A Real Testimonial

Yesterday, I went to a trade show that I go to every year. It is a metaphysical show which is perfect for the work I do and I look forward to going every year. One company that I absolutely adore has not been at the show for the past few years and was there yesterday. I have known about this company and the work they do all over the world since 1996 when I used to be a part owner in a metaphysical store and healing center for a few years. We sold the healing tools they make which helps others to shift and heal by the high vibrations emanating from the crystals, metals and sacred geometric shapes used. They are not cheap but something you will have for life. My then-boyfriend (now husband) actually purchased my first tool from them from my own store as a surprise for me.

This is an American Buddhist organization, non-profit, of course (they help feed and care for people as well as build new monasteries and are rebuilding the destroyed ones in Tibet) and I am not a Buddhist (I am a Universal Spiritualist, not defined by any one religion) but I am so drawn to the incredible energy that emanates from all of the monks and from the tools themselves. I won’t go into all of it now but I decided to gift myself a new healing tool for not only myself but to use in my healing practice.

The person who designs and blesses these tools is called Buddha Maitreya – a reincarnation of the Buddha, Krishna and the Christ among others. He has been recognized by the Dalai Lama and has a Tibetan title, too – His Holiness Jetsun Gyalwa Jampa Gonpo. I have been told that he is here once again to help shift humanity, integrate the soul into the body (this is the most basic of definitions by me) and has been here doing the work quietly for some time now. He emanates his teachings through these different healing tools and even has them in small jewelry form, too. All the money raised goes to help others, of course.

Being non-religious, I just connect to the high, loving frequency and am so excited every time I can spend time with anyone in this organization. It’s hard to explain but if you are sensitive to energy, you will feel it right away (even if you’re not, I have seen so many people drawn to these tools over the years). Of course the tool I wish to have the most is this large, geometric design called the Solar Cross that wherever you hang it, that space (and beyond) will emanate energy like a monastery – a very high frequency. Someday I will have one.

When I got home last night and showed my husband and 4 year old what I brought back, as soon as I took the healing tool out of the case, my son’s eyes got so big and he immediately grabbed it from me with both hands, clutched it to his chest for a few seconds then pulled it away and looked down at it feeling it all over and says, “God is in this”. Michael and my jaws dropped and we were like “what did you say?” and he again said, “God is in this.” I literally was like holy sh*t, my kid immediately picked up on the connection to the living Buddha. Of course it’s real and powerful.

What a pure state of being a young child is always in and to be able to connect in just a few seconds of feeling it I can’t tell you how blown away I was. Besides that, I think we have only mentioned the word “God” a very few times because we say it more as Great Spirit or the Universe or Nature or something of a more open connectedness to spirit and less defined by society and all those different religious connotations placed upon certain words. So for him to pick that word really amazes me (unless he’s learned it at school which is possible).

I think any child would pick up on this but I know my son is very attuned to this already. I’m glad I can help guide him on his path and have these tools and many other things around him while he’s young and still so connected to the spiritual realm. It’s so easy and natural for them at this age but it does start to fade around age 7. I’m really excited to hear what else he is going to enlighten me with on this topic in the future.

Reaching Critical Mass

I went food shopping alone yesterday. I never get to go to the store alone, my son is always with me, we usually go mid-week and to the heath food store near his preschool or the farmer’s market now that it’s open. When we venture to a big grocery store in our town, it is one that has everything the health food store has plus regular grocery items and specialty items, too. I usually just whip through either store to avoid the whining that will happen if we linger too long.

I didn’t realize just how ridiculously crowded it is to go on a Sunday to the big grocery store. In a way, it was a real eye opener for me to have an opportunity to observe people – especially parents with their kids and what they really buy. It made me sad. I’m not sitting here judging, I just am observing and what really hit home for me is that we are so far away from hitting what my husband calls “reaching critical mass” where the mass consciousness really is aware of something – in this case how the choices they make for everything in their lives affects the world around them.

It looks like price rules the day and people don’t care if something like paper goods are recycled or if the giant strawberries on sale are loaded with pesticides (one of the worst offenders) or if the meat they buy comes from tortured animals on factory farms. if it’s on sale, they are buying it regardless.

I totally understand that prices are going up and fear and uncertainty underlie everything nowadays. The reason I like the bigger grocery store is that they send me coupons for the natural products I use or for money off the produce section (and they have a large, organic section and like to support growers in my state). That is appealing to me in times of increased prices. But if I’m an average Joe shopping in town with coupons for natural and organic products, why aren’t lots of other people making an effort to do so as well? It just seems that education is missing for the general populace of this country so that we can reach the critical mass level where awareness permeates the minds of the people and everyone feels the difference.

Recycled paper products don’t cost much more than non-recycled products and in many cases are the same price or less. I bought a box of recycled paper tissues for $1.50 yesterday which was cheaper than the Kleenex sitting next to it of approximately the same size. it is even advertised on the box as “soft on nature, soft on you” to show it’s just as good and as soft. Why doesn’t that matter? Do they think it feels like sandpaper or something? How will people learn that it’s all about the power of choice, it all makes a difference and that every action taken affects another? Once again it’s about voting with our dollars but how can anyone make an informed choice without being educated on it in the first place?

What it all comes down to for me is that people need to be made massively aware in this area even more. There is plenty of info out there but it seems that we need to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer for it to sink in now. I’m glad that there is a Planet Green channel on cable now and that HGTV has lots of green, sustainable shows and that even on the Today Show they had a blurb about growing your own Organic Victory Garden on their show recently. Most people like to watch tv and the more times the general populace sees this message on tv and promoted by the Hollywood crowd, the more it will become trendy and accepted as the norm. We absolutely need this message to become the norm.

How cool would that be to see instead of just a clearly marked organic area the entire produce section was grown organically? Or that all the paper products are recycled (and more cloth options are used) and not from forests that have been clear cut for our noses, butts and laser printers? And all the cleaning and dish washing products are non-toxic and there are no more factory farms but only humanely raised livestock products (and less of these products consumed overall).

One day, we will get there. Critical Mass will be reached. I just hope we will all be alive to see it and that it won’t be too late to turn the planet around by then. We all need to keep educating ourselves and our friends and families and request at our grocery stores to carry more sustainable, non-toxic products, organic produce and to have a recycling bin at the front of the store for those pesky plastic bags and to phase them out completely soon. I still am holding out hope for all of humanity to wake up soon.

The “Anti-Woman” Health Amendment

When I was a senior in college in the late 80’s, a group of my college and high school friends got in our cars and caravaned down to Washington DC from our assorted schools in upstate NY just so we could take part in an historic march on Washington for women’s rights. It was about not overturning Roe v. Wade, keeping abortion legal, keep the power of the right to choose in the hands of each and every woman, keeping government out of a woman’s body.

Now, however you feel on the topic of abortion, that is your right to feel that way and your opinion. But your feelings do not necessarily reflect the feelings of millions of other women who each have different circumstances to deal with in their lives to make them decide differently than you. Keeping a woman’s health, well-being, prevention education and access to services first and foremost is what is our legal right in this country and it should stay that way. One size does not fit all.

Here in my state of Colorado, there is some legislation – Amendment 48 -”Anti Women’s Health Amendment” that managed to pass to be allowed on our voting ballot in November.

From NARAL Colorado:

“For the first time in US history, Colorado voters will decide the issue of personhood in November’s general election. Proposed amendment 48, “Definition of a Person,” qualified for the ballot last Thursday. This dangerous amendment stands to ban not only all abortions but everyday forms of birth control. We know that when Coloradans get the facts, they will SAY NO to Amendment 48.

We are up against powerful, anti-women conservatives who want Roe v. Wade overturned and access to birth control compromised. They will spare no expense to see the job finished.”

All I can say to this is, “WTF? Twenty years later and we still have to fight for our rights”? “Bite me” is what I’d really like to tell the “anti-women conservatives” who want to take away my right to choose what is best for me as a woman.

The Denver Post has a great article on this topic and they too are very against this ridiculous proposed amendment.

From the article:

“Amendment 48 specifies that the egg be considered a “person” in the eyes of the law even before it is implanted in the uterus. That means, effectively, that those forms of birth control that prevent such implantation would be classified as homicide under the proposal.

Even without the use of drugs, many eggs just naturally fail to implant in the uterus. Likewise, many eggs are implanted only to result in a miscarriage in the early days or weeks of pregnancy — often before the woman is even aware she is pregnant. Should a woman who suffers a miscarriage be charged with negligent homicide because she failed to protect a fertilized egg she may not have even known she carried? Should a man who fertilized an egg be entitled to file a civil lawsuit against a woman who miscarries, charging her with the wrongful death of his week-old fertilized egg”?

This proposed amendment, in my opinion, is f*cking stupid – period. As a woman who has suffered 2 miscarriages, I can tell you that it’s no picnic and there is thought that goes into what is lost, what has changed in your life, etc. Should my husband sue me now for unintentionally killing our embryos? Even if a woman needed an abortion for health reasons, she would feel the loss, there is recovery time, etc. It doesn’t go unnoticed. Should we punish that woman even more?

With so much going on in the world around us, food prices soaring, tons of unwanted kids in foster care and orphanages – malnourished and sickly and no one to love them – should we keep adding to that? Just some food for thought.

I hope my fellow Coloradans who read this join me in voting NO this coming November and spread this message to your networks. Really, who wants to approve the “Anti-Woman” Health Amendment? Doesn’t that title itself say it all?

My Twilight Zone

We went to a wedding for an old friend this past holiday weekend which was in Omaha, NE. We live in CO so we had to basically drive through the entire flat section of CO as well as the entire state of NE.

Now I know I live a semi-sheltered existence in my county of many aware people who keep up on things, are concerned for the environment, what they eat, getting out and exercising and even spiritual enlightenment for some. I guess I’m just not comfortable witnessing the devastation of the earth by large, corporate mono-crop farmers (most likely all using evil Monsanto seed and products). It was tough for me to drive through all of that and see hardly any trees, just mono crops and then feedlots of cattle who were crammed inside the fences and we saw very few areas in the state of free grazing cattle. I kept thinking, we slaughtered the Native Americans to do this? I just felt so bad for the earth and the animals. There was so much sad energy emanating all over the place there. My husband felt the same.

We finally get to Omaha and it’s more of the same except with small clusters of new housing communities and strip malls and office bldgs. It felt to me like everyone was walking around asleep, completely unaware and just towing the line and believing all the b.s. fed to them. I did hear that there was a Whole Foods somewhere in the city so that gave me some hope for some conscious people but then I heard there are a bunch of transplants living there for big corporate jobs like our friend moved there for.

The wedding itself was on this very nice horse property and there was a pond with ducks, geese and bullfrogs, big trees to climb and of course, lots of horses. All the little kids there had a blast just from engaging with nature. Leif loved the bullfrogs in the pond.

There was a woman there with 2 kids. She was our friend’s next door neighbor. Her son was the same age as our son and they kept running off and were constantly standing at the edge of the pond. She was with her 1 year old daughter by the pond and told us she’d watch Leif while we went in the lodge bldg. for food. A few minutes later, her daughter falls into the pond so she scoops her up and leaves the 2 boys who were all the way on the other side of the pond alone, says nothing to them or us. Michael and I were watching them all anyway because she seemed odd, like she was heavily medicated or something (but I later found out that she was not, many people there acted like this). I take off my heels and run all the way around the pond so as not to have my very clutzy child fall in the water and drown before I get there.

Needless to say, I was a little annoyed that this mother would just walk away and when she saw me running, she was like “oh, my daughter fell in the pond, I have to dry her off!” Man, I just felt like shaking her to wake up and pay attention and wound up taking turns with Michael watching both boys all afternoon until she left.

I was surprised about the food at the wedding. We thought it would be something amazing because this friend is very gourmet – loves to cook and loves coming back to CO and meeting up with groups of people at different ethnic restaurants because he says the food sucks in NE – all steakhouses! Clearly, it was his wife’s choosing of the caterers.

There was not one thing there that I could eat – not even a carrot stick or lettuce leaf or piece of fruit it was all barbeque! I wound up eating a little of the coleslaw because I was starving and the only veggies were coleslaw or egg potato salad. Mr. Picky was not happy with any of the food choices and ate the pretzels that were out on the table and that was it until I went and got some of his snacks in the car.

Personally, I think from all the massive chemicals used on crops, all the crap in the meat from the factory farming practices (and their large consumption of meat) and the polluted water, air, etc it’s no wonder people acted the way they did. I felt like an alien in that state. Just watching that woman feed her (wet) one year old, the kid had food stains all over her (and I mean bad) and she was wearing a white dress. I wanted to give her a napkin to put on the little girl but I didn’t. I tried to talk to her but it was like she wasn’t there, even when talking about her kids – always a safe topic with strangers. Thank God for the wedding people that flew in from the coasts and the fellow Coloradans.

Many of these people were from my husband’s old job many years ago and they all remembered us as the couple who lived in the yurt. Some of them asked me so many questions about living off the grid in a yurt in the mountains. It was fun to reminisce since we sold it 5 years ago now (for work reasons). One guy that worked with my husband that I never met before told me that we so inspired him and he had pictures up all over of yurts and solar power and did lots of research on it and wanted to live in one and then he had to move for a job to OR and his girlfriend (now wife) was not into living an alternative lifestyle. He really was into talking all about it which was so fun for me because we really loved living like that for 3 years plus all the years we spent beforehand planning it all. One day again we will buy land and build an alternative home and compound. (I will post all about living the off the grid life in a yurt soon).

I mean no disrespect to anyone from NE that may read this. I was only pointing out the vast differences in consciousness and lifestyle that we noticed. I really got a good look at “You are what you eat” firsthand once again and it just reaffirmed to me personally how happy I am living on live, organic foods and how lucky I am to be aware of that fact and have that choice.

Leif kept asking in the car ride home, “Are we in Colorado yet?”. And we would tell him “No, still in Nebraska” and he’d say, “I want to be in Colorado”. Even the 4 year old felt it. All 3 of us were just so happy to return home to our slice of reality which is just oh so nice we are not leaving the state all summer!

What Helps The Environment The Most?

YOUR DIET.

I came across this blog post recently on greenlivingbuilding.com that is something I’ve been thinking a lot about myself since I’ve gone raw. This person said it so well, I thought I would list some of their facts from the post in italics with my comments on this thrown in as well.

Raising food for human consumption creates 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than 130 times the total of human generated greenhouse gas emissions. The amount of pollution created just to grow and deliver animal food to our tables is extraordinarily high.

And water used to raise animals for human food is equally high. Here are some of the worst offenders:

• 4500 liters of water for one steak.
• 1000 liters of water for one liter of milk.
• 1170 liters of water for one chicken breast.
• 1440 liters of water for one serving of pork.
• 840 liters of water for one pot of coffee.
• 2500 liters of water for one piece of cheese.

Compare that to 70 liters of water used to deliver one apple.

These stats are so shocking when you read that in black and white. 4,500 liters of water for one steak? That’s not even 1% of the cow! It’s crazy, really. Plus, all of the grain to feed the cows stuck on those cruel, barbaric factory farmed feedlots. It gets expensive so the feedlot owners went the cannibalism route – it gets the cows weight up faster so more money for them. You do know that they feed cows, who are herbivores, rendered dead cows and other animals including cats and dogs, don’t you? Mad cow, anyone? I wonder how much water is wasted on that heinous act. If you eat red meat, at least buy pasture raised (grass-fed) beef from companies you can trust!

Reducing the percentage of animal foods in your diet is one of the most effective ways to help our environment. It’s also one of the best things you can do for your health at the same time. Two benefits in one!

Eating a diet of mainly raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and living grains is also:

• waste free
• better than driving a hybrid
• healthy
• sustainable
• eco friendly

Since I’ve gone raw, even when I was only 80% raw in January, I realized that I make so much more compost everyday and that I myself hardly throw away anything and only have to recycle a few things. I make very little garbage now. It feels so good to know that whatever I’m eating, if there is any waste it can go feed the squirrels outside or go on the compost pile. My little Bio Bag compost bin and bags we have been using the past several years is way too small for what our needs are now. I need a trash can sized compost bin nowadays!

Another benefit (to me, anyway) is that my child sees me eating all these different veggies, fruits, nuts and sprouts prepared in different ways and is very intrigued. He calls me “the cooking guy” since I’m always whipping up some new recipe and oohing and ahhing over it to him. Even though he is very picky about eating combination foods, his intake of simple fruit and veggies and raw nuts and seeds has gone up so much everyday now. This is huge for me. I can put a pile of spinach leaves in front of him and he will eat it. An entire apple or pear, he eats all of it and bananas, forget it. He can eat 3 or 4 in a day (and no, they are not constipating). Tonight, he tried some raw asparagus we got from the farmer’s market (which was so delicious!). He even drank some of a green juice I made last night which consisted of: collard greens, cucumbers, celery, wheatgrass and an entire lemon and he drank at least 2 ounces of it. That’s so amazing!! He’s really trying out new foods in the plant world and I couldn’t be happier.

And, my husband, a determined omnivore, well his increase in vegan meals and raw vegan foods (he’s so into juicing now) has gone up greatly and the cooking of flesh foods has dropped tremendously. All his choice, I don’t push my food on him but I do ask for him to taste the recipes I make and give me his opinion because my taste buds have definitely changed from detoxing these past 5 months. I have sampled some bites of cooked vegan foods recently when I was cooking for them and I thought, “yuck”. It felt heavy and dense and slow. I know that sounds weird but that’s how it felt and it was some of my favorite cooked foods like couscous and quinoa. I can just imagine what I would think if I ate some chicken or red meat now.

I am so into the high frequency I feel off the living foods. It’s kind of hard to describe but it feels like this total connection to the plants and the earth and to being part of the cycle of life itself. Raw, living foods took the blinders off my eyes and my mind and I feel re-awakened, balanced and more clear again.

And do you know what is the original raw food we mammals get to eat? Breastmilk!

Endangered Species Day

The third Friday of every May has been declared Endangered Species Day. It is a day to educate yourselves and your children about what animals and plant life are on the list and what simple actions you can take at home to help make a positive change for endangered species and other wildlife and fauna all around you.

One of the animals listed, the Grey Wolf, has technically been “delisted” several weeks ago. This, in my opinion, is a travesty. They need the protection from our government because it is now open season on hunting these wise and beautiful creatures who help to keep the balance of the forest and the health of the herd of other species such as elk.

I have a deep, personal connection with the grey wolf. One summer, when living on a ranch in the mountains of CO, (the same location where I met my husband and got married), I had the chance to live with and bond with a 3 year old grey wolf named Cloud that was the pet of one of my housemates. The wolf and I bonded immediately and he soon started following me around everywhere and even wanted to sleep in my room at night instead of with his dad. This did not go over well with my housemate but he worked a lot and different hours than me so I soon became Cloud’s surrogate mom.

This wolf was so smart, loving and playful and really acted as my protector, too. One day, Cloud and I went for a hike down to the creek nearby which was about 1,000′ lower in elevation so I could harvest some plants that grew there to make medicine. I got caught up in the plant world, kept wandering and wildcrafting and when I was finally done we started hiking back up and I realized, I was lost deep in the forest! I had lost the small animal-made trail we followed down. It was late afternoon, it would be getting to be dusk soon and I was worried because of the bears and mountain lions that also lived in the forest and I had seen them on occasion on the ranch property before. I started running up the mountain since I was more than an hour away from home.

Cloud wasn’t worried, he was happy being out on our adventure running with me like one of his pack and I kept saying to him, “we need to go home, where’s home?” He was the one to eventually lead me back towards the ranch, running off in one direction and stopping to look back at me as if to tell me “this way”, with his sense of direction being much better than mine!

My housemate and Cloud eventually moved out of state, I offered to adopt Cloud and my housemate said no way. I was very sad over them leaving but what a gift I got in spending so much quality time with such a magnificent animal. I will never forget him.

The northern rocky mountain states such as Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have it out for the grey wolf. The plan is for killing off 39% of the 732 total wolves that live in the wild. Many are the collared, reintroduced to the wild adults and are highly tracked and studied since wolves were exterminated to extinction in the wild.

Earthjustice and 11 other conservation groups* filed a federal court lawsuit challenging the federal government’s decision to remove the northern rockies gray wolf population from the list of endangered species. They also filed a request for a preliminary injunction in order to reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves until the court issues a final decision on the merits of this case.

The injunction states:

“We maintain that wolves should not have been stripped of federal protections so soon because they are not yet recovered in the Northern Rockies region and the state management plans currently in place are woefully inadequate, not based on current science, and do not ensure the long term survival of the Northern Rockies gray wolf.”

“Since delisting, a spate of wolf killings by a variety of methods—pursuing wolves long distances with snowmobiles, shooting wolves from the roadside, and lying in wait for wolves at state-run elk feedgrounds—demonstrates the need now, as much as ever, to protect wolves under the Endangered Species Act.”

In Native American teachings, the wolf represents the supreme guardian, the teachers, the wisdom keepers. They are loyal, family oriented, playful, loving, wise beings. They kill to survive and feed their children as other carnivores do. They don’t take more than they need and keep the sick, old and frail animals they prey on from suffering a long, strung out death of illness or starvation.

I hope you can take action and give some support – even just signing an online petition to help protect this amazing animal from cruel, senseless murder.

*Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, and Wildlands Project.

BPA-Free Water Bottles

I have been researching which new water bottles I want to switch us over to now that I know the majority of my heavily used water bottles are polycarbonate #7 bottles and unfortunately, full of BPA.  I live in a dryer climate and love using my water bottles so much, I carry one everywhere I go.  I even started to use it all the time in my house, too a few years ago because I found with a little kid around, a glass of water on a desk or table got knocked over more than I liked.

I feel like pounding my head into the wall over this because BPA is a hormone disruptor and causes infertility issues and has even been specifically indicated in a hormone disorder I have.  Needless to say, I’m seriously upset over this.

I saw this post today called “BPA-free water bottle showdown” over at the Gardenaut blog and have to give big kudos to them for taking the time to test so many details that I definitely wanted to know about.  It’s a really great review.

One of the Thermos brand and Kleen Kanteen brand water bottles they reviewed are similar to one we have here that my husband bought a long, long time ago for carrying his coffee in a briefcase (and never uses anymore).  It’s a stainless steel, double walled 18 oz screw top lid with cup on top.  I never thought about using it for water (and the double wall will insulate ice water to keep it cold for hours) because I’m a straw-top water bottle kind of girl.  We call it “mama’s sippy” around here since my son likes straw-top sippy cups and water bottles the best, too.  I’ve switched to using this stainless steel bottle and thanks to this new guide, I will find myself a new straw-top, BPA-free “mama sippy” once again.

I tell ya, you must keep up on everything nowadays.  There is so much toxic, chemical crap in our water bottles, toys, food, baby items, household products, cleaning products, bodycare products, clothing, landscaping products, etc.  You must read labels, read news articles, stay informed to keep yourself and your family as toxin-free as possible.  No wonder so many people in this country develop weird, funky diseases and/or cancer.  We are so over-exposed to toxins and basically our bodies are massively toxed out!

Everyone would benefit from doing a detox diet or flush a few times a year.  It really pays off for your health in the long run.

Special Santa Fe

We went on a little vacation to one of our favorite places in the world, Santa Fe, NM. This is a place we still consider moving to and a place that I thought I was originally going to move to when I relocated from NYC. I got “sidetracked” in Colorado and 14 years later, I’m still here.

Whenever we go there, we try to do some new things that we haven’t done before and to also visit with some friends and family that live in northern New Mexico. It is very, very similar in lifestyle and consciousness and attitude (mostly) to where we live now (which I do love where we live). There is just an “extra something special” there with the architecture and art and the energy of the land itself for me. This city has also been there for the past 400 years. I’m drawn to it and recharged by it every time I can spend at least a few days there and we were there a week and it still felt like it was not enough time.

We stayed in a 1 bedroom condo for the week and traveling with a young child, this is the BEST way to travel and have little stress. Since my son is a major picky eater, eating in restaurants is really no fun for us with him so we did take out at night a lot and he got to eat his favorite foods right in the condo and be his loud little self and pretty happy. The wireless for the rooms was down and only accessible in the lobby bldg. so we were internet free for the week. I think I had a harder time with it initially than my software engineer husband did. I tried one night early on to check email in that bldg. with our laptop but it was noisy and annoying and not worth it. We both really enjoyed the relaxing evenings of getting to spend some real quality time together and I think it was great that we couldn’t use the computer in our condo!

This was my very first trip as a raw vegan and I was worried that I would not have much to eat so I prepared different foods before we left and brought it with us which worked out great for me since we had a kitchen. I knew I would go crazy on the guacamole and pico de gallo found everywhere so I made raw corn chips and crackers for that but funny enough, I now prefer to dip into those yummy foods using veggies instead of my chips or crackers. I did eat some green chile (which is cooked but I love it) on my salads and other foods and can now tolerate more heat and spice than ever before since going raw.

I made this new recipe of raw granola I found and my (omnivore) husband loved it and said it was the best granola he’s eaten – and that is saying a lot! I also made raw nori rolls, sun garden burgers with raw ketchup, and a raw bread. I brought my “magic bullet” chopper/blender in case I wanted to make some smoothies. I was pretty well stocked for the week and only needed to get fresh veggies and fruit. I saved a lot of money doing this and didn’t feel deprived at all (I love all of these recipes) and wound up bringing a lot back home, too.

I found the one restaurant in town that served raw entrees and desserts which is inside this cool place called “Body” that is a natural home store, yoga/pilates workout studio that also offers healing services (yes, it was huge). My kind of place! I had a raw pizza and salad to go and it was excellent and now I am on a quest to figure out how to re-make their recipe this week.

So, I managed to stay totally raw for at least 98% of my trip and looking at my husband eating the traditional NM food smothered in cheese didn’t even tempt me – which is very weird for me bec. I love the food there and had the vacation mindset going on. I even lost weight from all the walking and hiking we did. Woo hoo! And, I had lots of energy – even at night. I am loving living raw!!

We took a tour one afternoon of a new community being built that has everything we like – photovoltaic and passive solar design, wind power, reclaimed water for landscaping, geo-thermal, eco-friendly building materials and insulation from top to bottom, beautiful architecture, lots of open space and trails surrounding it, community garden plots, commercial sized greenhouses going in for food sold to the community at a discount first, farmer’s market second, lots of fruit trees planted on the property for the community, parks and playgrounds, only environmentally friendly landscape maintenance used, etc. Basically our dream community. We just need work to support us down there and we are not moving in a bad real estate market for at least a few years. Good thing they will have a few phases being built so we have time to re-consider in the future.

The one new hike we did was at a place called Tent Rocks. It is just south of Santa Fe and a totally awesome place. These other-worldly looking rock formations formed millions of years ago from a volcanic eruption and it’s a soft sand and gravel type of rock pillar with the top part being a harder granite rock which kept it in place all this time. It has very narrow channels to walk through as you ascend to the top which my 4 year old loved doing as well as climbing on all the rocks (although for the other half of hiking he wanted to be in the backpack). It even had a cave that the two of them climbed up into and my son thought it was the coolest thing and wanted to sleep in it. I guess spelunking will be something we can do with him when he is older. He even pointed out a few formations that he thought were spaceships so even a 4 year old thought it looked alien like.

We took a train ride one day on the Santa Fe Southern Railway in an old 1920’s passenger car out to a train depot in a town called Lamy, had lunch and then rode the train back to the Santa Fe station. My son loved it since he loves trains so much. There was an outside platform to stand on, too which was fun.

There is so much more but this is a little recap of some of the fun and interesting things we did. I’m so glad that even though I don’t get to live there right now, we are only a (several hours long) car ride away from such a special place.

3 Months Raw

I realized that yesterday marked my 3rd month eating a totally raw vegan diet.  I’m pretty impressed with myself that I could mentally get behind this for more than my 30 day challenge.  I can feel so much changing inside my body and that my body is purging, detoxing from the deep cellular level.  It feels good.  I needed this and I am sticking with it for as long as I can or feel that I need it.  Even then, I don’t think I will ever go below eating an 80% raw diet. Too much cooked anything is really not good for the body.

I’ve done so much research on this topic and will try and post more details on interesting things I’ve learned in future posts.  The number one most interesting item that keeps popping up throughout my research is the supreme good health and longevity of people that adhere to this way of eating.

There are many pictures of different people who have been raw for 30 or more years all over the web and they look half their age.  They have such vitality and life force and their bodies and faces are beautiful, no wrinkles, no grey hair, no excess weight, supple skin and they have happiness and joy and a positive mental outlook with loads of mental clarity.  I feel this is my biggest motivating factor in keeping going.  I want what they have.  I want to become an old woman with tons of vitality and happiness free from body aches and pains and look great while aging gracefully.  It’s totally attainable and very real.  Our Standard American Diet (SAD) does not promote this way of life, it leads to disease and/or the breaking down of the body for the majority of people who eat that way.  Even eating a mostly cooked vegan diet will lead to problems in the future.  Eating the life force, the live enzymes, all of that chlorophyll (”liquid sunshine”) keeps our bodies at our best.

My grandmother died in her 90’s and was not a raw food eater.  In fact, she ate alot of sugar and cooked foods.  She had good functioning organs and only suffered from some hearing loss and bad knees, some osteoporosis and had a neurological disorder that caused some tremors.  She was not very happy with how she felt and it got worse and worse for her every year until she was mostly in a wheelchair  because of  knee pain.  She didn’t want to live anymore like that and stopped eating and willed herself to die at age 94.  I don’t want to age like that and just “survive” while I live inside a body that is decaying and breaking down every day.  I really want to “thrive”.  Think about that.  You surely can “survive” on cooked foods but wouldn’t you rather “thrive” and feel great? I know I do.  I’ve experienced body pains from injuries and scar tissue and I can tell you, it royally sucks and gets worse with age.

My grandfather, however, died at age 63 after his second heart attack because he wouldn’t change his diet (he became a type 1 diabetic).  He loved food and gourmet cooking and eating and chose to go out early because of it.  I don’t want that either.

I’ve noticed that after my first month totally raw, my cravings for certain foods (especially flesh foods) went away and my husband even has roasted a few chickens at home and it didn’t bother me at all.  During my first 30 days raw, I was freaking out over the smell and wanted to eat it right there.  That proved to me that, “cooked food is an addiction” as they say.  It’s really interesting for me to experience that and analyze it.  I was pretty excited when that happened.  Detoxing works.

Other things that I’ve noticed in my body:

• I have tons more energy everyday and it is sustained energy until late in the night.
• My first pair of reading/computer glasses that I just got around the time of my birthday for my tired eyes that started to cause me headaches – I never wear them anymore.  I don’t even think about them and I was wearing them whenever I was on the computer for the past 6 months.  I was told it was a sign of aging what I was experiencing with the headaches from the eye doc.
• I’ve lost 10 pounds and I’m exercising but mildly, working my way back up due to scar tissue problems – which are vastly better due to keeping my body more alkaline. I’m sure it would be much more weight loss if I did work out harder (like normal people).
• No colds or allergy symptoms even when coughing happens right in my face (from a 4 yr old).
• Feeling pretty even emotionally all day and lots of happiness for no reason.  Like there needs to be a reason?
• My tolerance for spice or hot sauce has gone up and I’m a Frank’s hot sauce is my max heat limit kind of girl.
• No body odor.  I only ever use the crystal deodorant stone stuff anyway so I have to be sure to wash my underarms everyday to make sure it works well.  Now, I can skip a day or two and there is no odor. Even after working out.  I can’t wait to test this in the summer!

I’ve been trying tons and tons of different recipes from quick prep to the elaborate, gourmet take 24 hours to dehydrate then finally eat it preparations.  Some are amazing and some are just ok.  Nothing is terrible or inedible.  What I really find myself eating mostly now are simple foods.  I don’t really crave much except greens and veggies, some fruits and fats like avocado or seeds or nuts (seed or nut pates are great).  I like to have a cracker on hand, usually a flax seed cracker or a few others I’ve tried.  I’m loving raw garlic in lots of stuff.  I’m not even into smoothies that much anymore, either.  I’d much rather have a big glass of freshly juiced greens and veggies.  Or a blended soup.

I can hear my body’s requests so loudly now.  It doesn’t ever say “give me chicken or pizza”.  It says, “green juice!”.  Or sprouts and salad with hempseeds and a good, oily dressing is another craving.  And yes, it’s both bizarre and wonderful to me at the same time.

I think cravings change with my hormones and just this week I’ve been wanting Mexican food.  So, I made some corn chips, corn tortillas,  guacamole, taco “meat”, refried beans (these were Just ok, I was a bean freak before so it’s hard to duplicate that) and salsa.  I have a few different recipes for raw sour “cream” but didn’t make any.  I can only eat a small amount of this compared to what I used to be able to eat.  It is tasty and good but too heavy.  I seem to fill up fast and am full for hours.

My very picky 4 year old sees me munching on spinach or veggies and always asks to eat some, too.  He doesn’t ever want to try prepared foods but any raw fruit or veggie (except avocado or sprouts) he will try and mostly eat.  His quantity of raw produce intake has gone up a lot from me doing this.  Bonus!

Well, that’s my long update on my raw life thus far.  I am hoping to be transformed by my 6 months raw anniversary.  We shall see.

Growing Challenge and 100 Foot Diet Challenge Update

As I am supposed to do, I am doing a weekly post of what’s going on out my back door.

As for the growing challenge, my husband rototilled up the garden beds and added soil amendments including homemade beautiful compost from our 2 compost piles.  He formed new beds and put the drip line back in and then made pathways with the brick we took out of our front walkway last fall when we made a concrete patio and new flowerbeds instead.  The brick looks good in there and I’m glad we found a way to re-purpose it.

I cleared out all our planters out back and re-arranged stuff so that I made room for 3 more planters around my deck for more food and herb growing.  We also planted lots of seeds in the garden (and have tons of seedlings growing in the house) and I planted all of our garlic and onion starts in the front of our jerusalem artichoke (sunchoke) trough.

Last year we built a trough by our back fence to make a fast growing privacy screen.  It worked but not until Sept./Oct. of last fall did we get the full coverage we wanted.  Hopefully this year since they have been in there over the winter they will grow faster to give us some summertime privacy from our neighbors.  I learned this trick from working on a CSA one summer back in 1997 where they used it as a wind shield to protect the plants from the wide open spaces next to them.  I wasn’t sure it would work for what I wanted but it did.  An experiment gone well : )

We also decided on another area in the backyard where we can put in a long, narrow bed to grow our giant sunflowers and some corn and watermelon.  The sunflowers looked so cool in our garden last summer but we don’t have room for them in there this year with all of our different greens taking up a couple of beds.  They also caused mass rioting in our garden last fall between the birds and squirrels that we had to cut down most of them to get any seeds for us and we left a few up for them to duke it out over and eat.   I’ve never seen squirrels and birds argue like that before, it was pretty funny to watch.

Since I was planting in the front of my jerusalem artichoke trough, those suckers spread like crazy so I harvested any tubers that grew over to the front and got quite a bit to eat now (it’s a 30 ft. trough).  They can be eaten raw or cooked and are like a cross between jicama, water chestnuts and a potato so I peeled and “spiralized” some into spagetti strands and mixed it with zucchini “spagetti” and raw marinara sauce and ate it like that for my raw dinner and Michael cut some up in rounds and added it to a salad (like water chestnuts).  I think he is going to try to bake some this week.  I really enjoyed the taste and I also ate some in my salad, too this week.  I love edible landscaping!

We also grew both alfalfa and mung bean sprouts again.  Our favorites.  We are sprouting some peas and more mung right now to eat.  We love sprouts and they are sooo good for you and super cheap and easy to make.

We are still in the process of hardening off our new berry and grape plants so they are not in the ground yet.  We have 2 large whiskey barrels that used to be in the front of our house that we have moved to the backyard and removed the false bottom inside.  I think we will wind up using them for either the berries or the grapes.  They may need to be moved  a few times to avoid the squirrels from eating all of the fruit so we will experiment this summer to find the best growing spots for those plants.

I’m so happy it’s spring!