journey to raw health

I have known of the addictive qualities of television since the 70’s. When my first daughter was born, I kept the tv in the closet. It came out occasionally only to find that it often had a challanging time finding it’s way back into the closet. When I moved with her to the ocean, we had no tv for quite a while, there was none when her sister arrived in 1981. And I do not believe that we missed it. We had other things to do to keep us busy, and entertained. The ocean and nature’s sandbox were 3 blocks away. Even the backyard was full of life because of my sprouting business. There were always earthworms moving in and out of the soil, enriching as they went. Tray upon tray of buckwheat lettuce and sunflower greens lined the side of the fence along with wheatgrass. The composting trench along the back fence rewarded us with rich dark soil to grow the trays of greens. Life was simple. We lived close to the earth. Enjoying the sunshine and the rain.

I will no doubt miss the television. Having them pick up the box and the simple gesture of unplugging the thing brought peace. I know that if I absolutely need to find out what happens on the next season of Lost, I can go to abc.com and watch the episode right after it views on tv.

 I remember reading a book by Jerry Mander in 1978, Four Arguments for the Elimination of TV. It was printed in Mother Earth News magazine in a series.  His arguments are valid today & exhibited throughout this man made world we exist in.

I understand how life is different today compared to my youth. We lived in one of the first suburbs of our small hometown. Our days were spent outdoors as much as possible, having our own experiences, creating our own memories.  Today’s youth have been brought up with the same imaginary friends, all growing up living vicariously thru the television. They do things and they have no idea why, they hold beliefs that they never made a choice in. Living en masse doing the same things as their friends.

 I loved Mother Earth News magazine. It helped me stay connected to the earth when I was living in the apt. on Main St. It gave me a clue to my future business ventures as Living Greens.

Since returning to my hometown, I have been riding a bicycle for transportation. I have gotten to know the neighborhoods by riding through them, seeing all the flowers and the vegetable gardens. This is very much small town. You have to look for the pretty stuff because there is alot of decay. But, people still sit on their porch and have a conversation. They say hello as you ride by. I like the feel of that.

This is the best I have felt living in my hometown. Maybe it has to do with accepting. I am choosing to look for the good in everything and accepting those things I can not change.  The courage to change the things I can… goodbye cable. hello freedom.

Tags: sprouting, acceptance, living foods, addiction, Peace, life experience by Deborah
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 Change… the one reliable constant in our lives. The Universe reminds us of change with the seasons and the weather. If everything is energy, is it our negative thoughts that bring about natural disasters? And does the bombardment of “bad news” lower our vibration to attract more of the same. As I accepted that as a truth, I understood why I had so many dramatic life experiences growing up. Without the space to process the energy of the experience, I hung on to the pain and attracted more. When I began to learn about focusing on my passion and giving my attention to what I truly wanted, it began to arrive.

I seem to be a slow learner. It is in hindsight that I began to piece together, “When I was doing this, I felt like that. Happy thoughts, happy experiences. letting go of the fear or doubt and taking the leap of faith. Moving into action and paying attention to what shows up.

My sister and I had a conversation today about energy. I have been able to join her in the neighbors’ pool for some casual water aerobics this summer. It had been very rainy all week here, one of the reasons I have not thought about this blog.  I am one of those folks that really need to have contact with the sun. Thus, when it is overcast and rainy, I tend to feel more sadness it seems. So, today I took a half hour and stretched out beside the water to absorb some energy direct from the source. It felt wonderful!

How could anyone possibly ever believe that the Sun is bad for us? There would be no life without it. And having our fuel come from that which is closest to the Sun makes the most sense. It is the easier for us humans to digest, and it has that exchange thing going on with us: they breathe out what we breathe in, we breathe out what they breathe in. No harm done.

I decided to gift myself a “detox” for my bellybutton birthday. I am committing to all Raw and Living foods, one day at a time. No more Soy Delicious. I know how to make it all from raw, but, my self-sabotaging behaviours can keep me from allowing. I want to experience the energy of all raw, explore the emotions that will rise up as I stop altering my reality with  cooked food and stimulants. My first goal is to make it 30 days., one day at a time. 

 My morning coffee will be gone. I probably drink the equivelent of 3 cups every morning, with Soy Hazelnut creamer & honey. I may get a headache. That means I am physically addicted. I will have to try some different herbal teas to take its place because I enjoy the ritual of holding the cup, feeling the warmth, drinking in the aroma and flavor. 

I am off to my second solo shift. When I return, it will be my first day on my detox.   

Tags: Law of Attraction, living foods, addiction, health, life experience by Deborah
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As I mentioned yesterday, I subscribed to Mother Earth News magazine, and usually read it cover to cover. The beginnings of my life as the sprout lady began after I read an article from the Nov./Dec. 1978 issue. The front cover had a star with a caption inside which read “Earn $1,000 a month Growing Sprouts”. I can not tell you how many times I read that article, but, I can tell you that I said to myself,”Someday I am going to do that!” I still have the magazine, and I began growing sprouts in my tiny kitchen.

In another issue of the same magazine, I saw an ad for a live-in housekeeper, girl Friday position in Florida. I researched the address, found out the chiropractors name, and submitted a photo of my daughter and myself with a brief letter of my interest in health and desire to some day be a massage therapist. I sent it special delivery. The chiropractor called me several days later and I ended up flying down for an interview. I left Sarah with my folks and took a flight, staying in Bradenton for several days. Although I decided to not take the position, I took the opportunity to hop over to Cocoa Beach and visit friends. Someone there offered to let me stay with them until I could get settled, should I decide to return to the sunny south with Sarah in tow. I accepted the offer.

I packed our belongings and shipped them UPS, purchased a futon over the phone and had it delivered to FL and then bought a one way ticket. Sarah and I moved to Cocoa Beach right before her third birthday. It was less than a month from the time I had committed to return to my second home.

Within weeks of my arrival, I had connected with some of the people at the local co-op, but I was having trouble finding a place for us to live. I got a job with a dear friend, Lydia, who had a lawn maintence business. And then one day at the co-op, I met a guy who was looking for someone to take over his lease. He wanted to go out west and study with Dr. Christopher Hill. Needing a place to live, I bicycled down to Woodland Ave. to check out his one bedroom duplex, 3 blocks from the ocean. It was the perfect place for Sarah and I, so, I told Rainbow Jim that I would take over the lease. Then he said the most beautiful thing to me. “Oh, by the way, I am growing the sprouts for the co-op, if you are interested, you can take over growing them.” Another example of the Law of Attraction happening in my life!

I took to sprouting like a duck to water! I named the business LIVING GREENS …our business is growing. Although the business started with 3 women, it eventually became all mine, and I loved growing my business. I grew sprouts, buckwheat lettuce and sunflower greens and lots of wheatgrass. I also made tabbouleh, raw hummus & raw sauerkraut. At first I delivered only to the Cocoa Beach/Cape Canaveral area. Then I got a car and expanded the route to include Melbourne Beach, Melbourne and Cocoa.

It seemed that everyone loved the sprouts. I could not grow enough to meet the demand and I continually shorted the wholesale produce account that I had in order to fill the stores & restaurants that went direct with me. I loved being the Sprout Lady, but, my secret darkness kept coming back. I had an intense fear of success. Making mistakes came easily to me, and when things were going well, I had the uncanny ability to self sabotage. I certainly knew how to do things the hard way.

Tags: sprouting, Law of Attraction, living foods, Hope, health, addiction, life experience by Deborah
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Finding myself once again back home, I returned to work for my dad briefly. Because I had lived on my own, been married, then divorced, I could not live with them again. I rented a room in a friend’s house. It was near a bridge which was used only by trains. I used the sound of the train as an alarm to wake me up. I always slept deeply there because I was frequenting the bars often. I referred to myself as a troll. I only stayed with him for several months and then got a job as a waitress in a new restaurant outside of town. I rented a house with a girlfriend who also worked at the restaurant. It was strange to live in the same town as my parents and not live with them. Cindy and I had great fun in that house and I began dating a guy from high school.

I got pregnant and the father wanted to marry me. I said no. I somehow knew that the marriage would not last and felt that I could care for my child even if the relationship did not. He made every effort to make it work, purchasing a home for us away from the city. We seemed to have some things in common; he had allergies, so, no dairy was in the house, he only ate fish as I did too. But, his main income was from drugs. Every day he would roll up some doobies for me and off he would go, I stayed home growing my child and being creative, doing ceramics, sewing all the baby clothes since I wanted to only use cotton. But, I was lonely, I was left there alone a lot. It was too far out for friends to visit and I wanted things to be different now that I was going to have a child.

My mom took me to her obstetrician, he had delivered me. He honored my wanting to have natural childbirth, he just wanted me in the hospital. I was due sometime in September. The night before my daughter arrived, I started to bleed. The father brought me into town early and we stayed at my folks until my mom said I needed to go to the hospital to be observed. It was a long labor. Hal was not much help, sleeping while I struggled to keep it together. The nurses thought I would deliver before the morning shift change, but, it came and went. I asked for something to help me relax and the nurse got me calmed down and focused on the task at hand. Early afternoon of September 9, 1976, my beautiful Sarah was born. I loved her the moment I saw her.

We went back to our home in that small town and she & I bonded. It seemed Hal was gone even more than before and I wanted to be around people. I was not allowed to have even my cat in the house because Hal thought Slick might hurt Sarah. By the time she was 6 months old, I was living in a tiny apartment above my parents store. We hardly saw Hal. I focused on loving and raising my daughter.

Because I was now a vegetarian, my family teased me. They knew that it would upset me, they would tease me more. In jest, when I let them babysit, they put Sarah in her highchair and took a photo of a steak and a can of beer on the tray., telling me this is what they gave her to eat. I never took teasing well. I wanted to run away from them and my hometown where I was different because I no longer wanted to eat meat & potatoes. Fortunately, Sarah was allergic to eggs and dairy, so they tolerated our many meals of rice and steamed veggies. Our favorite walk was to the City Market two blocks up the street where we would pick out fresh fruit and vegetables for the day.

I continued to pursue crafty things, learning macrame and basket weaving. I had lots of plants in the apartment because we had no yard for my little peanut to play. I painted her tiny room with a blue sky and grass, flowers and a beehive with bees buzzing all around. I was starting to read about a healthy lifestyle and thought about becoming a massage therapist. I subscribed to Mother Earth News magazine. Everything in it interested me, especially the Situations and Positions in the back. I wanted to escape.

I started running in the early morning before Sarah would wake up & my mom and I got one of the first rebounders on the market. I went to my 10 year high school reunion.

 The darkness would visit me. I felt stuck in a time warp. The only thing I seemed to have in common with the people I knew that were my age was alcohol and drugs. They came back with a vengence. I had absolutely NO idea that I had a choice on whether or not to do them. So, I did.

Tags: children, addiction, Love, life experience by Deborah
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My first year at Edinboro State College was a disaster! My grades were horrible. I hardly ever attended classes, spending most of my time either in the Student Union playing double pinochle or at the Fraternity houses drinking. Needless to say, my memory of that year is slim. My first semester in the dorm close to campus was filled with letters home to the folks declaring my love for a new boyfriend (they changed with the wind) and I would sneak out a lot to spend time Lakeside. I attended summer school and returned for fall semester to live in a new dorm that was across the great divide. I met a girl, Jackie, there. She and I shared the same birthday, and she was friends with the floor resident, Suki. I felt they were kindred spirits. I believe it was through them that I happened into a party one night and met Dottie and a whole new set of friends. Time passed and then I got the news that I would not be advancing to sophomore.  I sought counseling from school and after hearing of my experiences, the counselor recommended I get some professional help. College life ended because I had gotten a student loan and I could not get another since my grades were so bad. When I got home, I told my dad that I needed some help. That didn’t go over so good. In my family the solution to anything seemed to be ‘Don’t talk about. Pretend it didn’t happen.’ So, I never got any counseling until almost 20 years later.

Living back home, I worked for my dad in his store. I purchased my first car, a white ‘63 Rambler stationwagon for $125. tax, tag and title. The car represented freedom and most every weekend I would head back to Edinboro to party with my new friends. Actually, I was referred to as the ‘visiting cousin’ of the group. I was introduced to pot and it instantly spelled “relief” to all the painful life experiences I carried around. My drinking tapered off because I could laugh again with marijuana, and the alcohol left me with no memory. So, I looked at pot as a good thing. I experimented with psychedelics often and went to another level of consciousness. A friend gave me a “raggedy Andy” doll that he purchased from a thrift shop. I made some bellbottom pants and a leather fringed vest for Andrew and he was my constant companion, sitting beside me as I travelled back and forth on the weekends. 

That year ended with Dottie and her friends going to Ocean City, MD for the summer of 1970. Of course, I went along. My having a car was a great thing. No one else did, so, that summer at the beach was a magical time for me. It was where I met my first husband, Chip. When summer ended, I moved to Maryland outside of D.C. Chip was completing his college and I worked at various jobs. Getting stoned was a daily part of my life and also downers moved in. We would take drugs, drink cheap wine and play Chess in the evenings. This continued until I moved back to Butler briefly. This move caused a decision to be made between Chip and I. We decided to marry, so, I moved back to Maryland after the wedding. We stayed there until he graduated then we headed south to my favorite playground, Cocoa Beach, Florida.

I always seemed to think that things would be better when I moved. Little did I know that I went with me wherever I went and it never took long to find someone that had drugs. Chip and I eventually separated. I hitch hiked across the country with a girlfriend, returned to Florida & started living with a man who 9 years later would become the father of my third child. We split up, I was altering my reality on a daily basis. So, I moved back to Butler to receive my final divorce papers. 

As I sit and write about this timeline, I think, what a drama queen I was! I had no idea how to live a simple life with direction. I only knew self destruction, and I did it well. I seemed obsessed with all the bad things that had happened to me. Now I know that continuing to focus on the tragedies only brought more of the same. I wanted to end the insanity but I had no clue how. It sounds strange, but, while in the drinking and drugging phase of my life, I had totally lost the ability of CHOICE. When I did eventually go in to a treatment facility, the word CHOICE saved my life.

Tags: choice, life lessons, addiction, Love, life experience by Deborah
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