Baby Steps

I had a little laugh the other day with my host mother and sister about my "first word".  The day I arrived in their kitchen, I saw a bunch of dill on the counter and said "Yum...dill!  I love dill!".  My host mom smiled and said "ukrop".  And so it was.  Like a small child just learning to speak, I had my first word.  And quite appropriately for this food-loving yogini that it was the declicious and cooling herb I love and that happens to be in a LOT of Moldovan dishes.

There are many moments like this that derive a laugh about how funny I sound, a grown woman speaking like a small child.  And just as such, there are (and will be) as many moments (and much more intense surely) where it is not quite so "cute" and I am frustrated and feel quite "stupid".  It sounds trite, but the Peace Corps experience is all about turning the tables... understanding what it's like to be an outsider and learning how to integrate into an entirely foriegn community all in the name of peace and friendship...and here I go.  But you really cannot imagine or understand this process until your are IN it.  I could read the handbook one hundred times and still not comprehend what it's actually like to go through it.  But I am now.  It's here.  The "vacation period" is over.

Today has been my first "one of those" days.  It's not exactly a "bad" day at all.  Nothing has happened to make me upset per se.  It's more as though I am hitting a sort of energetic wall.  Up until now, I was likely operating off of a lot of adrenaline.  In yoga, we refer to lifeforce energy as prana.  (This is the energy that makes a person living vs. dead, a fresh fruit vs. rotten ect.  We get prana from breathing, running water, fresh foods and sunlight).  And  so I was using a lot of prana to get through my days of meeting new people, settling into a new home, navigating through a new town, and beginning to learn a new language.  And that has hit me today.  Big time. 

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A few summers ago I worked as a produce buyer in a small resort town in coastal Maine.  Two of my coworkers/roommates were girls from Kyrgyzstan who spoke Russian and were in the U.S. make some money and improve their English skills.  I can recall days when they would really drag.  They would tell me they were so tired and would sometimes just hole up in their rooms only coming out to use the bathroom or get some food.  I could see the exhaustion in their eyes, and now my compassion for them is even stronger.  It's not until now that I completely understand why they were so tired.  Trying to think and communicate in a second language is plain exhausting.  Just the act of  "hanging around" when you don't speak the language requires ample amounts of prana.  This is hitting me.  Just as at the ashram we were often warned not to fall into a pattern of tamas (inertia or laziness), Peace Corps warns us not to get used to just going to our rooms and hiding out.  This is not a way to integrate.  Of course we have to take care of the self/Self and get ample rest and give the mind a break, but one simply cannot get used to just turning off as it is so tempting to do.  There is too much life to share.   

The old Peace Corps saying, "The hardest job you'll ever love"?  Yes...I can see why.  It requires so much patience, humility and prana.  My plan for now is to try to amp up my yoga asanas (physical exercise) and pranayama (breathing exercises to obtain more prana through breath, or in other words, taking in more oxygen to each and every cell).  This was my training on how to live fully and now I am really being put to the test.  I will fail often but can only grow stronger. 

Now?  Well, I want to go to sleep.  But instead I will go to a futball game in town with my host sister, Diana, and some of the other trainees here in Cricova.  The time with them will provide prana for my heart.

Hari Om Tat Sat. (for those of you new here, this is Sankskrit and essentially means "All that is Truth" and though I don't say that my truth is That truth, it is my truth...hope that makes sense!) 

***The pictures above are my big rain boots in the garden and Diana picking strawberries.  I think we have about one or two harvests left of these and the cherries.

The V Word

Is it just me or is everyone going vegan these days? I am hearing the term tossed around like crazy. Of course it could be one of those things that once your mind is on it seems to appear everywhere- like a car you like and you suddenly start seeing them everywhere on the road. But it has got me thinking. I spent a lot of my time over the holidays pondering my own diet as well as the human diet as a whole. (In reality, I would say a good 75% of my thoughts go there anyway.) But at this time of year when there seems to be extra time for walks and an inner desire for reflection, on the year past and on the one to come, food and diet were extra predominant for me as I am sure for many of you too.

I see many things in my life as synchronicities so that my sister had just happened to rent "Food Matters" on Netflix the week before I visited her in Massachusetts and had not yet watched it, it seemed like I was really ready to recieve the message of the movie. We had seen the previews of this film at IIN back in 2008 and here I am 3 years later (?!) finally watching it. Perfect timing. The main message I recieved, though there were many, was that of including more raw foods in the diet. One of the men in the movie stated that he believed the diet should be at least 51% raw. A lightbulb when on for me. That seemed doable. The going 100% raw seems scary, intimidating and limiting. So here is step one. 51% RAW.

So then we have to think about WHY. Of course we need to know why this makes sense. So here we go:

#1. Enzymes-there are naturally occuring enzymes in raw fruits and vegetables that help us with digestion and nutrient assimilation. When we cook foods past a certain temperature (117-118 degrees fahrenheit), these enzymes are denatured and cannot preform their vital function. So in essence, God/Nature/Mother provides us this awesome food with all the perfect combos of nutrients and enzymes for our bodies, and when we cook it too hot, we destroy it all. Womp, womp.

#2. Nutrients-Just like with the enzymes, the higher the temps we use, the more nutrients that seep out of the food or are denatured. ALSO-when we don't have adequate amounts of enzymes to properly digest foods, we tend to get an accumulation undigested food film along the sides of our intestines. Nice huh? Well this causes an issue for the water/moisture needed to get INTO the intestines to move things along (hello constipation) as well as the blood that needs to get through to carry the nutrients from newly-eaten food out to the cells of the body (and hello to you vitaman/mineral definciencies, inflammation and free-radical damage). 'Nuff said?

#3. Energetics/Prana-Oh the prana! This is a yogic term for 'life-force energy'. It's the stuff that makes us alive vs. dead. Think of it like the electricity running your computer. No battery/electric, no running...dead. Soooo...we want to be alive and energetic?!!? YAYA! So we should eat food that is just that? YAYA! Awesome.

Now back to veganism. Pretty much if you go raw, you may as well be vegan. Ideally I would eat a gluten-free, vegan, >51% raw diet...and someday I am sure I will. I would take all the correct vegan Omega-3, whole food vitamins, trace minerals from the earth, and B12 supplements. But I am finding this hard and expensive at the moment. So there has to be STEPS. I want to take others along this path of discovery and in the finding/creating the steps to living this way in the 'real world'. And so THIS is what I am working on. You hear me 2011?! I want to bring to the world easy steps to get to the highest vibration diet that is still FUN, YUMMY, AFFORDABLE, SUSTAINABLE and (mostly) EASY. In the meantime, I think it's great for everyone to give your body a break from animal products for a week or two at a time. This can be a very nice, slow and easy cleanse. For now I go egg-free vegetarian with limited dairy and 51% raw :)

Thinking about going vegan? Check out these resources:

The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone

Vegan Action

My last word & current thoughts on veganism are these: when profits and animals become intertwined, then there is likely to be exploitation. If your reasons for a vegetarian or vegan diet have anything to do with ethics and karma, this is something to think long and hard about. And even if it's purely for health reasons, it would still be good to think about how our subconscious mind, knowing of the partaking in animal exploitation, effects our health.

All for now. Om tat sat. (FYI-that is Sanskrit and means "All that is the Truth" and while I don't claim what I speak is Universal Truth, it is my Truth).

To a Happy, Healthy and Simble New Year!