She’s unbelievably atypical.

She spends most of her time making stuff out of material you wouldn’t normally consider: yarn out of plastic grocery bags or handbags out of aluminum can pop-tabs.  Lately, she’s been making ornate gift wrap bows out of magazines.

I could list her craft-skill accomplishments (ponchos, slippers, origami everything,) but I’d be here all night.

What’s really unusual are these two things:

1.) She attends 6th grade voluntarily, and 2.) She’s a raw vegan voluntarily.

First, #1.  We homeschool’d 4th and 5th grade after I took Prof. Brown’s free online Yale course on food politics.  Freaked about the reality of our public education system being infiltrated and abused to raise future Tyson chicken and Coca Cola consumers, I immediately pulled her out.  She wasn’t ready to control her own tastebuds, and I wasn’t sure how to pack a healthy lunch.  Our first year was a lot of getting-to-know-you, since we essentially didn’t.  I TV-babysat her first few years, then worked her next two, then eagerly sent her to school to raise grades K-3.  Needless to say, our first year of homeschool took a backseat to working out our personality differences.  Besides that, we newbie’d the traditional route and groaned through our course material – way too much language arts.

By 5th grade, we figured out how to cooperate and really delved into the freedom of homeschool.  Though you’re supposed to register with a local watchdog agency to nanny your progress, we just… didn’t, and they lacked a system to notice.  We picked our own courses: American Revolution, from daily episodes of Liberty’s Kids (counter-checked by Howard Zinn, heh heh,) moral philosophy from Ultima: Quest of the Avatar (the closest thing I have to religion,) origami, yoga, and plenty of applied visual arts.  We basically just flew by the seat of our pants.  But, we lacked structure, and my growing issues with mutism (if I consume grains, I go mute within 48 hours and it lasts up to 4 months straight,) were preventing delving into the things she needed vocals for – algebra, science experiments, philosophy lectures and social group experience.  So, for 6th grade, she voluntarily re-submitted herself to public school, much to my panic, on the following agreement:

1. She gets herself up to go, properly prepared and groomed without any reminders, wake-up calls or insistence on my part, and doesn’t expect nor request a ride or a note if she misses the bus.

2. Never submits to anyone’s authority but her own, and knows I will rescue her immediately should she ever decide to abandon ship.  Temper concepts about group work with Randian individualism.

3. Abstain from mystery “food:” preparations without stated ingredients, and be a happy vegan in the face of “that’s weird” peer pressure.

4. Question all information, such as historic record or nutritional guidance, by researching contrary perspectives at home.  Always raise her hand to suggest alternative points of view as a brave example for others when presented with information she strongly considers limited, misleading, or false.

My parents thought these expectations were absolutely absurd, and I, too, honestly thought this wasn’t going to work.  Remembering my own 6th grade experience, I figured within 2 months my beautiful vegan libertarian would come back with a talk-to-the-hand, name-brand-only, Cheetos-sneaking, misses-the-bus, pain-in-my-butt.

Boy, was I wrong.

For the past four months, she has dutifully set her alarm, been showered and homework completed, out the door with a smile, ten minutes early, rain or shine.  (I’ve given her a ride twice, voluntarily, out of respect for this.)

When the entire school had their pretend-election day this November, she questioned during class before peers why Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson wasn’t on the ballot, to her instructor’s astonishment, and wrote his name in.  (She was the only Libertarian voter.)

And then today, she told me this:

“Wanna hear something funny?”

*Nod*

“You know my friend I sit with at lunch?  Today she said, ‘Man I wish I had your Mom.’“

*Shock!* *What!?* *I spin my finger in circles: continue!!*

“Yeah, I was sharing my pomegranate with her and and she said, ‘My Mom would never give me a lunch like this.’  Then she said, ‘Well, maybe tomorrow I’ll ask her if I can just bring fruit, too.’“

*Bite lip.* *Must… resist… warm fuzzy feeling!*

Wow!!  What?! I never thought any of my kid’s friends would ever envy me for a Mom!  Is this feeling… JOY?!! 

Not only that, but she inspired a peer to express interest in healthy dietary choices at home.  Not, Mom can I bring beef jerky too, (me in 6th grade,) but, Mom can I bring fresh fruit?

SWEET!!!

My daughter is a light that shines!!!

I insisted the honor to take her picture while she finished up her lunch prep so I could write this post.  She thinks I’m blogging about how to peel a pomegranate, but, I just wanted to write how lucky I am to be this chick’s Mom.  This goddess, this amazon!  To shout, “Hey, look, other Moms out there, it’s possible!  Here’s one!”  A 6th grader that WANTS to go to school.  An 11 year old that PREFERS bananas over cookies.  A pre-teen that chooses the vulnerability of freedom over the restriction of security, diligence over convenience, health over sugar-high, self-discipline over nanny state!

And I get to be her Mom!

Happy Freaking Dance!!!

Overout! Tickled with JOY just 3 hours after blogging that I never experience it — such a dork!

April

PS – Straight A’s with a bullet!  Take that Mom who continuously evil-eyed and finger-wagged, “You better hope you know what you’re doing and don’t get her held back!”  (Ok, so it’s probably not so much my personal talent as our family heritage.  I skipped four grades, her Grandpa skipped first grade, her Great Great Grandpa had an entire college department named after him…)

A public letter, because, I am an atheist and this is how I experience confession.  Also, it might be rude and obnoxious, so I apologize in advance for my poor manners.

I thought Romney would win.  I thought, for *sure* the American people would completely refuse a dictator who grants himself the power to seize, imprison and execute without trial.  For *sure* the American people would stand to reject an Executive officer who disrespects their elected representatives and directs our military to attack other countries without congressional approval.  Of *course* the American people understand that demanding the purchase of a product, medical industry insurance, is not only in violation of their religious rights but simply a fundamental abuse of personal freedom.  I figured given the state of our puppet show election system, they would vote Romney in just to see Obama out.  From my awareness, they were two heads of the same beast, but I knew the people believed otherwise.

Me as Miss Liberty with Shaun Crowell for TN Senate & Daniel Lewis for TN House September 2012.

I *hoped* the American people would hear about, and champion, a leader who represented freedom, a leader who represented personal responsibility, a leader who would repeal violations against the Constitution, bring our troops home, and re-establish the American people as an independent nation who may council with the UN but isn’t ruled by it.  I did my best to spread the message first for Ron Paul, and then after his benching for Gary Johnson.

Roughly,

1 in 300 voted for Gary Johnson

1 in 3 voted for Romney

1 in 3.1 voted for Obama

Damnit.

Is it because 2/3 of the country is overweight, 1/3 obese?  1/2 are on pharmaceuticals?  Are they poisoned, drugged?  Is there something about the mentality of the diseased that perpetuates a government selling a false sense of security, a Nanny State?

I became very depressed.

Everywhere I looked were socialists.  Everywhere I looked were misinformed people voting for a dictatorship that claimed the right to my life.  To tell me what to do, how to live, where to go and when to be there.  Surrounded by persons who believed it was ok to Sharpie the Constitution, kill innocent people with unmanned aircraft, and fine me for refusing a mystery injection.  What planet do these people live on, and why must I be among them?

I looked for other countries to escape to, knowing I lacked the resources and survival skills even if I found one.  But I wanted hope.  With hope, I could believe in a future, an exit, a way out, and fervently acquire those resources and claim those skills to see it done.  But I found none.  The entire planet was under attack by a world government using us as its military.  For what?  What could really be so great that it’s worth the murder and enslavement of all humanity in order for some select few to revel in?

Backstory.  My ego had been slain years ago by a set of strokes brought about through emerging dietary intolerances to animal products, artificial ingredients, and grains.  As a result of these physical disruptions, try as I might, I since lack basic human emotions like lust, materialism, and the worse, joy.  I just… don’t want anything.  If you handed me tickets to the Bahamas, I would shrug and hand them to someone else.  If you offered me a rare stone, I would politely attempt to hide my greater interest in the passing clouds.  If you blindfolded me and brought me to a castle and said I could be the Princess forever, I would look for the maid’s quarters and begin scrubbing the cellar floors.  I just… don’t care for that stuff.  The only thing I seem to gluttonously target are stroke-inducing foods in sudden fits of self-destructiveness.

Not quite, but you get the picture. Crowded, and no room for BS. Use it or lose it, and try not to bump into anyone.

It’s not that life sucks, either.  It’s ok.  No one expects much of me, I’m relatively isolated, no friends to worry about offending, and no home to upkeep.  I live in a dugout.  Dusting is a ridiculous concept.  Order is impossible when your other three inmates couldn’t care less.  Since I don’t want anything, I don’t have to feel any despair over being too poor to afford the latest greatest toys or hippest threads.  In fact, I’m usually irritated that I haven’t yet sold or Good Will’d the few objects I already possess.

No, I’m not all angelic either in my strange disinterest and persistent charity.  I can seem downright evil.  When someone has severely injured themselves beside me, agonizes emotionally or cries physically, I won’t comfort them.  I might bandaid the wound, but only if asked to.  Death doesn’t bother me.  People die.  I’m not trying to keep everyone alive as long as possible, and really don’t understand why anyone else is.  My ego isn’t that big.  If and when it’s my time, I go willing.  I’m just… indifferent.  If anything, the past few years I’ve felt extremely confined and imprisoned within my own skin, and often question the supposed inanimacy of rocks.

Ok, strike that. If you said it was a castle *made of bananas* and I would get to be Banana Princess, -then- I might experience sheer joy

So, it blows my mind that there’s people out there who feel the need to kill each other over personal values, need to improve their circumstances (try living with a kid that screamed and cried from morning to night incessantly for 3 years straight, and still pitches fits, daily.  Whatever your irritating environment is, I won’t sympathize with you.)  Or the need to acquire more stuff, or dictate to one another how they may or may not live.  Do what you will.  If I don’t like you, or find you hostile, I’ll just go somewhere else.  Chase me, I’ll run to the ends of the Earth.  I’m not a passivist, I’m just not worried about it.  There’s too many places for all of us to find a nice banana tree and hole up camp to need to fight about who gets which fishing hole.  I like walking, I don’t need to stay in one place.  Take whatever you want, I don’t need it. The things I’d use wouldn’t be of interest to you, and/or are easily found again.  A coconut shell to gather water.  A braid of rope to climb trees or make shoes.  A scrap of cloth to be polite.  Bananas.

Since there’s nowhere to go…

Since I lack the tools to commit suicide politely (bloodied brains or asphyxiated skin just seems obnoxiously rude)…

Since I wince at the chemtrails and burger stench and self-destructively tempting every freaking day aisles upon aisles of boxed toxins that my zombie, addicted brethren support through their unquestioning purchasing behavior…

I talk about bananas.

I don’t know what else to do now.  Political activism didn’t work.  Scream in their ears, they won’t wake up.  Show them bloody pictures of kids in Pakistan, their eyes glaze over and they ask if you want a latte.

The only panacea I know of is bananas.

I think… well maybe if everyone healed their body of their from-the-womb addictions to GMO corn, refined sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, refined flour, artificial ingredients and preservatives, animal products…

…if everyone simplified down to an essence of bananas, carrots, veggies, all the nutrients they need and absolutely no pollutants,

…if everyone drank lots of purified water…

Maybe they would snap out of it.  Maybe they would feel better.  Maybe they would think clearly.  Maybe they would stop needing so much shit (big houses, new cars, rooms of junk and excess, fashion, toys and amusement food.)  Maybe with less funk clogging their brains, and less crap in their inventories, they could see beyond themselves.  Maybe they would realize they don’t have a right to kill each other.  They don’t have a right to tell each other what to do.  They don’t have a right to rob each other (taxation is theft.)

They don’t have a right to demand their neighbors cover their college bills, health plans, or buy them a meal when they’re broke.  Yes, starving sucks.  Yes, starving kids sucks.  Yes, I’ve been there.  Yes, you might die, but you don’t have the right to demand a share of someone else’s earnings to alleviate your misery.   Your right to live extends only so far in your personal ability to fend for yourself.  Yes you might die.  I might die.  It happens.  I hope we don’t go out that way, but it doesn’t make it pardonable to rob someone else of their life (either in whole or part) to cover ours.

We especially don’t have a right to demand everyone contribute towards impossibly expensive, technologically advanced weaponry to experiment upon defenseless people across the ocean, rack up astronomical debt, then claim we have to pay even more taxes to continue covering it.

The people wouldn’t need to.

With a healthy body, they wouldn’t need healthcare, and would be offended at the imposition that they buy into the medical regime of disease-care.

With a less crap to store, they wouldn’t need to be so afraid of defending their horde that they agree to attack others first.

With a simple source of pleasure, they’re forget their entitlements, drop their expectations.  They would realize they don’t need regulated education and, well, regulated anything.  What do you really need to know to be a human being?  Eat fresh clean food, drink fresh clean water.  If it stinks, don’t breathe it.  If it hurts, don’t touch it.  Smile, laugh, be nice to people.  Find a cave to share during storms.  Is anything else necessary?!  Other stuff is bonus, cool, whatever, but do you NEED it?!  Need it so much you’re willing to rob your neighbor and murder your brethren to keep it?!  Well what do you think the income tax and drone warfare is?!

People must be healthy enough to stand for themselves, or those who are diseased will be choosing for them.

Forget the conspiracy theories that the food, toxins, all of it designed, marketed and pushed through the public market, schools and media to keep them asleep and satiated, ignorant and agreeable.  Babysat and spoonfed.

Bananas… bananas… bananas… go bananas…

Just set an example of how to be free,

personally,

by abstaining from my own freaking addictions and healing my own body,

publicly.

And that’s how IAMRISING blog went from Go-Go-Gary Johnson to GONE BANANAS!

Overout.

April

Vinegar is definitely a battleground for the nutritional experts of experts.  By expert I don’t mean your labcoat, classically-trained, paper-certified, regulated “fact” regurgitators, but your I-am-my-own-guinea-pig experts through years of personal experience mixed with a bit of unconventional research.  They know how to read anecdotal stories shared in blogs or forum comments and pull out the vitals.  Since they aren’t trying to make a grade or score a government job, they can use that information for their next private experiments however they see fit and thereby evolve common knowledge by unabashedly sharing it with others.  It’s what education would be if we stopped trying to force everyone into public schools as a way to play yearly brain-olympics with other countries: real gurus gauged not by No. 2 pencil standards but by the infamy of rural success.  (Forgive me, I like to beat my rocking horse and then ride into the sunsets of Off-Topica.)


Because it’s technically raw, touted with tons of panacea health claims, and one of few universal foods throughout written history, vinegar is a question mark.  According to wiki, Hippocrates (460-377 BC) prescribed it for curing pleurisy (breathing difficulty,) fever (immune response to bloodstream invasion,) ulcers (open sores in your stomach or intestinal walls,) and constipation (can’t poop.)  Not sure why the pleurisy, but the other three are not terribly surprising.  Ulcers and constipation can be commonly caused by either flour or meat consumption.  Wheat flour, reconstituted into crackers, breads, and other bakery magic, is sticky.  When we consume it, particularly in large quantities, it adheres to the inside of our stomachs (and intestines, where it can clog the lines completely) like a gluey ectoplasm.  The stomach cannot shake it, and the more there is of it the harder the stomach has to work beneath its weight.

This causes a number of unpleasant things to happen.  The bacteria trapped between the body’s lining and the glop begin to consume the glop and mass multiply.  Then, they consume the body lining too, and they and the body lining begin to rot.  Meanwhile, that sludge just dehydrates more and more, until it cracks and festers open and you’re left with an internal gaping wound: an ulcer.  This can happen anywhere in the stomach or the intestine.

Before there was Elmer’s, there was wheat paste.  Ingredients: 1 part flour, 4 parts water; heat, stir.  Use.  Would you feed your kids Elmer’s?  Yet that’s what the breakfast toast is – dry glue, just add fluid.

Vinegar separates the sludge from the lining.

Why?  It’s an acid (5%.)  It hurts.  Your esophagus, stomach, and intestines do not have the nervous system response to send “BURNING!  STOP!” messages to the brain, so you don’t even realize you’re hurting yourself.  But that doesn’t mean they don’t feel attack or lack defense.  Their silent opposition is mucus.  Rapidly, on first hint of acid, the internal linings mucus up to protect the cells from acidic damage.  This mucus detaches the wheat glop and allows whatever is in the digestive tract to pass through – minimally processed.  Meat, another mind-job for the body, which *can* process it, kind of, but not very effectively, is also expedited through.  Otherwise, since the stomach couldn’t churn it into the watery goop of vegetable/fruit foods, it moves *very* slowly through the line, feeding tons of -bad- flora along the way, increasing their populations and killing off the good populations who starve off from the continuous blockades.  Without the good flora to pass in good nutrients to the blood stream, we get a lot of this rotting flesh and grain ulcer bacteria making their way in, hence the fever response or other flu-like symptoms.

Hippocrates vinegar solution for fever, ulcers and constipation was right on.  If you’re a reconstituted-grain, i.e. bakery consumer, or a meat-eater, you might want to follow the 400b.c. doctor’s advice and add some vinegar at every meal.  So which one?

Here, I would recommend Bragg’s Apple Cider version.  It’s unpasteurized (not boiled) and unfiltered (not strained), thus it contains whole trace properties of the original source materia and living bacteria.   Organic means there’s nothing artificial from start to finish.  As most vinegar is grape-based, they’re also going to contain trace properties of pesticides from the grapes, which are notoriously heavily sprayed (if you’re an earthling that lives out of water, chances are you like grapes and can’t read signs like “humans only.”)  Also, in spite of the fact that all fermented products contain natural sulfites, for some reason vinegar manufacturers add in a few more for good measure.  This isn’t the good sulfur of yesterday’s post, this variation is toxic.  Bragg’s contains no such nonsense.

But don’t think that’s because the gingerbread witch has your health at heart.   Look in a little closer.  Bragg’s proudly boasts that it contains the “mother,” but this will only wow the non-connoisseur.  Vinegar manufacturers, like wine makers, can go one of two routes: a fast 3-day race, or a months in a casket.  Months in a casket gets you that deep, rich subtle oak barrel and hints of (insert common wine description here) flavor.  3-day is expedited simply to create a product quickly and amass profit.  By just adding the “Mother” strands directly, rather than waiting out Mother nature, Bragg’s can bust out vinegar fast enough to circulate the planet and keep Mrs. Bragg’s in fancy hats and white suits.

But, flavor isn’t really what it’s about, when most of those fancy *flavor* products come with artificial toxins and we’re just using it as an anti-ulcer food anyway.  So, again, I’d go with 3-day sneaky-pants Bragg’s as opposed to pesticide-grape-9-months-hints-of-cedar-sulfites vinegar any day.

Well, if not gourmet flavor, and you’re not worried about your flour and meat consumption, then what’s the attraction to all those health food gurus out there?  Here’s some of the claims directly from Bragg’s site:

IB-1a: Rich in enzymes isn’t saying much, basically if it’s raw it’s got plenty of enzymes.  Enzymes just means it’s alive.  But, in vinegar’s case, not very.  You can’t water a plant with it.  Nothing but bacteria can live in it.

IB-1b: Rich in potassium?  The potassium content is 11mg/tablespoon.  1-tablespoon = 14g.  A banana contains 50mg/tablespoon, and isn’t even the king of potassium.  I would hardly call 11mg/tbsp “rich.”  Maybe “just about poverty level” or “escaped the third world on a boat made of plastic bottles.”  You know what *is* shopping at the mall with potassium?  Fresh avocados, 70mg per tbsp, and raw spinach, 75mg per tbsp.  Dried leaf spices, like cilantro and parsley, can pack over 700mg a nibble.  And really since you’re not going to use more than a tbsp anyway, but probably will eat all 4oz of banana, for 400mg+ potassium per fruit,  it’s misleading to the mind to think the “rich” vinegar’s got your back and then skip the banana.

IB-2: It only supports your immune system if you were damaging it with poor eating choices (like reconstituted grains and animal products) to begin with.  This statement can also be misleading.  You might not even need it, but take it thinking it will help you get over something else, even though it can’t actually help the fact that your town still fluoridates their water or your government chemtrails the air.

IB-3: If my never-bothers-to-reference above theories are correct, then it only helps to control weight because it mucus-lines your digestive tract from incoming hole to outgoing hole and thus prevents you from absorbing as much of that high-calorie + toxic funk that was about to be your next butt cheek.  Contrary to public miseducation, high-calorie diets have little to do with weight gain/loss.  It’s toxin consumption.  But that’s another quirky post.

IB-4: Promotes digestion, again because it gets the sludge off your gut lining and breaks up the clogs.  Promotes ph Balance because your body will instantly mucus up and alkaline itself to combat the acid.  Also, since it’s preventing the meat and flour from rotting its way into your blood stream, which acidifies the blood stream, you could say it technically promotes ph Balance from that perspective as well.

IB-5: Pop question!  Why would mucus-stimulating acids soothe dry throats?

IB-6: “Helps remove body sludge toxins” – HA!  Finally!  A real claim!  But only the ones currently in your stomach/gut, everything else is on its own.

EB-1to3: The skin and muscle claims are, again, simply because your immune system doesn’t have to fight as hard to alkaline the acidic environment of bacteria invasion from rotting meat/flour in the gut.  If you have pimples, red irritated skin patches, or general stinky/sweatiness, that’s your body’s immune system attempting to purge toxins from the blood stream.  Prevent the cause, (quit eating toxins,) have beautiful normal skin.

EB-4: Your muscles cannot function in an acidic blood stream, especially one with bacteria invasion.  They like meat.  They like your meat.  They eat you from within.  Prevent their invasion, prevent this cause of pain.

See, it’s snake-oil.

It only works these miracles if you’re on a sludge-and-clog diet.

Would you pour vinegar on an open wound?  Probably not.  Definitely not.  It should make you wince just thinking about it.  But that’s what your organs feel like when you pour it in them.  They lack the nerve messaging system to let you know they’re “melting, MELTING!”  The gut learns not to trust the mouth.  The brain learns not to trust the tongue.  The entire body goes into a state of each organ for itself, until the heart threatens mutiny and the entire spirit slows into depression.  Then you crave more wheat (which causes the body to release a type of weak morphine into the blood stream, hence addiction building comfort-food,) and more meat (to feed your growing parasite population, and satisfying them becomes imperative so they eat that instead of you.)  Then you buy more Bragg’s.

What’s the real cure?  Don’t consume glue to begin with.  Avoid dry, reconstituted products.  If it came in a box, it’s not food.  It’s sludge.  It’s toxin, fat-storage producing.  If it came from an animal, it’s going to clog your intestines and constipate you.  You crave it not because you crave it, but because the overpopulation of bad bacteria within your gut and bloodstream craves it.  They thrive on it.  They hijack your system and ask for more.  You think you like it, but that’s not you.  That’s you as their zombie, mindlessly craving crap that poisons you further.  That’s you as their werewolf, suddenly attacked by impulses you can’t control.  That’s you as their vampire, thriving off the blood of the living, because your digestive system is so deteriorated you couldn’t process nutrient-rich fruits and veggies if you wanted to.

Vinegar will probably get you back on the path to health.  It’s a start.  But it’s just a heal-potion, not a cure.  You’ll still be ticking down, down, down in life points with every muffin and bacon-flavored-itch you subject yourself to.

Abstain from all of it.  Fight for your life.  Fight “you” for your life.  Eat unlimited bananas, apples, grapes and when you’re bored throw in a fresh salad with a variety of raw ingredients.  The first couple weeks will seem insanely impossible, you’ll get detox flu symptoms and feel like crap as your body goes into overdrive purging years of abuse out.  You’ll mentally beat the hell out of yourself trying to get your heroin-addiction to wheat and meat back on the menu.  You’ll tell yourself you can’t hack it, remind yourself of anything you ever tried before and failed, and excuse your addictions by pointing at the 99% of the rest of the population still drugged and asleep around you grinning over their KFC.  Remember, I said fight.  To top it off, it’ll never end, you’ll always pass the half-price bakery deals, the weekly special on ruffles vs the never on sale spring greens, and the daily drive past chain after chain of the next media-reinforced new burger/taco/donut flavor of the month.

But, once your stomach starts to trust your tongue again, and your intestines start to trust your brain, your entire body kicks back on.  That burger smell will make you wince at the memory of your polluted system and how crappy and sluggish that felt compared to new, living, thriving, clear skin and bursting with energy You.  The real You.  The pseudo-self, parasite-in-the-machine you left behind will be a weak deflated thought of the past.  Your political activist blog will go all health-nut-hut and type 2245 words about vinegar to be a light that shines for the next Neo just waiting to wake up.

One drop of vinegar will taste *way* too bitter.

Now go eat some bananas!

April

PS – Anything you’d like to know more about, please comment or google it and explore for yourself.  Many of my theories are unusual postulations that don’t seem to exist yet, so if you’re a classicist that only considers it if it’s in a book with constant references by the medical agency, please go enjoy your biscuit and ignore me.  Peace!

Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar
• http://bragg.com/products/acv.html
• http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2742/2
• http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2

In this morning’s dream, I was at my local grocer assisting a pair of construction workers gathering a barrel of lemons.  The store manager was following us around offering advice.  At one point he hands me some fresh, silky, cobless corn husks, which I like-the-plague refused, “No, no, I abstain from all things corn,” I say.  “That stuff should be neon and glowing.  Do you know about GMO foods?”  He said he didn’t, but didn’t appear interested and set the corn husks back.  He then picked out two boxes of fresh strawberries and handed them to me.  “You’ll want these,” he said.

The construction workers had disappeared, and I headed for where the check-out stands are in the real life version.  There were none.  Huh?  I was in a new cafeteria portion of the store.  I asked a stranger dining at a nearby table for the check-outs, and theyhe pointed me at an old PacMan looking game box.  As I approached, the automation was flipping images of products for sale with their titles beneath the image: “APPLES”, “BANANAS”, “LEGALIZED WEED”, – wait – What?!  How exciting!  Eager to begin, wondering how, a pair of ethereal pre-teens approach my 9 o’clock.

“Have you got any kale-in-ite?” one asks.  She’s precious.  Both in white bodysuits, with silvery-blonde hair framing their silk-milk faces, and ballerina a-floatiness.  I’m sure I’ve never heard the word, but guess she means a type of stone (selenite, iolite, etc.)  “No, but if you give me your e-mail address, I will locate some and contact you.”  Unphased, she replies, much to my confusion, “well I’m not sure I want to drop a bunch of 20′s on it.  That’s a lot for me you know.  I see you here all the time though.  We’re friends.”  Wake up.

Kale-in-ite?  How could I dream a word I was sure I never heard of?  Was this an answer to something from some forgotten recess of the mind?  Was I just craving kale and my mind funnied it to catch my interest?

Google: Kalenite

Click to visit All Star Health product page

Heh, that’s unusual.  I’ve been scouring the net for all the information I can find about intestinal parasites the past couple weeks.  It consumes me.  Everyday: “signs of die-off”, “suicide + intestinal worms,” “wheat + intestinal worms,” “history of meat consumption.”

Maybe I saw this product subconsciously during a search.  Prima – the ballerina look of the girls.  Yerba – mate, the “friend” tea.  Explains the words she chose before I woke up.  Although, it doesn’t appear to be as much for parasite removal as simply a colon laxative.  Well, maybe it’s a pointer at a particular ingredient.  Let’s see…

Kalenite Cleanse is chiefly comprised of acacia gum (something I avoid,) psyllium husk (a pure edible fiber, 0 nutritional value, 0 calories.)  Does that explain the store manager handing me the cobless corn husks?   The active stimulants are yellow dock root, buckthorn bark, blessed thistle, red clover (also a female hormonal balancer,) and cloves.

Well, all fine and good, except I basically abstain from any and all supplements and medications as placebos and snake-oil.  The clues may all match, ballerina, friend, name, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the match.  Dreams are sneaky like that.  Why did I immediately believe it was a semi-precious stone even though I was certain I had never heard of it?  IS it a stone?

Google: alternate spelling, kalinite

Bingo!

According to wikipedia, kalinite is an out-dated term scheduled for deletion from recognition by the grand viziers of mineralogy.  It stems from the archaic alchemy term, kalium, for potassium.  It is basically potassium sulfate, or, potassium and sulfur.  It is ethereal white, like the two dream tweens, with their white outfits and silvery blonde hair.  Unlike Kalenite, which runs about $6/bottle, kalinite (if you can find it) runs about $20/sq.inch.  “Drop a bunch of 20′s on it…”

Ok I’m game.  Let’s investigate THIS set of ingredients.

Kalinite has this composition:

It’s chiefly water molecularly (and very water soluble) or chiefly oxygen atomically.  The potassium, its namesake, is pretty high.  The aluminum would make it toxic to consume.  The sulfur is definitely an eyebrow.

Wait for the speckles, that’s when they’re ripe and optimal nutritionally

But first, refresher on the potassium.  Potassium basically has the opposite effect of sodium (salt):  Salt attracts water molecules into cells, potassium drives water molecules out of cells.  (Eat bananas, pee like crazy.)  It increases nerve to nerve communication, and reduces hypertension.  If you suffer from anxiety, try a breakfast or lunch of -just- bananas (I eat 6-10 per meal) to boost your levels.  It’s found in nearly every fresh fruit or vegetable, and easy to have more than enough of on a salt-free, raw-vegan diet.  Yeah, at 20-30 bananas a day I’m not worried about it.  Couldn’t be the aluminum, that’s pretty toxic (don’t drink canned beverages, please, pretty please.)

Well what about kalinite’s high sulfur content?  I’ve never once thought about consuming enough sulfur.   Ok.  A few articles in and here’s the top of my head:

The “beauty mineral,” sulfur is the third most abundant mineral in the human body, after calcium (dairy DEPLETES calcium, eat GREENS for it,) and phosphorus (kiwis, tropical fruit.)  Sulfur, found principally in your skin, bones and muscles, is like your elasticity and collagen factor: enough of it and you’re skin bounces back without a wrinkle and your muscles bend like elasti-girl.  Run lean on the sulfur and your skin sags and your toes are *definitely* out of reach.  Sulfur:

Besides basic detox functions, sulfur is a little more critical than commonly recognized.  Most people hear about getting enough calcium, or potassium, but sulfur?  Yet, sulfur is the active protein in mitochondria, the powerhouse battery within each and every human cell.  Lack sulfur, suffer fatigue (your cells can’t operate, glycogen or not, and your body goes into energy conservation.)  It converts thiamin and biotin (vitamin B group, another thing we hear a lot about getting enough of, even though it doesn’t matter how much you have of it without adequate sulfur to convert it into usable format.)  No matter how many fresh carbs you dump into the tank your body won’t be able to convert them into energy without vitamin B, without sulfur.  So from two different approaches, inadequate sulfur = guaranteed fatigue.

Sulfur is crucial in the synthesis of glutathione (found raw, not cooked, which destroys it, in asparagus.)  Glutathione is your body’s most powerful anti-oxidant, and basically sets the bar for the rest of the anti-oxidants.  Low glutathione levels means vitamin E (sunflower seeds), vitamin C (oranges) and vitamin A (carrots) will also operate at low standards, no matter how many times you hit the Whole Foods fresh juice bar.

And last, insulin function.  Sulfur is the bridge between insulin’s two proteins.  Whoa, the two proteins of insulin?  The dream’s two twin tweens asking for kalenite?  No sulfur, no insulin.  Lack the insulin, and you can’t regulate your blood sugar.  Too much sugar in the stream can lead to mania, anxiety, ADHD, other diabetic symptoms, and irregular heartbeat (or failure.)  You’ll be treated with insulin injections and warned to avoid fruit, when really the fruit is what would stabilize your insulin levels in the first place.

Well, yikes, where do you get it, on the double, right?!  Most SAD (standard American diet) medical doctors or basically advisers with classical training or inadequate nutritional education will say meat.  But, seeing as meat actually depletes your ability to absorb nutrients (by clogging the intestines, which are the 3x-your-body-height standard herbivore length, not the half-your-body-height standard carnivore length,) that’s probably not actually going to score you anything of value, other than intestinal ulcers and a worm population.  So, ignore their “small amounts” opinions and just gun up on your veggies.  Asaparagus (again, glutathione building blocks,) KALE, beans, brussel sprouts, garlic and onions.  The best form is Methylsulfonylmethane, or an organic sulfur compound found in all fruits and veggies.  Like all protein compounds, it is completely destroyed by cooking/heat and must be consumed raw.

So were the subconscious messenger girls of Kale-in-ite in this morning’s vivid dream pointing my conscious at the colon-cleanse herbal punch Kalenite or the concentrated potassium/sulfur source Kalinite, or really, KALE?  Was the use of an archaic term evidence of cell memory?  I’m leaning towards the latter, and already 14 bananas, 1 garlic clove (raw, yikes!) and a bowl of greens in.  Next grocery trip is scooping up that barrel of lemons (alkalines the blood, dissolves worms membrane defenses) and two boxes of strawberries (vitamin C is toxic for them, and good for us.)

Thank you dreams!

Sources:

• http://www.livestrong.com/article/148660-kalenite-cleansing-herbs/
• http://webmineral.com/data/Kalinite.shtml
• http://www.healthknot.com/sulfur.html
• http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/09/12/the-third-abundant-mineral-in-your-body-are-you-getting-enough.aspx
• http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38

You have worms.

Eat milk, eggs, cheese?

You have worms.

Crave sugar, refined flour?

You have worms.

“Oh but it’s roasted!”  “Oh but it’s pasteurized!”  “Oh but I cooked it!” 

Doesn’t matter.

90% of people have some form of intestinal parasites.

Meet the tardigrade:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

This creature, fully grown, is about 1mm long.  This incredible animal can survive in close to sub-zero conditions, turning it into one of the first creatures to hitch a ride on the NASA endeavor.  It’s not just cold-resistant, it can also survive up to 300-degrees F heat, and live over a decade without water.  It’s one of extremely few animals present on every continent (even ants are not found on Antartica.)  It’s found in deep sea oceans.  It’s fossil records date it back to primordial goop, and we’re still not done discovering new variations of species.

What do tardigrades have to do with tinnitus, cravings and worms?

Once your brain knows and accepts that there are itty bitty creatures which can survive without food or water, for years, and cannot be frozen out nor burned out, nor pressure compacted out (deep sea life,) you’ll be a little more open minded to… well… anything.  Especially the concept that whether you boil it, charbroil it, BBQ it, or deep-fry it, there are who knows how many tiny to microscopic creatures we haven’t even realized are alive surviving the attempt to eradicate their presence through dairy pasteurization, cheese refining, egg boiling and the summer grill.

Regardless if the steak was seared to a crisp, or slightly mooing, something survived.  Eggs.  Worm eggs.

Regardless if the eggs were rinsed in chemicals, something survived.  Parasites.

Forget what you learned, screw what you believed in so you could placate your tastebuds.  If you consume fish, pork, chicken, beef – cooked or barely cooked, doesn’t matter – you’re ingesting mystery parasites, worm eggs, and worm-food.  Your intestines are paradise, always just the right temperature, never acidic enough, with a continuous stream of food.

Worms do not have complex digestive systems – they’re worms.  There’s no seven stomachs of the cow, or bile of the human.

They like cooked food because it’s broken down.  They like refined flour because it’s simple to process.  They like flesh because it’s mineral rich and that’s where they came from anyway.  They like sugar, lots of sugar, because they’re as cracked out on it as we are.

Not sure you can believe it?  Click here for a YouTube medical video of 10lbs of worms being removed from a bodybuilders gut, who came in complaining of insatiable hunger.  Or maybe a video from Mexico surgeons removing worms from a 3-year old’s intestines.

“This is silly, you only get worms from dirty environments.”

Pssh.  Delusions.  Common American delusions that worms are just for little starving African kids scooping sludge-water out of farm drain-offs.  Delusions created by our commercially driven world of 409 cleaning sprays, detergents and dish soap:  “Just clean and scrub and you’re safe!” 

Worms are everywhere.  Like tardigrades.  If there is such a thing as an animal that can survive every known possible extreme between sub-zero and lava, there is such a thing as creatures that can survive all known methods of food preparation, and all natural human immunological defenses.

Ok, ok, you’re thinking, I’ll go with you for the sake of argument, but what the crap does that have to do with tinnitus and food cravings?

The intestines have been referred to by today’s leading authorities,

http://www.ted.com/talks/heribert_watzke_the_brain_in_your_gut.html

as the “second brain.”  Honestly, for me personally, it’s the first brain.  But regardless of pecking order, there’s really no way to verify how many of the “thoughts” sounding off in your “head” are generated from the brain itself, or simply processed through the brain into a language from their original, pre-language sources: cells sounding off red alert or requesting supplies, intestines requesting food.

Since there are ten times as many cells within the intestines as there are cells within the remainder of the human body, how much of “you”, or your thoughts, your “I”, is actually your intestines?

That’s an intestine with worms.  See how they’re burrowed in with the villi of the intestinal wall?

This is where I’m going to stretch it.  This is where there isn’t “proof” because proof doesn’t, and can’t, exist yet.  We not only lack the technology to verify it, but we lack the question.  It’s a new concept.  Doctors in America don’t even check for worms, they’re as “oh that’s third-world only” as the rest of us.

If all the villi does when it’s hungry, is sound off a request to the brain, and the brain then converts the thought into English: “Man, I’m starving!  I could really use an apple.”  Then, who is to say the burrowed, nestled, connected, joined in the hip worm can’t sink its teeth into and manipulate the communications port into screaming off its own requests: “Man that new BK Broiler would really hit the spot.”

And if the intestines, the second brain, the operating facility upon which, as Professor Heribert tells us in that TEDTalk above, “a brain and set of teeth are attached,” who is to say the eyes, the nose, and everything else isn’t also directly, instantly connected to the intestines?  And if the puppeteers, the worms, are an established colony, would it really be that difficult to imagine how they operate the sense of sight and smell to despise food they can’t process and seek out the food they can?  If you stare at the salad wondering where the meat is, is that you, or the worms?

Here’s a regular person’s account of their battle with food cravings and worms, if you followed me this far this is the mantle portrait.

Ok, ok, you’re thinking, it’s a stretch but even if I go with you here I really doubt you can tie this in to tinnitus!

Ha.

Like the intestines-to-thoughts being a new, not even on the inquiry books concept, so will this be.  For Americans.

But not the Chinese: http://www.livestrong.com/article/366391-acupressure-for-tinnitus/

In Chinese medicine, it has been long established that the ears are directly connected to the small intestine.  Go freaking figure.

Tinnitus is commonly described as hearing ringing that doesn’t exist in the external environment.  At first, I wanted to believe that was an erroneous misconcept, that perhaps sufferers of tinnitus were actually acutely sensitive individuals picking up on subtle frequencies of radio waves, electricity, cell phone towers, HAARP.  (See my blog investigation here.)  No luck, I couldn’t seem to get beyond conspiracy theorists and loose connections.  I made an aluminum helm and gave up.

So, while it’s still possible tinnitus is, like I assumed, a sensitivity to our external environments experienced in individualized ways, I had to look back within.  I found Chinese medicine.  If they are correct, that the ears are directly lined with the small intestines (go back to Prof. Heribert’s joke that we are really intestines with acquisition features attached,) then perhaps the tinnitus is the sound of those pre-language thoughts.

Frequencies emitted and generated by the cells.

And the tinnitus, the screaming, ringing, the sometimes extremely loud, usually dull, but pretty much omnipresent

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

is the sound of villi smothered by worms, screaming for aid.

The sound of villi manipulated by worms, abused into creating incredibly unpleasant frequencies they wouldn’t normally generate.

The sound of worms, submitting requests, manipulating the brain, into acquiring their food: burgers, fries, cake, chocolate (yes, chocolate cravings are another refined-mineral worms can’t get enough of.)

And thus, IAMRISING concludes, Tinnitus = Cravings = Worms.  Look at the above common factors of tinnitus – they’re all also symptoms of poor nutrition, high sugar content, and worms.  If your ears scream, it isn’t ear damage.  It isn’t permanent.  It’s your system hijacked by parasites and worms.  It’s the sound of something you need to get rid of.

(Ayurvedic medicine notes one of the die-off symptoms of intestinal parasites is ringing in the ears, as well.)

How?

Stop eating the food they want.  Eat salad, fresh fruit, and a ton of fresh garlic.  No one likes garlic, not us, not garden pests, not vampires, not parasites, and not worms.  Just remember the garlic kills the good guys too, so you’ll want to supplement with healthy probiotics like kombucha to help re-establish the colonies of good parasites in the intestines to wage a serious battle against those !)*@&!$ worms.

But that’s so hard, I’ve been eating this, that, and the other since I was… yeah no shit.  Welcome to reality.  Of course it’s hard.  What did you expect, a panacea?  A wonder drug?  No such thing.  Get over it.  Buck up, slap your hands, bite your tongue and eat your parsley.

Oh but I’ll miss Tuesdays with the girls… so what!  Your friends and family are only friends and family when there’s a feast involved?!  Find new friends.  Tell your family you’re at war for your right to life right now and you’ll check in later – over salad.

Focus on the benefits.  Focus on a fit, healthy body that never has to visit the doctor or get mystery injections at the local corner pharmacist.  Focus on how much fat you’ll lose, how much clearer your thoughts will be, and that strange ringing in your ears that you thought you were screwed with just… going… away.

Courtesy of Constantly Healthy

Well my ears don’t ring so I don’t have worms.  Ha.  Tinnitus is a symptom but that doesn’t mean it’s a required one.  Just because you don’t hack your lungs out every day doesn’t mean you haven’t got tar and plaque damage from cigarette smoking.  Did you read the “Do I have worms?” link above?  No?  Don’t want to find out you fit the bill huh?  Well here’s the list then

More possible signs:

• bloating
• passing gas (particularly after meals)
• seeing egg shaped circles in the eyes when looking at the sky
• poor sleep
• constant dreams during sleep
• tossing and turning during sleep
• chronic constipation
• chronic diarrhea
• alternating constipation/diarrhea
• grinding of teeth at night
• wearing down of teeth
• poor quality of nails
• chronic candidiasis
• burping gas after meals
• chronic burping
• delusions
• hallucinations
• mental disorders
• mood swings
• depression
• chronic anger
• ravenous appetite
• strong early morning appetite especially around 5am, 6am
• lymph problems (e.g. lymph tissue enlargement or pain)
• constant cravings for greasy foods, even potato chips
• cravings for and eating farinaceous foods:
  • white bread
  • white flour products
  • cookies
  • pastries, etc
• cravings for sugar or sugar containing products
• love of vinegar
• love of sour foods such as lemons, grapefruits
• chronic exhaustion
• chronic fatigue
• rough, dry skin at the heels of the feet
• anal itching
• anal tickling (usually at night)
• anal burning
• anal redness
• bowel movements turn green regularly
• hypoglycemia
• headaches
• migraine headaches
• trouble sleeping
• trouble getting to sleep
• abdominal pain after eating apples
• abdominal pain after vigorous exercise

Gross right?  Another thing you can try if you’re one of those “Why can’t I just do what I want and take a potion that fixes it!” people, is try a pharmaceutical drug.  Available on ebay and over the counter: mebendazole. Am I supposed to include a “consult your doctor before taking any drugs” clause here?  Probably.  If it’s medical related, then you should probably listen to a medical brain.  I am not a medical practitioner, I am a naturalist.  I can tell you all I want to that you should eat fruits and veggies and no one can sue me for it.  But if you want to try that other thing, well that’s your own risk.  I personally think pharmaceuticals are crazy.  Like we could seriously have any idea what crap we’ve come up with in the past 50 years has as a permanent effect on an earth animal over thousands of years old.

When you crave cake, think, “You bastard worms!  Starve assholes!” and feed them a salad laced with garlic.

When you crave steak, think, “Invader parasites!  How dare you tell me what to eat!  You’re going down!” and stuff in eight bananas and a carton of carrot juice.

Decide those thoughts and needs are NOT you but an alien within you puppeteering your life for its own.  Don’t identify with it *anymore*.

Let me know if the tinnitus abates.  While I’m pretty sure my “cravings = worms” link is pretty dead on, the “tinnitus = worms” is a fantastic stretch that can only be verified through our individual accounts when experimented with directly – a very new concept.

Your pal – - -

April

Want more?  Check out my related post, You think what you eat.

Photography by Oleg Volk. P’shopped by me.

It’s something like day 10 now since my last “high” (after the first few months, I could hardly notice it as a high anymore,) after a 4 year daily life.  While the boredom is definitely worse, and suicideology definitely present and louder than ever, there’s been a pleasant rebirth of something I’d long forgotten: vivid dreaming.  For the past 4 nights, I’ve had extremely detailed, memorable dreams.  No morning games necessary, I remember them all day, and the next, as if I actually experienced them.  It’s like having some kind of otherworld access, secret adventures, escape, and basically the only exciting aspect of my life right now: falling asleep.

The first night, I worked in a massive hardware store inside a bizarre abandoned factory.  After rounds of nonsense fun, I defended my coworkers against God when he attempted to get them to sign an agreement to bonus checks now for permanent taxation later on behalf of “Good for All” projects.  “You can’t do that!  Everyone gets to choose if, when, and what they’ll donate to.  How dare you trick the unwise!  You’re no God, but the devil!”  A Oh-Really? chase ensued, and I ended up flipping a hijacked, trailer-less semi while ascending a highway onramp in my escape.  Wake up.

The second night, I was a beautiful (still bald) bride in pure silk (not that polyester so-called “bridal satin” shenanigans,) walking up my town’s Main Street.  The village was all in white as well processing behind me.  When I approached the altar, where no priest, paper or authority stood, but simply a convex plate that would amplify our testimony before the audience, I turned to face my groom.  Only, there was no groom.  Confused, but not dismayed, a woman I know in real-life, yet do not possess that level of relationship with, suggested I go looking for him.  So, I teleported to the awesomest toy store I’ve ever seen, straight into the Star Wars and Indiana Jones aisle.  I completely forgot the quest when my eyes set on a P90 lasergun with a strange scope-mount accessory: the Pixar desk lamp.  Wake up.

The third night, I never slept.

But last night, I had a very unusual dream, by my own standards.  I was an adult in the town of my youth, at my childhood home.  My guests were the sisters of … fuck it I’ll say it … a real-life hold-my-hand-in-6th-grade boyfriend who raped me in the woods behind my house.  It became a public spectacle, I ended up in private school and temporary foster care (long story) and never saw him again.  I share that so it will make sense as to why last night’s dream was so weird to me.  We agree to go to her, his sister’s, house instead, where a fiesta is taking place.  I’m worried my old fatale will recognize me and cause a scene, so I keep my head down and try to stay incognito, but everyone is interested in meeting and sharing themselves with me.  I don’t speak, but I don’t need to.  (When people think you’re listening they’ll talk to themselves just fine and rarely notice your silence.)  My name flies around the house.  There’s food everywhere, nothing I can eat in real life, and it seems like the women won’t stop cooking new dishes, even though old dishes are barely touched.  He finally emerges from the back, adult, and I can barely believe it’s him.  He greets me as a friendly stranger would, and introduces me to his fiance, who has been sitting by me all along.  Phew, I think, he can’t recognize me with +20 years and -20 pounds.  It’s a great night, and I’m excited life is so beautiful and rich for this family, especially him.  Life goes on, no one is destroyed by the mistakes of their childhood, and I’m pleased bleeding is over.  Towards the end an uncle offers me the real fun: a stash of joints in the kitchen cupboard.  He tries to light one, and I watched the paper burn in slow motion as it approaches the meat of the wrap: weed.  But just as the cinders approach the green, an elder says, “No no, not yet!  The kids are still up!”  Wake up.

Facing myself, my real self, not my crutching and clouded self, this past week has not been pleasant.  The despair, depression and hopelessness is continuous from wake-up until shut-eye.  Suicideology is a daily, hourly, by the minute thought.  These are all aspects that have been part of my reality since childhood, pre-pot, and even during-pot lives.  But, I’m not craving it.  I don’t want it.  No interest.  If I have to crutch to get through this shit than I seriously just would rather not be alive.  It needs to come from within, it needs to be me who gets me out of it.

That’s what’s nice about the vivid dreaming.  It’s clear from all three of those accounts that the mind is working hard to heal itself.  Eyes-closed from the misery of my daily existence, it can focus on mending old wounds and repairing poor self-concepts.  In the first dream, I am a champion of the oppressed, I zestfully fight to the end, as opposed to my waking thoughts that I am uselessly, powerlessly mute in the throat of evil.  In the second dream, I accept myself as beautiful, worthy, that there’s still play to keep searching for that fantastic companion, my Jedi, my Hero, in spite of the waking reality that I am a rather hideous, hopeless, hag I feel guilty to condemn upon anyone else.  In the third dream, I forgive an original wound, delight in the joy of life going on, even for the was-a-bad-guy, abstain from the crutch foods and crutch substances, for the kids, versus the waking persona that I will always be weak to the poisons, weak to the “cures”, and can’t see kids as anything more than biological mechanisms without a future.

In my dreams, I am everyone I wish I was when I was awake, yet for some reason, cannot seem to believe in awake.

On pot, I could believe in myself while awake, but only until it wore off, and never without paying its price: isolation, lethargy, fear and anxiety.

Slew the daydream, won the nightdream.  I couldn’t vivid dream to save my life as a pot head, though I knew I used to and should be able to still.  Which is better?  I don’t know.  In reality I am limited to reality, regardless of my high or not-high perspective, but in the infinite potential of vivid dreams I have constant friends, causes I can win, get-in-and-go semi trucks, and self-checkout laser guns.  And, at least with those beautiful, fully detailed vivid adventures of the night dreams, I don’t snap out of it afraid someone is going to arrest me for being too damn happy.  No one can fine me for healing myself.  No one can imprison me for living my life my own way.

Overout,

April

Photography by Oleg Volk, August 2012

I am bulimic.

See the photo of me? —>

That’s not from bulimia.

That’s from a raw vegan diet and daily exercise.

I know because I have been bulimic for over 9 years.  The first 6 years my weight was about what it had been the previous 10 years: a stable, flabby, jumbo-boob’d 135-lb size 8.  After someone clued me in to healthy eating and the sheer pleasure of exercise, I dropped to a size 0 within about 6 months.  If you want to be skin and bones, but able to run laps around your kids while wearing weighted training gear, then exercise avidly an hour a day and eat nothing but raw foods.

So what does it have to do with bulimia?

Everything.

My Bachelor’s degree is in philosophy and — psychology.  Not a rocket scientist, but I did skip 4 grades of public school.  I abandoned graduate school, haven’t memorized the DSM, and would laugh if you asked me what pill cures what.  So take it for whatever you want when I say this:

Bulimia is not a mental disorder.

Bulimia is not a “Oh I’m fat!”

Bulimia is not just women, not even close, and,

Bulimia is not a one-word-fits-all.

Bulimia is the body’s attempt to balance addiction with physical allergies and intolerances.

Mind is a symptom of the body.

You can study the mind, you can attempt to wield the mind, but essentially, your thoughts are a manifestation of messages generated by the body.  The cell is like an individual, the organ like a team, and a mind is central hub through which the loudest requests filter through.  If enough cells, or organs, request the same thing, the thought is amplified.  If the thought is pervasive, the mind begins to seem identified with it, or what we call “ego”.

(I’m simplifying and generalizing for the sake of storytelling.)

Now, take a baby.  10lbs of baby is, say, 10% of the cells of a 100-lb adult.  In order for 10-lb baby to reach 100-lb adult, it needs to grow.  To create more body mass, its cells must replicate.  They must multiply.  In order to multiply, they must take in materials and photocopy themselves.  These aren’t rocket scientists, either.  Amazing, sure, but not rocket scientists.  They’ll take what they can get and do their best.

Ever play telephone in a classroom circle time?  You take an obscure sentence (or a genetic code.)  You whisper it, once (or give a go at reproducing yourself, once,) into the ear of the student next to you.  They whisper what they think you said into the next ear, until eventually it reaches back around.  Although its possible for the message to make it through 20 passes perfectly, if at any point that message changes, it is astronomically unlikely to regain its original wording.

Every time the cell replicates, from baby into adult, and adult into longevity, it gets a one-time pass at copying itself accurately into the new cell.  Whatever that cell is, has only the information contained within it to pass onto its own offspring cells.  Info like, what do I do and what do I need to do it.

(Don’t worry, I’ll tie it all back into bulimia in just a minute.)

Take two Moms.  One Mom eats the purest diet possible, completely organic, paradise of the earth fruits and vegetables, raw.  She breastfeeds her baby (first message to cells,) and her baby’s cells learn what kind of nutrients to ask for: breast milk!  When the body is hungry, it will sound off to the mind to seek out and acquire whatever the source of that fuel is, boobies.  Eventually Mom shoves a banana in its mouth, and the cells begin to make themselves out of banana-based minerals directly.  Now, you’ve got a new generation of cells that sound off for bananas, not boobies.  Eventually, it turns into a 100-lb raw vegan copy of its Mom.

The other Mom is a city mouse and eats burgers, pizza, cup-of-noodles, ice cream, corn chips, snickers bars and Dr. Pepper.  Her breastmilk contains traces of these ingredients, and the baby’s cells learn to associate *mmm boobie* with these foods.  Eventually the baby gets its first bowl of ice cream, or bite of cheeseburger, and the rest is history.  The future generations of cells within that vessel will request funk for food.

The future 90 lbs of body to turn the 10lb baby into 100lb adult will request funk not only for food, but for feelings of comfort, for satisfaction, for Mommy.

So, 90% of the adult body sounds off “funk!” when it wants ingredients for operation and replication.

Why bother mentioning the raw vegan baby?

Your chances of developing cancers, tumors, constipation, bone decay, tooth decay, pick an illness and insert it here, are miraculously slim on a raw vegan diet.  Why?  Your body knows what to do with it.  It’s been eating raw plant-life for as long as humans have been humans.

It has *not* been eating microwaved food (1947) or the artificial ingredients of the 20th century.  Its baffled by the melded fat-proteins of charbroiled steak like a two-faced “Ugh gee, is it a fat or a protein?”  The blood stream does its best to clear funk out by either storing it as a toxin in a fat cell, or excreting it (unless overloaded.)  What it can’t get out, goes into the cell, which scratches its head, does its best, and replicates itself with the new fuel-source.

Like telephone, those replications begin to fail.  Without adequate nutrition and continuous funky building resources, they create generations of burger-craving cells, amplified into fries-craving organs, until they become the main requests sounding off in the mind.

So what is bulimia?

Bulimia is a body composed from too many generations of cells that think burgers, not bananas, are the fuel source.  Destructed cells.  Half-cells.  Cancer cells.  Cancer cells that can multiply *insanely* fast compared to normal cells.

Only in the bulimic body, something fights.

A bulimic individual, or an anorexic for that matter, has resistance.  It could be anything.  It could be an unpolluted organ that hears the message that more polluted food has entered the body screaming, “NOOOOO!!!!”  It could be unified white blood cells, battling all the cancerous growths, hearing cancer food is coming in, sounding off, “NOOOO!!!!”  It could be the small intestine, that has figured out when the mouth tastes wheat it means a clog is about to happen an hour later, shutting the stomachs drain-hole and refusing to open until the sludge is rejected.  It could be over-worked insulin cells, that hear a sugar onslaught is on the way, shouting off in the mind, “NOOOOO!!!!”  It could be developed allergic reactions fighting the need for Mom’s peanut butter cookies or cheesy mashed potatoes with the need to keep certain ingredients *out* of the blood stream or face serious allergic reaction repercussions (like heart-palpitations or inability to breathe.)

And out it comes.  The bulimic barfs it up.  The bulimic is first subjected to the cancer cells, or just the generations of funk-for-fuel cells screaming for burgers, cake, cheetos, whatever its learned to identify as its ingredient source, insisting madly for junk.  Junk or die, is how those cells feel, 90% of the body: junk or die!  So junk or die is the mind of the bulimic individual.  Refuse the junk, feel like dying.  Give into the junk, and then the other 10% kicks in and rejects it.

The bulimic at war with itself.

Is it a “Oh I’m fat?”  Not like that.  It’s a mistake to think “Oh I’m fat!” is a concern about your dress size, it isn’t.  It’s the body wondering just how many toxic fuel cells it has left to either consume (the bad cells desire) or remove (the good cells desire.)  Not as a size thing, but as a toxin thing.  It says, “Eat that and get fat!”  Fat as a toxin, not fat as a dress size.  Because you do.  Not because you ate too much sugar, but because you ate too much unusable mystery material.

Is it a mental disorder?  Sounds like it, especially considering you’ve got one set of thoughts, “I want cookies!” sounding off against opposing thoughts “Cookies are killing me!”  But where are those thoughts coming from?  The body.  The body doing a very basic thing: resourcing materials and having immunological response.  Physical disorder.  The mind is just the sounding station.

How do you fight bulimia?

Give the body the right fuel type until it recreates new generations of cells based on better ingredients.  Hope your telephone system isn’t so far along that the message is entirely lost.  Exercise off the fat stores of toxic ingredients.  Exercise will also increase the speed of new cell generation, thus expediting old toxic cells into the toilet.

If you are bulimic, be bulimic with a fist.  Don’t just binge the craving and give it a light barf, fill yourself with water repeatedly and vomit a few extra times.  That first go *never* gets all that crap out.  Grains will stick to your stomach walls, and some food remains in the lower cavity of the stomach.  Use vinegar in the water flush not only to help detach the sludge, but also because it’s so freaking unpleasant.  Punish any animal and it will become highly aversive to the behavior.

Will you just cause the bulimic to go anorexic?  Not if the bulimic immediately turns around and eats a bowl of salad and unlimited fruit.  (Please believe the skin and bones to the right, you will *not* get fat from unlimited fruit *if* that is the only fuel source that makes it into your intestines.)

Slowly, very, excruciatingly, painfully slowly, the cells will learn their new fuel source, the toxic cells will die off, and you will no longer hear the screams for funk.  They’ll scream for bananas and carrots.

So why am I still bulimic?

I was raised on formula.  My Mom was told she couldn’t even get pregnant, which she and my Dad were completely fine with.  I was a shock.  She ate her normal diet (she’s never been much of a raw fruits and veggies person,) and raised me on formula (boob thing grossed her out.)  I ate her diet well into my mid-20s: salty, sweet, and deep-fried.

My body is composed of… junk.  My cells are made of… all the funk I mentioned throughout this post, and just about anything else even similar.  But very, very, very rarely did I eat salad or fruit.  And definitely not bananas, I thought they made you fat.

Now just to give *some* credit to psychology, there’s also just the psychological aspect of it.  When I feel lonely, naturally, like most animals, I want my Mommy.  I miss her pancakes, over-easy eggs, enchiladas, cupboards of every kind of cereal, and basically anything she made depending on what the cells scream for.  I miss them so much I won’t even go visit her, even though she lives right down the street, for years now, because I can’t resist them.  If I get around her, or even conversate from a distance with her, I want them.  I have no relationship with my own Mom right now because of food.  I stay home from family gatherings because of food.  My nose, my bad cells, smell it all, see it all, want it all, scream like crazy, and I give in.  I try to bring bananas but I still can’t resist a bite, and a bite, or even a site, becomes the next big binge.

It’s like being in your own prison, 24/7, and getting whipped daily, by your own hand.

Joy becomes nearly impossible.  Life becomes pointless.  Purpose irrelevant.  Who wants to live when every day is hell within?

If you have bulimia – - eat bananas and salad.  Don’t vomit those, there’s no need.  They’re 80% water, and the calories so low you can’t possibly exceed your energy capacity into creating fat.  Absolutely vomit that other crap, if you feel you must, and DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP FOR IT.  The vomiting IS the good side of you fighting the polluted side.  Each time you resist the bite, each time you vomit the binge, good for you.  That means you DO want to live.  Something in you is rejecting those ingredients for a reason, apparently important life-threatening one, or it wouldn’t trouble you to vomit in the first place.

Now go eat a damn banana, and don’t listen to anybody else tell you you’ve got a mental problem.  If anything, go get checked out for possible intestinal collapses, cancer or tumors, and have yourself tested for allergies to things like corn, wheat, dairy and other common food ingredients.  Some part of you is desperately resisting those “foods” and the more you can isolate the cause the better your chances of defeating the cravings for whatever its decidedly rejecting.  Arm that good-guy side of you with fruit and veggies.  Drink a ton of water.

I am.  I’ve gone from vomiting 3-4x a day to once a day or even just once every few days (especially since the banana transition.)

We can win.  We can live.  We can be free.  We can be happy.  We can be 100% healthy cells and organs, requesting fruit and veggies!

From 9 years of daily experience, 1 degree of formal education, 2 hours of typing,

and love,

April, a bulimic, but not forever.

Every first Saturday at Good Will is half-price day on the entire store.

It’s very busy.

The streets are lined, the aisles are crowded, and if you tried to play the Early-Bird-Catches-the-Prize you’ll be in LINE-FOR-HOURS until about mid-afternoon.

Sometimes I go play.  I’ve chosen my battlegrounds.  I won’t do clothes because I’d seriously rather pay the extra $2 than stand in line that long for a dressing room, and I won’t do toys or household because there are simply too many variables at play (when armed with a Tasmanian preschooler.)

I play in books.

Children’s books.

We arrive around 3pm.  Determined and fired up, Gwen and I worm ourselves into position and begin wildly thumbing through books.

Circus monkey dance tunes blare my mental radio station,

and I watch my hands move in fast forward,

until people are distant chipmunks not happening in actual time-space.

Ahhhh – - – the zone.

Squatting on my heels, I begin at the bottom right end of one 5-level, 3ft wide shelf of children’s books, and begin auto-pilot scanning for the first filter: .99 cents.  I don’t want the 1.99, or the 2.99, just the .99.  It’s bargain day.  It’s bargain mode.

(The entire time, over 51% of my CPU is keeping an eye on Gwen, who is remarkably intent and calm playing her own version of library seek-and-find.)

As I pull out the .99s, I am scanning for age range, visible wear, annoying features like sound device or “comes with stickers!”

Attack Mom with sound?  No thank you.  Attack Mom with more that-doesn’t-go-there to clean up?  No thank you.

If it looks passable, I skip through a few pages.  Gwen’s attention span is generally about 5-15 words a page, more or less depending on the nature of the story and her personal interest in the illustrations.  If the pictures are exceptional, screw the word count.  I’ll just make up my own story.

I am also scanning for type of story, but this is a very small understaffed committee on the thought-team.  Basically, I avoid books that look like socialist propaganda or are entirely Biblical (spiritual is fine, but I don’t play “Holier-than-Thou”.)  No movie spin-offs.

I ask myself, “If this doesn’t work out for us, would the library take it?”

Meanwhile, very large persons surround me above, left, and right, as if my personal bubble has been de-activated.

Carts are swarming behind me, way too close.  My ears are cranked up to 11.

It’s an unusual experience, and pleasure, to hold my ground and stay focused, while guarding Gwen, from within a hungry herd hunting within a hourglass.

I suppose this exposes some satisfaction-pursuit for the primal yearning to gather, to hunt.

So, for about 1 hour of work, I scored 35 books for $17.50+ tax.

Of the 35, I kept 18 (the picture with feet.)  I decided not to keep 17.

17?  That’s nearly half!  How did I botch half the choices?  Weren’t my parameters for purchase tighter than that?!

Well, some I walked into knowing it was iffy, like morality books or old Disney books.

For instance, “Mommies are for…” was a cute idea, and promotes general concepts of What-is-Mom like “listening, loving, being the one person who is there to watch your performance when no one else is.”  But I felt like it was limited and limiting.  I don’t like the idea of teaching people to expect a “Mommy” character that just bends over to serve or is all about You.  That’s absurd.  Mom is a human being who you happen to like because she happens to like you.  Two way relationship.  You don’t get to expect her to be anything but herself.

The firefighter book was fun and the correct pace, but it promoted this idea that children should not be afraid of firemen, and always cooperate with them.  Ehh… yes… no… ugh… Again, it seems like a nice idea and generally makes sense.  But, I don’t like the idea of teaching people to always cooperate with *ANY* uniform simply on account of a vague concept of the uniform!  That’s not safe at all!  Always practice scrutiny and judgment before going willingly with *anyone*, uniform or not!

The Arthur books I thought would work, but they’re very chit-chattery, about, nothing, just varieties of ways to say “Nothing,”  like this sentence.

I even tried just *not* reading the text but just making it up based on pictures.  Doesn’t work, she’s bored out of her mind either way.

Oh and of *course* Miss “I’m a Beam-a-Rina!” Golden Sparkle Toes will love Fancy Nancy, right?  *No.* 

So, I net 18 books for $17.50 + tax.  Or, $.99/each.  Not bad, considering what I really went for was the experience, and,

all of the books are actually priceless.

See, there’s a variety of ways to pass them on.  Anytime you pass something on in a better way than you found it, will increase the chances of that level of energy reaching you as the recipient next.  It’s *smart* to have a *heart*.  You can only have hearts OR smarts when you *choose* to.

Put a ribbon on them and leave them in the neighbor’s mailbox.

Give them to the library, they will register what they like and sell what they already have a copy of, and donate what doesn’t sell back to Good Will.

Leave them at the Laundrymat.  There’s always these boring cake-eating, look-at-me magazines but rarely any educational literature and never any children’s books.

Put them in a school mailbox,

Put them in a church mailbox,

Put them in the rain-swiper of a van with carseats in it.

You don’t have to ask permission to give a random act of kindness to a perfect stranger who you never, ever see or know the reaction of,

You don’t have to ask permission to cast love.

Cut out the best images and paste them onto cardstock into a collage, greeting card, or simple cut-it-out-yourself jigsaw puzzle.

Whatever you do, you are reducing manufacturing imprints by reusing currently available, passable materials voluntarily.

No one gets to tell you what you may or may not buy, you get to choose.

No one gets to tell you what they will tax you and then buy on your behalf.

Read little books to little people with great, exaggerated character acting.  Little people won’t judge your performance with anything other than awe and joy.

Giggle when they giggle,

and find something beautiful about it (no really, exert the effort to look for it, that’s when you find it,) and then pass it on.

That’s how we cast Love.

That’s how we cast Charity.

A society that is individually capable and inspired to extend voluntarily into the community beyond itself need never permit nor entertain any enforced taxation on its behalf.

IAMRISING for Voluntary Charity

———

Day before Thanksgiving, 2012.
7:22PM

I am home alone.

I am very bored.

I am severely understimulated.

And I am going to get the fuck off my ass and run in place for an hour.

NOW!

7:24 0,0,0 Suckerpunch | Sweet Dreams

(It worked! I’m up! I listened to myself and got up! OMG I’m Up!!!)

7:28 1,0,0 Resurrection | PPK

(Knees high, heading inwards, as if keeping a ball bouncing.)

7:31 2,0,0 Breathing | Jason DeRulo

(Air Ski in place, legs more stiff than loose, like swimming.)

7:37 3,0,0 Resurrection | PPK

(Upright and kick your feet all the way to your butt, stiff-feet!)

7:41 4,0,0 Fast Asleep | Jungol

(Revert, knees high, each raise above your hips!)

7:45 5,0,0 The Guillotine | Khoma

(Man that darkside stuff will really slow you down…)

7:50 6,0,0 This Love | Ellie Goulding

(Not my favorite thought to run too, knees up!)

7:54 7,0,0 Seven Devils | Florence and the Machine

(FINALLY, SOUL!)

7:57 8,0,0 (cont’d…)

(Trudging!?! What the hell for!!!  You’re this far, don’t droop now!)

8:00 9,0,0 Sally I Can See You | Kimbra

(Need motivation? Watch your ass flap in the mirror. Want that forever?!!)

8:04 1,0,0,0 My Heart Is Broken | Evanescence

(Sprint!)

8:09 1,1,0,0 Love Out of Lust | Lykke Li

(Hear yourself whimper? Tell yourself, “No.”)

8:13 1,2,0,0 Stereo | Adaline

(Hear yourself whimper, tell yourself NO!)

8:17 1,3,0,0 We’ve Just Begun | Persephone’s Bees

(Hear yourself whimper – TELL YOURSELF NO!!!)

8:21 1,4,0,0 Love, What You Doing? | We Have Band

(Almost there!)

8:24 1,5,0,0 Bedroom Hymns | Florence and the Machine

(Raaaaawwwwwrrrr!!!  God she’s firey!)

8:28 1,6,0,0 …

made it!!
made it!!
made it!!
YES!!
YES!!
YES!!)&@!!

>>I GOT UP!!<<

And that is why I get to be:

Iam Rising!

—-

P.S. 9:48pm

My skin is practically glowing right now!  It’s so freaking soft.  30?  Wtfever.
See ya next time!  Remember: anytime, anywhere, just START!!
XOXOXO

click to visit story at CNN Money

Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana, and, I am satisfied.  I don’t have to smoke it anymore. 

I’m over it.  The battle is won.  The first of 50 dominoes has landed with resounding success.  People are coming around.  They get it.  It’s just a plant with pros and cons like any other drug out there (coffee, chocolate, salt, refined sugar, wheat, nicotine and alcohol, to name a few.)  No need to champion the oppressed, marijuana has rediscovered its vocal chords.

I don’t have to smoke it anymore.

I’m out.

No more days of depression quick fix, from here out I just… deal with it.  Now that a healthier temporary cure for mental dis-ease is publicly available for those in need (as opposed to pharmaceuticals, alcohol and definitely nicotine,) I no longer have to explore and champion its cause.  I can focus on abstaining from all temporary cures as the true cure worth aiming at.  I can aspire towards the next level.

Yes I miss it.

The racing thoughts, the mental floodgate.  The interest in *everything*.  The excitement for *everything*.  The unusual perspective.  The unexpected solution.  The inventive concept.  The sudden ability to do things with my body I didn’t know I was capable of.

The brief escape from the incessant thought perpetually ringing in my ears that everything is absolutely pointless and life is not worth living.

I hate that one.  It’s been there since my tweens.  Yeah.  Pot has been a one and only crutch out of its clutch.

But don’t let me build it up *too* high.  I won’t miss the after-hunger (when your racing metabolism slows back down and your body screams for carbs to try to boost it back up again.)  I won’t miss the chronic fatigue (when your blood stream is polluted with carbon monoxide poisoning.)  I won’t miss the isolation (when you’re the only one high and no one else can relate to anything you’re experiencing.)  I won’t miss the smell.  I won’t miss the fear that I am putting everyone around me at risk of search and seizure by the armed thugs of our government upholding unconstitutional prohibition on behalf of the eminent domain of the all-knowing, self-righteous medical industry.

The past few days have been kind of boring, I admit.  No amazing thoughts or insights.  I keep dangling with deleting the blog, because, I am not confident I have anything to offer anymore as just plain ole me.

But what are those *great* thoughts anyway, in the grand scheme of things?

2 billion years from now, will the little life-histories and philosophical what-nots of infinitesimally microscopic beings on some one of many quadrillion specs of dirt floating around a magnanimous star really have any freaking bearing on anything whatsoever?

There has to be more to life than the words that describe it.

Off the weed.  Now I shall fight the demons of my dark side, alone, unarmed, disrobed, without a safety net. 

Way too freaking sober.

Like a real animal.

Day-dreaming about freedom in Colorado, from the doldrums of pointlessness,

“April” – whoever that is, whatever that means.