silent thunder

And so much of the affectiveness of food comes from the soil. Brix measurements will tell you the quality of the soil in which your produce was grown and its relative nutrition based on the amount of solids in the juice from the fruit/veg. Heavily industrialized and overused soil, when there is not ample fallow time in rest and decay, develops a decreasing mineral content and a low brix value, which translates to less nutritional value and decreased flavor in the produce grown there. Vegetables grown in high brix soil contain more minerals and nutrition have much more flavor and are also naturally pest resistant. Turns out the natural predation system of nature has co-developed so that when soil becomes depleted, insects are drawn more heavily to plants grown in this soil and after depleting them through predation, give the soil there a chance to recoup. High brix value is one of the markers of a good strong healthy organic garden. Based on this conversation, I decided to purchase a refractomer in order to test brix value so I'll soon be able to test my produce to see where the best sources are... I'll share what I find. Here is a basic link with some organic gardening tips and a brix value scale for some common produce. http://www.healthy-vegetable-gardening.com/brix-scale.html

Yup, mine rests there automatically now, so long as I keep my mouth shut...

Yea, this is really key for me now. I find this is where the origin of blessing our food before we consume it comes from... Nullifying denigrative energies that occur in the process of the creation of the food, with gratitude, to increase benefit and maximize nutrition and enjoyment.

"we eat food because we enjoy it" this really resonates. Mindset and emotional climate while consuming and preparing food is paramount for me. I will no longer eat, or prepare food for myself or others when I am experiencing emotional turbulence.

For me, the most accurate descriptive name for the current American political climate is one of Corporate Oligarchy.

My sense of it, is my body manifests within a field of energy, which is at its foundation... awareness. So for me, the sense of it is my body manifests within the field of spirit/energy/awareness, not the spirit residing within the body, although there is no aspect of the body that is not 'utterly saturated' by the essential spirit. Indeed for me, there is nothing anywhere that lacks spirit. Condensing as it grows, the body manifests within this field and experiential sensations coupled with the process of mind, lend easily to the illusion of solidity and staticness when our bodies are never static, nor still... but continually flowing in a fluid manner, yet maintaining a pattern within that flow that we recognize as our form, which may seem static to our quick senses and low threshold for attentiveness. If you've ever entered an old building and looked at really old glass, you will notice it has sagged and settled and bulged, for glass is a fluid and settles ever so slowly over time. Indeed, physics has come to embrace the reality that there is nothing solid anywhere in our universe. Everything is frequency, vibration and resonance. We embody the traits of masculine and feminine, we are both in varying degrees all throughout the process we call life. All mammals start out female. This is why males have nipples. The ovaries in males, extend out of the body and become testicles and produce sperm, while the clitoris grows into the penis and becomes the means of delivering sperm to the location of the egg in the female. We are not male or female, we are male and female. That's my sense of it at the present anyway. Good question. Thanks for the nudging reminder of it.

Sun shines in all directions, to the entire universe. It shines on all people, animals and insects, no matter their courage, morality, or behaviors. It is beneficial and grows our food, yet it will give me third degree burns if I linger in it for more than an hour or two and kill me outright if I linger in it for weeks. Rain falls on without distinction. It is beneficial and begets all life on our planet, yet in a torrent, it floods and kills everything in its path. Wiping the slate without remorse or thought. Which is good or bad? It is me who continually strives and makes distinctions between good and bad, helpful and harmful. In the entire history of time, not a single blade of grass has grown in the wrong spot. There are no accidents.

Found this link in my email this morning... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170317132004.htm

Really good question. I wrestle with this one some as well, but lean heavily in the whole food direction and here is why, (though this is only my instinctive supposition/opinion, nothing I have researched or studied in depth). Take beta carotene as an example. While it may indeed be beneficial to eyesight. I am suspect that it carries the same effectiveness when consumed separate from the carrot and stripped away from the other components of a carrot in which it naturally generated. Perhaps the efficacy/digestibility and usefulness is in the natural blend of the whole food and not in the isolation and condensation. That and the strong point raised by Seatle185, that regulations in the supplement industry are non-existent and so the entire process doesn't lend itself well to my rather skeptical and non-trusting nature toward capitalist profit driven companies selling in a market with little or no oversight. Then my flip side kicks in and I recall that many plant essences for medicine are mixed, synthesized and condensed heavily for increased effectiveness. So perhaps some things work isolated this way and can be absorbed readily, while others aren't... In the end, I keep trying things as they strike me, though I lean heavily in favor of whole foods taken in a balanced diet. In the end, tuning into the body is the best tool in my kit. edit: I just learned how to spell the carotene in beta carotene.

this really resonates with me and is the cornerstone of my process of late. and when we can let go of everything, in the nature of neti neti, that which remains is..... authentic realization of true self

Yea, I switched over to mostly distilled water several years ago, but it's not mandetory at all for the smoothies, I just mention it as I'm trying to be accurate to what I was doing at the time of my treatment. I still drink tap and purified water as well and the occasional glass of wine and juice too. The anecdotal evidence I've encountered suggests that distilled water, being devoid of minerals, will naturally pick up minerals as it passes through the body. These excess minerals are often deposited in joints and lead to arthritis pain, so this is good prevention and treatment. Ben Franklin was said to have distilled his own water to treat his arthritis, but I haven't dug into it too deeply.

Sure thing. The recipe I used for that was 3hp blender: 18 oz of distilled water large handful of organic strawberries medium handful of goji berries several nodes of cilantro several sprigs of mint palmful of cordyceps 1 fuji apple 1 beet 1/2 cucumber *skin on 1/2 avocado, plus the pit *don't try adding the pit without a 3hp blender 1-2 inches of raw ginger * often for myself I go much heavier, but use this when sharing 1/2 a lime *peel just the green off for taste, but leave all the white pith 1-2 cobbs of corn *not the cobb, just the kernels I would blend on highest setting for two runs of 50 seconds. This makes enough for me to have breakfast and lunch. I work in construction of scenery for film and television, so my work is quite physical and it still amazes me just how much enerby I get from such simple, light food. I also took a Reishi mushroom extract and completely cut out, caffeine, sugar and dairy as well as cut my meat intake by half for those 90 days in between blood tests.

I love to sit very still and as silent as I am able, in pitch dark. something opens up and there is light within

Not much concerned with the when that I die. I do ponder the how sometimes. Where I spend my energy, is in how I live.

We are blessed that our city hosts a rather immense farmer's market twice a week... so much of it organic and grown within 50 miles of us... some within 5 miles. So we are blessed with many low cost, very high energy fresh veggies, for being in a large city. We basically try to eat fresh and local... though I haven't found a local Goji berry farm so I still eat plenty of shipped food. Over the last five years or so, our family has steadily reduced and eliminated from our daily diet processed grains, processed sugars and dairy. We have exceptions and are not fundamentalist about it, but those exceptions usually come when traveling and eating out, or at friend's houses, so they are once in a while. The shift was a natural progression for us that came about when I was recovering from an irregular heartbeat. I studied nutrition therapy instead of voluntarily turning to a series of pharmaceuticals to treat high bp, high cholesterol and blood sugar. When I realized that I could affect great healing in my life by using food as medicine, the shift was natural and over time we weened ourselves off of sugar, dairy and grains. I invested in a 3hp blender and began making potent concoctions of phyto-chemical rich smoothies... which altered my blood chemistry in 90 days and convinced my general practitioner at the time, to get his own blender and begin preventative eating as medicine himself after witnessing my results. I still eat some meat but about a quarter of what it used to be... once or twice a week. This is not due to political or moral reasoning as I grew up eating almost entirely, wild caught meat brought in by my father and I from the forests of Minnesota. I did however realize as my cultivation progressed, that my body was shifting as was my awareness and my body was simply craving and responding better to more veggies and fruits and reacting less beneficially to the greasier, animal based proteins. It has simply been a tuning into what my body is communicating when choosing what to prepare. Increased awareness and attention, which leads me to the most beneficial aspect of incorporating some Daoist philosophy in my diet. Perhaps the most rewarding progression for me has been a deeper connection to the state of my being as I prepare and consume food, my relationship to and awareness of the process as a whole and how I am resonating within it. For decades, though I enjoyed my food, I would usually eat quickly, to fill the hole and move on to the many things I had going on in life. On special occasions of course, I would slow down and enjoy the process, but day to day... it was. Get it. Make it. Eat it. Clean up. Move on to the next thing. Now I have really grown to love being heavily attentive to the entire process of preparing the meal and enjoying it. A subtle but potently profound shift in relationship that has brought much benefit... particularly in the sharing with others.

“He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman. He who works with his hands, mind and his heart is an artist.” Francis of Assisi to Francis I would ask: who is he who works with silence, emptiness and love?

every king in history every war against a despot, won or lost... every civilization grown and fallen every love story every species of plant, animal and insect every mineral, known and unknown every drama and comedy playing out, on a moist mote of dust revolving around a tiny speck of light one among billions

Don't fight forces... work with them. ~ Bucky Fuller

when so much is stated without words are words required?

There is definitely vibration.