Nutrition, Yoga, Acting, Art. Or "How not to do what you love"

For a while now, over 10 years, I've been struggling with what I want to do with my life. Although life is currently happening, there seems to be inevitable void in my gut. I'm not fulfilling my souls desire. OR~I don't know what my souls desire is. It's frustrating because I understand fully that I can have anything I want. The Universe is standing by to provide me with my dreams if I just direct my energy toward it. It's that simple. But what if you don't know what you want to do? What if you're so scared to take a step forward, you remain still? This is what's eating me.

My dearheart suggested I write about it. He suggested that I  put into words my frustration and that may start the energy moving in a different direction. So that's where I am.

I have a huge list of interests- Movies, nutrition, yoga, acting, art, true crimes, meeting coordination, dance, music, wine and  ? But how do you create a career out of all the things you love? I am a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner yet I haven't pursued clients. The phrase, 'you're not smart enough for this business' keeps replaying in my head. Which is only true if I tell myself it is.

I don't know. Maybe I'll just keep writing and see what changes.

It's happening and I'm so proud.

Food Revolution. Food Movement. Occupy Food. Whatever you want to call it, it's happening and I couldn't be more thrilled. I'm also elated at the fact that more and more Americans are starting to open their eyes to this revolution.
In the wake of the Susan G. Komen -I'll call it, scandal- millions of Americans started sniffing around the Internet to find out something smells bad when it comes to the biggest breast cancer charity. This research also lead to more people asking the question, where is my money going? (It's your money by the way. Everytime you buy something with one of those pink ribbons on it, it's supposed to go to the 'cure for cancer') What a joke. I knew Susan G. Komen "for the cure" was a big scam a LONG time ago. Slowly, each one of my friends decided to do the 3-day walk and raise money for SGK. I wanted so badly to shout out-don't waste your time! But alas, a friend told me to keep my mouth shut. I did, although very hard for a Sagittarius, and I waited. A wonderful blessing happened. SGK decided to pull their funds out of Planned Parenthood and piss a shit-ton of people off. All of those people about to walk for 3 days, took a hypothetical step back and rethought their journey. Their hearts were always in the right place. They wanted to give something back to fight breast cancer but SGK was doing something fishy. When this happened, all the 'walkers' researched and found that not all of their hard earned 3-day- tired- feet money was going to the right place. (Emily Michele can say this much more eloquently than I ever could: I will not be Pinkwashed)

Do you know why I'm so happy about this? Because eyes opened, not just to this charity, but to what is REALLY going on. The business of cancer. We all fell for it. The pink ribbons. The heartfelt sad commercials.  The 'do it for the cure' slogan. It is all just a business-the cancer business.

And it's not just this I'm happy about. The naysayers are finally taking another look at whole foods vs. processed food and it's health benefits. I have heard of 3 stories just in the past month of people that were once hard core fast food addicts switch to shopping at the farmer's market and only buying organic produce. They slowly came to realize whole foods were what was going to save them from a life of disease and hospital bills.

Something is going on here. We are doing research. We are finding out why we are such a sick society. We are finding out who's been lying to us. We're finding out why we are being lied to. It's happening. And I'm so proud.

Lesson learned

Some of my friends and even my family think I'm crazy for being so picky when it comes to what I eat. I get it. It makes them look a what they're eating and ask "what's wrong with my food". Look, I just know the difference in how my body reacts to certain food. For example, I've been on a pretty strict Paleo diet (animal protein, veggies and fruit) for about 3 months. Over the holiday, my mind played a trick on me. It said, you are so choosy all year long when it comes to food, why not just eat whatever is put in front of you. Such as sugar cookies or pumpkin pie. Mind you, I had been feeling really healthy lately. I hadn't gotten sick in about 6 months when I had pneumonia and felt like I was going to die. So I had some cookies and I felt fine. Then at the end of the night I had a piece of pumpkin pie and my throat and ears instantly got itchy. I just figured it's the gluten and I am more allergic than I thought. Then I got the sniffles and started feeling tired. I went to bed that night and was conscious of my throat the entire night. My throat felt as if I was swallowing knives. That is on the list of the top 10 worst body pains! I woke up the next day fullblown sickness. I was tired, I couldn't stop sniffling, my body ached. My sister said, this can't be from just eating gluten. I didn't think so either but it was. Gluten causes inflammation in the stomach lining and inflammation is one of the worse things a body can have. It's why my body ached and I felt exhausted. Then the coughing began and this 'cold' started to travel to my lungs. Fortunately I knew enough to start taking high doses of colloidal silver and Vitaman C before it became pneumonia-again.

I understand now, that cheating is not an option for me anymore. I can't just have ONE cookie filled with flour. You can call me crazy all you want but I'll find my cheating someplace else like dark chocolate or almond butter or wine!

On the farm

On Saturday's from 1-4pm, Wild Willow Farms has a volunteer program. They have been open for a year and depend upon the volunteers to get their organic garden growing. I volunteered because I wanted to learn exactly how difficult it would be to start a garden. Wild Willow Farms is not only an organic farm but they are an education center. When I showed up they were setting up for a chicken class or how to raise chickens in the city. Over 20 people showed up to listen to the speaker. This was so inspiring to me. People really want to start growing their own foods and stop depending on the grocery stores.

 The volunteers that showed up were mostly San Diego college students studying to be environmentalists or naturapathic doctors. I was the oldest one there but knew less than they did. I was so thrilled to spend the day around college students listening to how they live their lives with such sustainability. I never knew being sustainable was so 'in' at the colleges!

 We started by taking composted soil and sifting it out. It sifts out to a soft soil that will eventually be used for potting. They gave us the option to use gloves but we all used our hands. Even though there were creepy crawly bugs, at the end of the sifting, your hands feel so soft from being in the soil. When was the last time any of us put our hands in the earth? It has such an energetic feeling, I need to be doing it everyday!

During this sifting process, a huge rat ran through the field. Later we found out that we were infringing on his home. He was covering his babies in the compost pile. All of these babies won't live and hopefully the mommy will find where the farmer put her babies.

 Before coming to the Wild Willow Farm, I checked to make sure it was completely organic. I was thrilled to see this sign while driving in. I would also like a sign underneath it that says "NO MONSANTO ZONE"!

After the compost sifting, we went over the raspberry field. Well it wasn't so much a field as it was a row of raspberry bushes. The farmers weren't happy with where they were planted and wanted to relocate them. We had the task of digging up the roots and carefully transporting them to another location. I learned that raspberries are pretty resilient and can take some digging. It's not as easy as it sounds. The roots are so deep that they start to intertwine with the bush next to it. So it took alot of digging and alot patience. I worked on this root for a good 1/2 hour!

 This seating area is part of the garden. I can only assume it's for night time ghost story telling!

One of the many baby chickens at the farm. I didn't ask why they were in a cage but had to assume it was because the volunteers would disturb them? Also, do you know how difficult it is to take a picture of one chicken? Everytime you think you have the shot, they move. Damn divas!!

 After we took the raspberry bushes out of the earth, we replanted them in smaller pots. There was a mom and her 2 beautiful girls there planting spearmint plants. It warmed my heart to see children excited about planting and helping their mom. They were contributing to their meals and learning about how agriculture works. They were great helpers. I asked one little girl what she thought spearmint went in. We thought about it together and I said, "gum" and she said, "perfume"! I just wanted to eat that little toothless angel!!

We couldn't figure out if this what kind of bird this was but thought it was an emu or ostrich?



Pieces to the puzzle almost fit

I've been to the doctor lately for numerous ailments one of which being chronic pain in my hip joints, sacrum and  thighs. They would go numb by the end of the day. Yoga, walking, riding my bike all makes the pain worse.  All of these symptoms added up to what Western Medicine calls "Fibromyalgia". I don't even like to type this because I feel it's such an all encompassing made up disorder. But if I had to put a word to it, that's what it is. It's a combination of a parasite, virus, lactic acidosis, and toxin overload. How did this happen? How does this happen to a 30 something female who doesn't take recreational or pharmaceutical drugs, eats all organic, exercises and takes all of the recommended supplements? I found this article today from Health Reports while researching my issues that my doctor told me I had that may help explain. It's all fixable, mind you, it's just disheartening. Daily, I carry a bag of holistic medicines that include a shake, a chakra spray, immune booster, digestive enzymes, magnesium and coenzymes. It's alot but it takes patience in Holistic Medicine.
I first started eating healthy to get my body functioning properly. I tried becoming vegan. That didn't work. I tried just eating smoothies. That didn't work. I did the 'cut and paste' trial period. Didn't work. I took everything that everyone suggested. I'm still at the same space as I started. There is no magic pill. There is no magic time limit. If you want to mend years worth of damage, it may take years to fix. This is why conventional medicine is so backwards to me. You go in to the doctor and tell him you have muscle pain and he gives you a muscle relaxer. You go in and tell him you have digestive problems he gives you some sort of antacid. How is he fixing the root cause of the problem?
My naturopath is working on calming down the mycoplasma (whatever that means) so that he can conquer the autoimmune conditions so that all my cells can function as they normally should. It's a war! You can't end a war with one pill!

For a more positive note: This is season's grenade zucchini are delicious. They are so easy to chop up and throw in a stir fry. Of course I add my kale, lemon, chicken and tamari and that's my dinner. Yumm!

CSA Box to the rescue

I've heard alot about this CSA thing-Community Supported Agriculture-but it wasn't until today that I realized how cool it is. A friend of mine was going out of town and asked that I pick up her CSA box and eat or share the contents. I'm falling more and more in love with vegetables so I was excited to see what was in the box. In it was a bag of tomatoes, hot peppers, pea shoots, cabbage, bib lettuce, radishes, squash  and rosemary. At first I felt like a contestant on "Chopped" where they have to make a meal from the ingredients from the box. As I was washing and putting the produce away, I started to notice the bib lettuce is what they use for lettuce wraps. I had chicken and asparagus and I suppose you can just saute squash....lettuce wraps for dinner it is! I added lemon and tamari to the asparagus, squash, chicken and pea shoots with a dollop of butter (of course). Everything took about 10 minutes to make. I can't believe how wonderful this gift is.  Below are the results. I'm working on adding more flavor-maybe a sweet chilli sauce will be good. Either way, I'm proud of myself for being so inventive!

My open letter to Gov. officials re; the Rawesome Raid

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the California Franchise Tax Board; the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch and the department’s Division of Measurement Standards; the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office; the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health; the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, the Ventura County Department of Public Health; the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.
I was deeply disturbed to read that your office contributed in the arrest three people on charges of "illegally producing, selling unpasteurized milk" on August 3, 2011.

http://da.co.la.ca.us/mr/080311a.htm

I do completely understand and acknowledge a need for oversight and regulation, yet I am stunned to see videos of both the raids at Rawesome one on Aug 3, 2011 and one on June 30,2010 - in particular the presence of a SWAT team with guns drawn. I was disheartened to see that not only was the raw milk products in question confiscated but, also their coconuts, watermelon, bison - essentially all of the goods at Rawesome. I would like to understand why your office found that necessary? From what I understand, there were no reports of anyone ever having been sick as a result of any of these food items. If there was harm done, as in the turkey meat recall from Cargill, then they should be under the same type of investigation However, your office or other authorities never went in to Cargill with guns drawn.

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/125619/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW00OqtQyqw


It is my communal understanding that in the state of California, raw milk is legal and that cow and goat shares have not been identified as illegal. Rawesome is a private club that allows members to purchase raw milk and sign a form stating they take full responsibility. It is absurd that your authorities arrest the owners of this club as if they were murderers charging them with an astronomical amount of $123,000 for bail.

I ask this most earnestly -- is it illegal, in the state of California, for a group of people to communally purchase a herd of goats or cows, and to pay a farmer to keep the animals on their farms and to milk them for the owner's consumption? If it is illegal, would you direct me to that law on the books?

I would truly appreciate a response.