Hi all
Usually I`m thinking about what food to eat, what will best " purify" my body etc. Tonight I have different thoughts. I don`t know, maybe it came from taking a step back and observing myself as well as others. Eating " naturally" etc is great but it has its drawbacks or rather we create drawbacks for ourselves. Many people I`ve talked to feel a lot of isolation eating a vegan and/or raw food lifestyle. I think people obsess about being pure and clean.
Certainly it`s good to eat well and healthy but it`s only part of the equation. Although food influences the way we think, it`s not the reason to live.
I think it`s so much more important to be part of a community, communicate with others, show love for everyone ( this is hard being a vegan and seeing that other people support the slaughter of animals ) but love is the only way to help others and help ourselves. I recently met a vegan couple and I was so taken aback by the immense love they felt for everyone in the world. I am so quick to judge people and this couple was so lovely and enlightened. I realized that everyone in this world is doing the best they can, the best they know how and everyone is evolving ( albeit at different stages) and being understanding and tolerant is the greatest gift we can give the world.
Maybe these feelings come from having an horrible experience with a friend who wanted to be so pure on a raw food diet which finally cost him his life.
We`re here for spiritual reasons. We`re here to love one another.
Maybe this post is a reminder ( especially to myself as I love to bitch and whine about how people are) to tolerate and love one everyone and NOT exclude ourselves from social gatherings because of food. I think we need other people no matter what they eat!
I don`t mean that this is going to stop my love for raw food but certainly good for perspective.

Sorry, just rambling......



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2006 04:48AM by vegangoddess.

Good stuff vegangoddess.

Food doesn't heal us, we heal ourselves and each other. Food is fuel and a connection with the Earth. That's great, but what's more important is our connection with ourselves and each other. If food is an isolating factor or distracts us from human relationships and love it will not be healthy for us no matter how nutritious.

I hear you.

-Everyone should follow their joy and passion - with even reckless abandon. This will not lead to death - but to life. And others will WANT to connect with you. This is my experience / opinion.

-David Mason

Bless you for bringing it.

I agree with you, vegangoddess.

When I first started this raw journey, I was obsessed. There was so much information, so many theories, so many "rules", it became a major portion of my life.

Now that I've figured it out for myself (which is different for every person) it's not such an overwhelming consumer of my time/lifestyle. I'm sort of on automatic where it comes to food. I know what is good for me, what is better avoided, it's easier to make decisions when in social settings, and I certainly don't obsess on "Gee, is it raw?" the way I used to.

IMHO it's a natural process, getting totally immersed in the lifestyle, then figuring it out, then just "doing it" which allows us to be more socially acceptable!

Gee, I remember hearing (and believing!) that cooked food kills ya, and thinking, wow, I gotta tell the world about this! I just bored my friends to death. Some of them don't want to hang with me anymore. Oh well, the other ones still love me! But it's easy to be so ... well, I can't think of another term except obnoxious...when it comes to saving the world from itself!

Now I don't talk about it hardly ever, I just go about my business and am flexible enough to fit into all social situations. My physical health won't be compromised because I shared a meal at a friend's house! But (as I've sadly learned) my social life can be compromised by being a "holier than thou" raw food convert! Gotta chuckle at the "me" from a year ago...

Thanks for posting your thoughts, vegangoddess!

Amen and amen!

Could be much more is going on beneath the surface than just what we are eating. An attraction to RAW may be motivated in part to break free from conventionality - to BE set apart. This may be a necessary stage in our growth as individuated human beings but there is danger here.

Unrealized potential and frustrations within ourselves is all to easily projected outward upon the world-at-large. Yes, there are many many problems in the world, but only by staying IN it can we do our small part (as Elytis - a modern day Greek poet would put it - squeezing drops of lemon into a polluted ocean ) to effect any significant change.

Food is foundational, both to physical health and to spiritual health (try meditating after eating a double cheeseburger), but to make food ones religion is kinda like believing that because you own a pen and some paper that you are then a writer.

Breaking bad habits is a good thing. Eating too much food and denatured food is a bad habit. For most of us it takes all of our inner resources, and perhaps most importantly, inner resources that we were not even aware that we had previously, to succeed in doing so. This builds character, self-reliance and inner strength. All good qualities and all necessary. But in the struggle we should learn compassion, and measure, and tolerance for those who have either not begun to struggle or who are just beginning the fight.

In the meantime we may consider following the lead of our physical bodies to become more adaptable, flexible, and mysteriously wise.

fantastic thread!,

~Kathleen

davidzanemason Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hear you.
>
> -Everyone should follow their joy and passion -
> with even reckless abandon. This will not lead to
> death - but to life. And others will WANT to
> connect with you. This is my experience /
> opinion.
>
> -David Mason

Could lead to death (which seems to be the proverbial Rome that all roads lead to) but that's ok. Better to enjoy the ride than fight it.

nice thoughts everyone.....