The Revolution is Love

I came across this short video clip yesterday morning as I checked FB. A lovely family friend had posted it to her page. I watched it and was intrigued. Then I watched it again. I watched it a couple more times yesterday and I'll probably keep watching it. Charles Eisenstein is the man featured in the video and he brings up so many amazing points about what's possible in our world. He's an author and a professor.

Here are a few of my favorite ideas, paraphrased as best as I could capture them. Watch the clip and you'll hear it yourself.

"This movement isn't about the 99% defeating or toppling the 1%. You know the next chapter of that story, which is that the 99% create a new 1%. That's not what it's about. What we want to create is the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible. A sacred world. A world that works for everybody. A world that is healing. A world of peace."

"Everybody wants to live a life of meaning. And Today we live in a money economy where we don't really depend on the gifts of anybody. We buy everything. Therefore we don't really need anybody....It's really hard to create community if the underlying knowledge is 'We don't need each another.'... Joint consumption doesn't create intimacy. Only joint creativity and gifts create intimacy and connection."

"Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. The economist says that 'More for you is less for me.' The lover knows that more for you is more for me too."

"Love is the expansion of self to include the 'other'. That's a different kind of revolution. There's no one to fight. There's no evil to fight. There's no 'other' in this revolution..."

More, please. I'm going to dig into what he's written.

Weekend Bits

Another summer weekend has come and gone. They go by way too quickly. I had a pretty quiet weekend, but here are a few quick stories:

Saturday, my girl A and I ran the Fallasburg Park Half Marathon for the second year in a row. It's a super small race and we love it. I almost hate to write about how cool it is for fear that more people will enter next year (not like I've got a huge readership!), I'd hate for it to lose its quaint nature. This year definitely had more runners than last year and we were partially responsible. A few of the guys we've been doing long runs with here and there decided to run it.

They say not to expect to set a personal record on the course and after running it once you know why. This year the race was probably 70% trail and 30% road, compared to about 40% trail last year. It was unbelievably hard, but so much fun. Did you ever play in the woods when you were little? Trail running feels like being a kid again. There were a ton of hills, even in the woods. We were all over the place from an elevation stand point. Up and down and then back up again. There were a few points in the trail that had "Geronimo" signs warning you to slow down because the drop was so steep.

I ran with my little Amphipod water carrier and was really happy about that in the end as the aid stations were sparse. I'd just fill up and go. I was also so glad that I carried Gu with me. I used all three. My final was near the 12 mile mark, when it basically felt like I had no more gas left to propel me forward and my legs felt super heavy. Gu did help, but I still walked the final steep hill just before the finish. Everybody that was coming in near me did! It felt great to finish! I was covered with dirt and sweaty salt. I so earned my shower and the celebratory pancakes that followed.

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I went to see "Eat. Pray. Love." this afternoon. Just so y'all know, I read the book sometime last year and loved it. As someone who can feel a bit adrift at times, it spoke to me. Now that we have that out of the way, as with most book to movie adaptations, the book was way better, but I enjoyed getting out of the house and out of my own head for a bit to see the movie version. Julia Roberts was a bit distracting at times, but overall, I enjoyed the movie. It made me want to re-read the book. And to travel. What a surprise!

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Unless it's pancakes, chocolate or iced coffee I'm so not into food right now. Does this ever happen to you? I'm eating, so it's not an appetite thing. It's more of a "I don't want to cook anything, or be creative about food at all, nor do I want to be eating out every meal" thing. I've been snacking though on graham crackers smeared with peanut butter and then covered in melted chocolate. I pop the whole thing in the freezer until the chocolate and peanut butter hardens a bit. A delish and simple treat when you're craving a sweet.

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If you live in Grand Rapids, you know we just got new recycling bins. If you don't, they're on wheels and have a lid, much like a conventional trash container you'd put on the curb. The new recycling containers are so much bigger than what we've been using, that I was reluctant to even use this new one, thinking I'd have to remodel the house to actually fit it into the garage. I kind of threw a minor fit when it became apparent that, indeed, none of the other neighbors were going to take the container left on the curb in front of the house and I had to claim it. I cleaned out the garage a bit today and figured out a way it can fit, making it accessible without having to go outside. It may sound a bit ridiculous, but this was a big deal! Single-stream recycling should be easier, not more difficult! It all worked out. Everything is going to be just fine. Seriously, I just devoted a paragraph to a recycling container? Wow!

Beeswax

I checked out a book called Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis from my library. After the whole detox cleanse I'm curious about raw food and willing to try some recipes. Raw food usually means vegan food - no animal products - and there's no cooking in the traditional heat it up and serve it sense. Nothing is heated above 118 degrees.

As I'm paging through the book, I'm mostly checking out the lovely pictures of food, skimming recipe pages here and there and making mental notes of recipes I might want to try. Then I see a picture of two people sitting in what appears to be an outdoor section of the author's restaurant. The woman in the picture looks curiously like the author, who in the introduction talks about the fact that this book is about "living raw food, not just eating it, but living it." Would you think someone who is concerned enough about raw food to write an entire book about it would be pictured smoking in her own book? I wouldn't think so, which makes me think, that's gotta be someone else in the picture, not the author. But I'm 99% sure that it's her, with a cigarette in her hand.

Clearly everyone has the right to make their own choices. I'm just having a hard time imagining how the choice is made, because the two choices seem so far from each other. Raw vegan diet + smoking cigarettes. It wouldn't work for me, but it must work for her.

I am fascinated by the choices people make, because you never really know what went into someone's choice. They may not even know. Was there a lot of thought involved? Or was there no thought at all? Do they regret the choices they've made? Are they consciously satisfied with their life or numbed out to the what their life has become? We're all on our own journey, with decisions to make every day. Life really is like one of those choose your own adventure books! Make one choice and your life could head in a completely different direction.

I know I've made choices that might not make any sense to someone who isn't inside my head with all the information I have. I have to remember that when I come across seemingly disparate concepts present within the same situation. Raw vegan food and cigarettes as part of the same person's life don't make sense in my brain, but it wasn't my decision so it's not mine to understand. Might people think it's odd for someone who is clearly health conscious to love baking and eating said baked goods. There are two disparate concepts present in someone's life. My life.

It's helpful for me to keep the focus on myself and my choices when I find myself saying, "Huh? Really? Why would someone do that?" None of my beeswax, so I'll just mind my own!

Day One

I've been thinking of doing some sort of a cleanse/detox for a while. I've read a lot about different juice cleanses like Blueprint Cleanse, and Red Carpet Cleanse where you basically drink all your nutrients for a number of days. I've also heard about the crazy lemon juice/cayenne pepper nonsense. I found something that is neither of those, but will hopefully help me get right with food. I'm hoping to reset my sweet tooth, something I haven't been able to do through sheer will power alone. I'm also hoping to ferret out any food allergies I may have. As many of you know, I'm a vegetarian, but I love me some cheese and I love anything that falls into the starch category. By not eating any dairy or wheat products for the duration of the cleanse, and then reintroducing dairy and wheat I may find out that I have an actual allergy. We shall see.

Anyway, today is Day One of The UltraSimple Diet. I don't like that it's called a diet, but I guess technically it is. So whatever. I did a bunch of food prep yesterday after buying a bunch of veggies, tofu, broth, etc that will take me through the cleanse. Not everything I'll eat is pictured. So no worries that it doesn't look like enough.

I was a little apprehensive about the UltraShake that you have for breakfast, - it's basically silken tofu, soy milk, 1/2 non-sweetened berries, ground flax seed, and ice or water to get the consistency you want. The book suggests adding some almond butter and a 1/2 banana. I'd hate to think what it tastes like without those last two suggested ingredients. It was actually pretty good with them. Breakfast will be easy.

Here's my lunch from today:

1/2 cup brown rice, a cup of broth, and a bunch of sweet potato fries. You get to have at least 2 cups of approved veggies. Thanking my lucky stars that sweet potatoes are on the list, because I heart them. I tossed them with some olive oil and some garam masala, black mustard seeds and salt for an Indian flair. Tasty. I felt full after lunch. I had some carrots and hummus for a snack a bit ago and am starting to think about dinner. Clearly I'm not going to go hungry.

There's a lot of thought that's gone into the food I'll be eating. I've been looking at cookbooks and for recipes on line so I'm actually excited about the items I'll be eating instead of just sticking with steamed veggies and brown rice (and tofu at dinner). I think that's an added bonus for me because this is going to get me out of my comfort zone of always eating the same things because they're easy to cook. If you knew how many times a week I cook something with a Mexican twist. Some of you actually do know first hand - RTL! It's a lot. I also end up eating a lot of cheese that way, which may not be my healthiest choice.

I saw the Krispy Kreme flyer in today's paper featuring TRIPLE chocolate filled doughnuts and for a few seconds wanted to scrap the cleanse and go get some. Maybe someday, I'll be able to have just one or a bite of one and not want to eat a whole box of them. That's the goal anyway.

Time for my dinner.

Book/Food Review

The book is "Skinny Bitch", by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. It's been around a while, but I picked up the book on CD last week and listened to it while I was working at home on Thursday. It goes by quickly and has an entertaining voice, so if you're into audio books and you're looking to re-evaluate the way you eat, you might be into it.

Basically the book perscribes a vegan diet, so no meat, dairy, eggs. They also bag on caffeine in the form of sodas and coffee. And they basically say white refined sugar and many sugar replacements inlcuding aspartame are the devil. They go into detail about why each item is no friend to the Skinny Bitch. There's more to it than that, of course, but those are the key elements I identified with.

For the last few weeks, even before listening to the book, I've been thinking about what I eat and why. The book reminded me of several things I already knew, but was not wanting to do anything about. Sugar. Duh. Butter and cheese? Um, yeah, if I say we're all "just friends", you'll know I mean it in the way I used to tell my parents that my too-old-for-me boyfriend and I were "just friends". I think we all know how that turned out.

Where I'm at: I've been a vegetarian for about 15 years. I basically feel like I eat rather healthfully, but am always looking for ways to improve. I'm also a runner who wants to fuel her body properly for maximum performance. I'm beginning to accept the whole idea that my body is my engine and that if I put crappy, processed food in as fuel, I'm not going to perform as well as if I were eating more healthfully.

The no meat part is done. Giving up meat was not an issue when I did it because it just made sense to me and I never really ENJOYED meat like some folks do.

Caffeine and aspartame? I've played around with my addiction to Diet Coke for a while. I'll be on it then off, then back on. I recently had a couple weeks back on the chemicals after almost nine months off it. I totally loved the taste, but felt guilty about enjoying it, knowing that it's ultimately not good for me. I knew that in no time at all I'd be buying it by the case and drinking at least two cans a day. My main issue is the aspartame. Skinny Bitch does a great job laying out why it's probably not the best substance in the world to be digesting on the regular, which served as a reminder for me, all reasons why I have given it up in the past. So, I put the kibosh on my re-emerging habit before it could get out of control.

I love cheese and butter and think everything tastes better with copious amounts of both. I also am a giant fan of the sweets. I don't have just one sweet tooth, I have an entire set that's rather fond of all kinds of sugar.

I've been thinking too about adding more healthy things into my regular cooking routine, so I don't have to fall back on less than good for me choices. It's also helpful for me to not think "I'll never be able to eat that again," like removing something from the go to menu is a form of punishment. We get to make choices about everything we eat. I want to be able to celebrate my choices.

While I'm not considering giving up on dairy and sugar entirely, the book did make me rethink what I am eating and why. I guess you could say everything's up for review.

Soul Mate

From the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, this is the most eloquent and real description of the term "soul mate" I think I've ever read. It made me cry because I know the truth of that which is written:

"He probably was (your soul mate.) Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you and then they leave. Thank God for it. Your problem is you just can't let this one go. It's over. (His) purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of that (relationship) that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart so that you HAD to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it's over. Problem is, you can't accept that this relationship had a real short shelf life. You're like a dog at the dump, baby - you're just lickin' at an empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you're not careful, that can's gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it."

The passage goes on from there about what can happen if we do drop it...it's beautiful!

I'm only about half way through the book and I'm loving it. I got it at the library and think I need to own my own copy. Have you ever heard the saying that books find us when we're supposed to read them? It was my turn to pick the book for my book club and this book was my pick without knowing too much about it other than the synopsis. It was SO the book for me right now. It's amazing. Yay for books and my book club, because otherwise I probably never would have read this wonderful book!