Thursday, October 20, 2016

FOOD DOGMA

I became at veggie in 1968, a raw vegan in 2001, and today a organic real food prepared properly human being. I eat just about everything as long as it has maintained its integrity, not denatured. As a matter of fact I cycle my diets from omnivore, to raw vegan to lacto-ovo veggie.

I believe any doctor or so-called health counselor (now a dime a dozen and most are worthless) who believes all their patients/clients should be vegan, veggie or anything else have missed the point. Based our lineage, health and constitution some people do well on one diet while others do terribly on the very same foods. The idea that everyone should be vegan or raw, etc is nonsense. Much of the problems people have with food is bc of its quality, its preparation, or just plain abuse of it...
                                                                      
                             MY FAMILY'S BUTCHER SHOP 1915

Monday, July 25, 2016

Is faith a necessity for healing and a happy life?

Is faith a necessity? 

Let’s first see what Webster says about the word.

1. Confidence or trust in a person, thing or in another's ability.

2. Belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

Let’s consider #1. Confidence or trust in a person or thing.  This is the type of faith I would not call faith but confidence. This is a decision made based on experience that has assured me “I can trust this”.  This is based on empirical evidence i.e. “I have experienced that when I press my foot on the brake pedal in my car it will stop." No faith is required here once one has experienced the car stopping. It’s done. I now have confidence in its ability to stop. 

Now for #2.  A belief that is not based on proof. Not based on proof, now this is faith, this is blind faith and this is what religions are based on and around. Myths and fairytales created by the minds of men and women who require answers to unanswerable questions, for those who cannot live with the answer “I don't know”.

Confidence is surely something that is necessary for healing and a happy life. Having confidence in the doctor and or the protocols he/she has prescribed changes the outcome.  Faith can also do this, but we must be clear that we are putting our lives and happiness in the hands of something unseen, something not based on proof. Some would say “the proof is the testimony of all those who have experienced the power of an unseen god”, but at best this is second hand information based on someone else faith and their conclusions that the outcome they’ve experienced were brought about by this unseen being.

My contention is their faith alone is enough to cause change, that something happens on a cellular when we believe and it’s not always positive. Haitians who believe in Voodoo have been known to die after being told they have been caused by the witch doctor. So it’s clear that belief affects outcome. The problem is the resulting belief system is not valid, the causative factors are misidentified and so the person if they live, live the rest of their lives believing a lie.


For me, and this is just for me. I would rather say “I don't know” and deal with the outcome, then to delude myself and live in that deluded state of mind, in that false belief.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Letting Go Does Not Equal Giving Up

Human beings, all sentient beings, hate suffering, love happiness and enjoy pleasure. Those who have either skewed their view so that their "happy place" is unattainable or unsustainable will indeed suffer. To what extent or to what extent they are able to endure this suffering will gauge whether or not someone like Robin Williams, myself, my brother who shot himself in 1990, lives or dies. Gives up.

Being a young and now an old hippie has been of benefit. I’ve never had big plans involving money, attaining so-called success, although I’ve always loved beautiful things; nice cars, bikes, glass, pottery and musical instruments, but never suffered from not attaining them and have been willing to have something almost as good without stress or injury.

Take cars. My first car was a 1961 MGA coupe, $600, yeah I wanted a Jag, a Big Healey, an Aston Martin but instead owned quite a few MG's, Triumphs, AH Bug-Eyed sprite, two Alfa's (slight better) and other less expensive European sports cars. Now some might say where is the suffering in that?  Remember folks, take my college engineering professor's advice "everything is with respect to something else".  My suffering is not yours, yours is not mine. Your threshold is unknown, you can find it, but few people give much thought to the way their mind works, they live by the motto “shit happens” or “its God’s will".  It's like they believe they are little more than a passenger on this journey called life. 

There are two very important things that occur all the time. One, things arise before our noses, second, how we react. How we react, function in the face of these momentary arisings is a reflection of our state of mind. How much weight we offer these impermanent and therefore “not so real” happenings and how much we allow them to contribute or take away from our happiness quotient.
We will suffer, it is as sure as the night will follow day. Changing our view will not stop the sun from rising and setting, but it will affect our reaction to it. All things spontaneously arise, there is no predestination nor one who predestines our moments. When we become willing to “find and live our truth” we will begin to see and experience the freedom and the joy that comes from letting go and the willingness to change our view or just “stand still/stop” when necessary.

Also, being willing to give up the idea we should have all the answers, need to have them, especially the answers to “unanswerable questions” just because we want to know. This letting go will free us from this need and also free us from the worthless guesses religions have created to satisfy our insatiable need to know.  


Unanswerable questions : Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Is there a god, God, many gods? Was the world and we creatures created by a deity? 

Ask yourself, is it fear that is motivating such questions be asked and answered?  If so, let it go “it takes courage to be happy”.  Be brave. The universe is not angry, no one in space is plotting to harm you. All this is spontaneous, all we are responsible for is how we react to it. Fear will only cause us to recoil and or strike back. Love and acceptance will free us from such protective responses and will instead leave us with arms, eyes and hearts wide open.

Receive this life with gratitude. Learn what is to be learned, and evolve...gi

Saturday, April 2, 2016

No Single Diet

These days people want a simple, one diet fits all approach to eating and often jump on fads rather than using their logical mind to find what's best. Someone builds a website or writes a book with pretty pictures of a pretty human being looking good after eating one way for a while and everyone wants to follow. Not So Fast…


Please don’t delude yourself into believing you have found a “diet” that if followed will always be the best for you. There is more to consider than simple guidelines i.e., eat only vegetables, eat only proteins, eat only organic, don't eat carbs, dairy, meats, etc. Such suggestions will surely lead you to a very unbalanced state.


Our lineage, where our ancestors came from, what they ate, survived on for centuries has much to do with what sustains us, what our bodies respond best to and what they reject. Let’s consider dairy. 

There are people of this world whose diet is almost completely made up of dairy. The Mongolians live off of their cattle’s milk, so do the Tibetans. Yak milk and butter not only feed them but also light their homes and their dung warms them through their cold winters. 

Others, like some tribes of Africa live not only on the milk for their animals but also on their blood, rarely killing them because owning a few head was often all they had, but milk their blood just as they milk the milk from them. The combination of blood and milk is a powerful food that make these people some of the strongest in Africa.

 Still others like the North African and Middle Eastern people live on a carbohydrate rich diet, every meal include grains, some eaten as is, some made into breads which are the foundation to their diet. So many today fear such, but upon closer examination I find there are those, especially those from these backgrounds, that exhibit no allergy at all towards gluten.

Staying with carbohydrates, grains which have been demonized in books like Grain Brain we must look towards the Asian where many such as the Japanese and Chinese live almost exclusively on rice, not only live, but thrived on it and their brains are just fine.


The evidence is clear. After generations of consuming certain food groups as their primary source of nourishment human beings have adapted on a cellular level to thrive on foods some other humans do not. Unfortunately often for the sake of selling a book or promoting a lifestyle some have demonized or promoted one group of food over another and that in my opinion is a very unwise decision.

I prefer and advise people through trial, error and investigation of their roots to identify and eat the foods they are best adapted. To not follow fad diets that some seem to do well on, but to instead use their own minds and bodies to come up with a diet that is best suited to maintain “their” optimum health.

I must close this piece by stating. There are diets to live on and others to heal on. Don’t confuse them. Many of the fads diets of the last twenty-five years began as healing protocols i.e. the vegan diet/raw food and primal diets. If you do your homework you’ll find as I did in a very practical way these diets where meant to detox and heal and that if followed beyond a certain point will injure you. I found this true when I was dying and tried to heal exclusively on the Ann Wigmore protocol.
 After a while it became debilitating, too cleansing and cold after the cleanse was over.  I found I needed to change to a Raw Fat based diet to complete my healing. Know what? It worked. 

I am available for consults both in my office and by phone. I have helped many turn their lives around. Let me help you heal and thrive…gi 

Friday, April 1, 2016

My Experience with Dr Ann Wigmore's Protocol

The original healing protocol and facility created by Ann Wigmore the mother of wheatgrass was a simple, inexpensive and compassionate program of healing, one based on the idea that via cleansing and re-nourishing the body it would return to health.

I spent some weeks at Creative Health Institute in Hodunk Michigan in the early 2000’s. I was broke, broken, dying and had few options. Upon arriving I was assured I would not be asked to leave before the miracle manifested as long as I participated in the program and helped around the facility in any way I was able. This was called “energy exchange" something that is all but gone poof as the owners of such facilities have changed their purpose from healing and helping to making money. No one was turned away.
My Class in 2002


At Creative Health the protocol was what Dr Ann taught, fasting on juices, mostly wheatgrass for the first four days, followed by a week of Energy Soups and more wheatgrass both orally and as anal implants.


After these first 7-10 day of liquid food we began to add some solid raw vegan foods to the protocol. Every meal was created by the clients with the help of staff. We learned in the kitchen how to take care of ourselves and how to help others return to health. We also worked in the organic garden, a small plot that supplied us with much of the veggies we consumed. Of course we grew our own wheatgrass and sprouts, mostly sunflower.

Upon leaving the only items we were offered to purchase were a juicer and a Vitamix. We left there with a book of resources that included sources for seeds, equipment and Ann’s Writings.   Any one who stayed left a different person, one who was not only healthier, but able to care and feed themselves for life.

One day while I was sunning myself out side the front door 
a car pulled up. A young man stepped out, came around the car and opened the door. Their sat a skeletal figure, a woman so thin, so weak her son, the young man, had to carry her inside. Over the next couple of weeks I got to know her, she was on loads of morphine, could’t eat and her belly was as swallow as a nine month pregnant woman’s.  The first time we interacted I was playing the upright piano located in the living room. She came and leaned her head on it and smiled. I stopped play and she groaned, pointed to me and the piano asking for more. It was then I realized she was a deaf mute yet was able to hear my music through her bones as she made contact with the piano. From that day she was my friend. I’d played for her, prayed with and for her, read her scripture and encourage her.

Every morning many of the residents would walk out between the corn fields. On one sweet day I heard someone coming up behind me a a good rate of speed. It was she, her belly now flat, off her pain meds and race walking after me with the biggest smile. I cried, she had been healed!

I was going to compare and contrast Ann’s Hippocrates with the Palm Beach facility, but they have lots of money and lawyers. So I just say this. There is no comparison. Dr Ann would not be happy. I went to them asking for help when I was dying, I was sent away because I could not pay their crazy prices and they did no offer an “energy exchange program” just “sorry, no money, no help”.  Go home and die. Shame on them.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Be Strong, Be Natural, Be Wise

I just left LA Fitness. Went there because I like to sweat in the sauna and I had left another local gym because it was nasty.

Before signing up the manager wanted to give me tour. When we arrived in the free weight area he started to offer me his ideas on how to care for the body and how to exercise for results. Then he goes off on the old story of “you must tear muscle to make muscle”. Saying each time you come you need to break it down muscle to build it up. Although functionally this may be true, the action of tearing muscle three to five times a week is insane.


Why do I say insane, don’t we want bigger muscles?  No, what we want need are toned muscles, muscles that are strong yet free of tension and proportional to our body. Tension filled tissues do not carry blood, lymph and qi (energy) easily, instead block their movement causing stagnation of these critical constituents of life. We want and need muscles that work both physically and aesthetically with the rest of who you are.

I’m sure you’ve all seen men and women who are clearly out of proportion, arms, legs, chests and shoulders that look like they’ve been transplanted from someone else. No 5’8 man needs nor can use 16” inch biceps and certainly not a woman of that height, yet still they try and many accomplish such just to find themselves muscle bound, looking wrong and functioning poorly.  Also trying to maintain such because it’s unnatural is an exercise in futility for the simple reason it is unnatural.

Even more important the process described by the trainer causes a response that has been proven to cause diseases of every kind, that being inflammation. Those who work out even three times a week using the method of ripping and rebuilding are living with Chronic Inflammation, a state that will harm and even kill some of them. Don’t do it!

It is better, far better, to find the body you were meant to have and maintain it. Yes, most westerns need to supplement movement because most of us no longer “work” for a living, but instead sit for a living and so we need to offer some movement useless we want to evolve into a giant head with a stick figure body.


So want to do?

I’ve been working with a set of rules offered me by qigong master BK Frantzis fifteen years ago. They are… Never work the body to exhaustion. Never work the body into tension, and always work the body while the mind is connected to every movement we make. In other words, don’t exercise mindlessly.

This is what I was taught about weight training.

Find a weight you can do sets of 20 reps with then take that weight down by 30 %.  Never push the body till it shakes, neither from the weight or repetitions. This will build strength, offer some mild increase in bulk, yet never do you harm.

Know that as soon as you go beyond the 70% your body will tense up; qi, blood and lymph will stop moving and the exercise will become more harmful than good.

If you're interested in receiving a consultation I offer them at a reasonable cost in my office or by phone.

Be Strong,
 Be Healthy, Be Wise…gi

Friday, March 25, 2016

What Surrounds You?

To some what I’m about to say might sound a little spooky, but I’ll offer it anyway because it is my truth and experience. I have an energy field about me. It is one that I have created with my thoughts, words and actions. Thoughts in that I do my best to think positive things about my health and safety. Words in that I don’t allow words to leave my mouth, enter my ears that state that I am vulnerable, weak and need outside protection and actions in that I practice movement forms such as qigong and others that literally build both my internal and my auric fields, fields that both energize and protect me.


Some don’t recognize such. They might because of their belief system instead say “I have angels all around me”.  And that’s fine, but all too often those who depend on beings outside themselves to do the work of protecting, blessing, etc are found wanting when the Sh-t hits the fan and at that time offer the all too often phrase “I guess it was God’s will that I am sick, dying, injured”. I don’t doubt there are beings in the universe we don’t see. I believe we only “see in Part”, but I don’t believe, because I have no evidence, that these beings have any interest in protecting or blessing me. I don’t think the universe is all about me, my needs, my body, my family and that it spends its time monitoring me every moment of my day waiting to rescue or find me a parking space.


I have had unexplained things happen, things that in the past I have attributed to divine intervention. In 1988 I was crossing a six-lane Blvd. when my mini van was struck broadside by a speeding car. The van continued on two wheel across the road then when it fell on all fours flipped over sending me the driver though the passenger window as it traveled towards the pavement.  At this point both my arms and my head were outside the vehicle as my body was held inside by the lap belt that was now under my knees. As I prepared myself in for impact I remember thinking “this may kill me”.  Suddenly I felt something pull me back inside. The van then settled to the road and I was now inside, bleeding, but not a broken bone and my head was in one piece. I was amazed and grateful.

For a long time I told this story believing an angel had pulled me back in, but as I grew in understanding and became willing to let go of possibilities and began to only rely on what could be proven. So instead of talking about the unknown my testimony was now only "some thing wonderfully unknown had happened that day". This is more genuine, allows for all possibilities yet doesn’t set up expectations of unseen forces being there to protect me, nor set up expectations in others that they can be foolish and expect some being to come save them. If this were true then the nasty question that has come up for centuries would have to arise “why me, and why not Johnny or Jane or the little child down the block whose parents grieve because they have died in some terrible accident".

This sort of thinking has caused millions to either love or hate god. To give him credit for saving them or the blame for a death. Isn’t better to just live in the truth that can be seen? The truth that shit happens and something that shit turns out ok and sometimes it’s just shit? This has become my conclusion. I’m not asking anyone to give up their faith and to follow me, but I would ask them to come out of the dark ages and to live a spiritual life without making up stories to prop it up. Yes there are things beyond our understanding, but let it stop there. It seems to me we have for the sake of “knowing” made up stories to answer “unanswerable questions” such as: when did the world begin, who created it, where did we come from, where do we go when we die? In Zen Buddhism one of the most honored answers one can give to such questions is “I Don’t Know”.  We don’t need to answer every question, especially if they are truly unanswerable. If one wants to live their life as a researcher or scientist searching for answers that’s wonderful, but those who do this won't say I have the answer until they find the proof it’s a true.

This is “Good Friday” and I’m sure some may say this is disrespectful, blasphemy to write such a blog and a day like this, but ask any theologian and he she will tell you from all evidence Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday.

As we continue it evolve I think we need to see things “as they are,” not as we hope or dream them to be. If there is a God he, she, it is an extraordinarily intelligent and logical being. I don’t think god would be in agreement with his creation, if he did create us, living a life of dreams and fairytales. I instead believe god would have us to evolve to a place closer to a god, a clarity of mind and heart that is both brave and wise.

We are more powerful than we allow ourselves to believe. I believe because we may feel unworthy because of the guilt placed on us by religion to rely on ourselves to save ourselves. We can build an energy field about us, a field that is provable, has been measured and is both protective and empowering. This field is ours and we are responsible for not only creating it, but maintaining it.

It’s truly up to us what will happen and what we cannot control will occur. This we need to accept.

Be wise my friends…gi 


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Manifesting Stuff

A Secret cyber friend asked of me “can we deliberately create what we wish, really wish, to experience?”

I replied - I believe we can manifest what we desire, but the exactness of this process is not so clear.

"The Secret" crowd and the "Name it and Claim it" Christians are totally into speaking things into existence, but from experience and observation I have found little evidence these things work other than by the efforts these folks have placed into obtaining the things they wish for after they wish for them.



So to me it appears that making affirmations motivate human beings to take action and therefore help them create something, but that’s not what these folks are talking about. They postulate that if we ask the universe, God, for something and if we are good boys and girls that thing will come to pass via the influence of something, someone, outside of ourselves. That god, the universe, is going to supernaturally create the things we’ve asked for because they've been asked the right way. This I reject.

I think it is good to solidify ones goals by placing them into words and writings. The danger of such is not whether it works or not, but that of having expectations in the first place. Do expectations bring joy and freedom or are they just a form of bondage. A bondage to desire, and does that desire prohibit us from living clearly and cause us to lose our today reaching for a “better” tomorrow, I think so. This is a reflection of dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with this moment, the only life we really have to live, living with the hope that tomorrow will bring us what is missing.

We truly need to ask ourselves if this life in capitalistic America, the west in general, is truly a real life or is it just a "rat on a wheel" existence? A life created by the money people to entice us to chase after little rewards; a car, house, a short vacation, while they live like kings and queens. We have become like worker bees who spend our entire lives working only to benefit their queen. 


Isn't, shouldn't, there be a more genuine existence? I think so... I truly do...



"There is never enough of that which does not satisfy"










Tuesday, March 22, 2016

When Things Are No Longer Useful

Let's all have our teeth pulled and gum our food. This way we won't need toothbrushes.

But really... I think we do need to recycle and corporations do need to be more mindful of what happens to their products when they are no longer useful, but I also think perhaps believing huge corporations will change is a distant dream. The more immediate remedy is to have more people recycle using the existing channels. For Florida and all states that do not to begin to require deposits on bottles, both plastic and glass, if we did, it would motivate people to return them for the money and therefore return more packaging into the recycling chain equaling less waste and much less garbage in landfills.
We don’t need a lot of new ideas; instead we just need to do the things we already know to do. To Just Do Them! And if the states because of business pressures, politics, don’t do them, then we need to find another way. We need to take control. Stop being so lazy and become on a small-scale, more active (activists) in our daily lives.

Here’s a personal example, one that motivates me to do more. I'm ashamed of my lazy ass.
In the early 70’s I was a real green hippie. I worked at food coops, ate only veggies, recycled and was very vocal about saving the earth and it’s inhabitants. I would walk by diners at outdoor restaurants and yell at them “Stop Eating Dead Bodies!!!” I would also go to the grocery with my own cloth bags, containers for milk and boxes for cereals. At the register I would empty all these things into my own containers leaving the manufactures packing behind right there in the store, right at the checkout. I caught hell sometimes, but I made my point every time I shopped. The average american generates 4.3 pounds of waste per day. This is 1.6 pounds more than 1960. You would think we'd get wiser not dirtier.

We need to be more radical. The sixties was a good training ground for radicals. I learned a lot then, and forgot a lot later. The selfish eighties stole much of that from many of us.


                   We need to re-awaken...gi