Exercise

It's April 30th and I made it to my 100 km rowing goal for the month, despite taking 4 consecutive days off last week (unplanned)... - simple lack of motivation there. LOL hey, it happens. So the past 5 days I've rowed 6 kms a day instead of 5, and here we are, end of the month and I (just!) made it to 100 kms.

I got back into rowing in November 2008 after taking most, well, all (really) of 2008 off because of surgery back in February. In November I started rowing again in earnest (I rowed 10 kms a day, 6 days a week from April 2006 to about December 2007), rowing a modest 5 kms a day on weekdays.

As well as rowing 5 days a week (about 1/2 hr a day), I also practice tai chi - usually two to three times a week for an hour to an hour and a half. I will sometimes do a set before bed; it takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete the 108 moves.

And I swim 1 km once a week while the children are in their lessons. Partly because I want to be a good role model for them (being active speaks louder than saying, "get off the couch and get active!"), and partly because I enjoy being healthy. :) All told, I think I exercise about between 4 and 6 hours a week, on average. This doesn't include strenuous household chores such as yardwork or housework.

What I've noticed is that if I take more than a few days, well even just a few days off of exercising, it's quickly apparent in many subtle ways... my moon cycle, my mood/feelings/emotional and mental health, my energy level, my eating habits.... all (and more) are tied to regular exercise. My body was made to move. It feels good to move it in healthy ways. It just feels really really good.

When I think about my family of origin, neither of my parents were active exercisers (excepting my mother's daily 2 km walk). I remember one time my dad decided to take up running. I used to go with him on my bike, all of about two weeks I think that lasted. I understand if you're a person who just doesn't see yourself as an active person, a person who jogs, or goes to the gym, or plays volleyball or skiis or whatever. There's a myriad of reasons why exercise doesn't have a place in your life right now. It's an understandable place to be; I have certainly spent enough time viewing myself inside that box. But then, one day, (3 years, 1 week and 1 day ago, to be precise), I decided to shed that belief that "I'm not a person who..." and just try new things... like exercising regularly. And lo and behold, now I enjoy it, and it's totally transformed my life.

I'm just gonna say, Try it. You never know, you just might like it.

1 year Raw TODAY!!!!!!!!

WOW! WOW! WOW!!!!!!!! I made it an entire year on a very very high raw diet, most days completely raw. Fantastic!!!! I remember going into this with great trepidation - how would I ever survive on a raw diet?! How would I manage the typically cold, wet pacific northwest winter on cold food?!?! Ohhhhhh how far I've come. And not 3 yrs and 1 week ago I was embarking on a vegan diet, overnight from the SAD foods I'd been eating. Yes, how far I've come in the past 3 years. My health has improved sooooooo much, unbelievably so. It's fantastic.

It's also one year today since my son, who had just turned 8 at the time, decided to become a vegetarian. He has been a committed vegetarian for an entire year now and he says he will continue to abstain from eating meat. (This from a boy who used to LOVE ham).

It's a beautiful sunny day here and I've just GOT to get out and enjoy it. We're going out for a celebratory mocktail later at the juicebar (LOL) or somewhere, anyways... maybe out for a salad or something. :)

Lovin' the raw life,

~n~

Happy Birthday, my boy!!

It's my son's 9th birthday today! Very exciting. 9 years ago today that I officially became "Mama", and what a HUGE transition that was for me!! So much growth in the past 9 years. Pheww - nearly a decade ago!!

We enjoyed a very pleasant sunny day today, all together as a family. Went swimming this afternoon, had a bbq at grammy & grampa's house (i had avocado salad rolls for dinner and a piece of mango pie - raw, for dessert). Played a little baseball with someone's new glove and Marco Polo inside the house (OODLES of fun!!).

We're all tuckered out now and everyone's asleep but me (and probably a couple chicks, if I were to check on them). Tomorrow I'm going to an all-day tai chi workshop which is exciting - lots of opportunity for learning at these workshops. But having said that, I actually need to leave the house in a mere 6 hours, so I'd best try and get some shut-eye.

Namaste
~n~

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!

Today, April 22nd, is Earth Day. Three years ago today, I went vegan overnight from a standard American diet. Amazing to see how far I've come in the past three years. What changes will the next (three) year(s) bring?! I can only imagine!!! ;)

So how will we be celebrating Earth Day this year? Well, I'll be eating a raw vegan diet today (as I do most every day these days) - enjoying the Earth's bounty and abundance in its most natural form. Maybe I'll make a raw cake or pie and decorate it with a picture of the Earth!! The children will be planting seeds in their children's garden. Usually we plant a tree or shrub in honour of Earth Day; this year there are strawberry plants and a Ranuncula waiting to be planted, along with many seeds (peas, lettuce...) Lots of fun. We'll be spending time with our chicks; they're doing very well these days - growing every day! We won't be going car-free today, although we certainly do have car-free days as often as possible. It's just that we live 22 kms out of town, and that's just a little too far to expect a 5 year old to ride on her bike!!

Wishing you the happiest Earth Day you've celebrated yet...
~n~

Raw Potluck

So I went to my first-ever Raw Vegan Potluck in town last night. WOW! I can't get over how fantastic it was! The food, for starters, was wonderful. You have no idea how amazing it is to have no less than 50 or 60 dishes on a buffet line in front of you, ALL of them raw vegan, made with love and intention. SOOOOO amazing!!! And the flavours!! They were all so amazingly delicious. (I went back for seconds. )

Not only did I enjoy the food, the company was inspiring. I met people of all ages, enjoying their raw food lifestyles. Willing to share and communicate openly with me, a complete stranger to them. I found other families eating raw, and just generally connected with so many people who are all on the same place of the diet spectrum path... that was really amazing. I hadn't realized how lonely you can be if you're the only raw vegan in your circle.... as I am. I found out there's another couple in our town who are raw vegans, but haven't met them yet. It was just so wonderful to spend several hours kickin' it back with other raw foodies. :)

And then, (as if this wasn't enough!) David Rainoshek from www.juicefeasting.com presented a talk for 2 hours based on his recent work. What an AMAZING human being he is!!! I had never heard David speak before; I was captivated by his presentation. Seriously. It made me think at a cognitive level which I don't often challenge myself to go to... I liken it to the level of thinking required at graduate school, or while reading research papers... that level of higher-brain thinking. I *LOVE* getting into that space. I often feel I have nothing to add to a conversation at that level (there's that negative inner self-talk, eh), but I *love* those conversations of a higher level... more than just "how's your day" and "what are you making for dinner"... Anyways, the conversation was so stimulating, but afterwards, I was so EXHAUSTED from the mental stimulation!!! LMAO I'm so not used to using my brain like that anymore. LOL It's out of shape. btw, the conversation covered such topics as absolutism and relativism, integral life practises and the spectrum of diets and nutrition... how we look at the world and how we can make sense of the many diets out there and all the nutritional research in a clear, very clear way. Anyways, I won't say anymore than that, but it was SUCH an inspiring evening. And in the company of fellow raw foodies, too! I was beaming with joy!!!

Well, have a fantastic evening. I've rowed today, the kids & I went for a bike ride, I have something like a dozen books on hold at the library. I planted the cedar hedging we picked up a couple weeks ago and picked up pinecones with dd. Tomorrow is tai chi class and aikido for ds, and organic CSA pick-up at the farm. Wahoo!!

Journey into Permaculture

Thursday night I was at a 2 hr lecture, an introduction to Permaculture. Permaculture is a term coined by Bill Mollison; it's a design system, which takes into account patterns, functionality and ethics in its design. It could be large-scale or small-scale. It could be a way of designing your garden layout, it could be a way of building a house onto a property in a way that fits how you will use the house and property in an integrated way, connecting you to the larger community as well... it could be about designing subdivisions and villages and even larger-scale projects. It's about the interconnectedness between us as humans and nature/the environment we are surrounded by.

What I love about permaculture is that it is not based on a scarcity model; rather, it's about abundance. It's about the exchange of services and relationships and connections. I really like that the focus is not on the things themselves, it's about the connections, the patterns, between things. It's about making connections to maximize efficiency, and all of this, the whole principle its based on, is ethics. Permaculture places care of the Earth, care of people, and return of surplus to meet these two ends above, for example, unlimited or exponential growth. In my view, permaculture is about positivism and cooperation between all.

A book I really enjoyed which gets into this whole design idea is A Pattern Language. I can't remember the authors, but it's really a great book.

I hadn't considered that the ocean is like the sink of the world. All our pollutants and toxins end up in the ocean ultimately. We could be thinking of the entire planet as one big closed loop, rather than an open loop which is our common social view. (Does all of this make sense?) I hadn't considered that the Scotch Broom in our yard, or the salmon berry bushes which threaten to overtake areas I want "open", are actually filling a niche in the environment. There not problems; they're solutions. The Earth is trying to heal the land, the soil, by placing pioneer species into the damaged area (and scotch broom is a legumous pioneer)...

Another concept within permaculture is that the longest path for any resource through the system before leaving is the most productive. So, for example, we want to maximize our water (or energy, as another example) as it travels throughout the system before it leaves the system. Interesting. Very very interesting. One priority list in designing could be: water first, access next, and then structures last. (Rather than looking at a possible site, planning the structures, then access to things like water as an afterthought, for example). Shouldn't we consider harmonizing our lives, our structures with the land, with the patterns of the landscape around us?

Here's one way of looking at things:
Interactive diversity leads to stability. Stability leads to fertility. Fertility leads to sustainable productivity. Productivity leads to a designed sustainable economy.

So I guess I'd ask, how do we live our lives within space, within time, within place? Permaculture offers us a very positive, possible solution. :)

Fantastic Friday Night!!!

Last night I went into town to Victoria & Valya Boutenko's Green Smoothie Revolution tour lecture/talk. All I can say is WOW. Over 100 people attended the event. Both mother and daughter are wonderful speakers, sharing their story of transformation onto a raw food diet 16 years ago... Valya has such a wonderful gift of being fully present and her energy is just radiant. Victoria shares what she has learned about greens and raw foods in a way that is non-threatening to those on a SAD diet... it's just one woman sharing with others, like we're good friends. Easy to relate to.

I hadn't (up to this point) thought much about just how much the Industrial Revolution really revolutionized (lol) the way we were eating. Suddenly with the advent of refined foods like white flour and sugar, as well as the invention of canning, our diets changed rapidly over a very short amount of time (evolutionarily speaking). Here we are, less than 10 generations removed from the Industrial Revolution 180 yrs ago, yet it feels like forever-ago, and we're having (as a society) so many health problems that have "no known cause and no known cure."

I want you to try something: how many children in your elementary school class (pick a grade, any grade) wore glasses? Ask someone 20 or 30 or 40 yrs older than you the same question. Now look at a classroom today. It's a very poignant observation Victoria makes that eyesight seems to be quickly degenerating between generations. What's going to happen to our grandchildren or greatgrandchildren?!

I learned things last night about nutrition - I'm not one for memorizing facts... - I wasn't aware that Vitamin K is exclusive to dark leafy greens. Apparently it helps prevent heart disease, creates cartilage and blood cells. Here's another interesting experiment: look at a picture of people from 50 or 100 years ago and then look at a group of people from today. Who has bigger ears? If, as a society, we are becoming increasingly deficient in vitamin K, then it stands to follow that our bodies are making less cartilage and our ears, nose, chins, even knees and spine have less cartilage in them than even 50 yrs ago (thus, smaller ears, for example). Could this be why we need knee and hip replacements as we age now? Could this be related to the increase in spinal surgeries?

Here's another question to ponder: with what do you hear your thoughts? it's not your ears, is it. so what exactly are you hearing your thoughts with? do you have an inner ear somewhere? do you routinely take the time to ponder things like this with those around you? it's a wonderful thing to take the time to just BE with a child like this. They have such creative insights!

Valya talked about the food imprint and things we are habituated to - things like eating late at night, overeating, finishing everything on our plates, emotional eating... And how challenging it can be to overcome the food imprint (which is imprinted between 9 & 18 months of age!) and change our eating habits. (I can attest to this, lol).

Just as an aside, I'm going to compile a list of dark leafy greens I commonly have access to:

• dandelion leaves
• parsley
• kale
• chard
• spinach
• arugula
• miner's lettuce
• nettles
• sorrel
• clover
• chickweed
• purslane
• lambs' quarter
• bok choy

Any others you can think of? Victoria said she rotates about 100 different types of greens in her diet. I can't even NAME that many. good grief!! there is SOOOOO much abundance and opportunity in nature isn't there.

Re-reading this, it seems a little disjointed, like it doesn't flow well together. please excuse that. :) Hope you have a great day!