who is

this is from mexi.co. very young and so wise. why is it even a tiny bit difficult to let go of the untrue? why does any human have the capacity to believe in things about their own self and others that break the heart of the believer? and why would spending one more hour or second immersed in the heart-pain of those false beliefs be possible? what is it that turns us clear away from the blinding sweet brightness of our own great light to peer into a dark corner? for every inner voice of adventure and openness that i don't listen to, for every call that goes ignored, that is a waste. these aren't just adventures, these are resets of the internal compass, reaffirmations of the truth of who and what i am. what is here when i put down my long-held and battered story of who i am? who is left when i realize that i am no one? there is still presence here, even when every story is silent, and that is who i want to know. every storm of emotion, every mood, passes over an unchanging ground. mustn't that ground be who i truly am? it's so foreign as to be frightening, until it's not. gratitude doesn't have to feel sweet and the road is only marked by yes and i keep going. 

fasting from I

I've had enough of starting sentences with 'I'. 

Whatever comes and goes in my experience cannot truly be me because I am always here, and so if I say

'I am ________'

and I fill in that blank with something, then I am lying.

I'm fasting from this way of expressing myself. It'll be much better than a juice fast. 

A2, not A1, does a body good

courtesy of guernsey dairy

i'm a little slow on the dairy uptake. i happily drank raw milk when i lived in boulder, straus when i lived in california, and radiance dairy when i lived in iowa. since i've been here on hawaii my experience with food as medicine has deepened (see my other defunct blog) and i heard my body say loud and clear, 'no more cow'. so i've been making almond milk, throwing it in the blender with coldpress, and calling it a day. but i miss it. i miss it from happy, grass fed, foggy-hill-roaming cows. just a little here and there. i didn't really know why i didn't want to drink it anymore. like most things now, it's an intuition that i've become wise enough to listen to. my mother just finished a class at mum given by Peter Swan and she asked me the other day, "do you know the difference between A1 and A2 milk?"

i did not. 

here's a quick explanation courtesy of the american guernsey association. the page has some great links as well. i certainly had no idea that A1 milk (jersey, holstein) can penetrate the human intestinal lining, thereby poisioning the blood and causing or exacerbating any number of allergic reactions (and don't get me started on cellulite, it's diet related).

my intuition was confirmed when i read the research. holy moly, we are all sick on milk (and wheat and sugar and gmos, oh my, good thing it is completely within our power to choose). A1 milk comes from every cow in the western world that is not a guernsey. why are guernseys, goats, sheep, and all the cows in asia and india producing A2 milk but only the hard to find guernsey here in the us? who knows why when it comes to industrialization of food production. so anyway, on the recommendation of scientists and agriculture specialists who are on the edge of these things, stop right now with that A1 milk and watch your body's little or big ailments start to clear. right now there are very few pure guernsey milk producing farms in the us but there is a movement to bring them back as a heratige. 

please click here to see the american guernsey association's links to small farms and support them if you can. 

in honor of the animals that provide such great sustenance to use, please consider supporting your local small farm and organic agriculture community. medicine food is such a great luxury and it's our birthright.

my Vedic birthday

                   7:28 this morning

The most important desire in my life is to be completely present in every moment, not resisting whatever may be. It's more important to me than any career or adventure or person or thing or idea. It's the foundation for everything, otherwise I've built my palace on the sand. 

breathe

Let the breath guide the body's position. In every mundane action I remember to breath deeply, without strain. Everything relaxing down on my inhale, released up on my exhale. I will never pretend to have a yes while secretly having a no again. I will be honest. Not perfect, honest. Not all tied up neatly in a bow, just honest. Not waiting for a future release, just here and honest. 

two years later

                       a wee lychee

Well that last post wasn't my last post after all. And that link in my last post to my new blog, which was going to be called 'grounded in LA' but never got off the ground, is defunct. Not quite two years since my last post but close and here I am again. 

Hi. 

I'm happy to be writing something here. It feels appropriate. In these two years that I haven't posted here I've left behind the entire life I once had and knew. I was already divorced then, but still had half a house full of objects, not just from my marriage but from my childhood, from my family and friends. I had boxes and boxes of art, crafting supplies, an entire jewelry studio, my archive of fabrics and fibers, a kitchen that rivaled Williams-Sonoma in scope of content, years of collecting clothing like it was art, and more more more. I was full of things, all set to start a new adventure without having to start, yet again, from scratch. And what did I do? I sold it all. I took two suitcases and my car with me to a tropical island in the pacific and died. The broken heart that I gave myself by leaving everything I knew and loved, my comforts and my beloveds, not just the things of my life, the plans and ideas, but the animate objects I loved most in the world, is indescribable. It was not my idea to do it. It was not my idea to move so far away into a complete unknown. It was not done under the self-motivating locomotion of my own will. But it was done and I've explored every inch of it over the last twenty-one months. Every inch of bereavement, every inch of tension, every inch of self-loathing, every inch of the greatest grief I've ever known or hope to know, every inch of resistance, every inch of regret, and every single inch of confusion. It was hell. I still can't really answer why I did it. To save my own life? Because I couldn't bear to keep living with such a great attachment to the material world and I knew I had nothing inside, so much anger and not enough love? Did I see that this was one of those chances that I may not have later, to rip out everything I held dear so that I could see who I was behind all the holding on? Because I was so vulnerable and I was swayed by outside power of suggestion? All of the above probably. 

               some of my designs

I'm still here on this little island for a short while longer. I'm writing a little book. I'm eating custard apples and lychees and pineapples. I live only one moment at a time, spontaneous in the space of my body. I meditate and do yoga and even though I've done this most of my life, it only now brings me great joy. The sadness that's here has loving space to just be and I'm no longer broken. This isn't my space to document what's already happened in these last couple years. I'm just here to pick up the threads of each day, to see what they weave. 

                 it's magnolia season