greetings,

i'm porter. musician, raw foodist...

Saturday, May 17, 2008

infinite potential

so how about that for something esoteric? i have of late been writing a lot of music dealing with BIG things like LIFE, GROWTH, and other below-the-surface matters.

i am currently in yoga teacher training, finding myself in poses, thinking "wow, who knew i could do that?!" i was in one of those the other day, when i started to think: my body has a limit. there's only so much more flexibility i can attain before i'm "grown" as a yogini. the body is quite obviously FINITE. it has limits. it has a beginning and an end. a start and a decay. but space is infinite, the mind is infinite, the soul is infinite... because they are one in the same i suppose.

in any event, i started to think of the things in my life that had the potential to foster infinite growth. i realized that my raw food journey was one them.

i think when i started i assumed that one day i would be the "perfect" model of health. i would never get tired, i would be in a constant good mood, never smell, eat very little food, live to be 400 years old (hey, it could happen!)... you know, the usual stuff.

the more i go through this though, the more i realize that i have, yet again, complicated my life by choosing the self-reflective path, rather than blindly following societal norms, which make it possible for most humans to surf the wave of precedent.

on the upside, i no longer feel disconnected from my body. if i have a stomach ache now, i know what caused it, what will make it worse, and i have faith that if i take the right action it will just go away. i have faith that the body heals. it's what it does. i know because i choose to notice.

when i had horrible acne in college and i was eating cupcakes, salami, and packets of refined sugar (ok, not exclusively!), i felt that i was not IN COMMUNICATION with my body. it seemed that an alien force had conspired to make me ugly, and it made me upset with myself. in reality, i was not paying attention to what i was eating, to how much i was eating, and what effect it was having on me.

how could i have known about cause and effect, when i remained clouded in the BAND-AID world view? to tackle a problem we cover it up. we treat the cough, but we don't prevent it. we electrocute the murderers, but we don't clean up the environment that created them.

it is amazing for me that i could go from someone who had lost total connection with her body, to someone who wonders how she could disassociate herself from herself. how can I hate MYSELF? i AM myself!

all this to say, that i know what it is to be raw. it is a base assumption (we are naturally built to eat living, growing food). it is not a great height. it is not a ladder to perfection, because that doesn't exist. raw doesn't shield me from infection, worry, sadness, death... it doesn't END somewhere when i become 100%, or fruitarian, or breatharian even. there is always room for growth.

i think the challenge of this journey is NOT that i had to give up so many attachments to food, or that i had to deal with people's reactions, or my own cravings for pasta (for example), it is that the process NEVER ENDS.

eastern philosophies (older world philosophies) are a lot more comfortable with the concept of infinite growth, which is probably why this conversation started with yoga.

namaste,
porter

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

breakfast


-1 cup buckwheat groats, covered in water, soaked for about 30 mins
-1 golden apple, roughly chopped and cored
-1 tablespoon date paste (or one large date, or 2 small dates)
-cinnamon to taste
-sea salt (optional, to taste)
-4 large mint or spearmint leaves, more if smaller
-1 teaspoon slivered ginger, skin peeled
-filtered water, to blend

breakfast usually looks like this for me: a fresh green juice with lemon, then sometimes a piece of fruit or a green smoothie. pretty light.

i've been experiencing some pretty heavy feelings of detox of late though (cloudy thinking, tiredness, slight moodiness), and i woke up wanting something a little heavier to start my day. it was delicious! all minty and sweet and sort of "cozy" feeling.

detox is an interesting thing. sometimes i push myself to go a little faster than my body is willing to go i think and then i have to pay for it. until yesterday i was pretty much subsisting on fresh juice, fruits, and light salads. i was all very proud of my progress and how i thought this was a sign that i needed less food.

well, i was doing great on less food (which is a step up from before i must admit, where i would have been fainting). but the transitioning body is a storage house of pent-up junk. i forgot about that attic full of 23 years of cooked, non-vegan food! and all of a sudden i expected to be able to thrive on fruit and juice. a little naive... but we learn. ;)

it will take years to gradually clean out my body, and sometimes i get a little frustrated with the mountain of work ahead... then i remember i have to enjoy the process. and that i'm never going to achieve PERFECTION. but i can allow space for infinite growth.

that's something i've been contemplating a lot lately: infinite growth. what parts of my life have a binding "end point" and which ones will grow and develop with me, always challenging me, and always teaching me something new?

peace,
porter

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

thoughts on pasta ("food"?)

i have been having thoughts of late about how we take certain things for granted.

take pasta.

not many would question whether or not pasta was food. but let's examine this a little:
-you take wheat, which no one would eat in its natural state unless they were starving. it is tasteless, brittle, and dry.
-then you grind it down, refine it, add water to it, mix it, shape it like play-do, and dry it.
...the product itself is inedible, so you have to...
-heat it AGAIN.
-before finally it is called "a meal."

i was reading this fabulous book by matt monarch yesterday called raw success. in one part, he makes the case that any "poison" taken in small does, over a long period of time will not result in death. rather, it will create something like our population today: people struggling with things they shouldn't be: disease, weight, depression, eating disorders... it is a S.A.D. (standard american diet) picture indeed.

basically, ANY food is a hinderance to the system. it's a balancing game. you get nutrients, but you give your body undue work. in order for the scales to balance out somewhat (or lean slightly in favor of your body), you need to be eating food that is the LEAST difficult to assimilate. this will depend on your current diet. any modification you make towards a diet that is easier to assimilate (i.e. nutrient & water dense foods: fruits and veggies in their raw state) will start to improve your health.

to start consuming ONLY raw foods overnight might have the opposite effect. it would be similar to taking a huge dose of poison. detoxification must go at the same comfortable rate as "toxification"... small doses over time. otherwise, your cells will be unleashing "debris" at a faster pace than your elimination organs (colon, skin) can deal with and you will have horrible symptoms.

slow detox makes you feel invigorated, cleaned, and renewed and is definitely preferable.

so does this mean that if you are eating pasta you should stop? well, there are greater evils is what i'm saying, and eliminating "carbs" or "fats" or "proteins" is just too myopic of a plan. i recommend slowly eliminating processed foods. simplification of your diet. eating more vegetables and fruits in their raw state, and moderating (or eliminating completely) "complex un-foods."

examples:
-mysteriously processed meat patties (i.e. hamburgers, sausages),
-supposed "whole grain" breads with their endless list of useless and damaging ingredients
-any animal product or bi-product (essentially a "processed food" given their unnatural diet, the excruciating pain and stress that becomes the flesh you eat!)
basically, anything that comes sold in a package. because if nature didn't make it edible in the first place, then it isn't FOOD! it is something designed by man to trick our taste buds into thinking it is suitable for our body. see: michael pollan, in defense of food.

anyway, baby steps...

Sunday, May 4, 2008

my journey to raw

july 2007 i decided to bite the bullet and "go raw."  immeasurably inspired by my visit to NYC's pure food and wine, i figured it was worth a try. 

things i had already given up before going raw:
beef
dairy
refined sugars
packaged foods

things i was still eating that i needed to give up:
fish
eggs
cooked food
alcohol (wine at that point)

it wasn't easy and it wasn't simple.  

it was certainly worth it though.  

for all that i "gave up" i gained things that were so much more important:
1. no more colds or sore throats
2. no more hypothyroidism
3. no more anemia
4. no more apathy/sense of "lack of purpose" on earth
5. no more mood swings
6. effortless weight loss
7. increased strength and endurance
8. unexpectedly marked spirituality
9. a completely new positive outlook on life, awakening to its infinite possibility

in fact, it all happened so fast i got a little scared and went back to eating cooked food for dinner for about 5 months before i was ready to really embrace all that i was being offered.  

my goal is to inspire others to embrace this lifestyle.  it is not a fad diet.  it is common sense that exposing something to heat would destroy it.  our bodies, like all living bodies, were not designed to take in denatured, processed and reconstituted pseudo-food.  but don't take my word for it, see for yourself!