Blog / traveling in the raw

Well, we are *really* being active participants here and it freaking rules! :-) I was having a bit of performance anxiety this morning when thinking about doing this certain ceremony today. You know we had to ask for help from the healing spirits and THANK GOODNESS they came and helped! That was fun as hell! I'll write more about it later but this is just a check in...

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So I got up really early this morning and I was actually laughing looking at the clock. I *never* get up this early unless I've got to like get a flight or something. Eventually my body just got up and I had my hot cacao/mushroom/camu camu berry drink, wrote in my journal and then got ready. This is the first day I actually made it to breakfast. There was nice fruit around so I had fruit and there was some oatmeal and granola type things so I had a few bites of the oatmeal. I think now that my body wanted an early start to ensure that I had some extra food in me for the morning's events. Since being here, I've been eating more a bit of cooked vegan along with a lot of raw vegan and it's been feeling quite right for this kind of work we are doing. And I've been hungry for each meal so I know that there is something to this journeying work taking a lot of energy to do. With each meal (and it's wild to eat 3 meals a day) I heap on the greens and veggies and fruit and then have been eating a bit of something like rice or sweet potatoes or beans or whatever. I'm not really paying too much mind to it. Just wandering the buffet table and seeing what is speaking to me. It's nice to have a buffet table with a nice little variety of vegan choices.

I'm sure it can be said that since I'm doing something so new, I'm eating some starchy things to acknowledge the emotional body and hey, that may be true. It's all good as far as I'm concerned. This is about being gentle here - at least for me - and I'm delighting in truly giving myself this time and space to savor every little thing that delights me: sage burning, writing in journal, time to be with just my thoughts, eating food that was not made by me (well not all of it), getting aware of the place around me and the people around me. It's very nice.

Anyway, lunch bell is about to ring and I'm getting on the trough line!

More later and much love,

Linda

Well It's Monday and I woke up early in a bright bright room. I'm so happy and grateful for the warmth and sun. What a great thing to have before the winter begins in VT. (We've had some very frosty nights so far.) It was 70 degrees here yesterday and I'm like sweating and feeling all warm. What a wonderful change.

This morning I had my hot cacao drink. I threw in a pinch of Matcha (stone ground green tea), some immuno-mushroom blend, camu-camu berry powder to really help get the mushrooms activated, cacao powder, agave and this time I used a bit of coconut oil for kicks and grins. I'm really not used to oil in the morning but it was nice. I also had some of my ayurvedic herbal paste, some other lovely herbs and flower essences - my healthy woman elixir that I love from Mandala Botanicals (I'm selling her stuff now! YAY! I love her elixirs SOOOOO much.) And then before I left, I made a green smoothie to sip on throughout the rest of the morning. Green smoothie is: lettuces, banana, green apple with seeds, chia seeds, cashews, water, agave, & bee pollen. One man looked at it this morning and said, "well, I know it's not pea soup because it's morning. So what is it?" Very cute.

There's about 20 people here. The workshop teachers said this is a small group but it seems like a great size to me. There's 2 people from Quebec, 1 from Montreal, someone from Colorado, Texas, San Luis Obispo, Michigan, Spain, Bethesda, MD, NJ, Astonia (now living in Brooklyn), 2 peeps from VT (me included), VA and other places I can't recall at the moment. Age ranges are 20s to late 60s. It's wonderful. One gray haired momma said she's been having visions for 6 years - got tested for everything and no, she's not crazy and no she doesn't have brain tumors. She said she decided if she has to live with these visions she might as well learn what to do with them. Love that attitude. Sounds very sensible. :-)

Well, I'm off to the morning classes. I'm very excited and yet calm about this. I'm looking forward to hanging out with my spirit guides for 2 weeks! Last night's journeys were wonderful. This morning at 6 am, I rolled over and was startled to hear big bird wings flapping - like I startled a bird. Windows were closed and of course no big bird in the room. I went down to make my hot cacao drink - came back in the room and heard the bird's wings flapping again. So maybe I should put a little something out to honor the bird spirit in the room.

OK, I'm off! Have a great day! I'm sure I'll write more.

hugs and kisses,

Linda

Thought I would write a little bit of this spontaneous journey I'm on. First a little outline as to how I got here...

Halloween weekend, Matt and I went to a workshop for shamanic journeying. It was the best thing for me to do for Samhain, the time when the veils are the thinnnest. We had a great time and that Sunday I heard that there was a 2 week intensive course coming up starting this weekend. I didn't think one way or the other about this and but then kept picturing myself there. This really didn't sit well in my mind - what with starting the cafe just 3 weeks ago and so many things going on. Plus being away from the kids for 2 weeks is something I have yet to do.

But I kept seeing myself doing this so I signed up and I said I'd only go if I could find a ride. Taking the train or plane seemed like too many steps. A lovely ride showed up and so I said, "OK" I'll do it. Then there was the matter of the Health and Wellness Expo that I had signed up to do for Saturday. I wasn't sure how that was going to work out. And then Wednesday night of last week, a young woman came in with her dad asking about potential work. I took down her contact information and something in me said, "Ask her about Saturday." So I did and she said she could hand out samples at the Expo no problem. WONDERFUL!!

The journey started technically when I was really little but yesterday after dropping off food and brochures to a Health and Wellness Expo and giving/receiving hugs to a few of the fellow vendors that are there who are friends of mine. (Gotta love Vermont for this and for many other reasons.)

We set out to go south on Rt 89 to Exit 2 to meet up with my ride, Anna. On the phone she sounds exactly like the woman who painted the mural on the front of our shop. So that felt very good - like someone I knew on the phone vs. a total stranger. We met and I immediately asked to use the bathroom and then we headed south to Brooklyn - our first stop - half of the physical journey down to Virginia. We were picking up another woman to continue down.

The ride down was really very nice. Anna and I gabbed almost as if we had known each other for a long time, although it was the introductory stuff that one does. But because we're going on this 2 week shamanic intensive course, it seems easier to get right to the nitty gritty about the spiritual side of things - this is my favorite stuff to talk about. The 6 hours really flew by.

We arrived here in a really nice part of Brooklyn. I spent weekends here for 2 weeks when I dated an artist from here several years ago. I don't remember that part of Brooklyn being as nice although I loved his porch on the roof.

Right now as I write this, my traveling mates are doing a little journey before we leave. I am hearing the drumming and some singing. It's quite nice and I almost feel like I could journey right here, right now.

So that is the haps for right now. I miss my kiddos. I feel like some appendages of me is missing. They are among my favorite people in this world. I'm sure they will have a fun time and will be absolutely fine. My initial thoughts were if I would be OK without them for 2 weeks! In my heart I know I will be but I do love being with them. They are good good eggs.

I guess since this is a raw food blog, I should write that I brought a lot of food. The director of the program kept mentioning that the staff in the kitchen is not prepared to serve a raw vegan particularly, I think, because it was such a last minute thing. So I brought - get this - *TWO* coolers worth of food. I probably have enough food for a month. But that's better than not enough I guess. I didn't bring fruits and veggies - I brought cacao, herbs, ayurvedic stuff, chlorella tablets, water, bee pollen, mushroom powders, flower essences, nuts, chia seeds, some prepared food items that are easy enough to smear on a sprouted grain tortilla or piece of kale or something. Oh, I brought a LOT of seaweed. I brought some dulse/sesame seed crackers. I brought my blender (took up a decent amount of space in the cooler.) I'll have access to fruit and veggies so I think I'll be just fine. I'll be munching away on all of this and that will be divine.

OK, so that's it for this moment. Enjoy your day and I'll write more as I continue forward here. I'm stoked!

Drove down from VT to NJ this weekend. Was in the car yesterday and so I thought I would write what I ate and how I survive being raw vegan while traveling :-) So basically on the drive yesterday, I just kept things easy and simple. I had plenty of water for the drive. I had some nuts (I brought some gourmet spiced raw nut thingo-mo-bobbers) to munch on in case I wanted some but I didn't really want any. Matt made us all green smoothies for the road although the kids had theirs before we left. (Thanks Matt!) So I had about a quart of a green smoothie to drink during the ride. It keeps nicely in the cooler. TIP: you can make a green smoothie and take it to sip on during the day at work. Smoothies will last longer than a juice will. I brought some goji berries for the kids and yacon slices for the kids to munch on. I munched on blueberries too. We arrived in town early enough that I could go to my favorite little healthy food store here and get us some dinner. (I planned it this way. Otherwise, I would have brought dinner with us to have in the car.) The kids had stuff from the vegan salad bar and I got my daughter a modified green smoothie from their smoothie and juice bar. (At the moment, my daughter tends to do better with the greens in her smoothies - she hasn't been wanting big salads and so this is the way I get greens in her.) I had a large green juice and sucked it down. I also had some spinach and some of these macrobiotic nori rolls that they have. Oh and they had some seaweed salad at the store so I totally chowed on that. (I like to eat seaweed just about every day.) :-) I didn't bring my blender with me this trip. I realized that mostly I enjoy eating what is local to the place where I'm at. In the past I typically would bring the entire contents of my fridge and then still end up buying the local produce, etc. because it's here and looks appealing. So I finally realized that I enjoy seeing the new foods that are in the place I'm at and thus didn't bring much food with me this trip. I brought some small sample bottles of green powder with me to add to the juices or smoothies I'll be getting at the healthy food store. There's always fresh fruit to eat which is lovely. I also brought some coconut milk for the kids to have. At the store yesterday, I got some raw buckwheat granola (although I could have easily made some for myself and brought it with me) and the kids had that for breakfast with the coconut milk and some blueberries that I brought with me. (My nephew even ate it and enjoyed it, too!) :-) This probably sounds like sparse eating but it's very filling for me. I fill up on greens during the day, drink a lot of my food and then have something to chew on for dinner. It works for me and it makes things pretty easy to do just about anywhere. My advice if you are traveling is to know where there is a good healthy food store in the vicinity of where you are going to be. Or access to farm stands or farmer's markets or amish markets, etc. These things are in abundance in most places and there's more awareness around raw foods now, so in places where populations are bigger, you'll find a lot more options for prepared raw food items. If you find yourself at a juice or smoothie place, ask them to modify the smoothies - these places will often use apple juice as their base. Ask them to use filtered water and add some greens. They'll look at you like you are crazy but just smile and repeat your request. For juices, get more greens than things like beets or carrots. Keep yourself hydrated with decent water while traveling and be relaxed knowing that there's more than enough food around. :-)