The Art of Rebirth

Break Your Life Into Pieces: Uncover Happiness & Banish Fear

2012-01-11T15:19:00.003-05:00

"Your life has to crumble to pieces. It has to fall apart. Everything you are familiar with has to shatter... In order to make room for your new life. You can't have a new, inspiring life where you get what you want, accomplish your goals and have fantastic relationships... unless everything you currently have falls to pieces first." ~ Raederle

Them: Tell me it does not always have to be like that.

Me: It doesn't necessarily have to shatter all at once. Aspects of your life can break one at a time, and new wonderful things can enter you life one at a time. However, the more free and open your life is, the more open you are for possibility.

Everything falling apart is quite beautiful, if you have the right perspective. As long as you remember that you're making room for new and beautiful things, it actually is quite soothing to feel the familiar falling away.

It's been something I've been learning about these past few years -- which has been full of upheaval for me.

But each upheaval in my life has been a great door to improvements.
And I've recently read some great books that talk about the subject.

Them: Hmm. Upheavals. Like what? You seem to be living the great life fantastic. It is a sharp contrast to your old self.

Me: Well, there was moving to Cali where I took a plane and only took the possessions I could fit in a suitcase.

There was moving back here, which was full of diasaters, errors and difficulty.

There was the radical changes to my diet, and experimenting with fasting. The emotional stress of cravings, and the social stigmas of being set apart.

There has been a separating of me and old habits, old friends, and so forth.

Breaking traditions, including holiday traditions done in my family for several generations.

Throwing away or giving away all my polyester clothing, which included almost every dress I own.

Them: Okay, so lifestyle and culture. When I think of things 'falling apart' I think about personal tragedies.

Me: Well, there was the biggest upheaval in my life, which led to the greatest gift in my life...

When my ex and I broke up. That made room for the most wonderful husband I could ever imagine.

That break-up involved theft, breaking-and-entering, physical and verbal abuse... It was awful, and my entire life seemed ruined.

While that break-up was one of the worst things that ever happened to me, finding my husband was definitely the best thing that ever happened to me.

Them: That's a great point. Yet it does not always work that way. For most of us, bad times just follow bad times. They don't create new opportunities.

Me: Sometimes tragedy breaks people emotionally because they never forgive themselves or what they feel victim to.

In order to find success, people must find their inner truth, forgive themselves and everyone else, love themselves, and find beauty in the world. When these steps are complete, everything is easy. I'm still on a journey to loving, seeing beauty and forgiveness, but the closer I come, the better life gets.

It's explained brilliantly in The 'Mastery of Love' and also in 'The Art of Happiness', which are based on Toltec and Buddhism respectively.

Also, 'The Continuum Concept' can help anyone understand their own issues a lot better, and move forward.

The documentary 'The Secret' helps explain how to get what you want in life, which I recommend watching after reading the three books I just named.

Between those four sources, there is a life full of happiness and success to be discovered. And none of those are about food -- and food can change everything all by itself.

Speaking of food, I'm inventing a new kind of raspberry-cacao-carrot pie... Sounds crazy but the crust tastes amazing. I'm going to go make the filling now.

*hugs & happy new year*

Them: That sounds intereting. Happy new year to you too. Stay happy.

Me: Thanks!

You are very powerful when you are seemingly broken. Your entire world is full of possibility.

When you can no longer eat the same way, you must find something new to eat. That is what happened to me. I didn't discover raw vegan food one day and say "lets try this." I actually struggled through years of a limited diet because everything I was used to made me feel sick. That awful discovery that I could no longer eat the way I had always eaten opened me up to the powerful world of possibility.

When you have to leave an abusive relationship, and you have to struggle through it alone, and afraid... You become open to moving forward. You become available for healthy connections with other humans. It has happened to me.

When a friend "betrays" you, and that person leaves your life... You are sad, and lost, and wondering what to do with your Saturday nights when you used to go out and dance, or play games, drink together or bake cookies together... Then you become open to finding a new friend, one who is more honest, more in tune with your nature, one who can become a better influence on your life. I've been there, and I'm sure you have too.

When things are going wrong you are riding on the wheel of fortune and you are in control of where that wheel stops. Your head is whirling, and you feel pain, anger, betrayal, jealousy and hopelessness... All of these feelings are aspects of fear.

There is a cure to fear:

Truth
You must know thy self. Knowledge comes from books. Wisdom comes from self knowledge; wisdom is knowing the truth about yourself.

Forgiveness
Holding a grudge is like intentionally keeping the infection red hot within a wound. When you forgive, you clean the wounds and begin to heal. When you make yourself a victim, you create the trauma you experience. Forgiveness begins to heal that trauma. When you blame yourself, you hate yourself. You can not respect yourself if you hate yourself. When you don't respect yourself, nobody respects you. You must forgive yourself.

Love
When you love yourself, you love others. When you love your body, you take good care of your body. When you love yourself, you respect yourself, and others respect you. When you love your life, great people want to be a part of your life. When you understand that the love in your heart if infinite, you do not starve for love just because one individual will not give you their love. You are wealthy with love in your heart when you love yourself. You are free to be yourself when you love yourself.

When you know the truth, and you've forgiven everyone and yourself, and you love yourself and the world... Then there is no fear. There is nothing to fear. You have truth and love in your heart, and thereby nothing is a threat to you.

Christmas Gift Bags

2011-12-12T20:26:00.002-05:00

In gifts I gave this year, given in original bags, I placed the following note:

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas

Awesome New Year and Other Joyous Occasions

Greetings celebrant,

This quick note is about the bag your gift in is. I made gift bags this year for many reasons, which I'd like to tell you about, starting with how Christmas was for me growing up.

Yearly on Christmas day my family dug the car out of the snow at five o'clock in the morning. We made the two-hour drive out of the city to my Aunt's beautiful cottage.

My Aunt has a flair for decoration. Her house was immaculate, spotless and free of modern technology. It felt magical, out-of-time, and warm. Her living room sported an old-fashioned roaring fire place, a Christmas tree covered with hand-made bows, angels, ceramic balls, and other baubles.

My Aunt's table was set to perfection, with each piece of silverware “just so” and cloth napkins in decorative ceramic rings. Breakfast was served at exactly eleven o'clock, followed by coffee, tea, stockings, board games, lunch, presents, and then dinner. The tradition of it was wonderful.

The part I cherish most was the presentation of the presents. Each gift was a work of art. Perfect wrapping, shining cloth ribbons, hand-crafted bows, and so on. The tree would be absolutely buried in gifts, labored over through the season.

As a child, I recognized the beauty, the effort, the careful labor, the festive spirit, and the love that went into it all. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday.

Carefully wrapped, unique gifts is a tradition in my family.

Yet now, I'm faced with conflicting feelings. I no longer want to purchase “cute” gifts and wrapping papers from corporations that make irresponsible decisions. I don't want trees to be cut down to support wrapping gifts. At the same time, I remember the magic of the Christmas I grew up with, and that beautiful gifts were a large part of that.

And hence, I've decided I want to sew gift bags. Curtains, sheets, shirts – anything no longer in use can be sewn into a reusable festive bag. Also, if other people decided this was a cool idea and made bags of their own and sold them, it could create jobs here in America.

And thus, I found a happy place between my family traditions and my values.

These bags may be washed and dried on the gentle cycle. I have washed them after sewing them. However, a few of them came apart, so those ones needed mending. In other words, most of the bags I've made are for wrapping more than using.

I encourage you to pass this bag on to someone else next year with a gift inside.

If it strikes you as appropriate, you can even pass this little letter on so that the recipient knows the history behind the bag.

Much love and merry holidays.

~ Raederle Phoenix, Holiday Season of 2011

One Piece of a Giant Puzzle

2011-07-31T02:26:00.005-04:00

There are a lot more factors at work than any one evil.

We can not point all our fingers at "capitalism" and make it go away, and expect everything to be fine and dandy. No more than we can blow up the credit card companies (like in the movie/book Fight Club), or like we can just burn all the places that chop down forests (like in the documentary If A Tree Falls -- one part of the true story of the Earth Liberation Movement).

Actions of violence, and destruction and "anti-_____" movements are overall, unsuccessful. Yes, sometimes they work. But it is when people fight for something that we see true progress.

There are motives behind motives behind motives when it comes to why catastrophes happen. Nobody wakes up one day and says "let's destroy an entire culture for the fun of it." They wake up one day with some brilliant plan to gain something in order to make up for what they feel they are lacking.

Today, people are all constantly suffering from feeling that they lack something in their life, and that feeling that there "isn't enough" is a big hurdle in accomplishing anything.

Regardless of what we feel we lack, and regardless of whether that lack is real, the feeling is highly detrimental. It promotes greed and desperation. It promotes illogical actions.

As soon as we go around saying, "X" is the source of all problems, they have caused a lack in this world... Then we are fear-mongering people to our cause, and at a high cost. Creating more paranoid individuals does not create a harmonious peaceful universe.

The feeling of lack is what causes people to do drugs, to rob others, to submit to jobs they hate, to waste their lives in relationships (either romantic, or as business partners, etc) that are toxic to them, and it is why we will eat toxic fast food but then buy an expensive large TV-screen.

If we can repair the hearts, bodies and minds of our fellow human beings, we can repair the world. All things negativity will fall away when we are loving and at peace in our own hearts.

A friend of mine at the potluck picnic today was saying, "I was really surprised by how much my attitude changed when I first entered a macrobiotic diet. I didn't experience many physical changes, but my attitude went from incredibly pessimistic to very optimistic in a short period of time. There was no other change in my life, just my diet. It was disconcerting. I didn't even recognize myself with my new outlook."

This is one piece of the puzzle. Our moods, motivations and outlook our affected dramatically by our pH. How many wars have started because one person had an acidic pH level in their bloodstream?

It's similar to the amount of suicide caused by vitamin-B deficiency. Instead of taking psychotropic drugs, just take a vitamin-B multi-vitamin complex. Watch your anxiety and depression just melt away. This is also effective treatment for schizophrenics in most cases.

If we fight for health, happiness, unity, clarity, sustainability, truth, accuracy, compassion, equality, and love... Then all the things we've been fighting against will fall away without resistance.

Can We All Live In A Space The Size Of Texas?

2011-07-22T15:45:00.028-04:00

Back into October of 2010, I posted an entry about why the world isn't overpopulated. A of people challenged me and the video I posted with excellent questions. I've been fascinated by the concept that was brought up in the video -- that we could all live in a space the size of Texas and have a home and have land. Could it be done?

I've seen some people say that if we all did that, Texas would look like New York City. Is that true? I've decided to do all the math myself and get real answers. Follow this entry, and see if you follow my math and my logic.

Texas area = 267339 X (5280)^2 = 7,452,732,672,000 sqare feet
Population of world = 6,800,000,000.

Divide area with population:
7,452,732,672,000 divided by 6,800,000,000
Equals:
1095.9900988235294117647058823529 square feet per person.

Or, to be easy, let's call it 1100 square feet per person, since world population is approximate and texas area is approximate anyway.

For reference, I live in a house with five people. My husband and I have the attic and half of the second floor. My brother and my parents share the first floor and half of the second floor. There is also a basement and a yard. The house is pretty standard size for the city of Buffalo, and so is the yard. Most people in Buffalo have one floor of the house complete with two or three bedrooms, a living area, a dining area, a kitchen and a bathroom. The upstairs people usually get the attic to themselves and the downstairs people often are allowed to decide what they want to do with the front lawn/garden. The average occupied home in Buffalo will contain two people on a floor. Either two room mates, or a couple. Sometimes someone will live alone, sometimes a family of three or four or even five will live together on one floor of a house. So generally, four people live in a house the size of ours, with a yard the size of ours.

Our home is approximately 25 wide by 55 feet long, and the yard is approximately 50 feet long by 35 wide. The entire property, including the driveway, consists roughly of 35 feet by 105 feet long. That is 3675 feet for five people in our case, but let's say it's four people in most cases. That is 918 feet per person. That means that most people currently, in the city of Buffalo, have less than 1100 feet per person, as it is now.

Our house is a pretty standard Buffalo house in terms of size, but just to double check I used google maps on a very average looking house to measure that the property was roughly 120 feet by 30 feet, making 3600 square footage. That is 900 per person when divided by four.

So if you took this current model for property space, it looks something like this (with each pixel being a square foot):

Each block is a square 105 feet by 35 feet. Let's look at with the homes on it:

I will get into public pathways later on.

This is just talking about the size of our standard homes. What if each house had four stories and could easily accommodate eight people, but still the house was only 25 feet wide by 55 feet long? That could add land space for growing food and enjoying life. With four-story houses accommodating eight people, we'd be taking two properties side by side and removing one house for more land. That would mean 105 feet long by 70 feet long is the new size (7350 square feet), minus the four-story-house space (1925) equals 5425 square feet of land.

It would look like this instead:

This land could have a well for fresh water, a pond with fish, enough herbs and plants to feet a family by themselves, and chickens for eggs (and for fertilizer -- shit is soil, after all). You wouldn't even have to go 100% raw vegan for this to work.

Now where is my proof that people could really live off of that much land?

Just check out http://gardenpool.org -- They turned an old unused pool into enough food for their family of four. The size of their garden pool is 480 square feet, and it produces enough for four people! That means that my design of having a four-story house for eight people on a piece of land with 7350 square feet total with 5425 square feet of land is overkill!

You might ask, what about trash build-up? What about sewage? What about public buildings such as libraries, restaurants, stores, roads, etc?

Well, here are my ideas on the subject.

What if each of those houses was five stories. The top four stories contain people, two people per floor on average. The bottom floor (with a space area of 105 feet by 35 feet, which could also be a different shape for the same total square feet, such as 70 feet by 52.5 feet) could be those other buildings, and people could live where they worked. Eight people could run a restaurant that existed on their first floor. Another home could have a fire-squad on their first floor, and another could have a clothing store, or a clothing factory.

There is no need for a giant mall, in reality. That's just a "convenience" that puts a lot of money in the corporations' pockets and a lot of junk into our over-sized homes.

In terms cars and roads... Well, in this model, we don't need them anymore. We'd each be living off the land that was directly beside us. We wouldn't need to commute to work because our workplace would be in the same building we lived in, or, perhaps we work two buildings over, big whoop. As for stores, we don't need other stores as much as we need grocery stores, so it's no big deal if we need to walk or bike a bit further to buy new shoes.

We could easily add trains to this model by taking a very small amount of land from each property. Let's say that a train track requires 10 feet in width. That means we could take five feet off the edge of a few rows of property and add a train track for long-distance traveling. That brings the property size down from 105 by 70 to 100 by 70, big whoop.

It could look like this:

Let's think about all the different locations we need to travel to in modern life (I'm going to include them all, even though most people never need all of these at one point in their life):

Hospital

Grocery Store

Drug Store

School

University

Workplace

Clothing Store

Shoe Store

Health Food Store

Dentist

Technology Store

Home Improvement Store

Police Department

Fire Department

Government Facility

Department of Motor Vehicles

Water-Treatment Facility

Electrical Facility

Natural Gas Service

Gas Station

Laundromat

Dry Cleaners

Bank

Library

Church

Restaurant

Swimming Pools

Gym

Martial Arts Studio / Dance Studio / Yoga Studio

Factories

Airport

I've listed both school and university because you may be going to college while your child goes to grammar school, so at that point in your life, your family would need both.

Now while some facilities are exceptions to the rule, most of these facilities can fit into a space of 55 feet by 35 feet (or an equivalent space measuring 1925 square feet). That's no problem for martial arts, dance, yoga, gym, swimming pool, library, bank, technology stores, restaurants, shoe stores, clothing stores and a dental facility.

Some of the things on my list would no longer be required. If we no longer drove cars, then we wouldn't need a gas station or a department of motor vehicles. Grocery stores, drug stores and health food stores would no longer be needed if we were eating healthy home-grown food off the land, and getting plenty of exercise by tending our permaculture and walking about the surrounding area.

Many massive corporate factories could be replaced by smaller operations that could fit into a 1925 square foot space, although I'm sure not all operations could be made small enough to do that.

Some people may think it's not okay to have a place of worship exist on the bottom floor of a five story house which eight people live in, but I think many religions would be okay with this, especially if it were only clergy/monks that lived there.

But I admit that some of the facilities I mentioned may not be able to fit into a space that small no matter what we do. So let's separate my list into three categories: The things we would no longer need, the things we could fit into the bottom floor of a five story home, and the things that we may still need but may not fit.

May Be Needed, Will Fit / May Fit	May Be Needed, May Not Fit	Won't Be Needed, Or May Not Be Needed
Hospital	Water-Treatment Facility	Grocery Store
Clothing Store	Electrical Facility	Health Food Store
Workplace	Workplace	Department of Motor Vehicles
School	University	Drug Store
Shoe Store	Natural Gas Service	Dentist
Technology Store		Gas Station
Home Improvement Store
Police Department
Fire Department
Government Facility
Laundromat		Laundromat
Dry Cleaners		Dry Cleaners
Bank
Library
Church
Restaurant
Swimming Pools
Gym
Yoga Studio
Marital Arts/Dance Studio
Factories		Factories

Why do I say a dentist won't be needed? Well, if we ate 70% raw vegan diets with plenty of green leafy vegetables, dentists would no longer be required. Eating a fresh home-grown diet would improve our teeth even more.

It is tooth paste, tooth brushes, flour, sugar, fluoride, heavy metals in our food supply and water, toxic air, and unhealthy bodies that give us bad teeth and send us running to our dentist for bad advice. In this crazy Utopian design, it wouldn't be required. We would still need medical advice however, but that could be included with "hospital."

How do I claim that a home improvement store could fit? Home Depot is huge, after all. Well, how much of what they carry is just a duplicate? Stacks and stacks of the same item are stored there. That isn't necessary. I have a store called Dibble not so far from my home which is about triple the size of my bottom floor of my house and has way more than I ever need for one project. Three or four departments of the store could easily fit into a 1925 square feet space.

For example, one store could include paints, sanding, plaster, grout and floor tiles. Another store could include power tools, attachments for power tools, and some basic supplies such as screws and nails. Another store could have all the plumbing and electrical supplies. In general, these things are not required on a daily basis and it would be no tragedy if you had to ride the train for ten minutes to get there. Often we drive half an hour to get to some giant store just for one silly item anyway.

I think it's fair to say that a police department could fit. It would actually be better if police in small squads existed in a more spread-out design. I believe this would actually make places safer because each community would have it's own personal squad. There could be a larger headquarters somewhere else... (We'll return to that thought in a moment.)

Would it be possible to reach everything we usually require? Absolutely. Check this out:

Click To View Full-Size

This image actually displays more facilities than I even mentioned in my list as being able to fit and being needed. Walking from the pool to the barber would take you no longer than it currently takes you to walk a city block, or maybe two (depending on how you measure a block).

What about public walkways? Alright, let's say they are six feet wide so they can accommodate traffic when needed, for deliveries and emergencies. This removes an additional six feet in length and width of each property, but as I illustrate later, this still isn't an issue. Let's look at the new graphic, which I've also added a post office to:

Click To Enlarge

Returning to the larger building conundrum:

Well, how would there be larger headquarters and larger places for things that wouldn't fit? Well, remember how we shaved off five feet off of some properties for the train track without causing much loss? Well, what if we shaved five feet off of every property in the entire total space?

We're currently working with 7350 square feet per property (not counting the pathways that I added after nearly completing this post) from the dimensions of 105 feet by 70 feet. For some people they have 100 feet by 70 feet because of the railroad tracks. Let's say we made it so that everyone now has 65 feet by 105 or 100 feet. Let's say that it's an equal amount of people who have 105 feet (without a train-track beside them) and people who do have them and have 100 feet. We'll call the average 102.5 feet. So now households have 102.5 feet by 65 feet to live on. (That is 6662.5 square feet per property, per eight people.) This is still enough space to feed everyone as we showed that a garden pool that only takes up 480 square feet will feed four people, meaning you only need 960 outdoor feet to feed eight people. Besides, we haven't even mentioned the possibility of green roofs, giving us an additional 1925 square feet of growing space.

If there are 6,800,000,000 people, and 8 of them per property, that is 850,000,000 properties.

By cutting off a space sized 5 feet by 102.5 feet (512.5 square feet) of each property, we gain 435,625,000,000 square feet for massive buildings, for structures such as airports and water filtering facilities. I looked up some airport sizes, and found an airport sized at 2,500,000 square feet. (2.5 milion square feet.) How many times can we fit 2.5 milion into the amount of square feet we just gained?

2,500,000 goes into 435,625,000,000...

174,250 times.

So we could build roughly 174 thousand facilities the size of an airport, and still have enough room for each person to have enough food to live off of on their own land.

If you're concerned about the quality of life that eating this way could create, let's look at some things that have not yet been covered. Two words for you:

Sprout rooms.

If you enjoy eating sprouts on your sandwiches, salads or by themselves, this concept will blow your mind.

Many raw vegan healing retreats that heal people of cancer and other "incurable" diseases, have sprout rooms. Sprouts are a great agent for healing. They are cost effective and can be grown anywhere at any time of year. They do not require sunlight or soil, making them easy to manage for anyone in any financial situation or living situation.

Sprout rooms are essentially giant plant showers.

A small kitchen sprouter for the average person is a several-tiered device with three or four levels to grow sprouts in. Each level has a small hole to allow water drainage. By putting water in the first tier you water all the levels, and then the water enters a basin at the bottom that you empty after watering the sprouts. The sprouts require water several times a day to keep them fresh and clean. This must be done to prevent any mold from developing.

In a sprout room you have giant tiers the size of dining room tables. The top tier drains into the one beneath it, and the second one will drain into the one beneath that. Just by sprinklers (showers) in the top of the room, you can water the entire room at once. With a timer, they can be watered automatically several times a day, everyday.

This design is used for growing many different things. Wheatgrass, sunflower sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, bean sprouts, etc. Any thing you sprout (which is any plant), can be grown this way. All sprouts taste very different. Radish sprouts are just as potent as radishes! Sunflower sprouts are enjoyably mild. Wheatgrass is a type of grass that health enthusiasts juice and drink the juice thereof for the health benefit. Wheatgrass contains many trace minerals that other plants do not.

Thereby, if each five-story building contained a sprout-room for all eight occupants to eat out of, there would be a wide variety of sprouts available to everyone all year around. This is entirely sustainable with little to no negative environmental affects. The drain water can go right back into the land on the property. In fact, this water carries nutrients that is good for the soil.

For variety's sake, each home could have a "garden pool" in addition to a sprout room in addition to a growing green roof. This would allow each property to grow their own favorite mix of berries, vegetables, sprouts, herbs and even small animals, fish and eggs. Also, there would be enough room for each household to have several food-producing trees. In a tropical climate a home could have a banana tree, a durian tree and a date tree. In a climate like Buffalo, NY, you could have an apple tree, a cherry tree, a peach tree, raspberry and blueberry hedges still in addition to the "garden pool," sprout room and green roof.

This model for existence could save the planet, save your health, and save you time. No more long transits to work or to get food. The need for truck drivers would be eliminated because everything could be transported on trains. Truck drivers could retire and just live off their plot of land if they like. (Some of them could go into managing freight trains, of course.)

A note on trains: A freight train can transport one ton of material 436 miles on one single gallon of gas. This would be incredibly efficient in comparison to our current system.

Compare to large trucks which get seven to eight miles per gallon. This makes trains fifty-four times more efficient than trucks.

As far as sewage... I have some interesting thoughts on that. Firstly, our water doesn't need to go back into the drain and be filtered. Only chemical things need to go down a drain and be taken away and carefully dealt with. If we were all using natural organic soaps to wash with, then our shower water could be drained onto our own land. Also, if we were eating healthy diets, our own refuse would be good fertilizer for our land and could also stay on the property.

Little waste would be generated in trash because most of our trash is actually food waste which could be composted. Since I've become a raw vegan I found that 98% of my waste is actually just food waste. Banana peels, watermelon rinds, peach pits, nut shells, and other food waste can go right back into the earth through composting. There would also be enough room for a compost on each property.

Skeptical? Let's create a graphic for this as well. We're dealing with 102.5 feet by 65 feet per property. That's 6662.5 squared feet. Let's make every five pixels worth one foot for a close up example of a property:

Click To View Full-Size
In the above there are two large composts (one compost per four people), eight fruit trees (one per person), one garden pool, a nice large gazebo, a giant growing green roof, a large path for large deliveries or emergency vehicles, public pathways, berry shrubs and a well for fresh local water. Notice how the garden pool could easily be twice the size with some rearrangement (a smaller gazebo, smaller trees, a smaller path, whatever). Notice how there could be more trees, more compost, or a larger path. This is just one example to show that it is possible.

My only trash comes from buying products that come in containers I can't recycle. Luckily, most containers are recyclable. So for example, I buy giant tubs of organic washed spinach regularly. That's a bit of waste I would no longer generate if I were growing all my own spinach. When I buy things like bananas, the only waste generated on my end is the sticker I peel off and put in the trash. There wouldn't be stickers even if we were growing our own.

Speaking of bananas. What if I want bananas and they won't grow on my land? Well, since I have extra peaches, I could sell my peaches and get money to ship in bananas. Or, I could directly trade some peaches for bananas. Insane concept, huh?

We could have a market/bazaar trading space along a trail-rail intersection where people bring their extra produce and wares that don't seem to be locally desired. What they couldn't sell in a day could then be put on the trains and taken elsewhere where it is otherwise not produced.

Instead of all packing into Texas, we could fit all the world's people in six to ten regions. The six to ten regions could amount to the same amount of land as the size of Texas total. With this design, we could preserve the world's natural habitats. We've already got enough stuff. We don't need to chop down more forests to get more stuff. We just need to recycle more often, shop for used-items more often, etc.

While there may be some holes in this thesis, the overall point is clear: It could be done. Everyone in the world could sustainably live in a space the size of Texas. The only reason we're killing the Earth is for gluttony, not for necessity.

We're not over-populated, we're under-educated.

For my ideas on how to consume less and preserve the planet more, read yesterday's entry: Pro Trees.

Thanks for reading.

Namaste

~ Raederle Phoenix

PS: If you have questions, I have created a Question & Answer page on my typepad to post questions and answers related to this post.

Pro-Trees

2011-07-21T23:28:00.007-04:00

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

- Voltaire

There are six billion (or how ever many people) on this planet. It's a freaking huge amount. In this mass of human beings, we feel small. Insignificant.

What can I really change?

Does my vote really matter?

Why bother wasting my time when it won't make a difference?

And besides, when there are so damn many of us, with so many different opinions, who is really going to listen to my opinion?

It's true that one of us, alone, can't do much. Certainly not with any single action, such as voting once a year, or every four years, or how ever often we vote on something. In the big scheme of things, that is pretty trivial.

So, in order to make our voice heard, should we sacrifice our lives and our time to make change happen? Should our every decision be tempered towards trying to shift the world from consumerism to compassion, from a love of money to a love of life?

Well, what if it didn't have to be a sacrifice...?

What if we didn't have to sacrifice our time to go protest twice a week to make change happen?

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." - Gandhi

What happens when these protests occur?

Watching the movie If A Tree Falls has really opened my mind to the repercussions of protests. Innocent people get tortured. That's what happens. No kidding. Young women in peaceful protest were taken in and had pepper spray put directly into their eyes. I mean, seriously folks, this is the world we live in.

Protests don't work.

Mother Teresa said: "I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me."

Watch the movie The Secret for more insight onto the same thought.

The basis for the argument that protests don't work is because we're putting energy into what we don't want. We can't just fight against. We must fight for something. We must be pro-______. Pro-peace. Pro-nature. Pro-happiness. Pro-education. Pro-freedom. Those are good concepts.

For every one thing we state that we are against, we must state that we are for at least ten other things.

For every one anti-action we take, we must take at least ten other pro-actions.

If we say we are against disease, does it do any good to kill everyone with disease? We must cure the cause of the disease, not kill the people with it.

If we are against war, does it do any good to shoot the commanders? Then we are just fighting fire with more fire.

We must prove that there is a way to do without the things we are against. We must set an example. If we are against consumerism, then set an example through finding your own alternatives.

Buy your clothing second hand. Shop at yard sales as often as possible.

Shop at farmer's markets. Less food miles, less nutrient deterioration.

Grow your own garden. No food miles. No nutrient deterioration. No corporate profit at all.

Eat wild plants. Learn about the native wild life. Absolutely zero negative impact.

Wash your hair with plants that grow nearby instead of commercial products.

Use organic products instead of conventional products.

Buy products in recyclable or compostable containers.

Talk about solutions instead of problems. Have a peace rally.

Have a free market. Everyone comes and gives things away for free. No barter, no money involved. Undermine the system without hurting anybody in the process (except the corporations who lose profit because you don't have to buy it new if you can get it second hand).

Smile. Give energy to people around you. Inspire people, don't bring them down. Give people something positive to focus on.

When you're bored, go for a walk. Being bored is a bad excuse for spending money wastefully.

(Here is my super-anti-item of the entry. My bit of negativity and fighting against...)

Quit the cigarettes. You're polluting the air and supporting a meaningless value system at the same time by smoking. It's not just your health, it's everyone's health. You're not just fucking over your lungs, you are fucking everyone. And you're giving me a migraine every time I walk past you. I can't even be friends with people who smoke because I get a horrible headache every time I get near a smoker. Instead of being a hazard, be a joy.

Yoga instead of commercial gyms.

Teach your friends martial arts, dance, yoga, tai chi, etc, and bring them health.

Eat lots of fresh produce. Fresh produce goes from the farm to you. Fresh produce does not get packaged or processed in all the complex ways that boxed foods do. There is less waste, less food miles, and less (or no) negative health impacts to eating fresh produce.

When you buy local organic produce you support better soil, better air, a better healthy life for yourself, better ethics, and an entire better Earth. It's something you can be proud of, and it's not even going out of your way. You need to eat anyway.

I choose not to eat meat for nutritional reasons. It's nutritionally inefficient to eat meat, so I don't do it. But, as I've started hanging around other vegans, I've started hearing many sides to the ethical reasons behind it. I'm not saying hunting down an animal and eating it is wrong. But the raising and slaughtering of animals in the massive, massive way we do so in this country is harmful to the planet. Land that could be full of wild life and forests is kept clear for cattle. That land could be full of trees giving oxygen to the atmosphere and pulling nutrition from deep below into the topsoil. Instead, we have a bunch of penned up animals raised for our gluttony which are (sometimes/often) force fed to reach maturity sooner to bring us beef sooner. It's filthy, absurd, and disgusting. And it's not even nutritionally efficient to boot.

Try watching Food Matters, and Super Size Me, and Fast Food Nation and Dying To Have Known.

I dreamed I was Pharaoh

2011-06-29T10:50:00.000-04:00

In my dream I was a Pharaoh.

I went among my people as a laborer. I was connected to all beings. I was friends with a spider, and with creatures that looked like men but were only a foot tall. There were other creatures as well, but I don't recall their appearances or purposes.

I was standing on something akin to a sidewalk, near a labor site. Close to me was a mound of dirt where many creatures whom were my friends had died. I especially mourning a spider. I pulled her web down and placed it upon the mound of dirt.

Oddly, my mother pulled up in her car alongside the sidewalk and said, "I can see that you are busy now. I will come to pick you up later."

I nodded, barely giving her my attention for a second. As she pulled away I summoned other laborers around me. They did not know I was their Pharaoh as I called them to me.

I spoke to them, and the surrounding men listened. I was in the body of a powerfully built man, and they all had bodies like mine. Deeply tanned from labor in the sun, powerful built from working long days at arduous tasks.

As I spoke to them, my power rose within me, making me a pillar of light. My aura became visible as it stretched out to the men around me. I spoke to them of the creatures that had meant something to me, my connection to them, their connection to them, and the light burned bright white.

A link of light formed between me and every laborer and I said, "My love courses through you, your love courses through me." I felt it inside me that it was true, and then I realized that I was God.

With my power as God, I drew up my wealth of energy, and poured it through the men around me, raising a temple on the mound of dirt before me. This was a miniature temple, built the appropriate size for the creatures who were only a foot tall. I built it for them, in their honor.

I knew treasures were in the mound of dirt. Great treasures that would be tempting. I knew my heavy marble temple would stand as a warning to not disturb this holy earth.

I felt the loss of my companions, the love of my fellow laborers, the power of a king and a God, my own love for each being, my pride at the structure I had risen before me and the symbol it served as memory of this time, this moment.

The temple was white and baby blue. It rose nearly as tall as me. It was a square in it's proportions, as long and wide as it was tall. It was made of pure marble, with baby blue designs on the pillars in the front. Pillars were throughout the temple, inside and out.

I know that in the dream specifics were more clear. I knew what treasures were buried, what creatures I mourned, how those creatures came to harm, why I was posing as a laborer, and the significance of the mound of dirt alongside the walking path. Unfortunately, those details were lost to me upon waking. The only reason I recall as much as I do is because I said most of this aloud to my husband the moment I woke.

I believe the dream was full of symbolism, which I could explore, but I'd like to hear what you think. What do you think my dream meant?

~ Raederle

If only...

2011-06-27T12:23:00.001-04:00

Give me a reason to want to wake up in the morning.
Something fun.
I want excitement, exploration and adventure.
A hike through the woods would be nice.

I'd do yoga, if my mat were clean, if my floor were clean,
...if I really had enough space in this cramped little room.

I'd sing a song, if I liked my voice, if I knew the words to a song,

if it served any real purpose at all.

I'd dance, if I had the space, if I had a collection of music to dance to,

if someone would watch and clap,
...if someone would dance with me.

I'd draw a picture, if I had a place with good lighting,

if I could scan my artwork when I was done,
if all my drawing supplies on hand,

if I felt the least bit inspired inside my heart...

I'd read a book, if I had a quiet comfortable place to read,

if I had a good book I really wanted to read.

I'd be happy to play a game of hacky sack, or spar on the grass,

or tumble and play like little kittens;
If I had a playmate or three who'd play with me,

and some soft fluffy foliage to tumble in...

I'd make an extravagant raw vegan meal,

with nori rolls as the appetizer,

dipped in a sweat and spicy sauce,
I'd make stuffed mushroom caps alongside raw zucchini noodles,

with a thick tomato sauce,
I'd make pizza in my dehydrator at 110 degrees,

and top it with peppers, tomatoes, onion, garlic, chives

and marinated mushrooms,
I'd make a coconut cream pie with a thick crispy crust,

a creamy coconut filling and a light fluffy topping,
and I could serve a delicious sweet and sour ice-cream cake too...

If only anyone could afford such an expensive meal,
if only someone would appreciate my hard work,

if only it would mean something, help someone,

or give me some satisfaction.

I'd play a video game,

if I could find one that'd hold my interest for more than an hour.

I might even watch television if I had one hooked up,

or if anything good was on,

or if I had a comfortable couch to watch it from.

I'd be delighted to paint a picture if I had the canvas, paints,

and brushes set before in a large comfortable well-lit area.

I'd love to photograph beautiful models,

and be photographed with them,

if only I had a high quality camera and sexy model friends.

I might be up for board games,

if only if I had a new game to play and new people to play with,
a nice gaming table in a well-lit space,

and some good gaming snacks that were light and healthy.

I'd clean something, anything really,

if only it would stay clean, if only it would really benefit someone,
if only I could feel like I wasn't completely wasting my time.

I'd go grocery shopping,

if we didn't already have plenty of things in the kitchen.

I'd eat breakfast,

if I had an appetite.

I'd go for a bike ride, if my bike didn't have a flat,

if my husband could bike with me, if I had somewhere to bike to.

I'd garden, happily and joyfully, I really would,

if only I had new plants to plant, if only I had more soil to add,

if only...

I'd play an instrument, if I was any good at music,

if I owned an instrument to play, if anyone would listen...

I'd make a board game, if I had the funds to print my first play-test copy,

if I had play-testers lined up,
if I had a good space to invite my play-testers over.

I'd make a video game, if I had a couple willing programmers,

if I had an animator, if I had a model-maker and texturer,
if I had a nice set-up with enough computers, if I had the time.

I'd make a board game,

a video game and a browser game each to educate people about their choices,
to show others how their spending affects the planet,

to show them how there is enough food for everyone,
to show them how everything they eat causes or solves every problem they have...

if only I had the money,
if only I had the time, if only I had the right friends...

I'd start up a restaurant with incredible cuisine,

with its own green house for the freshest produce possible,
if only I owned a good location,

if only I had a few employees on board for a couple months without pay,
if only I knew enough about taxes,

paperwork and other government garbage.

I'd start up a raw vegan healing commune today,

round up the volunteers to build the community structures,
and begin readying the land for dozens of fruit trees and permiculture,
if only I had the land, if only I knew the volunteers,

if only I had my confidence, if only I could wind-down,
if only my head would screw on straight,

if only I had something fun to get up for this morning.

I'd change the world for the better,

if only I could do some yoga,

if only I could sing and dance,
If only I could go for a hike, draw a picture,

paint a masterpiece,

read a book, play a game of hacky sack,
If only I could make extravagant healthy meals,

make board games,

photograph incredible people,
If only I could clean my space, eat breakfast,

plant more herbs in my garden, go for a bike ride,
If only I could play an instrument,

start a restaurant, start up my commune...
Then I could make the world a better place.

~ Raederle Phoenix

Breast Augmentation, Circumcision, Abuse & Beauty Pagents

2011-05-25T19:56:00.003-04:00

I posted the following to my facebook stream to share, with the following comment:

Imagine if you got breast implants for your 15th birthday from your father who took out a loan from the bank. The bank gives your father the loan because the bank understands that you are more likely to be successful and make money with big boobs. Sound absurd? In Venezuela it's reality.

You can read the full article and donate to the project by clicking here.

I was surprised by the array of comments that were posted, and I think the discussion is worth posting here for others to think about and consider. Many of the comments brought up issues that affect us, in our own country.

I have added some notes in [brackets].

The discussion:

Jim Welke: It's reality in Hollywood.

Donna Bowen: Would love a bit of a nip and tuck, lol.

Matt Goehrig: This reminds of the time when I was 15 and my dad paid for my breast implants. [Being sarcastic.]

Cheli Bremmer: "Tits and Aaaaasss, got myself a fancy pair, tightened up the derriere... did the nose with it, all that goes with it. It's a gaaass".... now THAT dates me.

Raederle Phoenix: I just find it incredibly sad that people are willing to mutilate themselves in the name of beauty. It's incredibly ugly.

Matt Goehrig: I know right? who would ever get a piercing? or a tattoo? or a circumcision? Okay, well.. two out of three of those seem like good ideas... but I agree with you on the breasts thing.

Cheli Bremmer: It comes of being too caught up in things that are by their nature illusory. We exchange Reality for Illusion and then chase the things that are the most fleeting. Something like that.

Donna Bowen: I got a tattoo I was having a midlife I put my kids names on it.

Marie Johnson: I'm sorry but I'm surprised at how lightly everyone is taking this clip that Raederle shared... Even if you are okay with plastic surgery, there is a whole other facet here that everyone is overlooking, and that is the rampant abuse that is going on over there because of the fact that these girls are truly seen as objects.

These young girls are being beaten and killed as if their lives was not worth anything. With the prevalence of plastic surgery here, in California at least, and the fact that younger and younger girls are starting to get it here as well... The question is how long before our own girls are treated as harshly?

Raederle Phoenix: In response to Matt -- I honestly am not for piercings, tattoos or circumcision either. I don't make a fuss about it though -- people can do what they want with their bodies. There is a big difference however in a tiny hole through the ear that has little to no risk and costs very little and a long expensive surgery with multitudes of risks that has no health benefit or necessity.

In response to Marie -- Thank goodness someone has some sense. I cried through that video. It's one of those bits of information that is hard to carry. Obsession with perfect appearance and abuse go hand in hand. I think the project is worth donating to, and if I had the money, I'd at least make a small pledge.

Vviolent Vickie: I wouldnt want my dad thinkin about my tits... and yes i do find this very disturbing.

Matt Goehrig: For the record, I think tattoos are cool, but I dont like peircings. I think that silly, if you'll forgive me for using the word "silly." Its like putting make up on.... What crackpot thought it would be a good idea to paint your face and put holes in your skin? That should be left to clowns and surgeons.... I think some aspects of our culture are just silly. Tattoos, on the other hand, can be pretty cool...

I think the reason why I can like some tattoos but not piercings, is that tattoos are not cosmetic (and if they are, I don't think i'd like it). Things that are purely cosmetic just seem to vain and ridiculous to me. Sometimes I think the line between self-expression and vanity is blurred though, and I can understand the use of piercings and makeup for those reasons, though it more often both are attempts at something else...

Cheli Bremmer: Tattoos and piercings are a personal choice. Breast implants come from a message in our society that we have to have breasts look a certain way in order to be pleasing. Whatever. Overall, it's still a personal choice, but if women would refuse, then our perception of women's bodies would change. Circumcision is cutting the genitals of babies who ARE NOT GIVEN A CHOICE IN THE MATTER.

Matt Goehrig: Babies don't get to choose anything about their lives.. Maybe we should only feed them food they like when they want it, and only send kids to school when they want to, and never take them to the doctor, and have them buy their own clothes... yea, lets just treat babies like they're adults who can make decisions for themselves.

Vviolent Vickie: Maybe what we should be thinking about here is how they are linking the obsession with plastic surgery/the objectification of women with domestic violence. how r these things related?

I found this: "Individual sexist acts may seem harmless, but they ultimately foster disrespect for women and women’s well-being, which makes rape and abuse seem more acceptable. In this way, telling a sexist joke, using sexist language, blaming a victim of sexual assault, or displaying an objectifying poster actually contributes to a culture that allows sexual violence to occur."

And this: Sexual objectification is seeing a person as a sexual object and emphasizing their sexual attributes and physical attractiveness, while de-emphasizing their existence as a living person with emotions and feelings of their own.

Annelie Russell: When I was around 11, my parents sent me to "charm school", because I was too much like a tom boy. It was basically modeling, and we had to participate on the run way. Some people like it, I remember hating it and didn't wear a dress for years! It starts in the home, and one by one they will wake up.

Cheli Bremmer: Matt, I think it's wrong to cut off someone's body parts. They scream their heads off, and it's unnecessary. I think you're taking my point a little far to the extreme. [Agreed Cheli.]

Nikki Scott: Perhaps the populace could demand that beauty pageant officials change their terms of entry. Anyone who has had surgeries to augment appearance (ie: lip injections, breast augmentation, eyebrow lifts, etc.) are disqualified.

Raederle Phoenix:

In response to Matt -- It's true, babies can not choose for themselves, which is why every human should do their best to research and educate themselves about all possible options, pros and cons, etc, before making huge decisions that will affect their child for their entire life before they make such decisions.

In response to Vickie -- Great quotes you found. It is important to draw that connection, indeed.

In response to Annelie -- Everyone is their own person. (I'm agreeing with you, just expanding:) Some men want to stay home and raise kids and take care of the home, and if the woman makes enough money for kids and husband, that's fine, and vise versa. If a woman wants to play sports, that's fine.

It's when we start to say "you shouldn't cry because you're a man" or "you need tits because you're a woman" that we cause people to force themselves to be something they are not in order to "fit in" which makes them miserable people who are not productive/happy/fulfilled members of society.

Cheli Bremmer: We are a group of people who agree on the basics: live and let live -- stop messing with nature and enjoy who we are and what we are, and try to live within reasonable bounds of goodwill and health. Agreed?? By the way, Nikki, I think your idea is brilliant.

Raederle Phoenix:

In response to Cheli -- Indeed. But Matt has trouble accepting anything that is not conventional wisdom. "If circumcision is what they do in hospitals in America, it must be okay" sort of attitude. It's common and unfortunate. I know several men who have not been circumcised. It takes a few extra moments in the shower of cleaning. Before we had showers and knew about hygiene, infections were a problem. Now we know, so it's just pointless mutilation.

The Craft of Writing

2011-05-24T18:06:00.003-04:00

I attend a Writer's Group every other Tuesday evening. We have two scheduled hours, but sometimes we stay longer and chat. The two scheduled hours include half an hour for business at the beginning, followed by three readers who eat get ten to fifteen minutes to read, and then fifteen to twenty minutes of feedback (or we just chat about the piece until we have nothing left to say).

I was at the very first meeting a couple years ago, and until I moved to California I never missed a single meeting. Since I've moved back to Buffalo, New York, I have not missed a meeting. In just a short while I'll be heading off to one of the member's homes for tonight's meeting, which is a very special occasion for us.

Instead of doing the general three readers tonight, we'll be sharing our tips and tricks on writing itself. We'll talk about the craft. I'm really excited to hear the process behind the other writers in the group. We're friends now, the entire group, but while we've heard each other read a lot, and know much about the lives of one another, we have not yet done a meeting to discuss our craft at length.

For the meeting I've prepared a handout of some of my favorite writing advice from various sources as well as a couple things I think may be helpful to writer, even if not directly relating to writing itself.

The handout goes as follows:

A Collection of

Writer's Craft Tips

Assembled by Raederle Phoenix

"Good books don't give up all their secrets at once." — Stephen King

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that." — Stephen King

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs." — Stephen King (On Writing)

"Humor is almost always anger with its make-up on." — Stephen King (Bag of Bones)

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” — Stephen King (On Writing)

“Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.” — Stephen King

Bill Harper: “Try not to edit while you’re creating your first draft. Creating and editing are two separate processes using different sides of the brain, and if you try doing both at once you’ll lose. Make a deal with your internal editor that it will get the chance to rip your piece to shreds; it will just need to wait some time.

“A really nice trick is to switch off your monitor when you’re typing. You can’t edit what you can’t see.”

Pete Bollini: "I sometimes write out 8 to 10 pages from the book of my favorite writer… in longhand. This helps me to get started and swing into the style I wish to write in."

Kukusha: "Learn to take criticism and seek it out at every opportunity. Don’t get upset even if you think the criticism is harsh, don’t be offended even if you think it’s wrong, and always thank those who take the time to offer it."

Lillie Ammann: "After editing the work on screen or in print, I like to read the text aloud. Awkward sentences and errors that slipped through earlier edits show up readily when reading out loud."

Professor Strunk: “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

"David": "Write as if you’re on deadline and have 500 words to make your point. Then do it again. And again."

Mark Twain: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

Joanna Young: “One that works for me every time is to focus on the positive intention behind my writing. What is it that I want to communicate, express, convey? By focusing on that, by getting into the state that I’m trying to express, I find that I stop worrying about the words – just let them tumble out of their own accord.

“It’s a great strategy for beating writer’s block, or overcoming anxiety about a particular piece of writing, whether that’s composing a formal business letter, writing a piece from the heart, or guest blogging somewhere ‘big’…”

Caroline: "I watch my action tense and wordiness in sentences when I am writing my technical diddley.

"For example, in a sentence where you say …”you will have to…” I replace it with “…you must…”, or “Click on the Go button to…” can be replaced with “Click Go to…”.

"Think of words such as “enables”, instead of “allows you to” or “helps you to”.

"If one word will work where three are, replace it! I always find these, where I slip into conversational as I am writing quickly, then go back and purge, purge, purge."

Raederle: Only read your favorite writers when writing your masterpiece. What you read will affect your word choice, grammar, punctuation, point-of-view, character depth, syntax, etc. Just as your body is made up of what you eat, your writing is made up of what you read.

The reason I was inspired to use quotes from Steven King was because his wonderful book "On Writing" has helped my writing immensely. I loved the book through and through, and take Steven's advice seriously. Sure, he doesn't writing "my sort of thing" in terms of genre, but he's clearly a successful writer who knows what he's talking about.

*smiles warmly*

Thanks for stopping by and reading.

~ Raederle

Idenity

2011-05-17T13:20:00.003-04:00

I used to hate doing dishes. And I do mean hate it.

The idea of doing dishes plagued me. I knew one day I'd have to do them regularly. I expected it to come, and dreaded it.

I didn't mind laundry. Sure, it was tough as a child to lean into the washer to pull out the clothes, but hanging them up on the drying rack was a game. I could even sit on the floor while hanging the socks on the lowest bar of the drying rack. The collapsible wooden rack wasn't replaced with a dryer until a dryer was donated to us after the house fire when I was fourteen.

But I hated doing those dishes with a passion. I had to stand in one place the entire time! That was a big deal to me as a kid. Standing in place. I misinterpreted my dislike of standing in place for a dislike of dishes. The dishes, as it turns out, are entirely neutral.

When I was twelve or thirteen I came to realize what I hated so much was a matter of poor blood pressure. Standing in place would cause my legs to become red, and then blotchy. My circulation was so weak that it couldn't pump the blood back out of my feet and back into the rest of my body. I became light headed and my legs would itch terribly.

I like being bare foot. Wearing shoes always made me feel off balance as a child, so I would be standing in front of the sink barefoot, legs blotchy, red and and itching with my arms raised up high to reach into the sink. To make it worse, water ran down my arms and dripped all over the floor and mixed with the dirt on the floor and then stuck to the bottom of my feet.

I couldn't stand more than five or six minutes before I became so miserable that I threw a tantrum. I was so adamant about not doing the dishes that I didn't spend much time doing it as a child at all. I was so useless when it came to chores and so often sick and kept in bed that I spent little time cleaning in general.

I didn't even realize that sinks got dirty and that someone had to clean then until I was seventeen.

This sounds like a rant about my poor childhood health, but that isn't actually my point at all. I thought I hated doing the dishes, but in reality, I had a root problem: my health.

Many of us believe we have to do things daily that we hate, but in reality, we don't hate what we're doing. What we're doing can be a job, a career, a calling, or nothing to us at all. What we're doing can be a chore, or it can be effortless. It is our attitude and our disposition that determine how we feel about what we're doing.

This was brought to my attention in particular today by washing my feet in the shower after they became dirty from wandering around the kitchen floor barefoot. I realized I wasn't troubled by my dirty feet or by washing them. It then occurred to me how much I would have resented it as a child. It would have been an affront to my livelihood. Perhaps even something that might have made me feel depressed.

My poor circulation prevented me from being able to enjoy many simple tasks. If you asked me as I child how I felted about showers, I would have literally replied, "I hate them." Baths were acceptable, since I could sit the entire time.

I came off as a very negative child who hated everything about life. In some ways, I was, but that wasn't the real me. That was a lump of unresolved issues. The real me was an artistic creative fun-loving compassionate person: and that me was buried beneath my problems.

Many people go on ignoring the root causes of their unhappiness their entire life. I'm very blessed and very grateful to discover that my health was the main source of my misery so early in my life.

I could have gone on to become several hundred pounds overweight at the rate I was going. I went from 120lbs at the age of thirteen to 153lbs at the age of sixteen. At the rate I was going -- 33 pounds in three years, or 11 pounds a year -- I would have been 219lbs by today.

My self-esteem was already bad at sixteen, imagine what it would be today if I hadn't done something about my health.

Health might not be a problem you're struggling with, but we all have problems that affect the quality of our life. Until we acknowledge them and work on self-improvement, we continue to be easily agitated. We curse under our breath about every little thing. As unhappy people we might even adopt "easily annoyed" as a personality trait.

"Easily annoyed" is not a personality trait. That is a personality flaw. Or more accurately, it's not your personality at all, but just a sign that your real personality is being blocked by circumstances. It means that you are not satisfied with your life. It means you're not satisfied with you.

People take on things like "commonly angry" as part of their identity. They become confrontational and defensive when others ask them "What's wrong?" This sort of behavior drives away loved ones, prevents possible friendships, and destroys opportunities to find fulfilling employment.

I'm not saying, "Oh, I've discovered my big problem and solved it, so now I'm perfect." If that were the case I might not even be writing this right now. If I had achieved a state of being where I was always calm, never lost my temper and never felt depressed... then I might not easily recall how important and how difficult it is to pull oneself from situations of denial, confrontation and anger.

I'm constantly amazed on a daily basis how much has changed in the past few years. I look different, I think differently, I dress differently, I interpret people I encounter differently, I look back on memories differently, etc. And I believe all of these changes are positive. It is a great source of joy in my life to see how much I've grown and improved.

It's draining to feel like you're "screwing up" your life. It's double-draining because you not only feel like you're creating a mess, but simultaneously you're not achieving your dreams in life. You're not getting closer to your long-term goals. Perhaps you don't think you have any long-term goals, but that is an even bigger problem.

Long-term goals are your desires, but more than that; they are desires you are actively planning on achieving. They are not just absent wishes. Goals are something you are striving for regularly, perhaps even on a daily basis.

When your goal is to become a published author you write regularly, perhaps every single night. You have a book you're working on for hours each week. Those hours make your entire life feel like it's going in the right direction. This is because your life has direction when you have a goal you're working towards. It's not just "oh, I'd like to be published," it's "Hey, I'm working on this book and it's coming along great, and yesterday I was invited to an event where I'm going to meet a lot of people -- maybe I'll meet an agent!"

If your goal is to become a rock star then you spend your free time jamming on your guitar or your drums or singing. Even if you never become a rock star, you'll still accomplish a lot. You'll be a happier person, you will attract good people into your life, you will learn several musical talents, and as a result you'll have successful performances that earn you respect and money. But most importantly, you'll feel at peace with yourself.

You can't ever love yourself if you're working a job you hate, living a lie, denying your desires and blocking out all possibility of achieving your dreams.

Your identity does not involve being depressed, angry, annoyed, upset, or being a "loser." Your identity does involve who you desire to be, your aspirations, your goals and your talents.

Once upon a time I defined myself as a "pitiful barbie" and I used that as my main e-mail address for over ten years. I deemed myself as frivolous as a doll, and pitiful to boot. Perhaps that title wasn't completely serious, and perhaps I just thought it "sounded cool" at the time, but I think there is an underlying message there... The simple fact that I was okay with something like that representing me. I allowed that to define my online persona to people.

I'm not pitiful. And I'm made of flesh, not plastic. I'm an organic being (and not conventional -- no pesticides or for me... Human version of pesticides: white sugar, excessive salt and cigarettes). I love and respect myself on a level completely unknown to myself just a couple years ago.

If you've spent your entire life depressed and tired then you'll be in for a huge wake up call when you finally grasp some happiness in your life. I didn't know what it meant to be energetic until I was fourteen, and I hadn't a clue that what I felt then was only a glimpse of what being healthy could feel like (which I didn't discover until I was twenty).

How many of your years are you going to let slip on by without addressing who you are, what you want, where you're going, what your obstacles are and what you really care about? Ask yourself those questions. You should be able to write four types pages on each of those subjects easily. The topic is you.

Do you know you?

Think about it.

~ Raederle Phoenix

Happiness Assignment:

Write four typed pages on each of the following:

What do you want?
Where are you going?
What are your obstacles?
What do you really care about?
Who are you?

Angry Relationships

2011-05-09T18:57:00.002-04:00

A good pen-pal of mine (I'll call her Alexis for this entry) whom I've had for years is having trouble in her relationship. I've been critiquing here essays for college for her, and every now and then she's been mentioning her love life in her letters. Her most recent letter:

From: Alexis
To: Raederle
Sent: Friday, May 6, 2011 at 11:17am

Hey Rae,
You're very helpful to my English assignments. I love your ideas. I have to use MLA format so that's why I don't include periods after quotes. Ehh...I just got done writing the final essay last night and included some of your input. Thanks! Get ready for next semester, lol; longer essays. This semester was only five pages or less.

I'm not sleeping very well lately and my relationship is going down the drain. I'm just sad about it. He doesn't want me around anymore, and when I do visit, he tells me to leave... :( He's always mad and I don't even do anything. When other people upset him, he takes his frustration out on me.

I learned in psychology that this is called 'displacement.' I hate it. It's like he's tired of me or the person that I am... because like I mentioned, I don't do anything and yet he gets mad at me. Why me?? I just want to cry. =(

- Alexis

From: Raederle
To: Alexis
Sent: Monday, May 9th 2011 at 6:30pm

Glad I could be of help!

My ex [whom I've told her a lot about in the past] had a displacement issue, for sure. Anger comes from many things, but anger is never 'justified.' It can be understandable. It can be a good reason to give compassion to someone in need. But it is never beneficial. It is an animalistic defense to help us raise our adrenaline to get us ready to defend ourselves -- it's meant to help us fight in a life or death situation. In modern society we shouldn't ever have to deal with a life or death fight, and thereby, most of us should never have any real use for anger. If we reflect on anger, and think about times when we've been angry we can think about how it has affected us and those around us in the past. It makes us do things we regret. It makes us say things we don't mean. It makes others respond negatively towards us. It clouds our judgment. Often it is even physically painful to feel anger.

If someone is perpetually angry they have a very serious condition. It's not normal, and it's not okay. It's even less okay for someone to continually take it out on someone.

You have two logical choices: Leave him is one option. The other option is to be compassionate and understanding towards him when he acts towards you with anger. You can say: "I can see that you're distressed. I want you to be happy and to feel good. If I'm in the way of that, I'll leave. Do you want me to leave?" If he says "Yes" well, then, leave. And most importantly, you have to not let this break you.

While sadness is not as disruptive to life as anger, it is also futile. It is not that you don't have reason, and it is not that it is easy to simply put on a smile -- it is only that being sad about his anger is not helpful. In fact, being sad about his anger is letting his anger, in a way, spread. It's spreading his negativity from him to you. The more people who resist negativity from others, who maintain love, compassion, peace, and happiness in the face of negativity from others, the more beautiful the entire world becomes.

In other words, by walking away peacefully, quietly, with a serene smile on your face, you are literally breaking the cycle and making the world shine brighter. Perhaps by reflecting on both the futility of sadness and the benefit of serenity and peaceful smiles, you may be able to overcome how upset his anger makes you feel. If you can't, then I recommend leaving the relationship in order to preserve your sanity. While it may make you feel more sad for a time, (maybe even a few months), it'll be worth it when someone who isn't angry all the time comes along.

Anger and sadness, by the way, can be dramatically affected by health. The pH balance in the bloodstream is directly connected to how you feel. Having an alkaline bloodstream promotes positive feelings, and having an acidic bloodstream promotes negative feelings. Alkaline creating foods: raw fruits and raw vegetables. Acidic-creating foods: meat, dairy, bread, pasta, beans, nuts, alcohol, and refined sugars. Also smoking creates acidic pH in the bloodstream.

*hugs*

~ Raederle

Related entry: Generating Happiness

Effective Education

2011-03-10T14:34:00.003-05:00

I'm incredibly impressed and excited about this video.

This is the new age of education where we utilize technology to humanize and personalize education, allowing children to master subjects, learn at their own pace, and empowering teachers to help individual children with their specific problems, and even enabling the teacher to choose the correct student to tutor another student.

Watch this incredibly inspiring video:

I'm going to try this for myself, just for fun.

Namaste

~ Raederle

Ever wanted to see a logo created? Or see the creative process of an artist at work? You can see mine in my newest video on my art blog, click here to check it out right now.

Dose of Fun

2011-02-24T22:26:00.003-05:00

Have you gotten your dose of fun today?

I love this video for a number of reasons. For one thing: people don't change unless the consequence of not changing is unbearable... Or they change because changing looks like fun. And guess what: we'll all have to live through an unbearable situation unless we see fun opportunities to change.

This is something I'd like to strive to achieve with rawveganism: making it as fun for others as it is for me. Yes, it was through hardship that I came to a dietary change, but that doesn't mean I have to wait for the world to fall to hardship to follow and jump on the healthy, economically and ecologically beneficial bandwagon. Rather, I'd like to show others the beauty, the flavor, and the fun of food in it's natural, most potent and pretty state: It's raw state.

Fun and happiness do not come from owning stuff.

Happiness and satisfaction does not from earning tons of money.

Happiness, satisfaction, contentment, thrill, fun... It is within experiences, within people, within emotions, actions, and the pride in a good deed done. Lasting love is contentment. Fun is a better reason to change for the better. It's a way to live a life that grows, expands and becomes wonderful effortlessly instead of through trial and tribulation.

Related entry: An unexpected benefit of going raw: discovering how fun it was to create and invent new dishes, discovering how beautiful food could be...

Stuff, Stuff, You NEED More Stuff!!!

2011-02-23T16:40:00.003-05:00

Here it is: The Story of Stuff

Stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff... Oh, I need more stuff because it fills up my time which I must idle away because I have not thought about my goals... I need these new light-bulbs for holiday decorations to impress my neighbors, I need these new shoes to outshine the other woman at work so I can get a promotion so that I can make more money so that I can buy even better shoes to outshine the women at work so that I can get another promotion... I liked my holiday dishes but now I want new ones to impress guests... I have lifeless hair, I'll just buy gels and hair milks for it without ever reading their ingredients, and I won't worry about if my hair gets less healthy in reality because it'll look better superficially while I pollute the planet... Oh, stuff, stuff, stuff, I love my stuff. Don't touch my stuff. I need my stuff. Stuff...

Related posts of mine:

A Corporation's Purpose

and

The Inter-relationship of Economics & Health

Women's Rights

2011-02-05T19:33:00.005-05:00

I was looking at this beautiful artwork by Kris Manvell, which you can view by clicking here, and I read the description, which goes like this:

This picture expresses two subjects that are very close to my heart: Gaia (mother earth), and all things feminine (what some might call, the goddess).

We are all part of this earth, every human being, be they male or female, black or white, Turkish or British, we are all equally important.

Since the days of Emperor Constantine, on through the Inquisition, women have been brutally murdered, tortured and relegated to second class citizens because men want to rule. Conservative estimates say 20 million were killed. Their crime? Literalist Christianity labeled them witches.

In reality they were Gnostic (Shamanic) leaders: herbalists, healers, empaths, midwifes and teachers. They understood and worked with nature. These wise people were all but wiped out. They were removed from history, so all that remains is some superstitious footnote in our history books, labeling them pagans (a Roman insult).

Women were even written out of the bible, relegated to the role of prostitute or virgin. The great libraries, such as Alexandria, were burnt, partly to remove all evidence of the female role in our ancient history.

Originally, before Christian literalism took hold, women were held in high esteem and with profound respect. Men understood that they held the key to an area of understanding that had to be taught to them - by women. This part of our history is not generally known about, or even acknowledged, so I wanted to help bring this topic to light – especially as – in these dark times, women’s rights (such as they are), are being further eroded. I wanted also to express my fear for the health of our planet, our mother earth. Turkey’s greatest assets, its natural beauty, its women and agriculture are under threat.

A dear Turkish female friend of mine said to me, why did you paint a woman? I have no interest in looking at a naked lady; she said she would rather look at an olive tree. I said, but all things on the earth are part of this amazing creation, everything. We look at a tree in its natural state, naked, so why not a woman? We look unashamed at a beautiful flower, a magnificent view or sunset. There is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear. Men’s crude urges can be managed, why should women’s freedom be threatened because they choose not to?

There was no sexual motivation in this picture, this is merely my attempt to celebrate women and to show that the feminine side is equally, if not more important, than the male side of life. Mother earth sustains us, as do our mothers, so let us celebrate this fact. If a creator was afraid for us to see our natural state, surely we wouldn’t be born naked?

~ Kris Manvell

I had some thoughts of my own after reading this:

My comment: Women's rights concern me a little differently than most people. I actually feel that today's modern woman is one of the biggest threats to femininity that there is. The "working" woman, the "athlete" woman, the "strong" woman, the woman who always wears pants and never a dress, or the woman who is afraid to be naked, or the woman who doesn't ever want to "depend" on a man, etc, etc, etc... All of that was a great whip lash back against men. It was great to have the right to work, but now, women are shunning other women who want to be house wives, who want to sew, wear dresses, and cater to their men.

Kris Manvell's response: I feel the same. What you are saying is women who want to be like men. I love strong women – women like you – but to me that is the embodiment of the feminine. What is missing is empathy and compassion. I desire that women can be themselves – not ape some masculine idea of what humans should be like.

My comment: I love to clean, sew, craft, draw, write, paint, read, make meals, keep house, nurture, massage and create a romantic atmosphere. Feeling feminine and beautiful is very important to me.

Kris Manvell's response: I can see that It sounds lovely. Your partner is a very lucky guy:)

My comment: I have no desire to be "equal" to a man by being a "like" a man. Women are just as valuable by being women.

Kris Manvell's response: Maybe more so.

My comment: There is nothing "less than" about mothering, home schooling, being creative and crafty. These are valuable -- extremely valuable -- and our society is lacking in them because people are no negative when you do these things.

Kris Manvell's response: Totally. In my relationship we have a similar dynamic – but I share many of the (perceived) womanly roles. I do most of the cooking – I am the nester – the one who makes things nice (aesthetically speaking). I tend to tidy... We both clean the house – I tend to wash up, etc. But Ekin is breast-feeding and generally with Kaia, our son. I am the one that supports us financially – but I am doing as much as I can to help Ekin set up her own crafts business with her sister. We find a way to share. I work at home – so it is a juggling act. I want to be with Kaia – so my work probably suffers a little, but then I don’t actually believe in work – and what is important to me is sharing our lives together... I want to home school him – as I did my other two sons and nephews... Being creative is essential. And extremely valuable.

My comment: I've had so many people tell me that I'm "lazy" because I refuse to work a day job.

Kris Manvell's response: Be a wage slave... Why be that??? I refuse to be.

My comment: My husband can testify to the fact that I'm far, far, far from lazy.

Kris Manvell's response: To me it is not even an issue.

My comment: I love putting hours into creating the perfect meals, a clean and beautiful home, into gardening, into exercising and improving my body, reading and educating myself... I don't believe it degrades me in any way to clean up after my husband. If both people in a couple work a day job, then they should split the choirs. If one person does the majority of the money-earning, then the other person can compensate by preparing all the meals and doing all the cleaning. There isn't anything wrong with that. In fact, I'm perfectly supportive of house husbands!

Kris Manvell's response: Me too. I have this wonderful vision of the Bronte sisters... I mean that in the nicest possible way. When I first met my partner – the most important thing was for her to be free and for us to live – not work to live.

My comment: My point is, people should be able to fill the role they feel they are meant to fill. Anyone who strives to improve the world and educate themselves should be appreciated for who they are, and not degraded for what they're not.

Kris Manvell's response: Totally. You paint a wonderful picture. When I talk of women’s rights I have to be careful how I speak of course, being a man. But I am so glad you have said all this on this posting – it balances it beautifully.

My comment: Thank you for being part of the solution Kris. You rule. :D

Kris Manvell's response: You too. Love, Kris

My further letter in response:

I think it's nifty how you said you don't believe in work. Come to think of it, neither do I. In a natural world, there is no work. There is gathering wonderful food under the sun, nourishing the body and the mind and the Earth all at once. When you combine that with the company of someone you love, there is no work involved at all, it's a winning situation for everyone and everything involved.

As you gather fruits and eat them, you spread their seeds which allows the plant to grow in many new places. As the juice dribbles off your chin into the soil it nourishes the the plants which in turn nourish all of the animals. As you chew and swallow the fruit it nourishes and energizes the body. And as a bonus, any healthy natural human being eating a fruit is enjoyable to look at. I know I like watching my husband bite into a beautiful fresh plum. (This comes to mind because he ate a plum this morning on our walk together.)

I also like how you said the most important thing is being "free to live" not working to live. That's an excellent way of putting it. A friend of mine, Andrew, likes to say that it makes no sense to trade five days of slave labor for two days of "freedom." He points out that you have better odds in a casino than five to two.

I understand it's tricky to try and say similar things as a man. I often want to say things about "white people" versus "black people" because I grew up in a ghetto area and have been in three serious relationships with black men who considered themselves to have a certain level of "black culture." This life-long exposure has brought to the surface many realizations for me, but most of them I can not speak about because it is offensive coming from a white person, even though many black people have the same observations and thoughts. It's a tricky balance.

:D

~ Raederle

Photo taken February 5th 2011 on the Iron Horse Trail, Walnut Creek, California
Raederle Phoenix, photographed by her husband
Note: I was walking backwards at the time, believe it or not...

We all have the freedom of choice. Any faith is acceptable, as long as it is not disruptive or disrepectful of other faiths. Any orientation is okay. Any race, gender, geographical location: it's all fine with me. If you're a husband who lives off the money your woman makes, and you have a healthy happy relationship where you both are satisfied, then it's not my place to say it's wrong. I think any arrangement where two people love each other, live together, and are happy with their lives is a beautiful arrangement. More than two people? Sounds fine to me as well.

In Moderation

2011-01-19T16:13:00.003-05:00

My friend Amy posted this as her status message on facebook:

Some days I want to scream. There is nothing on this earth that is truly bad for you, so long as you have it IN MODERATION. Too much of ANYTHING is bad, and even things like Vitamins and Iron can be overdosed on. You can have too much of a good thing.

- Amy

I would like to argue that you shouldn't need to take, or be taking, any pills, ever. Most of the nutrition from vitamins is not absorbed, especially if you're not eating uncooked live foods around the vitamins in order to provide the enzymes essential to digest and process the minerals in the vitamins.

That, however, is a side issue. Is there anything that we shouldn't have in moderation, ever?

Walter said; "As I understand it, there is no amount of death that one can have that is not bad."

Well, there is that, but personally I do not feel that death is bad. When plants die they make the soil rich for new plants. We live and we die, and that is natural and normal. Not to get into my religious beliefs, but I don't believe there is anything to be afraid of when it comes to the "being dead" part. I only am concerned about dying in such a way that isn't horribly painful or drawn out.

My own initial response was as follows:

I have to disagree. You can't drink a drop of mercury small enough to not be extremely detrimental. Coming from someone who had very severe mercury poisoning as a toddler and has suffered the consequences their entire life, I disagree completely. The normal amount of mercury in your body is the amount that is normal in lands untouched by pollution and modernization.

We're no longer living in a world where everything around us is something safe to have in moderation. Let's all just eat a little paint, shall we? Before we had so many chemical-created things around us, life was a bit different. A little dirt is actually good for you, and a little bark wasn't so bad either. Our ancestors knew which plants were poisonous, and which animals as well. I'm pretty sure that you can't have bites from black widows in moderation.

Walter goes on to add: "Also, my girlfriend would like to submit 'heroin' as another example."

I replied to Walter's thought:

Indeed. Let's all snort "just a little" coke. >.>

Sorry, not to beat up on you Amy. I know that it's possible to have too much of a good thing, and that many things are fine in trace amounts. But some things just are not in the category that I feel any amount is acceptable. Another example: Is "just a little" prejudice against people of another race, religion or orientation okay?

~ Raederle

Amy responded:

Hmm...Well I was specifically talking about the things with physical substance. Not the transient things like ideas/emotions/etc. As much as you or I may think an idea is wrong, to the person thinking it, it's not. And who are we to judge them on that? Those with prejudice against gays usually have it because of their faith. And I can't tell them that their faith is wrong. Therefore as much as I don't like it, I can't tell them that they're wrong.

As for the substantial things, I could argue that I know quite a few people who have only done cocaine and other hard drugs only once or twice in their lives and no more. It has not been detrimental to their lives. Addiction is only called that when it starts to affect your ability to live in the world (keep a job, go to school, pay your bills, have personal relationships, etc.)

Remember, cocaine comes from the coca bean. Something completely natural. Weed comes from a plant. Opiates are found in poppy seeds. We are the ones who turned these natural substances (along with stuff like mercury and more) into something that we need to consider "bad."

"Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare.

Right, but eating poppy flowers and/or seeds isn't the same as extracting a part of a poppy flower and then performing chemical processes and/or refinement methods.

My response:

Amy,

All good points, of course. You tend to make a lot of those.

But what about people who do acid once and then have an episode so negative that they have flashbacks for the rest of their lives? I know someone like that.

I also know someone who was so highly reactional to smoking weed that just a year of occasional smoking made his gums recede, and years and years later they have not grown back.

I know someone who was tricked into smoking crack (by a very awful person, obviously), and has never been the same person since; they became an addict off of that one shot.

I met someone once who was very loudly talking about how awful weed was, and I stayed around long enough to find out why. They had a friend who'd tried weed and even though they were not intoxicated on anything else whatsoever, they became a horribly irresponsible driver and ran over three people.

Of course, those are all examples of worst-case-scenarios. I know plenty of people who have done drugs and recovered. But again, I'm coming from a standpoint of wishing-to-goodness that I hadn't done everything I did. I now believe that I smoked some laced weed in my teens that messed up my digestive system. (It would explain a lot, and it fits perfectly.)

It's just better when you put your health first and do your best not to come in contact with things that may compromise your health. Sure, that one soda might not be the end of your life, but you never know down the line all the effects of just "a little." We don't actually know how much is too much, so if we know it's bad, why not just stay away from it all together?

Of course, there is the issue with people who believe something is bad that isn't. Then they may stay away from something that they need. For example, sunlight.

I've learned that the best defense against sunlight damage is detoxing and antioxidants. The better your pH balance, the less toxins in your sweat, and the more antioxidants you consume, the less likely sunlight is to cause burns.

Furthermore, you need sunlight. Without a certain level of sunlight daily, you will lack the vitamin D you need. No amount of milk will get you enough vitamin D, and in the process of drinking that insane amount of milk, you'll overdose on the drugs they put into the cows.

The amount of sunlight needed varies from one person to another. The darker the skin, the longer it takes to absorb the vitamin D from the sun. The further from the equator of the Earth, the longer it takes. That said, sunburning is very unhealthy and causes premature wrinkles.

So you can't avoid the sun 100% and be healthy, and you can be in the sun all day long (if you're white) and expect to be healthy either, and beyond that, you can't get the right about of sun without hurting yourself if your body is full of toxins, and your pH is too acidic.

I still think that moderating sunlight exposure; something entirely natural and normal is entirely different than moderating corn syrup.

There is nothing natural about injecting corn with bacterias and toxins in order to make it resistant to poison, then spraying it with tons (literally tons) of poison, and then harvesting it, shipping it, chemically processing it into sugar, chemically increasing the fructose ratio within the sugar and then adding that to a bunch of other lab experiments and calling it food. There is nothing natural there, and thereby, I feel I do not want any of it, ever, even in moderation. (Especially when a small amount of it would leave me feeling sick for days.)

~Raederle

How about, "All things in life in moderation that are given to us by nature in their unprocessed, unrefined, natural state of being." Except for things that are simply outright harmful to us, like poison ivy.

Inner Child

2011-01-06T13:44:00.005-05:00

I have conversations in my head, I admit it.

Is that really wise? You know you're posting this online, right?

It's completely normal, and we all do it.

You can justify it all you want, but someone is going to disagree. Someone always does.

This conversation between yourself, and your other self, is a conversation (so I've just learned) between your Inner Parent and your Inner Child.

So which one am I? The Inner Parent or the Inner Child?

Hush you. I think you know.

This morning I discovered a website, by complete happenstance, that is selling a book to get you in touch with your inner child (and thereby stabilize your brain and give you peace of mind and repair all the traumatic damage your childhood did to your mind.) The site explains that your Inner Parent is formed from your experiences with your parents (or lack thereof) and that your Inner Child represents the person you were as a child.

I didn't buy the book, but I'm a clever chick. I figured out enough from the website to try out the basic exercise on my own.

The basic exercise is as follows:

You hold a conversation, on purpose, between your Inner Child and your Inner Parent.

The conversation lasts exactly thirty minutes.

You want to spend no more than thirty minutes because you don't want to over-indulge your inner child.

You don't want to spend less than thirty minutes because that communicates to your inner child that you don't care. Your Inner Child may try to trick you by suggesting to stop early. Continuing on shows that you care.

You want to stick to thirty minutes also because this shows consistency. Not following through on what you plan to do is hard on your Inner Child just as it's hard on children when parents don't do what they promise to do.

The Inner Parent speaks out-loud.

The Inner Child speaks inside your mind.

You record everything you say either on paper, or on your computer. Write down each and every single word you say, without altering it.

If you do it on paper, draw a line down the center to make two columns. If on the computer, create a basic table and then put each question in the box to the left and the response (of your Inner Child) in the corresponding box of the table on the right. If you can not create a table easily and quickly on your computer, paper will be more comfortable for you.

Write the Parent part on the left, and the Child part on the right. Inner Parent asks questions. Inner Child answers.

After everything the Inner Child says, Inner Parent must say: "Thank you, Inner Child, for telling me that." I found this part to be very important and very helpful.

It makes the switch in my mind back to Inner Parent complete. At one part, where I was crying my eyes out, just saying the mantra "Thank you, Inner Child, for telling me that," I felt better. Not just better, I should say, but rather, like a switch had flipped and I was no longer in touch with the emotions that had just been making me cry and convulse.

You always say "Thank you, Inner Child, for telling me that." No matter what the Inner Child says, even if your Inner Child asks a question.

Do the exercise in the morning. The exercise will generate positive energy which will dissipate (at least partly) as you sleep. By doing it in the morning, you carry the effects with you all day long.

I found this exercise to be very uplifting and enlightening. ...Like all these unresolved issues and stresses inside came to the surface. It was like having a good cry, an hour's-long conversation with a good friend, and writing a good journal entry all wrapped up into a short half-hour session. I loved it, and I'm going to do it again tomorrow morning.

I felt that the responses from my Inner Child came naturally – so naturally that my vocabulary was even different. I wrote "grown-up" instead of "adult" when my Inner Child was speaking, which really surprised me. There were other similar instances of unusual vocabulary and word usage in general. Your Inner Child really is right there, under the surface, just waiting for you to talk to it.

This is obviously very personal, but because I found it so very beneficial, I'm going to share most of the session I had this morning.

Parent [January 6^th 2011]	Inner Child [Session #1]
Good morning Inner Child. This is going to be my very first conversation with you. I'd like to ask you a few questions.	[Warm sensation in chest.]
Are you okay with this?	Yes. I am. I like this idea.
Is there anything troubling you?	I miss Mom. I feel trapped here. There is no outside source of protection.
What do you miss about Mom?	I miss hugging her. I miss knowing she is there. I miss the security and feeling safe. I felt special and loved.
Why don't you feel loved now?	I do feel loved, but it's in a different way. It's not as safe and as warm.
Why do you feel trapped, Inner Child?	There is no where to go, no where to run to. There is nothing outside. I am in a cave, by my self and there is no way out. There are responsibilities, and they never end.
What would make you feel less trapped?	Flowers. Plants. Fresh air.
Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about flowers, plants and fresh air?	I want to play. I feel playful around flowers and plants and fresh air.
What else makes you feel playful?	Feeling loved. Kisses, hugs, jumping, running, smiling, laughing, dancing, singing, swimming, ice skating...
What would make you feel more special?	Tea.
Is there anything else that you miss?	I miss having help. Nobody helps me do anything anymore. I have to figure everything out on my own.
What do you want help with?	Everything! Everything is so much easier when someone helps me. Even if it is only a little help.
What do you want help with the most?	Making food.
Inner Child, do you feel beautiful?	Yes. My husband loves me, and it makes me feel beautiful.
Inner Child, what do you feel about Jay?	He is kind. He is like a new father. He pays attention to me. He makes me feel loved and warm. His hair is pretty. I like his company. I wish he was around more. I like his help.
Inner Child, what else is on your mind?	Food. I think about it more than I eat it. It isn't right.
Is there anything else bothering you, Inner Child?	I think Dad is depressed. I'm not even there to do anything about it. I can't do anything! I hate being helpless. I am far away and I can not hug him and tell him that it is alright and that I love him very much. I miss him. I just got to know him and then he was gone. And it hurts so very much that I can't let him know how I feel and that he can't understand... That we can't understand each other correctly. I want him to know how much I love him, and how important he is to me, but I'm afraid he won't believe me. I miss him. I miss him so much.
If Dad were here right now, Inner Child, what would you say to him?	I love you Dad. I'm sorry I wasn't the child you wanted me to be. I'm sorry I never paid enough attention. You were at work so much, and I didn't feel like I had the chance... The reason... The opportunity... I didn't have a way to connect with you. I felt like you were distant, and I wish I could have closed the gap. I wish I could have tried harder to get to know you better while we still had so much time we could have spent together. I'm so very sorry. I feel like it's my fault, like your unhappiness is my fault. Like if I had been a better daughter, then you'd be happier now.
Inner Child, why are you crying?	Because it's hard to think about my regrets and what I wish I were doing.
Inner Child, what would make you feel happier towards Dad?	Being able to hug him.
Inner Child... Why... What do you want to do?	I want to play. I'm tired of trying to “be productive” all the time.
Inner Child, do you know what “our” heart hurts?	Yes. It's because I hurt. Duh.
Inner Child, do you feel that childhood was enough?	Yes – no – sometimes. I'm not sure. Sometimes I feel ready to move on, but sometimes I just want to curl up and go to sleep and forget I have to be a grown-up now.
What do you think of this conversation, Inner Child?	I think it's wonderful. We never talk like this anymore. Nobody talks to me at all anymore. I feel like I am dying – dead. I feel gone, and withered. I feel smothered and hurt. I feel like nobody cares that I exist. I am small, shrunken... I am unheard.
What would make you feel heard, Inner Child?	I don't know.
Where do you go when you feel unheard?	Deeper. I snuggle down into this thick black... blanket. It's liquid, but warm and fluffy. I hide inside and nobody can see me. You like it when I am unseen, right?
Why would you feel like I don't want to see you, Inner Child?	Because I make us look like a fool. I am wrong. I am immature. I don't belong. I don't fit in. I am not good enough. I am not like everyone else. I am not okay. It is not okay to be me.
Why do you feel like you're wrong, Inner Child?	Because I am! I make mistakes and then we're in trouble.
What sort of mistake are you afraid of making, Inner Child?	One I can't repair. One where nobody will love me anymore. I don't want to make a mistake where people I love will not look at me, will not talk to me, will not respect me – will not hug me, hold me, care about me anymore. I am going to hurt people I love if I do not hide.
Inner Child, where would you feel happier?	In loving arms. I miss being hugged. I no longer feel hugged when I'm hugged because it's not me being hugged. It's you! It's always you. You've killed me. I feel murdered.
Inner Child... What should I do, I need to be stronger to face the world, and I don't know how to feel strong when I'm... you...?	Let me out when nobody is looking. I'll behave.
Inner Child, what do you feel would constitute as misbehaving?	I'm not sure. Saying something that would get me in trouble... Forgetting something important. Leaving the door unlocked. Not making the bed. Making a mess... I guess.
Inner Child, how do you feel about memories of A Special Person I Won't Name?	He was wonderful! He talked to me all the time! He was always there for me... Sort-of. Well, I mean, he was good to me. He tried to acknowledge me and play with me. He talked to me for so long. He let me play with his Inner Child. We were friends. We were real friends.
Inner Child, we don't have much time left... What is the most pressing thought left?	I'm not sure there is anything “pressing” Mommy. I felt done. Thank you for talking to me.
Inner Child, we have one minute left... What else comes to mind?	Colors. I like to paint. We should spend more time painting. I love painting. And more music. There isn't enough art or music in our life. We need to play more. Please remember to play with me? And please, please talk to me again! I feel heard again, somewhat, at least. I missed talking. I missed it a lot. Thank you so much for listening to me.

Something I find fascinating is that I called myself "Mommy" in that second last response. Isn't that odd? I found it so natural and easy to assume two different selves; one parent, one child... It's as though I really have been divided this way all along, and I somehow didn't quite know it.

Also, isn't it miraculous that my Inner Child thanked me for talking to "her"? I found that astonishing too. Luckily I can type fast enough to capture my thoughts before I try to edit them. I would have a hard time doing this long-hand, personally.

You can buy the book if you want, but for me, I think I can come up with my own questions easily enough. I may buy the book just to be supportive or to see what else I can learn, but for now I'm happy enough with the new exercise as it is. The website is here.

If more of my personal angst interests you, I have recently put up my teenage angst-y poetry for public view here.

On a more serious note, more of my thoughts about how the brain works; here.

Also, I have an absurd pride for the food I eat every day (since learning to eat this way has taken years of research and adaptation), so I have this nifty photo log of my daily diet.

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to comment with your thoughts. Also, I'd love to read your session with your Inner Child. You may e-mail it to pitifulbarbie@aol.com with the title "My conversation with my Inner Child." It's very important you use that title so that I don't mistake it for spam.

What separates you from the rich?

2010-12-16T18:44:00.009-05:00

My mother bought all of my clothing at second-hand stores up until I was around thirteen years old. I never thought anything of it as a kid, and I think it is a good policy. Healthy children spend time crawling around on the floors, climbing trees and playing in the mud, so why would you spend $20 on a brand-name pair of jeans for a child when you could buy a second-hand pair that was just as nice for $5 at thrift store?

Unfortunately, not all of my mother's spending habits were so brilliant. While cutting-out coupons, attending sales, and comparing prices will all make small differences in the amount you spend, it won't do much of anything to improve your over all quality of life, and it certainly won't make you rich.

Until I married, I had no idea that the difference between "rich folks" and "poor folks" was not necessarily income. By following my husband's example, I now see that I can live a much richer life without making more money.

As it turns out, the main separator between the "upper middle class" and "lower middle class" is spending habits and lifestyle habits.

Being rich is about having a higher quality of life, not about having more money. It's about being healthier and happier than you ever dreamed possible.

8 Steps To Being Rich:

1. Recognize that what you buy affects your entire life, your community, the environment, the government, the country, and the planet.

Your dollars are your biggest mouth in the world. They scream louder than your personal actions and words ever will to the guys in the "big chairs." Corporate CEOs, investors, the political big "somebodies" and so forth; they don't listen to what you say, they don't watch what you do, but they pay a lot of attention to what you buy. If you're just as willing to spend your money on products that are harmful to your body and the environment, and it is cheaper for them to make harmful products, then they will make harmful products because it makes them rich, and it makes their stock-holders happy.

2. Buy Organic

Various cheap laundry detergents will wear out your clothing, meaning you have to spend more on new clothes because you spent less on laundry detergent. Many cleaning fluids will ruin the surfaces you use them on over time, not to mention slowly poisoning your home with harsh chemicals. Organic, green and genuinely natural for the win. (Remember that "natural" on the label is meaningless.)

Organic Soap

It's incredibly common to see people buy soap for $1.50 a bar, and then $3.00 lotion for the dry hands that result from the cheap soap. And worse yet, you still end up with dry hands despite reapplying the lotion ten times a day.

When I moved in with my husband I was confused by his soap. "My hands won't get clean!" I exclaimed. But then I would dry them and they didn't feel oily after all. It wasn't that my hands were dirty, it was that they were moisturized. I visited my parents for a time and my hands were so awfully cracked and dry. I used the lotions they had, but it didn't help at all. I realized my skin had been dry and cracked and somewhat hurting my entire life until I moved in with my husband.

I returned home to my husband and after washing my hands with one of his organic soaps five or six times, my hands were back to feeling smooth and richly moisturized.

The lesson: If you buy high quality organic oil-based soap that costs $5 a bar instead of $1 a bar, you will never need to buy lotion again. The soap actually leaves your skin more moisturized and healthier each use, instead of dry. Besides that, when you buy organic products you support smaller companies who need the money a lot more and stimulate the economy as a result. It's a more effective way of stimulating the economy than donating your money to some-such thing that says it's pro-jobs or pro-green or whatever.

Organic Shampoo

The same is true for hair products. You'll buy a cheap shampoo and conditioner all-in-one that leaves your hair dried out and crumbling, and then buy hair-lotions, hair-sprays, hair-moose, etc, etc, trying to get your hair to look healthy, on top of dying the hair another color, or even your own color, just to get it to shine more.

Instead of buying all those cheap products that are full of chemicals and produced by large corporations who generally pollute the environment and outsource half their labor to China... You could just buy one or two really quality products. I am currently using this henna-shampoo that I found in the organic section. It lightly colors my hair a slightly redder tint because of the henna in it, and it doesn't strip my hair or leave it dry at all. Aside from that, all I use in my hair is a few drops of jojoba oil or coconut oil. (I use coconut oil when making my raw-treats and I wipe the excess off onto my hands and rub it into my hair. With olive oil I rub any excess into my skin. It's much more effective and natural than any lotion.)

4. Ignore "On Sale" Products

Have you ever bought something because you happened to see it on sale?

A good portion of the time the sale is not really real. You could get it for the same price as the "sale price" online, or somewhere else and they're just making it out as though they are selling it for less.

The other portion of the time the product is on sale because it is not a good product and nobody will pay its full price. If they would pay full price, then they wouldn't need to put it on sale. When people buy these products on sale, a good portion of the time they end up with something that doesn't work, or works poorly.

5. Research What You Buy

You can find what you really want for a price you can afford with a little bit of research online (or in person -- ask your friends and associates their experiences with the products they've recently bought.)

Read customer reviews
Read product-comparison articles
Read product-review blog entries
Watch product-review and product-comparison videos

Example of something we didn't buy because of research:

My husband and I were considering buying a juicer. It looked (from the specs) like it had everything we needed, and it was on sale. After skimming the reviews on the sales page I decided to get some opinions from other sites. I visited six different sites and skimmed around seventy product reviews. While three of the sites had only positive feedback, this is likely because the site weeded out any bad reviews. The other three sites I visited contained massive amounts of bad feedback saying that the juicer simply stopped working for most people within the first two months, and after being replaced it would simply quit again within two months. Some people even reported the juicer quitting after the first cup of juice it made. Just think what a headache we avoided because I skimmed a bunch of reviews!

Example of something we did buy after research:

My husband was upset that his set of knives had gone dull. He said to me that they were not very good knives to begin with, so perhaps he would just replace them for a better set. He wanted my opinion, so he asked me for it. My response was that they seemed like perfectly good knives, and I hadn't noticed they were dull at all.

He suggested that we buy a knife-sharpener in that case, because there was no need to get a better knife set if I liked the one we had. I was dubious that the knives needed to be sharper, but continued to seek a solution with him. He also proposed that we buy, perhaps, just one really, really good knife instead of getting a new set or a sharpener.

We looked around at some really, really good knives, but they ran around $30 or more for a single knife. We looked at some sets, but they were all of poor-quality or of high price. So then he researched knife sharpeners. There was a cheap option, of course, but eventually he decided to get fairly expensive manual knife sharpener.

Neither of us could be more pleased. All of our knives are sharper, and now I do see why having very sharp knives is better. It turns out I grew up with dull knives my entire life. And the best part? No matter how many knives we do or do not ever attain, we'll always be able to sharpen them.

6. Don't Impulse-Shop

"Shopping will make me feel better..."

Being depressed is not a good reason to go shopping and blow a paycheck. Instead, consider making yourself a banana-nut smoothie with soaked raw almonds, raw cacoa nibs, ground flax, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, a drop of coconut juice and five fresh organic bananas. All the omega and b-vitamins will give you a much more effective lift to your mood without breaking your wallet.

"The advertisement said..."

Who cares what the advertisement said. Advertisements are chocked-full of lies. There are blatant scams on advertisements all the time.

I once was unfortunate enough to purchase a product that supposedly would take the hair of your legs by "rubbing" with this particular fabric pad. The advertisement claimed it had been done for centuries in other countries, that it was easy, that it worked for anybody, that it was healthier than shaving, etc. The product doesn't work. Not at all. No matter how soft the hair, and no matter how long you rub, you're just an idiot rubbing your skin with a scam-product. If I had done some research first, I would have soon discovered other people complaining about the scam. There was no refund, but there was a bunch of plastic to throw in the trash.

"But this looks really cool, and what if they don't have it online!"

So it looks cool. But do you need it? Will you really use it? Could you jump up and down fifty times right now because you're so excited about buying it? If you can't jump into the air fifty times and squeal like a little girl about it, then you probably don't need it. That may sound absurd, but it's a test I use on myself regularly. If I can't make myself jump up and down and squeal, then it must not be exciting enough to spend money on.

7. Read Labels

Things come with labels for a reason. Don't just look at the part of the package they want you to look at; look at all sides, especially the ingredients. This applies to food, clothing, toys: everything.

Is it made out of cotton or wool or what? Don't waste money on something that you're allergic to, or that will pill on the first-wash-through in the laundry, or that is made in China. Instead of buying six items of clothing, two of which are going to wear out quickly, one of which you'll never really like anyway, and all of which are made in China, instead, buy one or two items that are high-quality that you will love for years and years.

Often the product that isn't half as flashy and costs a two dollars more is more durable.

The result from shopping this way: Less clutter in your home. Less trash and waste. More income going back to the community and small businesses. Higher quality products that you really love. Spending less money in the long run by not needing to replace items as often.

8. Buy Fresh Organic Produce

Many people buy conventional produce at the store, and frozen dinners, and other cheap boxed products. These foods contain toxins, chemicals and little nutrition. As a result, the people spend less money on food, but then spend three to ten times as much on medical bills, prescriptions, surgeries, etc.

The most effective way to combat this both from a health standpoint and an economic point is to grow as much of your own food as possible. Anyone can grow their own sprouts without sunlight, soil, or much space at all. A package of sprouts at the store will run you about $3, give or take. A sprouter will cost you $40. Your general sprouter will hold twice as much as one of those $3 packets at a time in sprouts. It takes somewhere from three days to a couple of weeks to grow them, and next to nothing for the seeds themselves. You can even sprout the seeds from fruit you've bought, the seeds that would have usually gone into the trash. If you grow one full sprouter-full of sprouts each week, the gadget will pay for itself in less than two months and you'll be able to continue growing them for life.

However, many people just can not conceive of giving up their television programs, sports activities, social occasions or whatever it is they are doing to spend time growing things. And so, I must simply propose that you make better choices at the grocery store.

Being ill is the biggest expense in life. You can not work, you can not play, you can not do anything at all if you're too ill to do it. And even being moderately ill is still serious, because then you work and play but you do both with little efficiency and wander through life feeling empty and wondering if there is more to life but not feeling like you can do anything about it... Meanwhile chugging several cans of soda and never making the connection between how terrible you feel and what poor fuel you're giving your body to make it's millions of cells out of each hour.

Another tip, as an aside: Don't count calories.

Raederle's sage wisdom for the holiday: Pay the extra dollars or cents for organic and local products when you can. You'll be doing a great thing for the economy, the country, the region, yourself, the environment, your health and your conscience all at once. It's a win-win-win-win-win all around. And in the end, it saves you money too.

Recession Reconsidered

2010-12-09T17:10:00.003-05:00

The "bad economy" is a myth. First people buy things they can't afford. Then they hoard their money. Then they spend the little they do spend to huge corporations who send the money overseas and line the pockets of rich folks. Little money makes it back into the community because not enough people shop at local businesses. More money hoarding. It perpetuates itself.

John Leathers says: "Raederle, I couldn't agree with you more. Once I worked at a bank selling mortgages. The bank would often approve home loans for people what would take 45% of people's pre-tax income. People would often want something much bigger, though, and ask for a loan with a payment that would take 65%, 75% or 85% of their pre-tax income It's difficult for some people to know what "enough" is, apparently. I was amazed about how eager some people are to go into debt."

Nathan Jett says; "Debt will mean nothing when the dollar is worthless..." and suggests watching The Obama Deception.

John Leathers: "That would be a real mess."

Nathan Jett: "That will be a real mess."

John Leathers: "It will be good for tourism. We'll have lots of foreigners coming to the USA on vacation to take advantage of the weak dollar."

Nathan Jett: "I think when that day comes there will be more people leaving USA than coming to USA."

John Leathers: "Northern California's already like that. We lost people during the recession. Many immigrants, especially, left the state and moved back with their families down south.
"Everyone's got their own philosophy about dealing with any future crisis that occurs. My plan is just to see what arrives when it arrives and deal with it then.
"If the sky's falling I'd rather not know about it. I grew up during the worries about the USA-Soviet nuclear apocalypse. I'd rather just live my life and enjoy today than spend the whole time worrying about something I can't control that could happen tomorrow."

Raederle: I agree that sometimes it's better not to know the sky is falling. Keeping our heads up, keeping positive and sticking together are better than being depressed. Although, it's also ignorance of the public that has people in the messes they are in today.

Nathan Jett: "Oh don't get me wrong, I am in now way worried. I just like to be informed."

Raederle: I also like to be informed, but each American can not learn everything there is to learn about all the issues causing the economic struggle, the unemployment, the obesity, the rising cancer and diabetes rates, and every other issue we're facing.

I try to simplify what I do about it. Instead of trying to research each and every thing in the world and figure out if I trust it or not, ...I just keep following the same principles:

Be compassionate
Buy organic or local whenever possible
Waste as little as possible, recycle as much as possible
Teach others when they are willing to learn
Learn from others when they are willing to teach
Be as healthy as possible and inspire others to do the same
Bring art, love and life into the world
Boycott anything I learn is particularly hazardous
Don't buy things made in China
Hand-made whatever I can
Grow as much food as I can

Brian Honeycutt says: "I always thought the idea of a recession was sort of funny given that the resources available are basically the same, so it is just a redistribution of energy and money to me."

Sarah Leven writes: You can't really blame people for buying from massive corporations anymore. Our society has gotten to be so poor that every dollar counts.

Some food purchases are difficult to make outside of a supermarket. As far as I know, there is no locally owned supermarket near my house. Up in Buffalo there is one but driving 30 minutes to buy groceries is kind of a stretch. Not to mention, they sell specialty items and not a lot of traditional meal ingredients. And it would cost me probably twice as much to shop there and I honestly can't afford it. I do try to frequent farmers' markets or other such things but in Western New York, that's a seasonal option.

The real problem is that the middle class is shrinking -- most people are going down into poverty levels. A two income household where one person loses their job can be difficult to make up the difference in income. I do agree that a lot of these families have a lot of extras that they don't really need. I've been watching the show "Downsized" on WE and it amazed me how wastefully that family lived.

Yet for some families, they already don't have a ton of extras and a family of five trying to live on 25,000 a year is tough. So you've got three kids and school is coming up. They need at least a couple of new outfits (since stuff gets ruined and children grow) and school supplies for the school year. Lets say you have about 600 dollars scraped together to accomplish that. That's 200 a kid. You need to buy them clothing, probably a new pair of shoes, paper, pens, pencils, folders, a backpack, etc. Personally the first place I would stop is a thrift store of some type to see if there were some good deals there. However, thrift stores cost about the same as Wal-Mart so I can understand the families that prefer to just go get it new. And thrift stores are usually a npo so shopping there isn't really helping the economy much anyway. I'm honestly not even sure where I could take my kids to buy locally made clothing.

Eventually as capitalism sets in more and more in these cheap labor countries, they will demand higher and higher wages. Eventually the jobs will come back here. However, it probably won't happen in my lifetime, and definitely not any time soon. The main reason you can't find stores to sell locally made goods is because the support isn't there. But it's difficult at the point we're at as a society to put support into local businesses.

I whole-heartedly agree with you on people not putting their money to work where it should. But as a struggling American who cannot find decent work and who wastes very little, I can understand it. We do have a broken economy because of how insane the debt got. People were buying too much house or too much car and it artificially inflated everything. Greed set in at both the corporation level and at the personal level. The problem is that now things are so broken, it will take a long time to fix them.

As a small business owner, I compete with Wal-Mart. Sadly, the materials alone for the jewelry I create are more than the necklaces at Wal-Mart. Mine are unique and are of a higher quality but people still will balk at the 20 dollar price tag. The materials for that necklace are about five dollars and takes me about six hours to stitch together. I wind up making less than 3 dollars an hour for the pieces I sell. Other jewelry crafters hate me because of my low pricing but I still have the average customer shying away when they hear the price. But they think nothing of buying a video game for 20 dollars that they play twice and then never again. But the mentality is, I could just buy a different necklace for a lot cheaper. And since Wal-Mart pretty much sells it all, I stand no real chance. There is a small movement going against big corporations now and if people could snap out of the desire to just get as much stuff as cheaply as possible, our country might stand a real chance.

~ Sarah Leven

Second hand is better than Wal-Mart. It's a choice anyone would make if they understood the state of the environment and our impact upon it, and the state of the economy and our impact upon that.

On principle, I'd buy the hand-made jewelry. If someone is too strapped for cash to buy handmade jewelry, then they have no business buying jewelry. It's a luxury. It's not needed for anything, and the only real excuse for needing some is if you're working a career as a model. And as a model, you don't want to be wearing department store jewelry anyway.

Cheap plastic junk.

Cheap plastic junk.

There is no place anywhere for department store jewelry. It's worthless junk, and much of it is never worn, never used, never appreciated, never enjoyed, and just clogs landfills so that fat cruel rich corporate folks can milk the sheeple of America dry.

If everyone stopped buying jewelry, make-up, body lotions, hair products and so forth and instead paid a little extra for organic whole foods, then they'd save a lot of money and be a lot healthier and look much more beautiful without the cheap jewelry, make-up and toxic lotion and sprays. Want your hair to have body? Braid it up, get it wet, dry it, and take the braids out. Want your skin to shine? Eat soaked seeds and raw vegetables. Want to decorate yourself? Buy jewelry from a local merchant, not from a department store.

...How to get these important messages to masses? (Those above, and those below.)

Be compassionate

Buy organic or local whenever possible

Waste as little as possible, recycle as much as possible

Teach others when they are willing to learn

Learn from others when they are willing to teach

Be as healthy as possible and inspire others to do the same

Bring art, love and life into the world

Boycott anything you learn is particularly hazardous

Don't buy things made in China

Hand-made whatever you can

Grow as much food as you can

Christmas

2010-11-23T13:33:00.006-05:00

Perhaps you've read that commonly passed around collection of quotes from young children describing love. They are really astounding;

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate." -Nikka, age 6

Imagine if there were more young girls like Nikka in this world? The one in particular that always stayed with me, was this one:

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." - Bobby, age 7

That was always my take on Christmas. It's the love in the air, the shared laughter, joy and smiles with family and loved ones. I remember telling my first love (when I was fourteen) that Christmas was special to me because it was the only day of the year that my mother kept smiling. After having said that out loud, I continued to think of Christmas being special for that reason.

When I was ten years old I saved up every dollar I came by all year long, and kept them all in a washed out yogurt tub. When the time came around I had saved up a little over one hundred dollars. Nearly twenty dollars worth of it was in change, and roughly forty dollars worth were in single dollar bills. I bought one barbie doll for myself and spent the rest on gifts for others. I tried to find the most unique and interesting things that I could. I wanted others to smile and laugh and be delighted when they opened my presents.

I wrapped the gifts myself from my mother's vast collection of wrapping papers, ribbons and bows. I considered what colors of bows and ribbons would look best together. It was special and important to me. It meant a lot that I had the power to bring others smiles and joy.

That was my understanding of Christmas at ten. Now I understand that I have more than just the power to bring my friends and family joy.

Charity

Everyone talks about how it's "the right thing to do" to donate to charities. Maybe it is. Have you done the research yourself on individual charities to discover which one is the most worthy of your dollar? Probably not.

Instead of spending your time researching charities, instead, research the products you're planning on buying for yourself and friends. If you spend $12 on a notebook made by a company that employs handicapped people, uses bamboo instead of trees to make their paper, and crafts a quality product, you've just done a good deed -- and you know it. You also still get to have the added joy of giving this notebook to a friend or loved one to write in, and you can do so with pride because you've already done one good deed by buying it, and now a second by giving it.

When you buy a $7 notebook that uses bleached paper made from trees, employs people in China at minimum wage under conditions you'd balk at working in, that was shipped all around the world using hundreds of gallons of gasoline... Yeah, you saved $5. But how much did the world suffer for you to have that extra $5? And how does donating that $5 to charity somehow make it all better? If you have not done the research, it's possible that the charity you gave your $5 to is mostly for the purpose of lining the pockets of the owner and doesn't do what it claims to do.

Wrapping Paper

For years now, as a method of saving money and reducing personal waste, I have reused the wrapping paper of every gift I have received. I have only actually bought five rolls of wrapping paper in my life, and while none of my current wrapping paper exists on a roll, I still have more than five rolls worth of paper today in many different varieties.

Many of my bits of wrapping paper have been used six or seven times.

I save ribbons and bows too, of course. Also, I save any decorative papers that come with other products I buy, as well as the brown stuffing paper they send with boxes in the mail. I keep all of it, and reuse it.

If someone is going to throw away their wrapping paper, I rescue it and use it again.

This used to just be a matter of saving money and being practical, but now that I've learned more about economics and the environment, it's now just one small part of doing the right thing all the time, not just some of the time.

This picture is from this entry about alternative wrapping.

In one short blog entry I read recently, the author talks about using banana paper, which is made from the discards stalks of a banana tree. I've seen paper made from ground stone, hemp, cotton, bamboo... It doesn't need to be made from trees, so why support the destruction of forests?

• Use environmentally friendly wrapping paper made using fibers such as hemp. Look for paper using recycled content.

• Avoid buying glossy foil or metallic wrapping paper - this kind of material is difficult to recycle.

• Reuse gift wrap - large wrapped presents usually have large enough uncreased sections to be reused for wrapping small gifts. If you open all of your gifts carefully, almost any gift has reusable paper.

• Use tape sparingly, or not at all - if you're going to use ribbon to finish off your wrapping, you may not need to use tape. By not using tape, more of the wrapping paper can be reclaimed, and it's easier for the recipient to save the wrapping for reuse.

• Choose alternatives to commercial gift wrap - there are many options which are cost-free, attractive solutions. Gift bags can be made using fabric scraps, or wrapping can be made using comic strips from the paper, old calendars, maps, posters and more.

Here is a nifty page with many different alternative gift-wrapping options.

Christmas Tree

If you want to decorate a live tree, why not go back to the original tradition?

"The tradition used to exist whereby we would string berries and popcorn and other types of food and place them as offerings on the trees outside to feed the fauna during the food scarcity of winter. Now, however, we cut down baby and adolescent trees, bring them into our homes and dress them up with all manner of metal, plastic, glass, etc... How many countless trees are killed every year in celebration of Christmas?" ~ Nikki Scott

Plant a live evergreen in your back yard or front yard, and decorate that instead.

Although plastic Christmas trees are reusable from year to year, real trees are the more sustainable choice.

Plastic trees are made of petroleum products (PVC), and use up resources in both the manufacture and shipping. While artificial trees theoretically last forever, research shows that they are typically discarded when repeated use makes them less attractive. Discarded artificial trees are then sent to landfills, where their plastic content makes them last forever.

Live trees, on the other hand, are a renewable resource grown on tree farms, that are replanted regularly. They contribute to air quality while growing, and almost ninety percent are recycled into mulch. Live trees are usually locally grown and sold, saving both transportation costs and added air pollution.

When buying a live tree, consider these environment supporting options:

• Live potted trees - if you buy a small tree in a large pot, you may be able to reuse the tree for 2- 3 years without having to plant or re-pot the tree.

• Re-pot the tree - if the tree is root-bound, you can replant it in a larger pot for several years' use.

• Replant the tree - if you have the space, of course, replanting the tree outdoors is an option. Be sure to anticipate the full-grown size of the tree, and avoid planting near foundations or underground services.

• Chip and mulch the tree - many communities now have a free chipping service for trees. If you can keep the chipped material, it makes excellent mulch for your shrub beds.

Christmas Lights

It's the season of giving. It's not the season of competing with your neighbors for who can use up the most electricity in lights.

Consider using one string of lights, and not ten strings. Perhaps just one elegant lining around the windows, or "icicle lights" around the top of your porch.

Who are you gifting your money to when you decide to light up the bushes, the balcony, the windows, the banisters and the snow-covered lawn? The electrical company. I seriously doubt that's where you want to spend your Christmas spirit.

Also, remember to use LED lights for your one modest string of decoration. LED (Light Emitting Diode) holiday lights use up to 95% less energy than larger, traditional holiday bulbs and last up to 100,000 hours when used indoors. LED holiday lights use .04 watts per bulb, 10 times less than mini bulbs and 100 times less than traditional holiday bulbs. Over a 30-day period, lighting 500 traditional holiday lights will cost you about $18.00 while the same number of LED lights costs only $0.19. As an added bonus, if one of the LED lights burns out the rest of the strand will stay lit.

Christmas Gifts

Instead of giving to charities, give to the manufacturers of products you believe in.

If you're anti-consumerism, make your own gifts and cards. The amount of cards sold in the US during the holiday season would fill a football field 10 stories high, and requires the harvesting of nearly 300,000 trees.

If you're a feminist, look for companies that emphasize employing women. I've seen products advertising this before right on the label of a product.

If you want to help fight cancer... Well, then you should ignore labels that advertise donating to cancer-research. The cure for cancer is already known to a growing body of people, but the corporations making so much money off of killing us and then medicating us don't want you to know. Here are some folks who know about the cure.

A gift doesn't need to be a physical item. Give an experience to someone:

Tickets to a show or concert can offer lasting value with minimal impact on resources. Sports events, local attractions, rock-climbing centers, ice-rink memberships, and museum memberships are other examples. Experiences can be other than 'entertainment' - for example, a membership to a car-sharing club in your city, or a garden plot in a local community garden.

Give a service: Massage, music lessons, childcare, car wash, dogwalk, lawncare, tutoring, food preparation, gardening, a book of coupons for household chores...

Give someone something of sentimental value: Appeal doesn't always mean 'new and shiny'. Antiques and collectibles have time-earned intrinsic value as well as the added appeal of history and sentimental value.

Personal gifts are appreciated and remembered because they tell a story. And because they're "re-used", there's no impact on the environment.

Give someone something special you've found: An unusual shell, crystal, wood burl, arrowhead, bone, shark tooth, etc. Or flowers you've grown - if you live somewhere where there are flowers at this time of year.

Give someone something used: Might sound offensive to some, but to anyone with a heart, it's not offensive at all.

Dan Taylor writes: I was having a garage sale last Fall. I remember one family in particular who seemed to be having so much fun. When we remarked on this they said they were Christmas shopping. I was impressed by their being so organized (this was in August) but was also intrigued that they would be going to garage sales to do their Christmas shopping. So in the ensuing conversation they told us that their family had some years ago made a rule that all gifts must be under $20.00 and either hand-made or used. This has provided so much enjoyment for them that we're going to suggest this same idea to our family for next year. -Dan Taylor, Alberta Canada

Make something: My all time favorite gifts were hand-made, if not by the giver, then by someone the giver knew. A hand-knitted scarf, a hand-sewn rice bag (much appreciated in the winter for keeping warm!), a hand-crocheted hat, a carefully crafted card, a baked clay figurine, a hand-made leather pouch -- these were all gifts given to me by different people in different years, but I remember each of them clearly, and still have them. With a little research you can discover how to make your own soap, candles, accessories, and countless things that will enrich your life and the lives of others without being a drain on the planet.

Buying organic products, recycled products, and especially products made by individuals or small companies is a top priority. It's much more important than donating to charities. It's much more important than saving fifty cents.

The best gift you can give anyone, of course, is the gift of health. Instead of going crazy for cheap candies, or unhealthy home-made desserts made from white flour, white sugar and canned fruit, spring for something that won't make you or your family sick.

The Art of Happiness

2010-11-13T20:13:00.006-05:00

This may be one of the best entries I ever wrote. I wrote it back when I was reading one of the most life-changing books I've ever read. I spent some time searching my computer to find it today so that I could share it with you. Without further ado...

Photo by Raederle Phoenix, Roadtrip 2010

Sunday January, 18^th 2009 at 6:56pm

Has your science teacher ever told you, “everything is interconnected” and you rolled your eyes because of course everything is interconnected? What about your minister or your church? Was it slightly more moving than your science teacher, and yet, still a bit on a sappy-side? What about some hippy on the street who has had too much to smoke? You’ll hear him saying in a sing-song voice, “It’s all interconnected dude!” And he’ll probably have his stoned buddy with him who says, “Whoa... Dude... That’s deep.”

We’ve all heard it. Myself, personally, I’ve heard it from each of those sources at least twice. And yet, never on any of those occasions has it struck a deep cord within me. This time, while reading it inside the book I’m reading, it did. I love how the concepts in the chapter were presented; and I feel that now I understand the deep profound truth about how interconnected we are. I understand in a way I couldn’t have without having read that chapter.

Thanks to someone else inputting this bit into their blog that I found via google, I’m able to share this excerpt with all of you.

From “The Art of Happiness” by Howard C. Cutler, M. D. And The Dalia Lama:

"Within all beings there is the seed of perfection. However, compassion is required in order to activate that seed which is inherent in our hearts and minds..."

With this, the Dalai Lama introduced the topic of compassion to a hushed assembly. Addressing an audience of fifteen hundred people, counting among them a fair proportion of dedicated students of Buddhism, he then began to discuss the Buddhist doctrine of the Field of Merit.
In the Buddhist sense, Merit is described as positive imprints on one's mind, or "mental continuum," that occur as a result of positive actions.

The Dalai Lama explained that a Field of Merit is a source or foundation from which a person can accumulate Merit. According to Buddhist theory, it is a person's stores of Merit that determine favorable conditions for one's future rebirths.

He explained that Buddhist doctrine specifies two Fields of Merit: the field of the Buddhas and the field of other sentient beings. One method of accumulating Merit involves generating respect, faith, and confidence in the Buddhas, the Enlightened beings. The other method involves practicing actions like kindness, generosity, tolerance, and so on and conscious restraint from negative actions like killing, stealing, and lying. The second method of acquiring Merit requires interaction with other people, rather than interaction with the Buddhas. On that basis, the Dalai Lama pointed out, other people can be of great help to us in accumulating Merit.

The Dalai Lama's description of other people as a Field of Merit had a beautiful, lyrical quality to it that seemed to lend itself to a richness of imagery. His lucid reasoning and the conviction behind his words combined to give him special power and impact to his talk that afternoon. As I looked around the room, I could see that many members of the audience were visibly moved.

I, myself, was less enthralled. As a result of our earlier conversations, I was in the rudimentary stages of appreciating the profound importance of compassion, yet as I was still heavily influenced by years of rational, scientific conditioning that made me regard any talk of kindness and compassion as being a bit too sentimental for my taste.

As he spoke, my mind began to wander. I started furtively looking around the room, searching for famous, interesting, or familiar faces. Having eaten a big meal just before the talk, I started to get sleepy. I drifted in and out.

At one point in the talk, my mind turned in to hear him say "...the other day I spoke about the factors necessary to enjoy a happy and joyful life. Factors such as good health, material goods, friends, and so on. If you closely investigate, you'll find that all these depend on other people. To maintain good health, you rely on medicines made by others and health care provided by others.

If you examine all of the material facilities that you use for the enjoyment of life, you'll find that there are hardly any of these material objects that have no connection with other people. If you think carefully, you'll see that all these goods come into being as a result of the efforts of many people, either directly or indirectly. Many people are involved in making those things possible. Needless to say, when we're talking about good friends and companions as being another necessary factor for a happy life, we are talking about interaction with other sentient beings, other human beings.

"So you can see that all these factors are inextricably linked with other people's efforts and cooperation. Others are indispensable. So, despite the fact that the process of relating to others might involve hardships, quarrels, or cursing, we have to try to maintain an attitude of friendship and warmth in order to lead a way of life in which there is enough interaction with other people to enjoy a happy life."

As he spoke, I felt instinctive resistance. Although I've always valued and enjoyed my friends and family, I've considered myself to be an independent person. Self-reliant. Prided myself on this quality in fact. Secretly, I've tended to regard overly dependent people with a kind of contempt – a sign of weakness.

Yet that afternoon, as I listened to the Dalai Lama, something happened. As "Our Dependence on Others," was not my favorite topic, my mind started to wander again, and I found myself absently removing a loose thread from my shirt sleeve. Tuning in for a moment, I listened as he mentioned the many people who are involved in making all our material possessions.

As he said this, I began to think about how many people were involved in making my shirt. I started imagining the farmer who grew the cotton. Next, the salesperson who sold the farmer the tractor to plow the field. Then, for that matter, the hundreds or even thousands of people involved in manufacturing that tractor, including the people that mined the ore to make the metal for each part of the tractor.

...And all the designers of the tractor. Then, of course, the people who processed the cotton, the people who wove the cloth, and the people who cut, dyed, and sewed that cloth. The cargo workers and truck drivers who delivered the shirt to the store and the salesperson who sold the shirt to me. It occurred to me that virtually every aspect of my life came about as the result of others' efforts.

My precious self-reliance was a complete illusion, a fantasy. As this realization dawned on me, I was overcome with a profound sense of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings. I felt a softening. Something. I don't know. It made me want to cry.

(Excerpt from The Art of Happiness, "Dependence on Others vs. Self Reliance", written by the 14th Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler, M.D.; Pages 71-75)

There is a fine line between corny and deep, and sometimes the line is just completed erased. I think that line is erased when two things happen: the speaker is serious and has conviction and dedication to what they are saying, and two, when the listener is respectful and introspective.

When your science teacher tells you everything is interconnected, you’re thinking about the lion who eats the antelope, the antelope who eats the grass, the grass who drinks the water from the soil, and the droppings that were the animals and other plants who become the soil. What’s interesting is that despite the fact that we have all of those things in mind while we’re watching the lion king, it’s much deeper then.

This is either support that movies move people, or that class-rooms don’t. You decide which.

On a different note, I feel better once again after having read some of this book. It’s good for the soul in a very-serious, very-deep, not-at-all-corny sort of way. Chicken soup for the teenage soul came off as corny to me way-back-when several people tried to get me to read it.

I can honestly say now however, that I’m experiencing the “softening.” I feel much more drawn to the idea of interaction with people, especially with the accepted fact that I need those other people, even if they are not the same people who manufactured this lap-top or the ones who made my shirt. Indirectly, every human being has influenced me, I just can’t trace how. To deny that, to pretend to be reliant on myself or any one person or even just a handful of people is unrealistic and naive. I see that now.

Another short excerpt from page 63:

Sometimes when I meet with old friends, it reminds me how quickly time passes. And it makes me wonder if we've utilized our time properly or not. Proper utilization of our time is so important. While we have this body, and especially this amazing human brain, I think every minute is something precious. Our day-to-day existence is very much alive with hope, although there is no guarantee of our future. There is no guarantee that tomorrow at this time we will be here. But we are working for that purely on the basis of hope. So, we need to make the best of our time.

So, let us reflect on what is truly of value in life, what gives meaning to our lives, and set our priorities on the basis of that.

Once you accept the fact that compassion is not something childish or sentimental, once you realize that compassion is something really worthwhile, realize it's deeper value, then you immediately develop an attraction towards it, a willingness to cultivate it.

And once you encourage the thought of compassion in your mind, once that thought becomes active, then your attitudes towards others changes automatically. If you approach others with the thought of compassion, that will automatically reduce fear and allow an openness with other people. It creates a positive, friendly atmosphere.

With that attitude, you can approach a relationship in which you, yourself, initially create the possibility of receiving affection or a positive response from the other person. And with that attitude, even if the other person is unfriendly, or doesn't respond to you in a positive way, then at least you've approached the person with a feeling of openness that gives you a certain flexibility and the freedom to change your approach as needed.

End Excerpt.

I really like this part because it’s a good reminder of how to not start a conversation. When you answer the phone exasperated, and demand; “What?!” you automatically cut off any possibility of a deep or meaningful conversation. If the person on the other end wanted to tell you something serious or sentimental, they’ll probably change their tune to “oh, just want to say hi... guess I’ll talk to you later since you’re busy...”

It brings new meaning to the phrase, "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all."

More entries of mine that can help you overcome depression, melancholy, and discontent and discover the happy you:

Responsibility: Cause & Effect

Mind-set Changes: Blog: Loving Life

Physical Setbacks: Poisons: Things That Will Make You Miserable

Healing Your Body: Becoming Healthy

Understanding Your Reactions: Oxytocin: The Natural Chemical Reaction Creating Love

Impact of Thought: The Power of your Imagination

Common Trends: Changing Your Negative Habits

Your Image: Drinking: It Affects More Than Your Health

Worldview: The Cage You're In

Twitter

2010-11-05T14:27:00.002-04:00

If you're not following me, here's what you're missing (8 Days of Tweets manually rendered):

October 28th 2010

I knew what it meant to be constipated at the age of six years old. TMI? Undoubtedly, but I want to help others w(cont) http://tiny.cc/q6xf5

"Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional." – Max Lucade

Is the Earth overpopulated with humans? Who said it is & who says it isn't? What is this information based on? http://tiny.cc/84zoy

"What in your brain separates the pleasurable adrenaline high of a horror film..." What? There is nothing pleasurable about that sensation!

I think I've developed my dislike of horror movies due to my uncanny level of creativity & imagination. For me, watching IS experiencing.

I just read the article that a friend posted; http://tiny.cc/aolsm about the human response to horror movi (cont) http://amplify.com/u/e7hf

Response; I've been slowing sneaking greens into my smoothies & it seems to be working. Fruit flavor can hide a lot! :D

There was a period of time when I was 16 where my jaw frequently locked up. One day, I couldn't open my mouth at (cont) http://tiny.cc/1v39i

Breakfast: Yellow mango, banana nutmilk smoothie (with added spinach for nutrition), raw cashew nut "bread," & bell pepper.

Brunch: raw granola (buckwheat oats, raisins, banana & home-made raw cashew milk) See what I'm eating here: http://tiny.cc/xxxcc

This morning I had delicious cashew nutbread & yesterday I had seed chips with avocados. Are you excited by your diet? http://tiny.cc/2qrij

It's a serious dream of mine, as a freelance artist, to become a board game illustrator. http://tiny.cc/zk1a3

"Beyond that, I was always tired, nearly always depressed, and I knew there had to be an answer out there somewhere." http://tiny.cc/lbru5

My husband points out that the artwork that I chose for my daily raw log doesn't exactly mesh with the them (cont) http://amplify.com/u/e40l

Response: http://amplify.com/u/e2yj Well, you make a good point yet again! At the moment I admit I feel that I want to feed my kids 95% raw

If you've heard the term "digital painting" but are clueless as to what it means, read this: http://tiny.cc/byuur

Why is it that everyone is always so happy and uplifting at raw food potlucks? http://tiny.cc/pbhm2

Response to a tweet: Oh! This dancing like a palm tree thing seems like it could be fun! It should be added into yoga classes everywhere.

Someone tells me they are avoiding agave nectar: Glad to hear! Agave nectar was probably hyped up initially because someone saw potential profit; not health benefit.

October 29th 2010

Response: If you love vegetables, it makes it much easier to go onto a raw diet. But hey, I managed it & I don't even like most raw vegetables!

Tips & tricks for making delicious healthy smoothies, photos of my daily meals, recipes & yum. http://tiny.cc/p8tt6

It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret. – Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Most eco-friendly products aren't as green as they claim to be: About 4.5 percent of the 5296 products surveyed we... http://bit.ly/aYGPD3

Response: I have noticed in the past that writing down goals helps a lot; I should start doing it again. Thanks for reminding me! :D

I'm thinking about creating a raw Halloween treat to celebrate. Any suggestions? Considering "Hint of Pumpkin Cupcakes" or something.

Response: For an even more epic foodie afternoon, try a raw food potluck. Look for a group that meets nearby on meetup.com - It's amazing.

I've noticed that people warm up to becoming raw the more raw food dishes they learn to prepare. Raw food is rich in flavor!

Response: I've noticed that short workouts throughout the day do me good. That's why I came up with this plan: http://tiny.cc/pc3ba

I've learned that pain during a workout usually means I'm not breathing deeply enough; yoga is great for breathing training.

I used to get really severe stomach aches each & every morning when I was sixteen. It was rough since the doctor couldn't help.

Purge unneeded things. Junk can be stressful. Unload closets. Give them away, donate, re-gift – anything, just so you get rid of them.

This Halloween, don't feed children candy that will harm their immune system & make them hyper. Sweet & healthy: http://tiny.cc/iri0glj8f4

Plants, according to my research, have more usable protein than meat & fish. I've started building more muscle since I went raw.

Response: You know you can make chocolate fudge brownies without baking anything at all & have it come out delicious? It's much healthier.

October 30th 2010

"You have no choice but to be yourself – You can do it reluctantly, or proudly."

Response: I actually log everything I eat; thought it might interest you: http://raw-food-log.blogspot.com

Response: So I'm hoping this banana icecream doesn't have sugar added. I've learned that fruit is sweet enough on its own.

Perhaps I ought to be eating more fresh parsley. I love herbs! Been eating a lot thyme & oregano lately.

Response: For the headache; try making a smoothie of Peppermint, Betony (an herb), carrots (with green tops) & kale. Tastes bad, but helps.

Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. – James Buckham

Bananas can help you quit smoking with their Vit A1, C, B6 & B12, along w/potassium, helps those trying to quit from nicotine withdrawal.

Response: How about making your self some raw chocolate treats? Like these: http://tiny.cc/blk0l (There is a #video demo by me.)

Health Reform: I think it's meaningless either way. The general medical of the western world doesn't help. (cont) http://amplify.com/u/e89p

Some people like to say, "Eat well, do good, get exercise, and die anyway," as some sort of excuse for part (cont) http://amplify.com/u/e88w

October 31st 2010

Total: $31.00 at the farmer's market: (all organic) 3 peaches, 2 apples, 1 large bunch of the original conc (cont) http://amplify.com/u/ebk7

Everyday we're killing ourselves, our friends, our families & our planet. http://tiny.cc/n4jse

Great speech: Listening & Learning right now from Vandana Shiva http://bit.ly/bFL6FW RT

Response: Apple cider vinegar -may- be great for fighting candida, but I suffered for years; quitting refined sugar is the cure.

Don't feed them candy for Halloween! Feed them this! Photos included: http://reallyrawraederle.blogspot.com/2010/10/recipe-pumpkin-pie.html

What did you eat today? I ate raw pumpkin pie, buckwheat granola, a slice of an o(cont) http://raw-food-log.blogspot.com

Act the way you wish you would act. We are addicted to our habitual reactions. Yoga is the cessation of habitual reactions.

"The power of fasting is not in losing weight during the fast, but in gaining control of your appetite."

I'm always careful about not over-training my body, but since I've gone raw I have so much more stamina & recovery ability.

90 minutes of activity a day sounds reasonable; doable even. I imagine stressful activities don't count. The hindered breathing would negate positive effects.

Recipes for Teeth Cleaning: Economical, Eco-friendly healthful & easy: http://dld.bz/vudh

Why not blend dates and soaked raw nuts and dip apple slices in that instead of caramel? It'd be much healthier that way.

So I've been a 100% #rawfoodie for 8 weeks now. http://reallyrawraederle.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-8-weeks-100-raw.html

Wow! I just finished making (and eating a large portion of) a raw pumpkin pie! I'm so amazed! I didn't b (cont) http://amplify.com/u/ea71

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

I'm going to be trying #nanowrimo this year. I "won" with 51k words in 2008 & "failed" in 2009 with 29k words. Going to work on book 2.

I'm thinking of growing lettuce, spinach, kale & assorted herbs. Seems more worth while at this point.

Response: That's what I was thinking! Who could say no to raw pumpkin cupcakes? I'll need to go to the store & get a pumpkin & a young coconut.

Making a smoothie right now: yellow mango, banana, peach, spinach, raw nutmilk & water that dates have soaked in.

Made my raw smoothie with two heaping spoonfuls of the raw pumpkin pie I made last night; came out wonderful. http://tiny.cc/1v5ey

"I'd rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I'm not." Me? I'm anti-corporatism, I am for progress, I am ecofriendly, and I am a raw vegan.

For a Happy Halloween don't make yourself sick on candy. Instead, make raw treats. http://reallyrawraederle.blogspot.com/p/raw-recipes.html

November 1st 2010

Working on my nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) novel already. Second novel in my fantasy series; here I come. I'm delving into my main character's past & loving it.

3172 words thus far nanowrimo – I'm feeling really pleased with myself an entirely entrenched in the flow of my novel. I feel brilliant!

4771 words already for National Novel Writing Month. Nanowrimo. I've been writing since 2:00am straight. I'm having a total blast!

Raw picnic potluck today on Mt. Diablo. Planning on making "pumpkin cupcakes" of sorts. Glad I got my nanowrimo writing for the day done.

November 2nd 2010

Question: "How do you write?"
Answer; "One word at a time."

Currently re-reading "On Writing" by Steven King. It's gotta be the best book about #writing on the planet. Informative, blunt & funny.

I had a picnic potluck with my husband & a friend yesterday on Mt. Diablo. Avocado wraps, pumpkin pie & much more – all organic, and all raw food!

Nanowrimo! Going to get my first draft for book 2 done by the end of November! What do you think of the series title "Daughter of Crystals"?

The creation of a digital painting; The Enchanted Mermaid http://tiny.cc/olt3wl8v5c Slide-show of the work's creation!

November 3rd 2010

1731 words today thus far, 9303 words total for nanowrimo. Writing my second book in the Daughter of Crystals series. A fantasy series by Raederle Phoenix.

The original concord grapes, with seeds, have so much more flavor. Seedless just isn't natural. *nomming on grapes for lunch*

Why didn't prop19 pass? Don't you realize how many people die over selling territory? If it were legal we could study it; tell doctors. >.<>> Not just vegan: It's also raw & healthy & delicious. You're welcome.

Breakfast Smoothie: blueberry, banana, peach, kale, broccoli, peeled cucumber & coconut water. Forget juice fasting: Enter juice feasting!

"What you think is a problem is actually a solution waiting to be seen."

More important than whole-grain is whether or not the croutons have sugar in them. Sugar: http://tiny.cc/0bqx89f6qs

"To for-give means to give something, with all your heart... give [up your] entitlement to being right." p.68 Steps of Essence

Discover 'who' you are and you'll know 'what' you need to be doing. "Know Thyself" has always been the key. ~Hanns-Oskar Porr

November 5th 2010

For your birthday you should have a raw cake! Delicious & no stomachache or sugar crash later! http://tiny.cc/wyvn5

Writing advice: If you can take the dialog out without adding three sentences of narrative, then both are extraneous to the story.

"Starving a story of detail can sometimes be a problem, but Annortextia is far less common than Obestiality." Chose your details! National Novel Writing Month.

Nanowrimo. Does your story have the right main character? The lead to choose is the character that changes the most throughout your tale.

1875 words written today for Nanowrimo. Thank goodness! I never thought I'd finish this morning. 11,247 words total for the 2nd book! W00t!

Restraining anger: Commercial for cookie bake-sales to raise money for cancer research. What bull. Cookies cause cancer folks!

Have you seen the “Glad” commercial advertising bake-sales & cookies to raise money for cancer research? Sugary white-flour cookies coated in high-fructose-corn-syrup is the sort of thing that causes cancer!

Question response: I don't have a publish date yet, but when I do, it'll be here: http://tiny.cc/jzt3n (My writing blog & info on my book.)

What you believe the world is manifests everything in your life. When you change your opinions and perspect (cont) http://amplify.com/u/ela9

Your body reacts to your emotional visualizations the same way it does to actual events. It brings new meaning to "thinking positively."

You are not what you think you are. Instead: What you think; you are. "We become what we think about," – Earl Nightingale

Imagine yourself truly happy for thirty solid seconds every morning & night. You are vibrantly healthy, alive & successful. See it!

Full responsibility for your life will cultivate success because it forces you to research the effects you experience back to the causes.

People accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of. Next time you want to blame someone, look inside yourself first.

"All of us are self-made, but only the successful will admit it." – Earl Nightingale

"Instead of achieving to be happy, happily achieve." - David Wolfe

“How to change the world,” A blog article on happiness & health: http://pitifulbarbie.typepad.com/blog/2010/11/changing-the-world.html

977 words thus far today for Nanowrimo and it's only 8:48am here in Walnut Creek, CA. How is your progress on your novel coming along?

1938 words today for Nanowrimo – I'm so excited! 13185 words towards my 2nd book in my fantasy series – Success is today & ahead!

Nourish your optimistic ideas; for they are the #divine seed of your limitless potential. Being your best self is not a goal, but an action.

Tryptophan, an animo acid necessary for being happy is damaged when cooking foods. Best sources: raw hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, spirulina, algae, bananas, raw cocoa (unsweetened, uncooked chocolate), etc.

"A change of diet will not help those who will not change their thoughts. When thoughts are pure, we no longer desire impure food." – James Allen

Build a fortress of positive thoughts around you. Make the walls of light so thick that not even the most subtle negativity can reach you.

Use your garden-mind to creatively rethink yourself. Build an image of your highest, happiest & healthiest self. Now strive for it!

"If we put glass walls on all the mega-processing facilities, we'd have a different food system in this country."

I suspect it's all stuff I already know, but I'm going to watch the food inc documentary just so I know what's in it.

Okay, so I am learning some things I didn't know watching Food Inc. I never knew slaughter houses could be THAT disgusting.

I think this point: Farmer decisions have been outsources to #corporate people in cities who don't have to live with the consequences.

If you just look at the employees of Whole Foods & how they are treated: compare that to the treatment of workers at mass-slaughter house.

Nobody wants to pay an arm & a leg, but is "cheap" good? Would you want to buy the cheapest car? No! You want something reliable & stable.

"Cheap" food is actually very expensive. Add up the cost to the environment (massive death of bees, for example), health costs, society costs...

Every time you shirk that extra 50cents for organic produce you're spending $5 to $10 towards mid-life surgeries (or sooner.)

Every time you buy a fast food burger instead of a free-range grass-fed burger you're endorsing crimes against workers, the earth & animals.

Every can of soda you drink negatively effects the creation of millions of cells within your body. Every can is lies & misery.

Capitalism isn't going to go away overnight. What you spend is your vote. Vote for local small companies. For the ecological integrity.

Capitalism will still be here when the sun rises tomorrow. Use your dollars to vote for farmer's markets, sustainability, and for family.

So you cast your vote at the election & made your voice heard. But are you voting for what you believe in when you purchase groceries?

To Be Happy

2010-11-04T19:01:00.006-04:00

"Correcting oneself is correcting the whole world. The Sun is simply bright. It does not correct anyone. Because it shines, the world is full of light. Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world." - Ramana Maharshi

Photo by Raederle Phoenix
What you believe the world is manifests everything in your life. It's an old cliche, but it's true: Your attitude determines the outcome.When you change your opinions and perspective of the world, the world changes. Your mission isn't to fix the world, but to fix yourself. Then, and only then, will the world be set right.

The world does not change. We change.

We are all personally responsible for the state of the entire world because the world only mirrors our inner selves. War, disease, famine, pollution, and corruption are all reflections of the inner crisis gripping us individually, and therefor collectively. Each of us has our own reality, and that reality is a fragment of our collective consciousness which is projected outward upon our environment.

In order to create a happy world, each one of us on an individual level must become happy. Your life needs to center around making you happy. And what drives us as humans to become happy? What, deep down, creates a genuine lasting contentment?

Happiness

When you gain a raise at work, or a new book, you feel happier right? But does it last?

When you help someone in need the happiness lasts and lasts. You feel warm when you look back on good deeds you've done for someone. Even if they didn't fully appreciate what you did, even if they never knew how much you helped them, you can still feel that warm glow of knowing you did the right thing.

Misery

And what makes us unhappy? You were upset when your favorite show got canceled, or when your pet died, but after time, everything was okay again, wasn't it? What is it that creates a life-long depression? What is it that makes you unhappy continually?

It's not the canceled TV program, and it's not your struggle at your minimum wage job, or the jerk in traffic who cuts you off.

What makes us unhappy every single day is the continual pain we experience. The headache, the stomachache, the muscle cramp, the sinus pressure, or whatever pain you experience. The unhappiness comes from feeling too tired to do what you want to do. Unhappiness comes from being too disorganized and scatter-brained to remember your child's recital or your best friend's birthday-party. Unhappiness comes from not being able to remember things you know you ought to be able to remember, or from being sick so often that you're not doing well in school.

Changing the world is thus: Become happy, become healthy. Do thus, and the world will be more significantly changed than any amount of charity money you could ever donate.

Responsibility

Taking full responsibility for your life will cultivate success because it forces you to research the effects you experience back to the causes. Understanding the cause and effect of everything impact within your life is the key to transforming your life for the better.

The more you understand about the effects of your day to day lifestyle and how you behave and interact with your environment, the more clear it will become that you really are the cause of everything that happens to you.

There are, of course, exceptionally bad situations where no one can work out why something horrific happened, but the horrific crimes committed against some of us are not what's important. What's important is what we learn from these experiences; how we react, how we grow, how we push past them.

To cultivate this feeling of inner-worth and responsibility, write this in your journal, blog, or on some other place visible to you on a regular basis: "I am completely responsible for my own wonderful life, vibrant health and continual happiness."

Our "Dark Sides"

I think we're here to discover that our darker sides are less real, less important, and less useful than our good sides. To grow and learn that happiness comes from helping others.

The truth within ourselves is that we love being loved, and we are loved when we love others and do for others as we would do for ourselves.

After I read "The Art of Happiness" I realized that most of the time I'm not happy because I'm not feeling like I'm accomplishing enough. And I only feel like I'm accomplishing enough when I'm helping others.

Hence why I spend so much time harping on people about nutrition. Yeah, it annoys a lot of people, but those who really listen make big changes in their lives and are so thankful that it makes it all worth while.

~Raederle Phoenix

Here are some further posts I've written that will help you gain the resources you need to overcome depression, melancholy and discontentment and discover happiness:

Interdependence: The Art of Happiness: Best Book I Ever Read

Mind-set Changes: Blog: Loving Life

Physical Setbacks: Poisons: Things That Will Make You Miserable

Healing Your Body: Becoming Healthy

Understanding Your Reactions: Oxytocin: The Natural Chemical Reaction Creating Love

Impact of Thought: The Power of your Imagination

Common Trends: Changing Your Negative Habits

Your Image: Drinking: It Affects More Than Your Health

Worldview: The Cage You're In

Overpopulation

2010-10-29T16:22:00.004-04:00

A comment someone left on this video (minus the swearing), went as thus:

Your math is wrong. World population is 6,908,688,000, Texas is 7,494,271,488,000 sq ft. Divide it and it's 1084.76 sq ft/person, that's enough for a small house.

My reply:

If each person learned about 'forest gardening' -- a technique of growing produce -- that would be enough land for each person to live off of. I've learned enough about agriculture and gardening to know that with today's technology (and without it if you live in the right climate) a family can live off of a piece of land the size of a standard mattress. Also, most people would not be living alone, so families would have enough space to own a full-size house.

A family of four would have 4339 square feet of land. If the house has two or three stories, that is indeed plenty of space.

Someone asked me, "What about sewage?"

My response: Ideally, there would be a deep hole dug (about the size of a well, but not deep enough to hit water), for each property, and drain contents would enter into the hole. Soil would be added to the hole regularly and the earth would naturally recycle the waste. But that's just the environmentally ideal solution for sewage.

Technically, there is no reason why underground sewage tunnels couldn't still be built and lead to some place to be "treated" or whatever.

I'm interested in learning more about this topic, so if you have an opinions or facts you want to throw out there, please comment.

Board Game Illustration

2010-10-28T11:05:00.003-04:00

It's a dream of mine to illustrate book covers of fantasy novels and also to illustrate board games (and creative card games as well.) I love digital painting, and have even decided to create a blog dedicated to talking about my art projects and thoughts on art overall. Perhaps I'll even create tutorials in the future on digital painting.

I went to a board game gathering recently and met a couple board game designers and played their game. I told them I was an artist and was interested in working for them if they needed someone. One of them gave me their card, and I wrote her today:

Awesome Girl,

Hi! I just checked out the website. I'm also a web-designer so I had to check and make sure your site was good. I know a lot of people struggle with online presence because of a poor template, but I was glad to see that your site is perfectly functional, well organized, and designed in such a way that is appropriate, even if it isn't exactly exciting.

I notice your card says you're the "Marketing Director." I'm wondering what methods you're using besides attending board-game meetups and having a card, website and facebook. If you don't have a blog and a twitter, you should consider it. It's a great way to bring attention to yourself and what you're doing and keep people checking back.

(I run five active blogs at a time, as well as a twitter and constantly updating my facebook to keep people traveling to my site. Although I'm mostly trying to spread word about my cause more than what I have to offer in services/products at the moment. When my book is published though, it'll be good that I already have such a well-established online presence.)

My online portfolio is here: http://phoenix-muse.darkfolio.com/

I really hope you're interested in hiring me for something or other because I'm very passionate about board games and really want to get involved in creating them. I've done artwork for logos, websites, an array of graphics for fliers, banners, buttons, shirts, etc, as well as designing countless signs, postcards, business cards, and pamphlets.

I've done custom artwork for tattoos and even for a writer who wanted a drawing of their main character. But I've never done board game illustration for anyone but myself.

I actually have three very extensively designed board games that I created entirely myself, but being a freelance artist doesn't make me the kind of start-up money to even create prototypes of any of games I created. My only prototype was so cheaply created that I couldn't even get into testing it because I'm so aesthetically inclined that playing with a cheap mock-up made the game experience difficult to enjoy.

Even if you don't require an artist, I also can write professionally (as well as creatively), edit, run a twitter and/or blog for your business, create any of the things I named above (for example: new spiffy business cards featuring your next game), or even offer my ideas for new game designs.

Perhaps I'll see you at another meetup soon and we can talk in person more about what your business needs are, what your budget is, what the goals are, and so forth, after you've seen my portfolio and had some time to think about it.

Best wishes, hugs, and a Happy Halloween!

Well, let's hope it develops into something awesome.

Drinking Affects Your Image

2010-10-09T15:31:00.002-04:00

I started drinking here and there at the age of fourteen and quit at the age of eighteen. I quit because I realized that how I behaved when I drank was embarrassing, inappropriate, and harmful.

We've all seen someone saying something stupid while they're drunk. That's a no-brainer.

Interestingly, new evidence shows that drinking is bad for your image even if you're not drunk.

According to a working paper from the University of Michigan's Scott Rick and the University of Pennsylvania's Maurice Schweitzer, just holding a glass of alcohol makes you look stupid. Regardless of gender or the type of drink, if people see you drinking, they think less of your intelligence.

"It hurts you," Rick says, a Ph.D. in Behavioral Decision Research.

The study conducted five experiments.

One experiment had people judge photographs of others holding an alcoholic drink, a non-alcoholic one or nothing.

Another experiment tested how persuasive a speech would be if the audience knew the speaker was drinking alcohol or something nonalcoholic.

In both cases, alcohol dimmed the perceived intelligence of the people holding the drinks.

One of the experiments put together job seeking and alcohol. Let's say a potential employer takes you, the potential employee, to dinner. The study shows that when you order a glass of wine or a beer, the employer views you as less desirable; even if the employer orders a drink as well.

Worse still, the study found that when that even if the drink you're holding was ordered for you "the bias still exists," Rick says.

"There are so many associations with alcohol," he adds. And very few of them are positive, as Rick's study reminds us.

I notice that this is true for myself. When I look at other people drinking I think to myself, "What a waste of money," and "What a waste of time," and "Doesn't that person care about their health?" Of course, I also have those thoughts when I see people drinking soda.

~ Raederle Phoenix

Adapted some information from an article written by Paul Kix

The Movie Avatar

2010-09-02T22:24:00.002-04:00

I just returned home from seeing Avatar in the theater with my husband. This was Lytenian's first ever movie date. Crazy, I know.

We watched several trailers before choosing a movie last night. I was hesitant about Avatar because the trailer made the movie come off as cliché. Now, the bare bones are cliché; don't get me wrong. But the movie itself was superb.

Firstly, the characters have character. That was not demonstrated in the trailer very well.

Secondly, the animation is phenomenal.

And thirdly, despite doing a play off the ol' pocahontas story-line, there were a number of subplots that were unique in their own right, and a realm that certainly defined itself as an individual with a powerful voice.

I enjoyed it very much and feel that it was very much worth seeing in the theater. The 3D effects were not overdone or hard to watch, as I've experienced with some 3D movies in the past. I never once even noticed the music, so it must have never been out of place or overbearing or missing, since I would have noticed if any of those had been the case.

And of course, lastly, the movie just god-damned beautiful! I need to look up the concept art!

The next day:

Hard to find a site with much by the way of actual concept art. I mostly find a lot of silly fan art and a scattering of shots from the movie. Anyone have a link?

Eye Strain

2010-07-27T12:14:00.003-04:00

You hear about “eye-strain” and situations where people get headaches so bad that they need absolutely all light cut off from their eyes... But hearing about it just is not the same as experiencing it. Even now, my head is beginning to hurt and I may have to cut this shorter than intended.

I've been away from my computer since Thursday, when my eyes simply quit.

Factors that contributed to my extreme inability to use my eyes;

Areo Garden light in very close proximity to my computer screen.
Not venturing outside very often; no exposure to full sunlight.
An old florescent light-bulb in the kitchen.
Reading more often and for longer periods of time than I have in years.
Not eating nearly as many carrots as I was for the previous two years.
Glasses prescription getting further and further from 'correct' as my eyes worsen.
Using my glasses to watch anime on my laptop (with the screen only a few feet away) with my husband while he was sick for many hours a day.

I can't say that any one of those is the cause, because I've been having more and more symptoms for a while. For example;

Not being able to play video games for very long without developing a headache.
Having to take a break to rest my head after reading a chapter or two of a book.
Increased sensitivity to sunlight.
An attack of pain which turned into hysterics involving crying and laughing at the same time after using my computer for the majority of the day a couple weeks ago.
Increased sensitivity to sounds, especially video-game sound effects and alarms.
Increased sensitivity to being in close proximity to a microwave.

Each of these has been growing over time, and I can mark it's progression and worsening right in line with the first list of causes.

The glasses have been far-off the mark for a while now – maybe for an entire year. I've experienced more headaches in the past year than I have previously in my life.

I've been having my trouble with my eyes since I moved here to be with my husband, and that's also when the prolonged exposure to the florescent lights began.

I started experiencing all sorts of sensitivities while my husband was sick, which was while we were watching three or four hours of Full Metal Alchemist of my laptop each night. I didn't think the headaches were really separate from the other issues; such as fatigue and runny nose.

And I'd go on, but my head is beginning to pound, so I will now proceed to input what I wrote while blindfolded. I was desperate to write just for the release I get while writing, so the day before yesterday my husband set up a plain text document for me to try to type in. Unedited, it would be fairly ugly.

Unedited clip, “took me to lots of different pla es today... whiel I was wearing a blindfold..,.”

The blindfolded entry I typed;

This will need a god awful amount of editing later. My [eye] nerves have gone haywire... or I've pulled a muscle in my eye, or something. Jeez, it's so weird not to see anything appearing on the screen in front of me...

It's so tempting to just peek and see [what I'm typing]... but I know that would give my head a lot, a lot, a lot of pain.

My husband took me around everywhere today. He took me to the store. He took me a lot of different places while I was wearing a blindfold. He took me first to CVS and we got me an actual eye-cover. I'm wearing that eye-cover now, technically.

This is totally not the same without bring able to see what you're writing.

sigh

My husband informs me I'm typing in all capitals again... great.

I am sad.

I want to be able to see.

Perhaps I should practice typing more often while wearing a blindfold.

sigh

This makes me continually think, “What if I were blind?” Like, it's a non-stop wonderment.

Anyway, the moral of this story is;

Keep raw carrots in your diet.

Don't use glasses for close-up things whenever you can avoid it.

Don't over-use your computer.

Get outside every now and then.

Take care of your body!

Eating At Restaurants

2010-07-22T20:29:00.005-04:00

I was just reading this entry by a person who tried a month without eating or using anything created by Monsanto.

To quote;

Me: “I’m on a special diet. I can’t have any soy products, corn products, anything made with corn or soy oil, or sugar, or any dairy or meat.”

Kind waitress: “What can you eat?”

Me: “Salad.”

I can relate.

A lot.

I go through that all the time. In fact, it's gotten so that I don't even run down the list of things I don't eat...

(I don't eat meat, dairy, soy, canola oil, anything hydrogenated, bread, wheat, gluten, sugar, alternative sugars, 'natural' sweeteners, pasta... And I also try to eat as little as possible cooked.)

I just instead ask detailed questions about the salads. No croutons on my salad, no cheese or meat, or sugar in my dressing (which usually means just getting olive oil and vinegar, which I'm happy with) and so on.

Generally going out to eat doesn't thrill me, for obvious reasons.

January 3rd 2011

Since I wrote the above tidbit in July (six months ago), much has changed for the better.

My restrictions have actually increased. I no longer eat cooked food which, you would imagine, would make going to restaurants more difficult.

This is a salad I ordered from a lovely little place in Danville around August 2010.

On the contrary, I've gotten back to liking going out. It's all about looking for the right places. Choose a restaurant that focuses on having a wide variety of fresh foods, color and flavor. Then, look throughout the menu for every mention of produce. Perhaps avocados are offered with the meat, and perhaps a side of melon is offered with certain dishes, etc. When the server comes, choose the best salad and say, "Can I also add avocados, melon, seasonal berries..." And whatever else you and the server can come up with. My experiences with doing this thus far have been very positive. I've managed to wind up with some very diverse and delicious salads without running into anything that would upset my body.

And, to take things a step further, I've discovered Cafe Gratitude, which is a lovely restaurant that actually offers a wide variety of specialty raw food. While it isn't a place one can afford to eat weekly, it is worth it to us on a monthly basis to be treated to a gourmet meal that neither my husband or I had to prepare. Even better yet, they make some things that would take us days to create, like "sour cream" made from cashews, and "meat balls" made from seeds and vegetables, and so forth.

Becoming a live-foodist does not mean giving up eating out. In fact, I like to use it as an opportunity to show others that my diet is neither boring, nor unsatisfactory. I was so delighted when my sister-in-law proclaimed that she was "entirely stuffed!" when we went to Cafe Gratitude for a New Years lunch. My husband finished off the last third of her meal, which delighted him as well.

This is the salad I ate at the company Christmas dinner I spent with my husband mid December of 2010

When going to a restaurant that does not serve specialty raw-food cuisine, I often bring a few things with me to compliment my order. Perhaps a few raw olives, a home-made vegetable cracker (dehydrated at 105 degrees), a few dried apple slices (covered in cinnamon), perhaps a handful of almonds, etc. Just enough to round-out whatever is served so that I'm still eating and enjoying just as long as everyone else, if not longer.

Another rule of thumb is to always have one washed fresh fruit and one snack-bar-type-thing in your purse or backpack with you. An apple, or an orange, or a kiwi with the fur scrubbed so well that the fur has rubbed off, etc. If you don't dehydrate your own raw bars, you can pick one up at Whole Foods, or possibly at another specialty store. I like Lydia's spirulina bars in particular.

If you're up for a little more work, another trick I've been using is to pack a glass "Tupperware" container with washed celery spines filled with almond butter. I cover the exposed almond butter with leaves of washed organic spinach so that the nutbutter doesn't get all over everything. The nutbutter will oxidize a little which will somewhat change the color, but the texture and flavor remains for quite some time.

In a nutshell, it's not as hard as I used to think it was. Eating out can still be quite enjoyable given a little forethought.

A Hot Bath

2010-06-23T18:02:00.005-04:00

About an hour ago I was doing some yoga on my hot-pink yoga mat and thinking about what positions and movements to do in order to give my abs a full work out. I became really sweaty and felt I needed a shower. I went to the bathroom and decided that I actually wanted a nice hot bath.

Hot baths are excellent. I've come to realize that it ought to be the third thing you do when you have a physical ailment, not the very last thing you try. (The first thing should be a glass of water. The second thing should be a large bowl of your favorite sort of salad which should be made up of at least half green leaves.)

I find that despite the many pills available, none of them work as well on cramps as a hot bath. Although, I've love to try putting silk tassel to work on cramps, but unfortunately it doesn't grow in the middle of apartment-complex-central.

I've also found hot baths to sooth stress, any form of muscle cramp, irritated skin, infections, and so forth. It seems like the cheapest and most effective quick-fix than anyone with a bathtub has lying around.

Baths are also excellent for reflecting. I had this amazing realization while I was pondering the evils of Monsanto and other corporations in the tub. I suddenly caught the word 'evils' and paused on it. The evils of who exactly? And then it hit me...

No person is evil. The situation is what's evil.

I'm certain that the people behind creating such awful chemicals have really rough situations and traumas that have led them to make depraved and difficult choices in their lives.

On a slightly unrelated topic;

An old friend of mine asked me for a run-down on my current life. I wrote;

"I'm recently married. I'm spending most of my time writing my new health blog and researching for it. I've started an indoor edible garden including strawberries, tomatoes, thyme, sage and basil. I'm working on becoming more and more informed about everything I buy now that I fully understand that the vote doesn't happen in the poll-booth, it happens in the store. I'm thinking about going back to working on a fantasy novel I was writing a few years ago.

"I'm doing yoga daily and going out to do it about once a week. I'm having raw food potlucks at my apartment and attending them as often as I can. I'm learning how to eat as much raw and fresh produce as possible, and learning the dangers and idiocy of cooking food (or worse, microwaving it), and am about to start researching stocks this week so my husband and I can make some informed investments in some forward-thinking companies."

My Indoor Garden

And yet, I still wish I could milk more hours out of every day for more digital painting, poetry, blogging, researching, dancing, singing, making love, thinking and playing.

...

A political cartoon I found moving;

And here is an article I found to be very, very well informed and well written. Eliot Spitzer discusses how the incentives we create drive corporations to do what they do, and how it won't change if we don't change the regulations. The best read I've seen that had anything to do with the oil spill.

Bayer; Advertisements Are Misleading

2010-06-23T15:40:00.004-04:00

I don't usually watch any advertisements since I rarely watch any television, and when I used to, I had a DVR and I recorded everything I watched and fast-forwarded through all the ads. Now, however, I watch a bit of anime on Hulu which has "limited commercial interruption."

I think this is great, in theory. I love that I can find anime streaming high-quality on the net with the small price of non-skipable advertisements. The concept is fine, and I have no argument with that in and of itself.

What bothers me is the content of these advertisements. There is one I just watched showing women touching a rhino (or perhaps an elephant; I was thinking about what the ad was saying more than I was focusing on the animal being touched) with blindfolds on. The women report guesses as to what they're touching. They suggest it might be things like a "wall" or a "pipe" and the narrator goes on to say that you should get the full picture before making judgments.

Yes. You should get the full picture - what a wonderful message. It would have been warmly received if it wasn't an advertisement for Bayer birth control. First of all, to get the whole picture, you have to consider that birth control is dangerous.

I'm not saying I don't use a form of it, but I certainly don't use Yaz, or get a shot loaded with three months worth of contraceptive stuck in my rear either. Those are just bad life choices, really and truly. (A friend in high school actually lost her period entirely and required more drugs to get it started again after using the shot, not to mention gaining twenty pounds.)

Whenever you put any drug in your body, you are putting yourself at risk. That's why it's called a 'drug' as opposed to a 'food.' No drug is 'safe' - not a single one. They all have some risks.

Now, let's talk about Bayer, as a company. Just as a quick run-down; Bayer became a big name when it became part of a conglomerate company owned by Nazis. Bayer creates a pesticide shown to be destroying bee colonies. Bayer had a drug created that they knew was contaminated with HIV, and after taking it off the market in America they turned around and sold it in other countries (the FDA was aware of this, and did nothing.)

Are you thinking to yourself, "Bayer... That sounds familiar?" You probably have a Bayer product in your home right now;

Advertising; Made To SELL, Not to Educate

Yes, they're the company that makes the Asprin you mostly likely buy. Do you really want to keep giving these murderers your money?

Imagination Fitness

2010-06-12T04:19:00.004-04:00

"The power of imagination makes us infinite." - John Muir

"The exercise of the visualizing faculty keeps your mind in order. It attracts to you the things you need to make your life more enjoyable in an orderly way. If you train yourself in the practice of deliberately picturing your desire and carefully examining it, you will soon find your thought and desires come and proceed in more orderly procession than ever before. Having reached a state of ordered mentality, you are no longer in a constant state of mental hurry. Hurry is fear and consequently destructive." Genevieve Behrend, "Your Invisible Power"

"Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing." - Kim Rohn

The Brain

When you use your brain, little electronic signals are emitted. This has been scientifically proven. It's widely believed that these signals have a much wider effect that science can explain through electronic signals.

"It is well known that the brain is an electrochemical organ; researchers have speculated that a fully functioning brain can generate as much as 10 watts of electrical power. Other more conservative investigators calculate that if all 10 billion interconnected nerve cells discharged at one time that a single electrode placed on the human scalp would record something like five millionths to 50 millionths of a volt. If you had enough scalps hooked up you might be able to light a flashlight bulb." - The Function Of Brainwaves

Water Crystals

Although there have been some studies, such as the ones with water crystals reacting to thoughts and words. Startling pictures reveal that water reacts tremendously to our words and thoughts. Some have devoted their life's study to water, such as a man called Emoto who said;

"When I was a child, I learned from my mother that 'water is a reflection of your soul,'
"In remembering that experience, I decided to embark on this current research for and with water." - The Mystical Properties of Water

Reiki

It's widely believed by those who practice Reiki (and other forms of spiritual healing) that there is great power in one's intention. That through intention we may use our energy to heal others. I personally can attest to having a physical affliction healed through this method that was very memorable to me.

Personal Experience

I was around nine or ten at the time. I had gotten a bug bite of some sort, and hadn't had the sense to leave it alone. The first day it was perhaps the size of a dime. After two days of scratching, applying Benedryl, anti-itch creams, and using ice, it was around the size of a child's palm. After another couple of days the pain had become unbearable, as it has swollen up, and began to burn constantly. It stretched from an inch short of my wrist to an inch short of the inside of my elbow. It was disgustingly hideous to see.

I tried to stop scratching by using ice, and by wearing long-sleeve shirts, but I was having difficulty with using any will-power against the more and more overpowering urge to scratch.

I remember vividly that I was in my mother's office and I was complaining about how much it hurt. She was telling me something along the lines of how it served me right for scratching it so much, and then adding that there was nothing she could do about it.

My father walked in and inquired as to what the problem was. I showed him my arm, looking for sympathy. He asked what it was, and I told him that it had started as a bug bite nearly a week ago. He quietly took my arm between his hands and covered the entire sore area with his hand. It itched terribly as he held it, but there was also a soothing sort of feeling as well as a sensation that I can only describe as feeling like one's circulation is being sped up.

He held my arm for what felt like an interminably long time. At some point the itching stopped, but the 'rushing of blood' sensation continued to grow stronger. Then, finally, with a long exhale he released my arm. To my astonishment (and my mother's) the redness, and swelling was completely gone, and so was the itching. There was no sign whatsoever that it had ever been there.

There are two explanations for this, either of which I believe are correct, but one is more easily swallowed by people who think 'scientifically' and the other is more easily swallowed by those who think 'spiritually.' Although I personally think there is no real separation between science and spirituality except the separation that we make in our perceptions.

Spiritual Explanation

The spiritual explanation is that he used his chakra (chi, energy, light, etc) to send direction to my energy to heal. His energy sucked out the negative energy from the inflamed area, and gave direction to my body to flow the blood out of the swollen area, and to cease itching, since there was no further use in doing so.

Scientific Explanation

The scientific explanation (although not provable at this time, I'm quite sure that it could be proven given funding and time) would be that his brain transmitted imagery and information throughout his body, affecting the water in every cell of the body. The information can then be transmitted to the cells of another person's body given that their mind is relaxed and not over-riding the information with thoughts like 'this won't work' or other negative thoughts. The information flow will grow stronger and stronger as both the giver and receiver imagine that it is happening. The "imagining" is not separate from what is actually happening, since the brain-signals are what is directing the occurrence, although the imagination could be exaggerated from the actuality by quite a degree.

Thereby, the 'healer' uses the discipline of their mind and focus, and the strength of their body's energy to send the right signals to the other person.

Pay It Forward; With Imagination

Consider the implications.

Your mind has the power to influence the particles of everything your body comes into contact with. It's the same principle as "pay it forward" only with thoughts.

Self-Fulling Prophesy

When you think negative thoughts, you are creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. "How can a prophesy fullfill itself?" you ask. Let me give you a short personal example;

An ex-boyfriend of mine whom I was deeply in love with was always paranoid that I would leave him. I couldn't understand why; he had the potential to be everything I had ever wanted in a mate, but somehow he came up short via broken promises and a lack of real commitment.

He claimed I was everything he wanted in a woman, but continually proclaimed that it didn't matter what he did because I was going to leave him anyway. He said he didn't want to give up drinking and partying 'with the boys' because that would mean that when I left him he wouldn't have friends to fall back on. But this was the exact behavior that led me to leave him close to two and half years into the relationship.

It was literally his paranoia that I would leave him that caused the string of events that led to breakup. A perfect example of why fear is the enemy of love, as well as a perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Becoming Orderly

If you want to have a life that is not only filled with material wealth, but also with the wealth of the soul and heart, you must have a strong imagination. This does not mean you need to be creative. This only means you need to take the time to visualize your future.

When you take the time to visualize something, you will see any errors in the design and automatically change them. For example, if you visualize yourself going to the beach on the morning you plan on going to the beach, and you imagine lying on your towel in the hot sun next to the hot sand, and walking through the hot sand and letting the water lap over your toes, then you won't forget the sunscreen, the towel (the extra towel for after the one you're lying on gets sandy) or the bottled water. If you imagine the wind picking up and blowing your hair you might think to bring a wrap in case it becomes windy. If you imagine the feel of the sun on your face, you'll remember your sunhat.

These visualizations organize your brain and keep your focused. Your memory improves, as well as your direction and happiness. What you imagine will be a preview of what will come to pass. As Genevieve Behrend stated, you won't be in a constant state of mental hurry when the mind is orderly. Orderliness comes with using your imagination daily in a constructive manner.

Strolling

Your day should be a mental stroll, not a sprint. The difference between people who get angry at tangled cords and people who simply find the knot, and untangle it without so much as ruffling the contours of their face, are the pace as which they think. When you slow things down and take the time to visualize where you are and contrast that with your goal, the answers become clearer and clearer.

Imagining what you don't want to have happen; bad traffic, trouble at the office, not having time for breakfast; will cause it to happen. If you think those thoughts in vivid detail each night (and/or morning), and then fear them coming to fruition... Bang! Manifestation. If you take the time to construct a mental picture of how you wish your day to begin tomorrow before you go to sleep, and visualize the best possible day first thing in the morning, then you'll find that your day goes more smoothly. You'll also find it easier to parry those unexpected glitches in the system and find ways to be productive and peaceful when held up by mundane and unchangeable things such as traffic.

Strengthening Your Imagination

When you first begin to do mini-meditations, your mind will wander quite often. This is fine, and you shouldn't let it bother you. Just try to stay present and aware of yourself and your thought patterns. Pay close attention to how one thought follows another. Pay even closer attention to how you end up thinking negative things and redirect your thoughts towards gratitude.

Gratitude

Grateful people tend to be more optimistic, a characteristic that researchers say boosts the immune system. "There are some very interesting studies linking optimism to better immune function," says Lisa Aspinwall, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Utah. - Boosting Your Health With Gratitude

Being grateful has actually been shown to boost many aspects of your health and functions of your life. When you find yourself at the crux of a serious issue, instead of dwelling, create a deep vivid image of something you're genuinely grateful for. Not something you think you ought to be grateful for, but something you are truly grateful for.

Mini-Meditations

In the art of Tantra (a yogic practice designed to increase happiness and to especially increase sexual satisfaction and spirituality in the bedroom) is often taught to include the practice of the Mini Meditation.

This is a mental practice where you take time to notice how your body feels; where are you warm, where are you cold, are you comfortable, are you stiff, do you feel you use a glass of water? And so forth.

And then, after taking a moment to notice, listen and adjust your body, then take the time to notice your mental state. Are you happy, are you feeling down, do you feel optimistic, do you feel centered, are you annoyed? And so forth.

After taking a minute to contemplate your physical well being and another full minute to contemplate your mental well being, take a third minute to visualize what you would find the most desirable. It can be what you desire right now, what you desire tomorrow, or what you desire ten years down the line.

In the course of this three-minute mini-meditation you will come closer in contact with your wants, needs and goals, and thereby automatically come closer to reaching your wants, needs and goals. By doing this three minute meditation several times a day, or even daily, you'll find you have a better and better understanding of yourself.

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power."

"Know thyself." - Socrates

"It is wisdom to know others; It is enlightenment to know one's self." - Lao-Tzu

Create A Vivid Metal Image

Imagine yourself. Don't force the image to appear any certain way. Just let it come naturally as it does. Using force will agitate the mind and distort your mental imagery. Allow your thoughts to be dream-like images. Use all of your senses.

If you're imagining the hypothetical trip to the beach as I alluded to earlier, then your imagination should include the sounds of the waves, the screeching of the birds. It should include the smell of the salty ocean water and the scent of sunscreen, deodorant and/or sweat. It should include the taste of what you will bring with you for lunch. (Hopefully a healthy raw snack!) It should include the sensation of sand in between your toes, and the feeling of the water rushing up over your feet and washing that sand away, as well as the feeling of the sun on your face and body.

Attracting Wealth

This practice will attract wealth. As your senses and imagination becomes more sharp, it becomes more real. You'll have more inspired ideas, and you'll feel inclined to act on them immediately. The right people will meet you at the right times. You'll experience what other people call 'luck.'

Things will neatly

fall

into

place.

This will happen as a direct result or organizing your mind through imagination. Use the three minute meditation whenever you have three minutes to kill in order to increase your awareness, and thereby your health, wealth, wisdom and happiness.

How To Love Your Life

2010-06-11T00:02:00.006-04:00

An old friend from high school asked me if I was still living where I grew up. I replied;

"No, I've moved actually. I'm near San Fransisco in Northern California. I might be in Buffalo, NY for a while again sometime in the next year. It might just be for two weeks while I gather the rest of my stuff for when my fiance and I move to Boston, or it might be for six months or so while we save up some more money for the move to Boston."

(I promise I'm going somewhere with this, otherwise I wouldn't post it.) She said;

"Wow, I wish I had that much excitement in my life :(
"If I had full custody of my son (and the extra cash) we'd move south.
"Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Buffalo?"

I frowned as I read this response, for several reasons. But the most unexpected reason I frowned was because I dislike when people are down on my home city. It's a negative attitude that just seems to spread and doesn't help anything. I replied;

Buffalo isn't the issue. I actually miss the city a lot.

It's all about the network of people you associate with. I just stopped talking to anyone who had 'drama' in their life. I wasn't mean about it, but I just stopped going out of my way to talk to anyone who was constantly making trouble or attracting trouble.

Then I went to meetup.com and found groups on yoga, writing, meditation, nutrition and went out and met people completely unconnected to the people I knew before and started a new life. It's the best thing I ever did for myself.

I gained a new perspective. I discovered that Buffalo is full of wonderful people. It's just that when you're hanging around people who party all weekend, smoke pot all week, steal from their friends and stab each other in the back, then you just keep meeting more of the same kind of people.

The networks of people who are kind, level-headed, educated and interesting don't generally associate with the networks of people who do drugs and party all the time. It's sad, but it's true.

Buffalo is pretty awesome when you get into the networks of college students, yogi-folk, and nutrition-driven people. Plus, there is so much to see around there that there just isn't in so many other places in the country. There are so many free festivals and events all summer long it's hard to keep up with them all, just from memory; The Infringement Festival, Taste of Buffalo, Shakespeare In The Park, Juneteenth, Alan Town Art Festival, Dance Alive put on monthly by the Blood Thirsty Vegans, Urban Epiphany yearly at the UU church, and there are more but that's just off the top of my head.

I've been on two road-trips (one for 23 days when I was 17, and one for six weeks less than a year ago) all around the US with my father. (This is expensive, but not as expensive as you'd imagine. I used couch-surfing for a lot of the places we stopped to rest on the six-week trip in February/March 2010, and both trips we stayed with several of my online friends as well as family members and spent a lot of nights sleeping in the car as well. A lot of couch-surfing hosts, family members and friends are willing to provide food, so that can cut down on expense a lot as well. That leaves the only unavoidable expense being gas for the car and any car maintenance that may need doing. If you have an old honda that's good on gas like my parents do, it's a big help.)

We saw Sedona, Arizona, we saw Atlanta, Georgia. We saw Cary and Asheville, North Carolina. We've been lost in Oregon's massive national parks (where people have died from getting lost, no kidding), and wandered through the massive corn fields of Kansas and Iowa. We've been through Texas, and Alabama, and went 'shopping' in New Orleans (I bought an awesome trench coat). We spent a couple days in South Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada, a few days in Oklahoma City, and in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I'll tell you, Buffalo is an awesome city. It's not perfect, but no place is. You'll have the same problems anywhere you live if you hang out with the sort of people you and I used to hang out with back in high school.

Some of them are nice people, some of them have good intentions, some of them are intelligent; but it's just not worth it when missing money, broken beer bottles, and drunken arguing is a part of one's life. I really wish I could go back and help the better people who are still stuck in that place I used to be stuck in. I reflect on it often and am often left feeling very sad for quite a period of time.

~Raederle Phoenix

As a side note, it was during the first road trip when I was seventeen that I got so drunk I vomited all night. I was in Iowa. I have not drank since, except for a few sips of wine that didn't even get me tipsy, although they did upset my stomach a little. (2007)

I quit smoking weed around six months before the second road trip. As an ex-smoker I can testify that the drug is very enjoyable when used infrequently and when used with very good company. When random people get together who are mostly bad news to smoke together, it can be a very bad experience. I'd also like to state that I think it would be handled more responsibly if it were legalized. (2009/2010)

I stopped hanging out with my so-called high school friends mostly before I even left high-school in my Senior year. (2006)

At seventeen I had a rush of parties shortly before the first road trip because I had been feeling lonely and wanted to see if I could become popular. I became 'popular' with a large crowd of flunkies and realized that I didn't like it and started being as boring and un-fun as possible. (2007)

I started focusing on things I really care about such as art and writing, as well as love (of course) when I was eighteen and nineteen, and began to discover what my real priorities were, especially as I lost weight due to my change in diet. I became happy for the first time in my life during those years. (2008)

I took up yoga, and renewed my interest in meditation and positive thinking when I was nineteen and twenty. I started attending events with positive-thinking people. I hosted board-game parties and attending many as well. I joined a writer's group with bi-weekly meetings that renewed my interest in novel writing. I joined a Raw Food group and met a wealth of friendly, healthy and positive people. And overall, my horizons broadened and my priorities and goals became more defined. (2009)

And now, I can honestly say that I've never been more healthy in my life, that I've never been more happy in my life, and that everyone I know and communicate with is a positive light in my life. Sure, I still have days when I'm down, but generally those days are caused by eating something that doesn't agree with me - no kidding. (2010)

There are a lot of aspects of happiness. Some of them are temporary, external influences such as a death, or a pay raise. To get a lasting change in your happiness you need a lasting change in your understanding of life that results in a lasting change to your lifestyle.

If you're not happy, you have to admit that there is something wrong with the way you're living your life. You can blame it on others all you want, but there are people out there who have less than you do, who are very happy and satisfied. Why are they happy, and you're not?

One possible reason is that they recognize that being happy is the deepest meaning of life. That being becoming happy and staying that way is all they need to do.

Another possible reason that people with "less" are happier than you is because they recognize that helping others makes them happier than helping themselves.

Here are some further entries of mine that will help grow your understanding towards becoming happy (listed from very relevant, to the only somewhat relevant):

Keys To Happiness

Poisons: Things That Will Make You Miserable

Oxytocin: The Natural Chemical Reaction Creating Love

The Power of your Imagination

Changing Your Negative Habits

Drinking: It Affects More Than Your Health

The Cage You're In

The Best Activist Song Eva

2010-06-09T18:21:00.003-04:00

To help you get your tail in gear...

"We're just fucking monkeys in shoes."

We'd be a lot happier if we just behaved like monkeys in shoes too!

So... The Bible Says Homosexuality Is A Sin... Hrm.

2010-06-07T21:55:00.002-04:00

"The bible says that homosexuality is a sin. Clear as day; black and white in the bible."

You've heard that before, right?

Well, it's also a sin not to treat your body like a temple, and for women not to have their hair covered. In Deuteronomy, a marriage is only valid if the woman is a virgin, and she should be executed if she isn't. Anyone who commits adultery should be stoned to death. In Mark, divorce is prohibited. Homosexuality is mentioned in Leviticus 18:6: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination." And two verses later in Leviticus 20:13; "A man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be executed." Leviticus is a holiness code written over 3,000 years ago. It also includes prohibitions against round haircuts, tattoos, working on the Sabbath, wearing garments of mixed fabrics, eating pork or shellfish, getting your fortune told, and even playing with the skin of a pig. In other words; no more football.

Let's talk morality; up to date morality that makes logical sense in today's society. Let's look at the universal right; "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Everyone may choose for themselves their own morality, but I prefer to believe everyone does what they do because they, like I, just want to be happy and feel satisfied with their life.

Is it moral to judge someone because of what someone else said, or because a book told you to? I think not. "The Bible says so" is not a justification for hurting someone, talking poorly about someone, or judging someone. There is no justification for those things, ever. That person that is hurt, or talked down to is just as human as you are.

If you think they're less human than you are because they are different than you, then perhaps it's time for a good long look in the mirror. When did you become god?

---------------------------------------------------

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has rescinded ex-Gov. Tim Kaine’s order protecting gay state workers from job discrimination. This discrimination seems reasonable to people who believe that the Bible is the word of God, because the Bible says that male homosexuality is “abomination,” for which the penalty is to be “cut off from among their people.” (Leviticus 18:22 and 29).

A letter to Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who has in the past expressed similar views about homosexuality, has gone viral on the web. Although the letter—author unknown—has been around for at least ten years, and may never actually have been sent to Dr. Laura, its reasoning is worth thinking about, especially in view of Gov. McDonnell’s action and the battles about same-sex marriage. The biblical references in the letter are accurate.

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination… End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15: 19-24 The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle- room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16.Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan.

The Cage You're In

2010-06-06T01:15:00.004-04:00

This is highly well written, and worth watching.

The Cage You're In

Large government can be bad - but then, if we minimize the government, then who has the power? The large corporations - the ones that control so many jobs and products we rely on. If we take power away from one bully, as long as there is a controllable resource to be had, another bully will seize control of it. The only answer is for us to be less controllable.

Research the companies and countries you give your money to. Your money is your real vote.

The Dirty Fucking Hippies

Are you really going to trust someone, elect someone, give your money to someone who wants to send out our people to go get killed trying to kill other people? What's wrong with you?

Use your dollars to vote for peace, small business and local economic stability. Boycott Monsanto, bp, walmart, and so forth... Those are just the obvious ones; with a few hours of research into the things you buy, I'm sure you'll find you're much happier about certain products (and will feel good when you buy them) and will find yourself motivated to find alternatives to other certain products you buy.

No Food Shall Be Grown That Monsanto Don't Own

2010-06-02T20:15:00.002-04:00

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

You are beautiful.

Think outside the box.

Question authority.

Remember that everyone is seeking happiness, just like you.

Love is the key to all happiness.

Remember to ask, "What the fuck?"

Legalize The 'Dangerous' Pot

2010-06-02T19:47:00.003-04:00

"Nobody ever died because of pot alone."

That's not true. I know someone who died of cancer of the lungs who only smoked pot. They didn't even live with someone who smoked cigarettes, so that's not a possible cause.

Also, a friend once told me how their best friend quit pot because they ran over three people in their car while driving intoxicated on nothing but pot.

I was in a car accident with someone driving who made a ridiculous stupid mistake while intoxicated on nothing but pot.

And besides all of that, over time it can make it impossible to produce serotonin in the brain on your own. My first love's mother isn't able to produce serotonin in her brain without pot anymore.

"What's serotonin?"

Serotonin is the chemical that your brain creates that makes you feel happiness. That's right; pot makes you dependent on it for happiness. Sure, that does take about thirty years of smoking every day (give or take), but that doesn't change the fact that it's a serious outcome for all the "stoners" out there.

That said, I still say to make it legal.

People will do what they want, regardless. If it's legal, then cops can stop stealing pot from kids, seriously.

More importantly, then people will stop smuggling, and will be able to trade it freely, which will also be much better.

If it were legal, people would be accustomed to the idea of it, and people would be able to choose to be a casual 'once a year' or 'once a month' smoker instead of sneaking it and hanging out with the wrong sort of people in order to get their hands on it.

Pot is dangerous. Caffeine in dangerous. Alcohol is much more dangerous than either. And to be honest, the sugar, and artificial sweeteners are much more horrifying that pot could ever, ever be. You think your brain not being able to produce serotonin is bad? You think lung cancer is bad? You think memory loss is bad? Research what refined sugar or aspartame will do to you.

Fuck the FDA & Monsanto & Assorted Other Power-Hungry Corrupt Murdering Corporations

Legalize the drug already. The sheeple will be sheeple regardless of pot being legal or not. Now let's talk about something that actually matters...

Disgusting Trends

2010-06-02T18:38:00.002-04:00

"Exxon/Mobil reported the largest profit in the history of the corporate world last year; they make hundreds of billions of dollars. Few nations have the financial resources of these multinational corporations; the dollars to buy men, women and the power over lives without accountability for the death and ruin that they leave in their wake." ~Mark Karlin

That quote really hit me. Corporations are like their own monarchies. A dictatorship; each one standing alone as it's own country with more power than the countries that call themselves countries.

It's as I said when I recorded this ages ago:

"It's time for a non-violent revolution of civil disobedience against the corporations who run the sovereign governments of the world; it's time for the resources of the planet to return to the people of the planet; it's time for democracy to flourish free of the toxic influence of greed and money concentrated in the hands of so few who care so little about the future of life and the planet." ~Mark Karlin

Yes! Stop buying Monsanto products. Go Really Raw. Stop shopping at WalMart. Say NO to chemo-'therapy'! Research. Read labels. Recycle. Revolutionize.

Novel Writing; Evil Adverbs

2010-06-02T18:09:00.002-04:00

I wish I could still attend my Writer's Group meetings; I miss them more and more.

I once read the book, "On Writing," by Steven King. One of the most potent things the book taught me is about how 'less is more.' Each sentence and word needs to say something. If you take three paragraphs to describe something and the image is vivid, then that's great. If you spend three paragraphs describing something and the image is foggy as San Fransisco in the morning, then your writing isn't going to attract any readers.

I've found that I actually enjoy reading condensed writing better than most elaborate writing. Why is that? Perhaps it's because it's simply easier to write something good that is condensed than it is to write something good that is detailed. This may seem counter-intuitive, especially to anyone out there who hasn't ever been able to write enough to express anything, but let's look at this from the perspective of the 'evil adverb.'

Every article or book about writing I've browsed through talks about 'evil adverbs' in one way or another.

What's an adverb, and what is evil about it?

An adverb modifies verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. They can also be used to modify whole sentences and prepositional phrases. Clear as day, right?

Modify a verb:
o She walked quickly.
o They ate quietly.
Modify an adjective:
o She was incredibly beautiful.
o The tree is very old.
Modify another adverb:
o The dog ran very quickly down the street.
o Martha hugged her Grandma really tightly.
Modify a whole sentence:
o Obviously, he can’t have seen us.
Modify a prepositional phrase:
o They found the locket just under the bed.

Most adverbs are created by adding the -ly ending to an adjective.

Examples: slowly, painfully, quickly, crazily, strongly, etc.

However not all; well, never, fast, very, always, often, still, just.

Why do editors cringe when they see an adverb? Depending on the writing style (there are some exceptions - and you're not one of them) adverbs are red flags. They replace concrete descriptions or phrases with words that don’t hold real meaning.

Writing with adverbs:

The very pretty woman was terribly afraid that she wouldn't be able to escape. She slowly came to standing from her crouching position. Quietly as she could manage, she crept forward and around the bend. When she finally reached the cover of the trees, she broke into a very fast run.

Let's see if we can do better than that.

Using visuals instead of adverbs:

The beautiful young woman shook with fear as she contemplated her escape. She rose from her crouch one inch at a time, daring not to make a sound. She spent an entire minute removing each boot, and then crept forward and around the bend. On the tips of her toes she slipped through the camp, not reaching the cover of the trees until nearly night fall. Once covered with the shadows of the trees, she broke into a run.

Now it's your turn; take a piece of your writing you know needs work and try replacing every other adverb in the passage with concrete description instead.

Engagement & Wedding

2010-06-01T16:21:00.003-04:00

June 24th 2010 at 2:24pm;

Lytenian and I got married this Monday (June 21st 2010) with a small ceremony. The reception is going to be a raw food potluck party this Sunday (June 27th 2010). Here are a couple pictures from our wedding day (quite some time after the ceremony when we were goofing around):

June 1st 2010 at 4:41pm I wrote;

Engagement Rings and/or Wedding Rings

I guess some people get engagement rings and then wedding rings, or perhaps they use the same ones for both? I'm not sure. There is even such thing as 'promise rings' as well. Whatever the case may be for other people, we've got rings, and we'll keep wearing them until we decide we want new ones, if/when we decide that we do. So I'm clueless as to whether that makes them engagement rings or wedding rings or what. Perhaps they are engagement rings as long as we're not married, and then if we don't get new ones they become wedding rings at that time? Yes, that's probably it.

Click To See Fullsize In Another Window

They were nothing expensive or fancy, but they're handcrafted, and because we selected them together they fit perfectly and we're both happy with them. We got them on Telegraph avenue in Berkley on a Saturday morning at one of the lovely stands that they set up every Saturday. I couldn't be more pleased with them.

Lytenian's ring is one of those that has a spinning layer of metal over the part of the ring that sits against his finger. He's always playing with it. It's adorable. After the Aharata workshop we attended in San Fransisco on Saturday the girlfriend of the organizer asked how long we had been married because she noticed us both playing with our rings! I was so charmed.

The Love Drug; Oxytocin

2010-05-28T14:37:00.005-04:00

I've often thought about the concept of making war stop through giving the people involved a proper dose of love and/or sex. Creepy thing is, science is actually coming closer to realizing how to do it.

I learned about oxytocin from the Tyra Banks Show a couple years ago and was fascinated by what I learned. Oxytocin is the hormone that causes the desire to cuddle after sex. It is produced in women during labor, and nursing; naturally women contain more oxytocin than men, just like men contain more testosterone than women.

Science has now developed a nasal spray of oxytocin. Yes ladies, you can now squirt the insensitive man in your life and turn him into someone like you.

Gentlemen, if you are alarmed or thankful about this news over this nasal spray that could turn you into well, an emotional jello relative to your “normal” selves, the scientists to thank or to blame are in the University of Bonn led by Dr. René Hurlemann. They published their study in the April 7, 2010 issue of the journal Neuroscience. Their study was entitled “Oxytocin Enhances Amygdala-Dependent, Socially Reinforced Learning and Emotional Empathy in Humans” and whether it reads like it to you or not gentlemen, this study concerns you and your touchy-feely possibilities.

For quite some time now, scientists have known that oxytocin is a chemical that both men and women naturally produce that enables us to bond with each other. It has been dubbed the “love molecule,” the “trust hormone” and now, with this experiment, it gained another nickname — the “cuddle spray.”

In rats and sheep, experiments have shown that when oxytocin is blocked, female mothers reject their offspring. When injected in virgin rats, they care for pups that are not their own. It seems to be the molecular key to mothering. It makes you wonder if all the fatherless families are due to a lack of oxytocin in the male in question.

Oxytocin is present in both males and females in larger streams during the peak of lovemaking like some kind of emotional crazy-glue; although the difference in the amount between the woman and the man often leads to the woman feeling that she is in love and the man simply feeling satisfied but ready to go to sleep. I personally suspect (based on some things I've read by Markus Rothkranz and other sources) that if you're completely healthy and free of toxins that you will naturally produce much more oxytocin, regardless of your sex.

A study from 1999;

Different questionnaires, including the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems and the Adult Attachment Scale, were used to assess each woman's previous experiences with personal and close relationships. The results were significantly correlated with the recorded changes in bloodstream oxytocin levels.

Women whose oxytocin levels rose in response to massage and remembering a positive relationship reported having little difficulty setting appropriate boundaries, being alone, and trying too hard to please others. Women whose oxytocin levels fell in response to remembering a negative emotional relationship reported greater problems with experiencing anxiety in close relationships.

"It seems that having this hormone "available" during positive experiences, and not being depleted of it during negative experiences, is associated with well-being in relationships," said Turner.

In addition, women who were currently involved in a committed relationship experienced greater oxytocin increases in response to positive emotions than single women. The researchers speculate that a close, regular relationship may influence the responsiveness of the hormone, said Turner.

These preliminary findings bring up some intriguing questions, said Teresa McGuinness, MD, PhD, UCSF clinical psychiatry faculty member and co-author of the paper. Because oxytocin is released in men and women during sexual orgasm, it may be involved in adult bonding, said Turner. There is also speculation that in addition to facilitating lactation and the birthing process, the hormone facilitates the emotional bond between mother and child.

"Evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense that during pregnancy and the postpartum, both a woman's body and her mind would be stimulated to nurture her child," said Turner.

Oxytocin may also play a role in the higher levels of depression and interpersonal stress seen in women, said Turner. According to most psychiatrists, women experience depression twice as often as men and tend to be more affected by relationship difficulties. Turner and her colleagues hope that their work on oxytocin will guide future research on the psychiatric conditions of men and women.

A couple of studies in 2010;

A study was done with 48 healthy (by American standards; which are not very high) men who participated in a experiment that would reveal the effect of the Oxytocin-squirt on their expressed empathy. It was a double blind study which meant that neither the subjects nor the experimenters knew which half were given the Oxytocin or the placebo. The subjects were shown images in the form of a crying child, a girl hugging her cat, and a grieving man. Then the subjects were asked to express how much they felt for the persons in the situations shown.

The results were clear: the oxytocin effect was significant in that the men who got the oxytocin-squirt expressed more empathy than the ones who did not get squirted.

In a second experiment, men were tested in their learning where the feedback to the subjects’ answers was in the form of a facial expression. The men who got the oxytocin-squirt performed better making the scientists suspect that oxytocin really makes men more sensitive to emotional clues which are written in faces and in body language.

What's my expression say? *lol*

While the idea of men suddenly becoming entranced with chick-flicks (thereby making the term 'chick flick' moot) and crying at the thought of their kitten being run over is quite horrifying, the idea of them being able to read our body language is incredibly stimulating. Imagine if your man stopped requiring for you to spell everything out?

But ladies, before you troop to drugstores to get a lifetime-supply, you have to know that this is still in the experimental stage. Unfortunately. Feel free to have an emotional breakdown from disappointment.

Edit from November 2010: Oxytocin spray is now on the market at the whopping price of $60 an ounce (600 sprays) here. But remember that hugging, holding hands, touching in general, sex, etc. are the best ways to get your oxytocin.

Moving Forward Happily

2010-05-24T14:47:00.002-04:00

I'm thinking of starting up a new blog for my transformation over to a 100% raw food diet. It's going to be a long journey with lots of learning and healing. Already the process is beginning in my mind, and spirit and somewhat in my body.

I've been very busy lately with launching my custom art creation business off of it's feet. I'm thinking of creating myself a messenger bag with my own artwork silk-screened onto it so that I can advertise myself without even saying anything.

My recent project has been creating Andy Pope's Music Transcription website. It's been a long, and somewhat difficult task; but I'm pleased with what it is so far and am looking forward to expanding it.

A friend from the writer's group is considering me for their band's logo and album art and someone from the Raw Food Meetup group here in the Bay Area of California wants me to design their tattoo sleeve even though he doesn't have the money for it yet.

It's a start.

Making A Huge Change

2010-05-18T13:40:00.001-04:00

Markus's Amazing Free Raw Food Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLHf5ZMb5aU

Watch this video. It's great.

I'm going to meet this guy this Sunday. He's speaking to our Raw Food Group for free. :)

Markus's Site:
http://www.markusrothkranz.com/markus_health.html

An incredible transformation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXi0jpvxWjs&feature=player_embedded

The above link brought tears to my eyes. It really shows how HUGE the step to raw is. I'm so glad I'm doing this. Just the more I see about this lifestyle the more open my mind becomes to the possibilities, and after just a few days of eating mostly raw I feel so much more AWAKE.

Live Foods

2010-04-19T20:39:00.002-04:00

I just watched an incredibly well-informed video. It's only ten minutes long, and it says things I've been trying to say, but have yet to have said so well.

Click this link to open the page that contains the video that I want you to watch.

Watch that video, and know what you've heard is true, well informed, and just a short overview of a tremendous volume of covered-up knowledge that the mass-media can't cover, because if they try to, they'll receive a huge lash-back from huge destructive power-hungry, money-hungry evil corporations, such as Monsanto.

Board Games & Love

2010-04-07T10:40:00.001-04:00

The fun thing about board games is not so much the games themselves, but how much it reveals about the people you're playing with. Who is most generous? Who is most competitive? Who is willing to take chances? Who is a sore loser? Etc, etc.

While online games allow you to interact with others, it's very different to see their faces as they contemplate their moves then to see some text they happen to decide to write. Board games allow for much more real conversation. Once everybody is familiar with a game, then the players are almost using the board game just as a way to allow them all to be comfortable and have an excuse to not be too involved in the conversation. This is also a great way to correspond with people you usually wouldn't have any other reason to talk to. It's like drinking for more intelligent people (although many people do both at the same time.) But for obvious reasons, drinking has draw backs, whereas board games only have benefits.

I've spent a lot of time thinking (in the past few years) about how the brain operates and what connections we make between activities, people, emotions, memories... For every activity you do throughout your day, there is a thought process. For every emotion you feel, there is a thought process. For every person you encounter, there are multitudes of thought processes that stem from their influence . And for each of these thought processes, a part of the brain is further developed.

There are ways in which this phenomena is obvious. For example, if you work as a programmer, you're likely to be more logical than most people; most systematic. You're likely to make references to, "if that were a string of code, it would ruin the entire program," and other such analogies.

If you're an artist, then you look at everything you see as a potential painting, drawing, 3D-model... You study the way the light falls on an object, and how different textures look in different lighting. You notice if the colors surrounding you work well together.

If you're into sports or martial arts then you pay more attention to body language and what it means. You understand people through their movements more than their words. You notice if someone is off-balanced in the way they move around. You are aware of physical confidence.

If you're a writer, then when you read a book you notice writing style, grammar, and the structure of the plot. Writer's also are more likely to be able to come up with the words they want when they're having a conversation. Writer's consider if a real-life situation they are having would be good in a book, or even, more specifically, in the book they are writing.

But what about the things that are less obvious? I've noticed that people who play video games are not always good at board games. It takes a different sort of logic; a different area of the brain. (Of course this partly depends on the video games. City builders and turn-based strategy video games are in many ways similar to many board games.)

What about the impact of the words we use? In many languages having a debate is referred to as a dance in it's most literal translation. In English however, we refer to it as a battle. To "win" an argument. To "defeat" someone's point. In many languages it is to "sidestep" or to "parry" or even simply to "dance." What effect does that have on our mentality?

I've noticed that I don't get along with people who don't do at least one of the following: play games, create. You know what I mean by play games, but what do I mean by create? Some create music, others create art. Some people create novels, others create websites... All that matters is that it's a craft where it starts with an idea, and then, through skill, is turned into some form of reality.

People without a craft have less of a sense of reality. They have less respect for people's creations. Sometimes they have no respect at all. How can someone respect someone's lifetime's work when they them self have no craft of their own?

People who don't play games seem to have no sense of adventure, spontaneity... Less fun overall. Also they can be very down on gaming and make it out to be some sort of useless thing... Like it's some worthless addiction. That always bugs me, because I've learned a lot from video games and board games alike.

Some games teach you about history, and about politics and economics through the setting and game engine. Some games teach you about yourself; your own tastes, daring and intelligence. Some games teach you about the people you're playing with, through activities, trivia, questions or strategy. All in all, all games teach you something. Although I believe that games are not created equal and that some teach much more than others.

What sort of books a person reads has a huge impact on how they think as well. And the higher their awareness of the input they're receiving, the more can be gained from each book. Some people are not nearly as intelligent as you would expect for someone so well-read because so much of what they've read they didn't have any life experience to relate it to. If you find nothing to latch on to, much of it will just wash over you without ever sinking in.

One of the most profound differences that happens in life is when someone falls in love... Most unfortunately, the most life-changing part of falling in love for the first time, is the heartbreak when it doesn't work out. The great majority of people are not yet mature enough when they first experience love to have any idea what they have, or how valuable it is, and they float on through life like business as usual and end up fucking it up (like I did when I was first in love.)

I find that love-virgins are much, much more naïve and hard to deal with than sex-virgins. Which brings me to a question I've thought about for years. Can someone whose never had sex truly love someone as deeply as someone whose has sex with the person they love? Well, they certainly can love someone they have not had sex with, I experienced that once. But just as much? I guess it's really a silly question. Because love, like everything, is not a liner thing. There are different forms of love.

One reason I wonder about this is because two of my closest friends are both virgins and dating. They've been going out for well over six months, and I'm sure they say “I love you” to each other. I know they kiss and cuddle, but I also know for sure that they are not having sex. They both agree fully that they're not ready, and don't want the risk of pregnancy to even be in the realm of possibility.

But to consummate... To consummate one's love is something so very dramatic; in a good way. I've come to the conclusion that sex is nothing without an emotion behind it. Jealousy, anger, envy, fear... These can create thrilling sex. But only love creates the sort of sex that makes you feel like the world is utterly complete. Can one really feel as deep a connection without? If it is possible, then what does that imply?

Also, I wonder a lot about the differences between first love and second love. The first time you may not even be aware is the first time. You may have dubbed your previous infatuations as love without really knowing that the full effects had never been upon you. But once heartbreak happens (for whatever reason), you know. Life completely loses it's luster for a time, and in that time, you grow into an adult (a transformation much more dramatic than puberty.) So when you fall in love the second time, you know to value what you have. But is it less pure the second time? Is it stronger because you value it more highly? Is it slightly bitter because you feel it's doomed to end just like the last?

I've been in love four times now, at the time that I'm editing this. And for each of those people there was a different set of activities. Each one told me their life story in the full richness of their emotion. For each of them it was like gaining another person's lifetime of experiences. Each doubled the stories I had to tell, and the reasons I had to value love, and relationships. I desire love because I desire learning, companionship, growth, affection... The pain one feels if and when it ends is perhaps the worst torture, and yet it's so very worth it.

With so many factors that affect how we think, and what we want... Wouldn't the odds say that absolutely nobody should be compatible with anybody? Or is it the other way around? With so much to be learned at any given moment, and with so many human experiences being so universal, shouldn't anyone (given the right time and place) be compatible with anybody? Shouldn't any two people be able to love one another... if shown to each other in the right light?

South Lake Tahoe

2010-03-24T21:05:00.006-04:00

My friend Wyatt in South Lake Tahoe has internet, and we're at his place.

I forgot how we started talking years and years ago online. But he provided us with a free hotel room last road trip. He doesn't work the Motel 6 anymore though, so we're just gonna crash at his place. Donno if we'll be leaving here tomorrow or the morning after though. Headed to Salt Lake City from here.

I'm working uploading a new batch of pictures to myspace right now. Unfortunately I'm always behind on the pictures; I'm uploading the pictures from a week or two ago at this point. I got a few good ones of Lytenian though, which I'm happy about.

South Lake Tohoe is really beautiful; lots of evergreens, and a little snow at this time of year. Beautiful trails wind through the woods. Giant pine cones litter the ground in a pretty array of browns and auburn colors.

The original theme of this trip was power spots, places of supernatural activity, haunts, ghost towns, etc. But it seems to me as though the theme has become classic rock. I've certainly been learning a lot about it, despite my lack of interest.

As a random side note, I've been working on this digital painting and have finally posted it to my deviant art. It's a complete revamp of "The Mage's Gauntlet"

A Tire & A Muffler

2010-03-17T15:21:00.005-04:00

The conclusion from the previous entry.

We decided to turn around and go back the way we came, but when we punched into the GPS to head back to a city we had come from a long way back, it told us to take a slightly different route. We were thankful for this, because it didn't take us back through the mud we had gotten stuck in, but it became clear after a short time that the way it was taking us involved more snow.

We came to a sharp incline covered heavily in snow. My father sped up, clearly hoping to gain enough speed to rush up to the top of the incline. About half way up we stopped dead. Lytenian and I got out and tried to push, but it was no good. He reversed and went back a bit, but began to slide towards the dangerously close cliff side. I directed to steer more into the ditch on the opposite side of the road of the road; images of the car going over the edge running through my head unbidden.

My father angled the wheels towards the mountain, towards the 'harmless' ditch, and away from the disastrous fall to our right. He backed up a bit, and then tried to go forward, but when he tried to go forward it was no use. The front wheels slid, the back wheels remained in place, putting the car's front closer to the edge. I was panicked and began to yell (almost repeatedly) that he had to back up further towards the mountain. Perhaps I didn't believe that would get us up the hill at all, maybe I wanted us to get stuck in the ditch because that would be better than losing my father over the edge of the mountain.

And, if that was my desire, I got what I wanted. He backed up into the ditch. (This, of course, was after much moving around of snow, digging, salting, pushing, rocking the car, etc, on many occasions and on this occasion. We were then out of snow and my shoes were soaked through and my feet were freezing.) The car then was clearly not going forward and my father and Lytenian returned to pushing the snow around with the snow brush. (We didn't have a shovel.)

I wandered down the hill a little ways and turned away. My feet began to feel like someone was stabbing daggers into them. I was cold head to toe, but my toes in particular burned. I shivered, and looked unseeing out at the beautiful landscape. I couldn't recognize my surroundings anymore. I was inside a ball of freezing terror, unsure I'd ever leave.

Please let us get up this hill... Was all I had been thinking before, but I changed my tune then. Instead of trying to will the car to make it up the hill, I began praying for someone to come along and rescue us. I ran over our supplies in my head. We had a little to eat in the cooler and some snacks besides. We had plenty of blankets and gasoline to keep the car warm. We could wait...

Lytenian was terrified that we'd end up waiting. At one point he exclaimed, “We have to make it up this hill! How often do you think people come through here? It could be days!” He was worried he wouldn't make it to work today.

We hadn't seen anybody along that road. Not anybody at all. No houses, no cars, no signs...

I prayed, tears streaming down my face.

And then, after getting my face thoroughly wet, I felt a little silly and wiped my face and walked back to look at the 'progress.' I didn't see anything though. I remember turning around and walking back, but I don't recall seeing anything at all. Perhaps I just stared at my burning and freezing feet. Or maybe I looked at the car with my eyes out of focus. Maybe I looked at the top of the road and hoped someone would come around it. I stood there and continued to pray silently, feeling utterly small in the universe.

And then, miraculously, I heard a sound. My eyes lifted from there unknown focal point and looked expectantly at the top of the hill. A black vehicle comes around the corner. One that is clearly meant for this sort of road. Lytenian and my father stop whatever it was they were doing and then look expectantly up at them. We're quiet, clearly unable to speak as the vehicle approaches.

Two men come out. Virgil and... I can't think of the other man's name at the moment. One of them said, “In a bit of a bind, are you?” Lytenian says, “A bit, yes.”

My father presents them with our toe-rope. It's a darn-good thing we had one. They get it rigged to our car. And they pull us to the top of the hill. In the process, our muffler comes off. Turns out that it's entirely rotted out and a piece of junk anyway, but still...

We pull away and manage to not get stuck in the snow again, but the road was still rough and treacherous. It wasn't long before there is the sickening pop and then the uneven rumble that indicated a distinctly flat tire. A pot hole. Luckily we had a good spare tire (not just a donut). It was changed it due time, and we were underway again.

Incredibly, shortly before nightfall we arrived at a paved road and headed back down the coastal highway the same way we had come. I fell asleep in the car beside Lytenian and rested quite well.

Pictures and videos soon to come on my myspace.

My Father's Telling Of This Same Experience

Dirt Road & Beautiful View

2010-03-15T03:09:00.005-04:00

So, late Friday night, nearly midnight, we departed (Lytenian, my father and I) for a weekend adventure north of Lytenian's location. I didn't realize, at the outset, how far we intended on traveling. Lytenian and I slept through the early part of the trip, and a little after dawn we woke up. We were along a coastal highway and had a marvelous view of the ocean. We stopped a few times to admire it's powerful waves.

It wasn't far into the day before the GPS directed us onto a remote dirt rode as being the 'fastest' way to a mountain of interest. (A destination we hoped to reach by nightfall.) Perhaps it needs a setting that says 'no four wheel drive' or 'car' vs being in a pick-up truck.

The winding dirt road was beautiful however. We didn't complain because of the dramatic scenery. Redwood trees rising up far, far, far above the car, and a glimpse into a forest so dense that it was completely dark when you looked deep within despite the bright sunlight. Gnarled white-barked trees covered in green moss that appeared to 'drip' from it's branches were scattered through the forest. Up and up we climbed, and still, the road remained ragged.

“Surely it will lead to a paved road soon,” we thought. We were in a national forest of sorts, and climbing the mountains, higher and higher. Over one foothill, and then onto a larger one. The road began to have more pot holes and more and more often we needed to slow down to ten miles an hour or even five miles and hour for them. The curves were often sharp and unlabeled with signs to warn us to slow down (not that we were foolish enough to go whipping around them), and there certainly wasn't any lines on the road. Thank goodness we did this in daylight.

We began to think of this mishap as a blessing because it was incredibly beautiful. We stopped for waterfalls, and springs and an overlook of a river. We climbed down rocks from the side of the road to examine some large moss-covered rocks more closely and then scaled those rocks as well. Lytenian helped me quite a bit with this adventure, even though it was (sort-of) my idea.

The coast was beautiful, the moss-covered trees and the red barks were wonderful, the rocks and the falls and river were nice as well. The road however, just kept getting worse, and the altitude just kept rising. We begin to see snow along the side of the road, to our surprise. We hadn't realized we were climbing that far up.

Now and again we'd see a little patch of snow on the road. I thought the snow intermingling with the moss-covered rocks was particularly beautiful. The road had essentially only one lane, but it didn't seem to matter since we were the only crazy people up there. We didn't see a soul on that dirt road out there.

We came across hills now and then were the trees had all been cut down. It made us quiet and sullen. It was easy to crack jokes and be merry about the dirt road when surrounded by red bark, green moss, white bark, green plants, red plants, turquoise creeks, gray and pale stones... But when surrounded by the sheer wasted forest stumps we were miserable and subdued, and it highlighted how far up and out of the way we were.

We even passed through an area where heavy machinery (clearly used for logging) was located on either side of the dirt road. The mud was so bad we had to rock the car back and forth to get through one spot. We began to feel a little worried then about how far out we were.

The inclines were often sharp, but not so much that it was troublesome... Until the snow was no longer in patches, but covering the road. At first it was only in areas with shade, and shallow enough that it didn't cause much harm. The trees looked like a postcard for Christmas. They were lovely evergreens, fifty to eighty feet tall I'd wager. Maybe taller, some of them.

The snow itself wasn't so worrisome. The dirt road alone wasn't terrible. The mountain alone was nothing new to us at all. But the three put together meant little traction, rough going, and a sheer drop to the side. It couldn't have been much further from ideal. Then, we began to worry in earnest. Surely this would end? We'd get over the peak and begin back down, wouldn't we?

We hit a patch of snow and showed no signs of moving forward. Without missing a beat I grabbed my shoes and began putting them on. Lytenian seemed a little slow on the uptake. I opened the door and climbed out over him (I had blankets piled in the backseat on the other side.) He followed shortly, and we got the car moving again. It wasn't long though before we were stuck yet again.

I had to drive us out of a couple because we needed both my father and Lytenian driving. Speaking of Lytenian, I believe he's gone to bed and is waiting for me, so I ought to join him.

So, cliff hanger: How did we get out of the mountains?

My Father's Telling Of This Same Experience

The Story's Conclusion

Updated Schedule

2010-03-04T20:26:00.001-05:00

February 20th – Departure
February 21st - 24th – North Carolina
February 24th - 25th – Georgia (Atlanta / White)
February 25th - 26th – Louisiana (New Orleans)
February 26th - 28th – Texas / New Mexico / Arizona / Joann
March 1st – Arizona (Grand Canyon) / California (LA)
March 2nd - 12th – California (Walnut Creek / San Fransisco)
March 13th - 14th – Oregon (Portland)
March 15th - 23rd – California (Walnut Creek / San Fransisco)
March 24th – California (South Lake Tahoe) / Nevada
March 25th - 28th – Nevada / Arizona / Utah
March 29th - 30th – Colorado / Kansas / Missouri / Kentucky
March 31st - 1st – North Carolina
April 2nd - 3rd – West Virginia / Ohio / Pennsylavania
April 4th – New York (Buffalo)

Arizona

2010-03-04T19:43:00.001-05:00

Arizona is amazing. The soil is often red, but it can also be all different shades of ocher, ranging from nearly white to a deep red. In the mountains you can find succulents growing up through snow. In the desert you can find petrified wood scattered here and there. The Mexican architectural influence is obvious.

We're arrived in Walnut Creek, California (near San Fransisco), and we'll be here for the next couple of weeks. I've posted my photos on my myspace roadtrip album. I'll write more about our adventures later.

New Orleans & Texas

2010-03-01T01:07:00.000-05:00

Saturday, February 27th 2010 at 11:25am

We're currently in Texas, traveling towards San Antonio. We're about forty miles distant I believe. We're approaching San Marcos at this moment. I'm playing Nox Arcana out of my boyfriend's laptop speakers that he loaned me for the trip.
We slept in the car last night. My father only slept four hours I think. We've been driving almost straight since yesterday morning around nine in the morning. Yesterday at nine in the morning we were departing Atlanta, Georgia. We arrived in New Orleans last night a couple hours before sun set. We walked up and down the french district, and I bought a very awesome 'Living Dead Souls' trench coat that was marked down from it's original price.
Oh, and while we were in Atlanta, or rather, in White, Georgia we visited Childersburg, or was it Childersville? There was this interesting Native American museum that was also a preserved ground. Apparently in Georgia the Native Americans built large pyramid shaped mounds (with a 'cut-off' flat plateau top) for the purpose of building the chief's dwelling atop as well as temples and other important structures of the community.
Oh look! We're entering the San Antonio city limits right now... It's eleven-forty-three. I didn't expect it to be so soon. Not much as of yet to see. More bushes, more dead-looking trees, yellow and orange grass with patches of green. A mostly-clear blue sky with swipes of white cloud. It's quite warm – my father is opening his window.
Farms here and there. Patches of houses. Frequent exits that lead almost directly into gas stations. A plane in the sky, white and flying the same direction as us. The billboards are much more concentrated. Arrow truck sales.
Aha. The city proper I think... Many houses spread out to the right of us beyond a bunch of dry-looking shrubs. Ahead it looks like there might actually be a metropolitan area. Maybe...?
“I was under the delusion that were was a city here,” I say.
“Me too,” my father says. “But like I said, Texan cities can be forty square miles.”
“So perhaps we're just in a suburb,” I suggest. Then we pass under a sign that indicates that we're still headed to San Antonio. And jeez it's suddenly hot. I gotta put this heat-maker away.

[6:27pm]
Still on the I-10. Been on this thing since Alabama I believe. A long way, in any case. A little while ago a cop pulled us over again. Stupid DMV mix-up. He was nice enough to let us go.
There is a beautiful sunset before us. Dark blue and purple clouds swirl around a sky that is baby blue, and a powder blue that's nearly white, and a golden yellow with a slight pinkish tint.
Dad is still being irritable about being pulled over. I think he's angry with himself, and therefor wants to find somewhere else to pin blame and frustration – someone or something he can vent his anger on without being self-demeaning perhaps. That's one theory, anyway. We've pulled over and he's checking the car-bag. We've had it strung to the back (as it's intended to be strung) this entire time, but have decided to move it to the top of the car so that the license plate would be firmly attached to the car properly instead of dangling it off the bag. We figure that might somehow contribute to a future issue to continue to have it dangling.
My father's temper is in some ways, like Porcupine's. Not nearly so bad, but perhaps it was when he was Porcupine's age (twenty-eight, which is incidentally the same age as Paladin – not that you'd know it from the vast difference in their maturity levels.)
The clouds are just amazing. I wouldn't be able to capture them in a picture with their full glory. There is this effect as though a dark blue-purple dye was dripped into a pitcher of water. That's how beautifully the clouds are swirled throughout the sky. Towards the horizon, the sky behind the purple clouds, is white and gold-pink. Away from the where the sun is setting the sky is a powder blue fading into a baby blue.
Hills are appearing beside us. The ground has been flat for a long time and now hills rise up on both sides of the road, scattered with rock and little green bushes ranging from just a few inches squared (or rather – circled) to a few feet.
Today we stopped in San Antonio and looked at a couple of cathedrals (from the outside), and stopped at a grocery store called H-E-B I believe. I determined very quickly that indeed I would not want to live here. For one thing, no organic food. For another thing, way too damn hot and dry. For a third thing, too many Hispanics and their culture and influence. Between the country music and the Mexican music, and the country houses and country food and Mexican food and the country 'lifestyle' I think I'd about go insane.
Once again, I dislike Texas. I've never enjoyed visiting this state. The best part of it are the large empty parts without any people where this very interesting landscape flourishes on either side of the road. There are no trees, but lots and lots of shrubs, grasses and cacti. Some areas are entirely flat, and some, like the area we're in now, are quite full of hills.
It's finally dark enough that I've taken my sun-glasses off and put my regular glasses on. This is a comfortable amount of light. I almost wish I could somehow live at the north pole comfortably so tha the sun would always be on the horizon – well, except for that six months of darkness thing – I wouldn't be too crazy about that aspect.
Today we also stopped on Sonora. Some little 'historic' town in western Texas that had caverns nearby. Unfortunately we arrived about an hour too late to visit them. More unfortunate still is that they change to summer hours tomorrow. Funny timing we have.
Three-hundred and fourteen miles to El Paso. It's growing dark in earnest now. The sky to the right of me has turned into a dark blue; almost navy, but not quite. To the left it's still a light baby blue surrounding the area where the sun has just set.
Headlights. Night speed limit.

Atlanta, Georgia

2010-02-25T11:40:00.002-05:00

We're currently staying with the two owners of an organic bakery in White, a 'suburb' of Atlanta, Georgia. They're very awesome people. Today we may visit one of the owners' friend's house whose house is supposedly haunted, and then tonight my father and I plan on going dancing with the woman owner's daughter. She's twenty-two, so her and I are of an age, so to speak.

Tomorrow morning we intend on setting off for New Orleans.

I've added pictures to my myspace Road Trip 2010 album, as well as posting two videos to my myspace which are essentially short roadtrip blogs: http://www.myspace.com/raederle.phoenix

North Carolina to Georgia

2010-02-24T12:15:00.000-05:00

Written around noon:

We are on the road. We're still in North Carolina. The trees along the side of the road are quite fabulous. They're more diverse than you tend to see in many places. Oh look, a cow farm – about fifteen cows, five of them fairly young. Open fields frequently open up within the trees, golden grasses, green bushes, red leaved trees, white leaved trees, evergreens, a forest floor covered in hues of orange, yellow, and brown. It's bizarre how much it looks like fall here – in February. Very strange indeed.

White barked trees, thin stands of bush-like trees... a yellow field wide open just beyond the line of trees... a deep forest thick with growth... evergreens, evergreens, and then a farm.

It's raining today. The white mist is fairly thick. The rain changes now and again into snow, and then back into rain. The rain is almost more of a mist than actual droplets. We're in a thin and wet cloud. We just pulled out from behind a truck that we've been behind for a while. He was going sixty-miles an hour in a seventy-mile-an-hour zone; seemed a bit unnecessary.

It appears that there actually a vine in the forest that is growing at this time of year, it appears to have little green shoots on it, although it's hard to be sure.

It's just a beginning, but on my myspace, in my photos, there is an Album called "Roadtrip 2010" and it's got a few pictures posted thus far. More to come later, when it's not so late at night. http://www.myspace.com/raederle.phoenix

Deciding Our Next Stop

2010-02-23T22:28:00.002-05:00

I posted a message on a forum on couch-surfer for Atlanta, Georgia, hoping to find a place to crash tomorrow night. And with luck, I got the following response:

Hi Phoenix.

I'll text you to let you know I sent this.

I'm right off of I-75, in the woods north of Atlanta. I own Georgia's only certified organic bread bakery and it's right here on my property.

I only recently quit playing World of Warcraft because the raids were taking up too much time, but it's a gamer-friendly house. The other baker is now living in the in-law suite I have listed on my profile, but I still have a guest room.

I'm 57, the other baker, Matt, is 39 and my cat is 18.

I'm about 35 minutes north of Atlanta.

Let me know if you're interested.

Dianne

I wrote back:

Hey, sorry, I'm an idiot for not mentioning that I can't receive texts. So I don't have your phone number.

I'd be very grateful for the place to stay - my father and I both. I also quit World of Warcraft mostly because it was taking too much time, but also because funds were too low to justify the cost of it.

That's awesome that you have an organic bread bakery! I'd be interested to see it, and possibly get some bread. :p

I contacted several people, but I've had three people write back and say they had other obligations. I did try sending out messages to people before the trip started, but gave up when so many people said "well, I don't know what I'll be doing in two weeks." But then I was so busy with packing and other preparations I didn't realize until we got to NC that I didn't have anywhere lined up for us to sleep between here and Arizona. >.<

So yes, yes, much, much appreciated.

We're intending on leaving tomorrow morning, sometime between 4am and 11am; we have not yet decided if we're going to get any sleep or not yet. *laughs*

And we're going to stop in Asheville, NC just to look around and see what we see and be there for a few hours before heading south to Georgia. So that lands us arriving there sometime between 3pm and 10pm. I'll know better tomorrow when we're actually on the road.

If you don't read this and reply this (with your number) before I pack up my laptop, the only way I'll have to be able to contact you is if you call me, so please do. :)

Thanks so much. :)

~Raederle Phoenix
&
Dale

North Carolina

2010-02-21T13:00:00.000-05:00

North Carolina. The sun is shining. I don't think there is any snow here, although there was much snow between here and Buffalo. Last night there was a beautiful sunset as we were driving through Virginia. Snow covered the ground on both sides of the highway. The dark ominous trees stood in their bare glory, like dark brown hairs rising from a pale bumpy giant. The sun, a perfect red disc could be seen setting through the trunks of the trees. The clouds were illuminated in shades in pink, orange and red. It was beautiful.

I took pictures. I suppose I ought to post them.

Comparisons: Buffalo vs. Walnut Creek

2010-02-08T15:31:00.002-05:00

There are many things to notice about the difference between Walnut Creek, California and Buffalo, New York. For one thing, there are hills here, and lots of houses on the tops of hills. Because this is the wet season, (February) everything here is green, and the trees still have their leaves, and the hills are covered in plants at their fullest. Green spills out of pots, and yards, and twines it's way up houses and across hills. It's completely different to the wash of whites and grays that Buffalo is during February.

Also, I notice there are many more Asians here, and I like that. The features of Asian people are pleasing and different, even on the elderly and not-so-striking Asians, I still like seeing them. Something about how far away they "come from" and how exotic they seem just because I've seen so few of them throughout my life.

Another point of interest is how crowded parking is. Everywhere you go the parking spaces are small and compact, and there are few places available to park. It's clear that the area is much more densely populated. As of yet, I have not personally seen any traffic jams, but I've also never seen the practically empty streets which are quite usual during most hours of the day in Buffalo.

The sun and the clouds here are both amazing. I love the beautiful cloud formations. I could certainly love the winter climate here; although I'm guessing that the Summer climate would be more than my body would be able to handle. I'd likely be found sprawled in front of an air conditioner with wet clothing (to keep extra cool.)

This is the longest I've been away from home in a very long time, and certainly the longest amount of time I've ever spent in California, or nearly so far away from home. It brings to mind how odd it would be for me to call any place but Buffalo my home.

First thoughts

2010-01-25T11:45:00.002-05:00

The trip on the airplane was phenomenal. The first plane left Buffalo at sunrise with an astounding view of the sun just coming over the lip of the earth, alighting the horizon in a dark red shining line. As the airplane rose this red line appeared to grow brighter and brighter.

As the plane rose above the clouds I was amazed to discover that there was a layer of clouds beneath me and a layer of clouds above me.

After arriving in San Francisco I was a little blown away by the airport shuttle. It was incredibly fast and sleek.

I might have seen a bit more, but I was a little bit preoccupied with staring at my love, who I've only just laid eyes on in person for the first time the day before yesterday.

Traveling Blog

2010-01-22T15:31:00.002-05:00

Traveling

Tomorrow I am leaving to head off to California. I will be there for three weeks and return on February 14th.
February 20th I'm heading off on a road trip with my father to drive around the country for a month, and possibly a little longer. Expecting to return between March 25th and April 1st.
This blog is a place I will write about unusual experiences, new experiences, and compare and contrast different locations from my home city, Buffalo, NY.