia.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Come As You Are


Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.

~ Rumi

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Our Space

** The following quotes the opening passages of the book, The Place Where You are Standing is Holy: A Jewish Theology on Human Relationships, by Gershon Winkler & Lakme Batya Elior, which has got me thinking...
"Make me a sacred space, and I shall dwell amongst you... Exodus 25:8.

In the creation myth of ancient Judaic mysticism, God creates the universe by a process dubbed tzimtzum, which in Hebrew means a sort of stepping back to allow for there to be an Other, an Else, as in some one or something else. The Judaic notion of a world of Free Will (Babylonian, Talmud, Berakhot 33b) is deeply rooted in this concept, in the understanding that in creating life, the Eyn Sof or the Endless One, subdued the omnipotent, all-embracing Presence for the sake of realizing the Divine Will that there be other beings (Etz Chaim 1:1:2). Our world, then, is the sacred space that the Great Spirit gave as a gift to us, a space in which to be as human as divinely possible and as divine as humanly possible. A space to err, to fall, to believe, to doubt, to cry, to laugh. Our space, created by the simple motion of stepping back, the humble act of honoring the separate reality of an Other."

I guess this related to the idea I blogged about yesterday, re: HaMakom -- or The Place. That one of the ways to understand God, is "The Place." Now, here we have God's Place and the space He/She made for us by withdrawing his presence from it, with-held the glory to make a space where God's presence wasn't. Is this what you are understanding from the above, too?


It also makes me reflect on a blog my Rabbi did (yes my Reb blogs, how cool is that??) about the Progression of the human soul, which I have lifted, nay Borrowed: indicated below. He says that according to the Jewish Path, there are five levels/aspects tot he human soul:

"1st* NeFeSh
is the physical soul that returns to the earth with the body. It becomes one with the spirit of the earth as our body becomes one with the matter of the earth. Some might refer to this as becoming one with the ‘Gaia spirit’.

2nd* RUaH, the wind spirit aspect of our soul. My reb says his father spoke of this as anonymous immortality. Imagine that you share some important life lesson with a friend. That friend is moved by your teaching. S/he shares it with others in your name. They share it with others and so on. But during the passing of the teaching, your name disappears from the story. The story lives on and in this way you live on in the realm of RUaH but your name does not; anonymous immortality. The stories and lessons that we share regarding our parents, our teachers, our ancestors keep their RUaH, their wind spirit alive in our realm. This is why tribal folk keep an oral history. The tribe lives on in the oral history and in the actions based on that history. When I tell stories of my parents and grandparents, or when we tell the stories of Sarah and Avraham, Moshe and Miriam, Ester and Mordecai, their RUaH feeds us, feeds the tribal RUaH.

3rd*NeShaMaH, which is the breath of our soul. I envision a tiny, invisible silver thread connection to the Wholly One of Being. Since all humans have this connection, the picture is of a spider web of inter-connection between us all and with G. Our joys and sorrows strengthen the web connection of NeShaMaH. Each of us from the greatest Tzadik (righteous one) to the most mean spirited Rasha (evil one) is part of the web. On our computers we see WWW/World Wide Web but that is a pale shadow of the greater WWW that connects us to the Wholly One of Being. Ignore it if we will, it is always there. I remember a story of a Bar/t Mitzvah who said: “I don’t believe in G!” The Rabbi’s response was: “Don’t worry about it. G believes in you!” The World Wide Wholly One of Being Web (WWWOBW) is always connected and no virus can create a disconnect.

4th*HaYah, which can be translated as life and sometimes as a hungry wild beast. But here it refers to longing. We may long for more money, more stature but this is a deeper form of longing. This is a longing to elevate ourselves into a oneness with the Wholly One of Being. “Oh G, how I long to be with you, to feel you in my life!” HaYah is the holy longing. “Oh G, I am hungry for your presence!” In prayer we are in Hayah. We are, as Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel might say, in longing to be part of that which is greater than the self. We are in preparation and in longing for the final level of soul, of soulfulness (which leads to the fifth...).

5th*YeHIDaH refers to being in total oneness. In Hebrew there are 3 words having to do with ‘One’. There is YaHaD in which I am one with… My belovedest and I are one. We are one made of parts. Indeed everything that is of matter is one, made of parts. All matter can be broken down into smaller parts. The next level is EHaD as we find in the Shema. EHaD is one without parts, impossible to dissect into aspects. Maimonides speaks of G in this way. G has no parts, G cannot be separated, broken down into components. G is the Wholly one; G is the Wholly One of Being. And the third level of ‘one’ is YeHIDaH. Not only is it one without parts, it is one alone. There is nothing else. There is not even a ‘nothing else’. The image is of G before creation. YeHIDaH is the oneness without parts and without ‘the other’. My mind has trouble wrapping itself around the concept. And yet that part of our soul is us yet not us it is a part of the One Who has no parts. On this level of soul, we do not exist as other than G."

So what happens Aharei Mot, (after death) after the passing of our physical? My Rabbi wrote that, "according to this paradigm, our NeFeSh returns to Gaia spirit. Our RUaH lives on in the souls touched by us in our journeys in this realm. Our NeShaMaH is wound back to G; our HaYaH disappears completely. For there is no longer longing as we become YeHIDaH, enfolded into the total oneness of the Wholly One of Being."

So what is my question?

Here: If the beginning quote is correct, than we exist in a space uninhabited by God... he had to make space for otherness, meaning he could no be there, which, frankly: is not my experience or "belief" (I hate that word) about the Nature of God and our human connections. I am more drawn though to my Reb's progression of the soul -- because it describes the manifold process of being as "human as divinely possible and as divine as humanly possible." We are, after all, both at once. Otherwise, how could we exist and continue on being?

I had a Prof. in undergrad who took that same quote above in Exodus, re: the tabernacle in the Sinai desert erected for God to dwell... but he also mentioned that the Hebrew word for amongst (I think this is right... its been a few years) is also within -- which, with this interpretation means that if we build for God a sacred space within our body-soul-heart i.e. our space, our human Other-ness; he will then dwell inside of us, too.

Somehow that just feels heart-ful, spiritual, and very real... to me. That "the Place" where God is, is Me.

Juicy Day #1

Yesterday I did Juicy Day number one. Huzzah!

The first two days, I find are always the hardest. It takes the body (at least, mine) about 3 days before it gets used to using liquid as the energy source. But what's also amazing is that I feel the urge to have some sort of energy boost every 3 hours or so. By day 5 I am feeling wonderful and amazing: body feels light and limber and invincible.

I am what Gabriel Cousens describes as a Fast Oxidizer. I require more protein, less sugars and smaller more frequent meals.

So whenever I feel the hunger urge, I just go make some more juice: and wow! This juice just tastes soooo good! And it's been so warm up here in the Rockies the past few days, in the high 60's and 70's... sunny days and juice feasting, what could be better than that? My last juice feast was in October -- half a year ago: I can't even believe it...

In October I was 100% new to juice feasting and did it for 10 days. This time I am going to at least double that -- maybe triple and maybe longer... We'll see. I am really trying to get out the habit of setting limits for myself. And I am notoriously out of touch with my body. I just need to set my ego straight, and if need be -- put it in the corner with the dunce cap on facing the wall. No, not today Ego, sorry: you need to learn to play nice.

I also know that when juicing you should be simple with your combinations. And last time I started that way -- I started out (since I was a rookie) doing high fruit based combos. And after 4 days my body was dreaming about green things. So I added in the green and the rest took care of itself. This time, I am only doing fruit for 2 of my 5 juices a day; more so I get enough calories than anything else. I am a celery-cucumber juice lover, and they may be full of water, but not enough energy to live on.

But since I have been enviously following the
Global Juice Feasters, I have seen so many wonderful concoctions that I hadn't ever thought of. And so I have been a bit more adventurous and a bit more complex (already) with my combos. But I don't find it unusual that at the beginning, one craves more complex flavors, but gradually simplifies over the course of the entire Feast.

So you must be wondering: What did she have??
Well, I'll tell ya :

JUICE # 1 (8am)

Watermelon
Cucumber
Cilantro
Ginger

very light and refreshing, and no too sweet. The Cucumber diluted the Watermelon nicely.

JUICE # 2 (11:15)

3 Carrots
Fennel
Cilantro
Garlic
Basil
Celery
Cucumber
Udo's Omega 3 Flax Oil
Kelp Flakes

This was a nice and savory lunch-y drink. I try not to do more than 3 carrots ever, because of the sugar, and always make sure to dilute them. Plus things like fennel (which also makes a very light flavored juice) garlic or ginger help encourage proper digestion.

JUICE # 3 (1pm)

1 small shallot
1 Large golden and juicy Heirloom Tomato
Cilantro
1/2 sm. r. bell pepper
Lime
Celery
2 garlic cloves
Cucumber
Basil

This was my Homage to Penni Shelton's blog: Real Juice Daily, most specifically her "Italian Day #63" where she made bruschetta juice -- and so I was inspired by the savory fresh idea of really taking something to the next level, and Boy! Was it yummy! Fantastic and filling: I recommend highly. Mine was probably more sympathetic to gazpacho than bruschetta, but ehgn: What're you-gonna do, eh?

JUICE # 4 (5:30p)

2 Valencia oranges
1 handful of raspberries
a small handful of cilantro
16 oz. fresh coconut water

Oh.my.god. By far, my favorite juice of the day!
It was absolutely divine...
I recommend high beyond high-highly.

JUICE # 5 (8pm)

Red Leaf Lettuce
Romaine
Cilantro
Baby Kale
Escarole
Lemon
Cucumber

Very light and clean tasting... I think I need something to spike this up though, maybe more lemon or more cilantro, or maybe 1/2 a tomato. Very nice though.

And that was my day. I will say that my theme seemed to be cilantro: it ended up in everything yesterday. Which is wonderful apparently because cilantro is an excellent form of
oral chellation therapy; meaning -- it detoxes heavy metals and mercury, in particular, from the brain and spinal cord. Plus, it tastes really good.

Stay tuned for Day 2, already in progress!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Into the Woods

Here I am.

So much has been happening and so little. I am getting married in roughly 90 days and spring is here and we had our first official thunderstorm and downpour, last night! And yet...

Something is amiss.

I feel completely unwound by it all. I can't seem to get my head clear, I feel like I have a lot of repenting to do -- and so I am going to begin my own little Juice Feast beginning today, I will finish up with the March 92 day-ers and may go a bit beyond them. We will see how the body fares, but I really regret not starting the feast; considering the emotional download I was dealing with I didn't know if it (
at the time) more detoxing was something I could handle. But I am having non-buyers, no -- coward's remorse. And so I posted this lovely little bit of Art by Alan Lee, mostly because I can't tell where I am in the picture -- am I still in the tower? Am I the tree encircle by the salamander? (Heaven forbid, the Old Man??)

What's that line in the Torah, where God asks the whereabout of Abraham? And he answers: Here Am I. Here, no where else. I want to be Here. Even whern there is fear. And there is fear in me absolutely. I have been told that t age 27, I still don't know who I am. My rabbi says I am on a Spirit Quest... Oh! I almost forgot: I have started taking Hebrew classes. That's new. So is the fact that my doctor told me that my health issues stem from a waaa-aay (!) under-active thyroid and the fact that my adrenal system is taxed out; that I have been surviving basically on adrenaline fumes for the past six years. No wonder I feel stressed out. So I am taking things to remedy that. Other than that -- he says I am in great health; I have a fantastic heart (as in organ)!

But back to Being. I have a problem with being Present. I have heard it as a mantra almost my entire life, and I often espouse the benefits of Being there... But I rarely make time to do so myself. I rarely pay attention to my breath any more -- I call myself a spiritual person and rarely make time for being in Spiritual practice. Oh shame, shame, indeed. What I am learning in Hebrew (besides the alphabet) is the metaphorical complexity of an ancient language and it takes my breath away. It's beautiful. Besides Sanskrit (at least in my opinion) there is no language I have encountered that has anything on Hebrew. The actual relationship to God is powerful and there is a concept within the language that has me reeling... that is HaMakom, which is a title for God (like Hashem, Adonai) but it means The Place. God is a place. A landscape of Being. And for some reason, that has really put me into a perspective I can experience. Its not any place I can go -- but it is somewhere I can arrive. Here Am I.

So today, I am packing my bags; going on a Juice Feast. I start today! Hurray! Thanks in advance to David & Katrina Rainoshek for their bountiful information, check them out here!

What do you all do, to regain your sense of "Here Am I?"

P.S.

I have finally bought a 9-tray Excaliber Dehydrator! I already own an Omega juicer (the good kind) and a Vitamix (all purchases since October of last year). I have also purchased books for recipe ideas, including: Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine, Ani's Raw Food Kitchen, RAWvolution, I Am Grateful: Recipes and Lifestyle of Cafe Gratitude, & Everyday Raw. (I am a very good Amazon customer *wink).

I am finding it hard to transition slowly in Raw. I find that I keep backsliding and am notoriously hard on myself -- any tips for someone looking forward to high-100% raw?