Raw Vagabonding : Vegas, Baby! It's All About Connections

I woke up to some crazy sublettor apartment drama. TOTALLY my fault for going against my gut and subletting to this girl in the first place, because she is super high maintenance and somewhat of an opportunist. My landlord, though not thrilled at me subletting without his permission, is being unbelievably cool with the situation and being nice to me. What was I thinking by letting someone live in my apartment who had asked me what would happen if she died in there and they found her body and thought it was me? That set off a giant red flag, which I ignored. Why did I go against my instincts? Well, perhaps I needed to be reminded to always listen to them, so I don't end up in situations with people like this who take their own personal trust issues out on me. I am not a victim - this is a place I put myself into, and now it's up to me to get myself out of it and make the best of everything that comes my way and embrace the challenges life presents us, or the nudges to remember all the answers are within. In that moment that I told her she could move in, I chose fear instead of love. I think I convinced myself that because she was the one who wanted the place and could give me a deposit, I should trust she was the one who was meant to be in there. Somehow I let that override the 20 other red flags and her overall behaviour. What I should have been trusting was that maybe, just maybe, the fact that none of the sane sublettors worked out and she was my last chance meant that I should just give up my apartment all together. I mean really, what was I holding onto? I love my neighborhood, and my place was cheap for Hayes Valley. Maybe I thought I might not find another deal like that, which was ridiculous considering that apartment fell into my lap just when I needed it most. I walked in, knew it was meant to be mine right away, and then it was mine. It was that simple. Had I learned nothing? :) Also, I had been having lots of feelings (as well as numerous conversations with people) that while living alone had been really wonderful when I had a stressful office job and needed to come home to a sanctuary to devote time to healing and things, that time has passed and I needed something new. Now that I was self-employed and trying to make a living by blogging, writing a recipe book, consulting and preparing raw food for people, I spent a lot of time at home in front of the computer or in the kitchen concocting. I truly love playing in the kitchen, but being the social creature that I am, all this time alone was making me feel the need to live with people again. Add to this my growing desire to live in an intentional community, and I realize holding onto my apartment was me just grasping at the last threads of my old lifestyle. So I am going to find a way out, and feel free so I can embrace every moment of the changes in my life.

But before I got back to that trusting, abundant mindset, I went to Red Rock Canyon with my friend Evelyn, who is going to be joining me on part of this trip. We had originally met via Twitter, but shared so many ideas, so we met in person shortly after when she was visiting the Bay Area. She had no idea I was going on this journey, and made mention of her need to just travel with no end date and feel free. I was thinking of inviting her to join me, and then she told me about how she wanted to do something to battle the scarcity mindset and get on the road and promote hospitality with a roving tea salon that would connect human beings in this time of perceived scarcity. We were totally in synch with our goals and intentions, and the slight difference in means would allow us to diversify the trip and allow it to grow, so I got this big grin on my face and said she should think about joining me. Then the next night, I (not-so) randomly ran into her at a GI2MR Raw Food Meetup with Steve Pavlina, whose blog has been really helpful in me acting in alignment with my soul purpose, and she said she had decided to come with me. Later we discovered that my original cross country trip had morphed into it's community building grandeur on January 10th at the Abundance Workshop, about the same time she had posted her wish list for her Hospitality Tour, looking for money for a car, and I was thinking my trip would be much more fun with a like-minded companion. The universe always delivers exactly what you really need, exactly when you need it. :)

So to release some of my sublettor stresses, we went for a hike and talked and plotted and planned and rejoiced, and by the end of 6 miles or so of beauty and kinship, I was totally feeling back to normal. Here's some of the beauty that helped me feel balanced again, though once again, my camera is old and rather shoddy...Oh, and to get an idea of scale, if you look at the first photo, on the bottom right in the grass, that little white speck is someone in a white t-shirt. Everything was so massive, and so gorgeous. Nature is so vital to me feeling balanced, and my soul is soaring again.

Raw Vagabonding: Vegas? I Prefer the Valley of Fire

Mile 995. Las Vegas, Nevada. After wandering around the Mojave Desert and all its Joshua Trees for a bit, I arrive in this strange city. No matter how many times I come here, I still always find it to be odd. I guess it is what it is. When I arrive, I'm in the middle of Manhattan, but its located in Vegas and has a roller coaster winding through it. This shouldn't exist yet it does. My cousin Jovan, whom I have not seen in about 25 years, is here on business and has offered to let me crash in his hotel room here on the strip for a night, and to treat me to dinner at Il Fornaio. I am able to find an almost entirely raw salad of frisee, radicchio, endive, grapes, walnuts and pomegranate dressing that is super delicious and goes really well with the organic red wine he orders (yes, I still have wine on occasion, though less and less the cleaner my body gets, but we're reuniting after 25 years so it's definitely a special occassion.) and we sit for hours catching up and talking about our lives, our views of the world, our family, psychology, nature, traveling, hiking and I realize that we are more similar than we are different, and it's really great to be back in touch. It's even really nice to be called "Baby Cuz" and get taken care of for the night.

After dinner, we head across an aisle of slot machines to Nine Fine Irishmen to check out Ri Ra, the house band, which is amazing! The violinist steals the show with her fantastic fiddling, and there's even a traditional Irish dancer who jumps out every once in awhile to dance on a small side stage. Add to this a small asian leprechaun that knows the words to every song, and can't stop dancing, and you can say it was quite a night!


I crash in my cousin's hotel room for the night. It's super nice to sleep on a firm mattress and my back feels almost back to normal when I wake up. The position I slept on the futon my last night in LA did me in, and driving was a bit painful, but I seem almost back to normal in the morning.

My cousin goes to his morning seminar, but decides to play hooky during the afternoon session so we can go hiking together, since we're both such nature fiends and after spending time on the Vegas strip, we are in serious need of reconnecting with the earth. We decide to check out Go Raw Cafe, one of the only raw food restaurants in Vegas, to get some energy before heading to the mountains. My cousin has never had a raw food meal before and is quite the carnivore (we're Serbs - it's how we're raised!), but is into health & fitness, so he's totally open to trying it and orders the Mediterranean Wrap and a Blood Transfusion (coconut water with a shot of wheat grass) while I get the Purple Burrito and some amazing juice with 3 or 4 different greens and chlorella. Besides the amazing juice, I'm also wowed at their little nook of books. It's really impressive and they seem to carry a ton of hard to find, small edition books. My cousin is surprised at how full he gets. We can't even finish our meals.




After lunch, we head towards Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and see signs for the Valley of Fire and decide that's the place for us! The photos taken with my old digital camera don't even begin to do justice to this place, but I shoot some stuff with my real camera, though those won't get developed until this trip is over, so these will have to do for now...

Raw in Arcata

I corralled 2 of my closest friends (Tanya and Caitanya - I love you guys!) into the car and headed up to Arcata for the holiday weekend to visit the glorious Artemisia Butterfly and her dazzling son, Bodhi Shine. I could not have asked the universe for kinder, more generous hosts. They opened up their home full of swinging chairs, hammocks and plants to us and treated us like family. Artemisia is partly-raw, so she let me use her Vitamix to whip up treats all weekend (I brought a bag stocked with nuts, maca and tons of produce so I could survive on deliciousness), and she even let me use some of her cacao nibs, vanilla and berries to add to everything. What a heavenly time we had in the kitchen all weekend!

Artemisia is a truly giving person who a mutual friend insisted I meet, and I am ever so glad I listened. We had so many great conversations about life, love, friends, health, music, art, nature and well, everything. She is a single mom raising her son to be completely open to life and all that it brings. It was amazing seeing how she teaches him to communicate, and act with love, and to be conscious of his actions at such a young age. I know who to turn to when I eventually am ready for kids, though that will be quite some time from now. :) She's a true inspiration, as is Bodhi, a beautiful result of love, patience, knowledge and fun.

While we were in town, we got to check out the local food co-op and soaked in the hot tubs one night at Cafe Mokka, which was beautiful to behold at night with everything enshrouded in the Pacific Mist. I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in Arcata.

Besides visiting the people up here, the other main reason for my visit was the ginourmous redwood trees that always make me so happy and full of love. We spent hours hiking amongst them, climbing inside them, crawling up the sides of them, walking through them, and delighting at the large varieties of fungi everywhere. Me in the redwoods is like a little kid in the candy store. I want to hug them all, touch every piece of moss, lick dewdrops, and never leave. I am going to miss this Northern California coast that has been my home for these last 3 years. I know I am not leaving for that long, and am going to enjoy my journey for the rest of 2009, but I am already starting to feel a bit homesick for this place that has been part of such amazing life transformations and growth, and provided me with so much love, happiness and connection to the source. My life here has been so beautiful, and there is nothing I would change about it, yet I know I need to explore another continent for a little while. Travel is in my blood, and the call never goes silent, so it's best to carry my life on my back like a turtle and follow it for awhile until it leads me back "home" again.

Lessons in Abundance and Community

Wow, what an amazing weekend of radiant, blissful energetic connections and being!

This weekend, Matthew and Terces Engleheart (of Cafe Gratitude) gave a very large gift to the community-at-large. They gave away one of their $200 workshops on abundance away to over 150 people in the community to combat the scarcity mentality many are embracing in this time of economic collapse and dismantling of the corporate world. The economic issues have not bothered me one bit. My opinion, however unpopular it may be, if that all of this happening right now is a great thing and is what needs to happen to make way for a more sustainable future. Of course I feel bad that people are losing their jobs. And it really bothers me that the banks are taking away peoples' homes and getting more money from our government, when that money should have been given to the people to bail themselves out of those irresponsible loans. But as tough as it is for people, I believe this is what needs to happen for us to shed the things that no longer fit us so we can make way for a new mode of living. We can take the benefits of all we have done this past century and combine it with all we have learned from our mistakes and create something beneficial for all of humanity. From pain comes tremendous growth, and I love America dearly, but it could really stand to do some growing up. The way we have been living is not sustainable, it does not provide freedom for everyone, it does not pave the way for greatness. With the dismantling of the corporate multinationals, we will see true greatness - the people of this nation coming together to create real, lasting change. People deciding to live differently, to set positive examples for others to bring us out of this huge mess we have created. It is fixable, and we are the solution. As a shirt I once saw said, "We are the people we have been waiting for."

Throughout the entire weekend, I connected with so many amazing, beautiful souls, experienced an even greater increase in synchronicity (can you say collective consciousness?), and listened to people bare their souls and speak openly and honestly about anything and everything. There was no judgment, everything was done out of love, people acknowledged each other for their positive contributions and strength, strangers fell in love if only for a few hours. It was really intense, and one of the most beautiful experiences I have had so far in this lovely city of mine. I got a glimpse of what life would be like if we all dropped our judgment of ourselves and each other, acknowledged are egos and kept them in check at the same time, and communicated with each other openly, honestly and with love and acceptance. It was looking at the truth, which is that we have an abundance for everything we need, and if we continue to be love and give, we will always be receiving all we need. I was running on such a communal high all weekend as a result of all the energy we were all projecting outwards to each other. I am so thankful for the new friends I made, and the lessons I was taught. Matthew and Terces, thank you so much for your love and wisdom, your generosity, and your willingness to share it all with us. It was truly a blessing.

Manifestation and a Sense of Renewal

Looking back on all that changed in 2008, I am truly amazed and grateful for what has become of my life and for all that I have created in it. It was truly the best year ever, and I know my life is only going to get better and better.

It was the year I finally stopped going to doctors (after years of conflicting assessments, incorrect diagnoses, people who wouldn't listen when I told them something physical was wrong with me) and took my health into my own hands and healed myself. Raw foods was the gift I was finally ready to receive and accept after it cropping up in my life numerous times throughout the years. It was the enabler that allowed my body to heal itself and regain balance. It was the year I let go of a false sense of dis-empowering self, and really learned that we each truly have an abundance of power to create our lives exactly how we want them.

It was the year that I stopped accepting jobs that were less than what I really, truly deserve. I let go of my fear of being broke and this false idea that I should "just accept any job that comes because you're lucky to be working at all" and turned down jobs that were not aligned with my soul's purpose. Some people thought I was crazy and judged my actions, but they were generally the ones who accepted any old job and were never happy with their work because they were limiting themselves. My first steps were to stop accepting jobs that paid less than what I was worth and fight for the salaries I deserved, but eventually this was not acceptable to my soul and I knew I needed to not worry about money, that it would come so long as I was following my soul's purpose. I felt the calling to work with raw food and nourish community and heal others, and slowly began to manifest this reality and make it mine. What an amazing journey it has been!

It was also the year that I began to make an effort to really change my long held views on money. I began to acknowledge that my thoughts are really powerful, and that my views that money was scarce, that I had to work super hard for it to have it, or that it was the cause of so many problems in the world were all false and were the reason why I experienced a scarcity of money in my life, the condition of working too hard, and problems relating to money. When I began to let go of those beliefs, I got fired from my job and was able to not stress as much about money as I would have a year ago. And the more I challenged it, the more I was able to create an inflow of money and opportunity into my life. It is slow right now, but it is growing larger and larger each day, and I no longer have a doubt in my mind that it will come to me because I am doing good things to build community and provide things of value. Value creation is the most important part of creating a sustainable income. Your soul does not know junk, so that path will eventually lead to...junk.

It was the year where I stopped putting energy into friendships that I felt held me back from achieving my true potential, and made room for the new loving, positive ones I have now that pushed me to be the best me. I didn't know what would come of it, I just knew that I would rather have fewer friends I loved and that loved me than a bunch of the unsatisfying relationships that left me frustrated and unsatisfied.

As I deepened on my healing path, it became harder and harder for me to have people in my life who who refused to deal with their own issues. I am not sure if it was the lack of support I felt in those friendships, or their inability to relate to me and me to them, or just me feeling like I did not have enough energy to be around people who were still stuck in that place because I knew no amount of me wishing they weren't stuck there was going to help. I think mostly it was this feeling deep in my gut that at this point in my life, those types of relationships were only holding me back, and I knew I could no longer surround myself with people who did not challenge me and push me to grow, and that I was no longer serving them because I did not know what else to give on my end. You can't make someone deal with something they are not ready to face themselves, so I am sure to them, my pointing out the obvious was just scary and echoed their fears and made them feel awful, and I didn't want anyone to feel that way. Everyone grows at a different pace, and sometimes that requires us to let go of some relationships and weed our gardens a bit. So I cut the ties and let go of fear, not knowing that doing so would create room for more beautiful, loving relationships that confronted me with challenges daily and pushed me to be the most positive, loving, compassionate person I could be. By trimming the fat, and cutting things out of my life, I was actually manifesting everything I needed and desired. I am deeply grateful for the changes that came into my life as soon as I was finally ready to let go to some things I had been holding onto too long, and all the new people this attracted into my life. You have all been a huge blessing, and if I had not let go of my fear to hold onto friendships just for the sake of history or loyalty, I would have not met the people I have met. It's only when we are ready to risk it all that we truly discover all that we are.

It was the year when I chose to look deep within myself and actively discover who I could really be if I tried. Over the past several years when my health was getting worse, I was gaining weight and my acne was beginning to resemble a chain of volcanic islands, I was growing more and more fatigued, experiencing brain fogs, and severe mood swings, I began to stop seeing myself because when I tried to look at myself, I did not like what I saw. I was an emotional roller coaster of a mess, my face was puffy, I was overweight and felt like there was a second person covering the real me, and the happy shining person I once was seemed gone. I tried to look deep into my own eyes in the mirror and frantically search for that spark inside that would allow me to recognize myself, but I rarely saw it anymore. The spark was gone, and had been replaced with a dull luster. I knew if I were ever to get it back, I would have to use my imagination to create an image of my mind of the me I wanted to be. Sort of like the me I was before my health went down the drain, except better - this was who I would be when I was able to heal myself of ill health, and work on repairing all the psychological damage my ill health had caused, and let go of all the negative habits, behaviours, and defenses I learned when I was hurting and felt like I was being sucked down a black hole. It was the me I would be when I was actually stepping up and creating my own life, instead of sitting back and victimizing myself and making excuses for why my life was how it was. Yes, my health played a huge role, but I was seeking out information from others, when my body knew the truth all along, better than anyone else. So I was still putting my health and well-being into someone else's hands instead of taking responsibility for it and making it my job to fix it. No wonder I was so disappointed with the results!

We are all blessed beings, full of love and light. We often forget that, and when we do, we end up causing a lot of hurt, putting up blocks, and start believing that we are less - that we are not good enough, that we are incapable, that there is someone to blame, that we don't deserve love or happiness or everything. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are all powerful, our thoughts are strong, our words, our actions, and our attitudes...they are all important and through them we create our realities. So here's to manifesting the lives we want and deserve. Here are the things that I am focusing on next in my life. I wouldn't call it a wish list, because they are not wishes - they are things I am focusing my energy on and creating:

I am starting a raw chocolate company.
I am expanding my raw chef base to do retreats and events.
I am buying land and creating an intentional permaculture community that nourishes connection, community and education.
I am having the best life ever, every day.
I am loving my family, friends, community, and every challenge that comes into my life and offers me an opportunity for growth.
I am giving more than I have ever given before, and then some.

feelings of disconnection...

I have been eating raw for awhile now, but when I lost my job I began eating more cooked food again, mostly because it was offered to me for free, and not having a job, I felt I was in no position to turn down free food. It took me a few weeks of feeling crappy physically and emotionally to realize I was reverting back to living in fear - using a scarcity model for living, instead of the loving, abundant model I adapted to when I first went raw. I knew I needed to get back on track with what I was putting into my body because even though I had lost 20 pounds and my depression was gone and I was feeling overall pretty incredible until I lost my job, my acne has still not cleared up, I still have another 20-25 pounds to lose, my mood swings started come back a little because of the stress of being unemployed, and my PMS reappeared. For the last 2 years, it had been lasting about 10 days, but when I went raw it went down to 7, then to 5, then to 3, and then to 2. This past month of eating more cooked, it was back up to a week. I don't know if I will eat 100% raw forever, but I do know without a doubt that right now, I need to continue on my healing journey and not give into the fear based thinking that caused me to stray. I will deal with the rest when it comes.

So I have started getting back to my 99-100% raw intake, and am feeling much better, but I am noticing a lot of emotional things coming back up again, like peeling the layers off an onion. I am feeling a disconnect from some of the people in my life who don't quite understand what is going on. Most of my non-raw friends are very supportive, but there are a few people who it is just hard to talk about. I think maybe they don't understand that this is not just a way of eating - it's an entire lifestyle change. I don't feel like a "new" me - I feel like I am simply becoming the me I was all along; the person I always was inside that was just hidden under a pile of health issues, depression, mood swings, excess weight, psychological trauma, acne and the insecurities that resulted from all of the above. So as I shed all those physical layers, it is only natural that I would continue to shed more emotional layers. This happened when I first went raw too, but it's way more intense this time around and I feel like I am shedding so many layers of self. I think this might be scary for some people in my life, because they have this idea in their heads of who I am, and who I have been the last 14 years that I have had these problems. I think perhaps they, like I at my most defeated and depressed moments, just began to think I would always be that way and now that I am changing, perhaps they feel they don't know me anymore? I am not quite sure. I know for a lot of people, eating raw seems like such a drastic measure because it is so different from what they know, but to me, eating things that make me feel bad seems completely insane. I don't try to push my raw agenda on people, but I do speak openly about it, because people are always curious about what I eat and how I get my protein and all the other questions raw foodists always get. I want to educate people about it if they want to know. And while I do not push it on anyone, I do talk about it a lot because it is so amazing to me. I feel great about it and after feeling like absolute hell for 14 years and thinking I would never find a way out of that dark hole, finally finding an answer, especially one that showed me signs for several years before I was ready to really link it all together, feels so amazing to me, so I am excited and inspired and it is a big topic with me. No, it's not all I talk about - I still love art, music, books, spirituality, nature, travel and a ton of other things - but it definitely is a big part of who I am now, and I guess for some people, it can be overwhelming. For me, it's really only when I am dealing with people who are skeptics and try to put down what I am doing that I have an issue, and I think that is not their intention most of the time, but it still comes out that way. So what I am trying to do with those people in my life is to just keep my mouth shut about it as much as possible. They will continue to be skeptical until they experience the benefits for themselves, and many of them will probably never try it anyway and there is nothing I can say or do that will make that any different, and that is OK too. As thrilled as I would be to see them try it and feel the amazing benefits themselves and remove their skeptical feelings towards this different way of eating, I know it is not my place to convince them of anything, and if they cannot accept that what I am doing is best for me, that is fine too. As one of my dear friends said,""When something like this becomes an integral part of your life, it is almost like a religion because it is a whole different way of life. Not everyone will understand the faith that you have in it." And so I should not expect them to understand it. The most I can do is keep living this way for me, and to just be a positive example as I go deeper into transformation. Through the friends that are supportive and curious about the raw lifestyle, I have learned that as you make positive changes in your life, some people can't help but notice and be drawn to making healthier choices themselves, and this works best when it comes to them naturally, because they have the desire to change themselves. So thank you to all my friends and family members who have been open to the changes I have made, and who have supported and encouraged me on my journey and made me feel like less of a Pariah. I had almost given up hope that it was possible to feel good, happy, positive and normal after so many years of fighting this battle with depression, and your strength and support is immeasurable. I hope I can one day find a way repay you.