The Sacredness of Choice

Happy Thankgiving, dear readers!
Food Today:
Breakfast:
4 slices Manna Millet Rice bread with raw creamy almond butter
10 oz. water with MSM powder
Lunch:
salad with red leaf lettuce, purple cabbage, avocado, carrot, mushrooms and sprouts, with nutritional yeast, ume plum vinegar, Bragg's Amino Acids and olive oil

This month is most important to balance. It is the time to let go of the mantra of perfection and pick up the more powerful tool of "choosing."
What do you choose today?
Yesterday, I chose to be filled with joy at my dear friend Liz's home, as I was invited for a Thanksgiving gathering, along with my boyfriend John, Liz's partner Michael and their respective children.
Michael is a vegetarian and reared his children as such. Liz and Michael create a vegetarian meal each Thanksgiving.
This meal was not raw, and did include multiple desserts (one of which was my raw chocolate ganache). So, I chose to eat and enjoy every mouthful of this luscious meal; from the warm carrot soup, to the wasabi mashed potatoes and pureed turnips, to the mock turkey pieces made from Seitan (delicious!), to the sweet potaotes baked with maple syrup. This lusciousness was followed by a homemade apple cobbler, my raw ganache, pecan pie and pumpkin pie. I ate it all. I loved it all. I was extremely full from three Thanksgiving meals (Wed, Thursday and Friday), but I appreciated each morsel of food. During the days, I ate raw and alkaline. I didn't starve out or binge in the other direction. I ate normally. I also took a run every day and did some yoga.

The weekend also included a couple of meals out with my honey and friends; those meals were not raw, either.

Now it's Monday, and I'm back to my normal routine. More holiday parties coming up.

There might be a party where I eat only salad and veges, or bring along and avocado; at another, I might have pie and cooked vege dishes. Does this mean I am not raw? No, it means I appreciate food and the intimacy of holiday traditions with dear friends and family. It means I choose what I desire at any given moment, and each choice assimilates within me at the highest level. My path of raw is clear; it is a life-long path for which I am grateful every day. There are also many parts to who I am, and sometimes I expand into those parts and take a turn to the left or to the right for a moment. I always come back to my clear path.
When I do veer off, I do it without guilt or self-flagellation, but with gratitude for the ability to choose anew every day.
The more deeply I cultivate my inner garden of self-love and clear vision, the more I trust my daily choices to always guide me back to my path.
I offer this to you, dear readers; life is to be filled with the wide open arms of embracing your choices. Trust in the beauty of this gift; no need to fear if we have faith.
Please write in and share your choices.....
With Immense Gratitiude for Each of You in My Life,
Thank you for believing in me and in The Holistic Empire
Hope

A Smile and a Song

Lori's Raw Pasta Pesto

Friday's Food:

Breakfast:

Yes Yes Yes! Morning Maniac Elixir with: 1 fresh Thai coconut water and meat, water, frozen banana and flax seeds with Superfoods extraordinare: Health Force Nutritionals Earth, Vitamineral Green and Vanilla Spice Maca - a luscious green powerhouse of energy
Lunch:
Nuts Online Pink Salt & Cracked Pepper Mixed Nuts & Seeds

Dinner: at One Luck Duck Takeaway, NYC:

Taco Salad with romaine, spicy taco crumble, pico de gallo,guac and cashew sour cream; cilantro-lime dressing

Sushi Rolls: Marinated shitake, avocado, asparagus, red pepper, pignoli and jicama rice, nama shoyu

16 ounces water

Thursday's Delicious Food:
Breakfast: after a glorious misty drizzle 6 mile run:
Nuts Online Sundried Rosemary Garlic Pistachios & Almonds
1 Thai coconut, out on the porch with a straw; water and meat

Lunch:
Fruit Smoothie with frozen strawberries, fresh banana and fresh apple juice
Raw kale salad

Dinner:
2 bowls of Mrs. Green's gazpacho with slices of avocado (all organic tomato, cuke, onion, green pepper, garlic, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, herbs, spices, sea salt)

Dessert:
1/2 pint of One Lucky Duck Raw Oreo ice cream

Wednesday's Yumminess:
Breakfast:
Nuts Online Hemp & Greens Superfood Cereal (while hiking)

Lunch: at Pinemeadow Lake, after an ecstatic hike and swim:
Nuts Online Sundried Marinara Almonds & Pistachios
Salad with mixed greens from Genesis Farm, raw Amish goat cheese, sprouts, olives, dulse, nutritional yeast; with olive oil and sea salt

67 ounces of water

Dinner:
Sunflower seed pate smeared inside red leaf lettuce leaves
Lori's Chocolate Pudding

Tuesday's Ecstatic Food:
Breakfast: After a great run:
1 Thai coconut, out on the porch with a straw; water and meat
Some raw Amish goat cheese

Snack/Lunch:
1 Foods Alive flax cracker with a little sunflower seed pate
Nuts Online raw Sprouted Granola
Taste of my shipment of fabulous seaweeds from Ironbound Island, Maine - the most fabulous dulse

Snack:
Mango smoothie with water, frozen mango and banana

Dinner at Lori's:
1 taco sandwich: romaine leaves filled with raw taco crumble, guac, cashew cheese and tomato; ROOOOOOckin!!!!!!
Bowls of zucchini pasta with raw pesto;WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWoahhhhh!!!!

Dessert:
Tropical Pie: mango, banana and coconut pie;aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

"Isn't it better to walk around with a smile and a song than with a face eleven miles long?" Jimmy Durante

I hear this sung most Saturday mornings as part of the opening to David Rothenberg's fabulous Saturday morning show on WBAI 99.5 (both political and theatrical).

This morning his words really struck me in a different way, as I realized how much they echo my beliefs. We always have the capacity to choose how we walk through each moment and each day in our lives; no matter what.

Some circumstances we cannot control; sometimes our own inner reflections of our outer lives surface in us, almost knocking the wind out of us. Even then, we still have the choice to decide how we want to "be" in the face of each life happening. We have an opportunity in our lives to hold a "smile and a song" in our hearts as we navigate the sometimes stormy seas; it is merely who we are and how we choose to live. Our lives are now, and when we can shift the low feelings into remembering that we can access a deep feeling of balance, calm and joy Inside of us at any time, we can create a life of deeper meaning for ourselves. Sadness, grief, hurt and anger have very beneficial places for self-expression and for the markings of loss, relationships and self-growth. What I am speaking of is our deeper energy; how we hold our place in this life with every breath we take. We can be deeply sad and also hold this larger foundation of "well being" in our core. That enables us to live powerfully and feel powerfully at the same time. Yesterday was the anniversary of my dad's passing three years ago. My father and I had a very deep and connected relationship, and each year at this day I feel him and mourn the fact that I cannot now turn to him and give him a hug. But something I read in the prayer book, as I lit the yearly Jewish memorial candle that burns for twenty four hours to mark this day, struck me as much as a truth as the depth of feeling I was experiencing: "There are three ways in which we respond to sorrow. On the first level, we cry. On the second level, we are silent. On the highest level, we take sorrow-and turn it into song." (based on Abraham Joshua Heschel). We do have the right and the availability to live our lives in song every day. May you sing the song that is uniquely yours.