Redefining Reality

And beyond

2008-02-06T02:14:00.000-08:00

So, my felllow beautious juice feasters. . . I have joined the world of masticating fibrous chunks of whole (raw) foods. A bit like starting the juice feast, it wasn't a decision I consciously made. I "fell" into the juicy world with no real idea what I was doing, where it would take me. For sure it has surpassed any possible pre-conceived notion of what it could bring, most importantly such a supportive and inspiring group of bloggers to whom I give a generous portion of gratitude to for inspiring me along the way.

Why did I stop? An extreme vata condition, an arctic chill arriving in London, my blood choosing to stop circulating, no central heating where I live, a disintegrating body weight, serious struggles with elimination (nothing, no matter how many enemas or herbs I took - strange!) and bang, you have someone prone to extremes (I must, I must, I must commune with the universe at all times no matter what the cost.... ;) ) chomping down a packet of cashews and an avocado. Blurgh!!!

Time for a spot of homeostasis. With a history of parasites (3 years on the road ;) ), colitis and liver failure my body is still very sensitive and I think it can only take so much detox at a time. I have a feeling I could have colonics for a month before I get rid of what 20 days of juicing stirred up.

My body is also currently trying to release a cellular memory of fear. My time in India ended with me collapsed in a hut on the beach unable to move for 6 months while I drooled on the pillow, turned yellow and was plagued with nightmares and visions every night. This is something I also give thanks to the universe for every day, I released a LOT during this time (there is a slightly lengthier version of this story which maybe one day I will tell...), but it was extreme and I only just made it back to London in one piece.

Right now, I am now feeling incredibly calm and very much enjoying the experiment of incorporating food back into my diet. No cashews since the first day, just salad, a looot of spirulina and occasional avocados. Nothing was quite the same after the ayuhasca, it was as though I really didn't need to carry on with the fast and to do so was just not listening to my body. Right now I feel the need to develop a relationship of grace with what I put into my body; to live in a constant state of grace and receptivity.

Nothing is the same after the feast, the magic of which will be felt for a looong time. I will never be able to stop the roaring tidal wave that dictates my daily life in my quest to redefine our expectations of reality. Foods, healers, yoga, colonics, meditation are all part of this magnetic mix. Once our hearts start being awakened to the divine, to the nature of our true essence it becomes harder and harder to ignore the overwhelming surge of support and the glorious surprises that will greet you at every turn.

The opportunity to share my sporadic thoughts with such a beautiful, courageous and soulful beings has been quite extraordinary. I hope to be in a position to blog more, once the practicalities of my life fall into place to allow me to dedicate all of my time to this dance with the universe. Something I have no doubt will happen.

So much love for now, and I look forward to hearing from you and sharing with you in the future.
Juicey Lucy (I have actually been called that for a few years, ho ho, only now does it resonate with slightly deeper meaning ;) )xx

Day 18

2008-01-30T07:06:00.000-08:00

Hurrrah!! Crawled back to the world of juicing, not without it's fair share of tears and despair. It becomes so clear how we daily use food to mask the route to our real emotions. Do I want to know? A hint of vunerable doubt and a gust of sure knowing cloud/illuminate my day.

Can't stop my plastic Millets Lifeventure flask thingy from smelling. The greens are turning bad before I get them to work. Time to start investing in some glass.

And so the path keeps treading.

Discussed the possibility of holding Vedic Chant workshops downstairs in my mothers house yesterday...?!!! How life changes.... xxx

Through repetition the magic will be forced to rise

2008-01-29T05:53:00.000-08:00

Strangely, cashews appeared on my list for yesterday's juice feast. It's a wonder how the magic of day 17 keeps choosing to reveal itself groudhog day stylee as I today embrace Day 17 of this beautiful adventure once again. The secrets of the universe are there in all of natures gifts, each with it's own mystical vibration. It is our job only to open ourselves, tune into the vibration and receive the guidance and support that is there for us all.

Conversations with Suki yesterday revealed the importance of our maintaining our uniqueness within our global oneness. To respect, feel strong in and follow our truth without getting lost in the soaring beauty of others, something my piscean tendencies to merge with everything and anything in the universe can struggle with.

Disunity, confusion, pain, grief and despair are words we must be careful not to use with any sense of judgement. It is usually from our own limited perception of what it is to be born into a particular circumstance, community or situation that we bestow these epitaphs on other people and their lives.

It with the perception of the stars that we can start seeing it as it is: the perfection in everything. The surging ball of fire that glows and pulses from the entrails of the universe is calling to us all to stop questioning, to stop judging, to stop analysing. We can only listen, breath and jump heart first into the expansive ocean of movements and feeling that is ours to manifest. In our individual glory we must go forth and start making the contribution we are here to fulfil.

To that one, I offer myself.

The lost weekend

2008-01-28T03:07:00.000-08:00

One, two miss a few and I'm still on Day 18 of the juice feast. Amazing!!

My heart is roaring, surging with the spirit of the luminous core. Upheavals and huge change is afoot. It's the time for manifestation.

Day 17

2008-01-25T06:18:00.000-08:00

A hint of sadness. I can feel myself slowly leaving the comfort of the smiling team of office workers I share my days with. My heart is no longer with them and I seem to be moving further and further into a world that none of them understand. Is this a good thing? I seem to have no choice and while each cell of my body begins to sing with the song of life, I don't seem able to relate to the banalaties of every day life. . it seems the more the soul vibrates, the less possible it becomes to be any less than everything you are at all times. This is scary. Have I joined a cult?

Just a bit about my plunge into the depths of juice feasting.
Monday 7th Jan
Morning - "absolutely no way I have any intention of doing a juice feast, it is far too extreme and I'm done with being extreme"
Afternoon - Colonic

Tuesday 8th Jan
Filled with overwhelming sense of joy and desire to stop putting solids into my mouth. Eat 2 bars raw xocolati nonetheless and continue to fly. A feeling that I should start tomorrow with a juice and see what happens.

Wednesday 9th Jan
Start the feast having never visited David and Katrina's site or with any real knowledge of what I was doing. I just knew that it felt right, now was the time and there was no turning back.

Subsequent days
Finding the wonderful gang of juicers, Jack & Jill, Neeta, Carrie, Courtney, Terilynn, Melissa who's daily blogs filled me with awe and wonder and made me realise that this was possible. My thanks is never ending.. . .

I'm not one for the "this is what I ate today list"... but there really hasn't been much variation since I started. This is mainly down to ecnomics + what's available in the organic range in my neck of the woods. Daily intake has been pretty much along the lines of
1 quart greens (cucumber, celery + kale or spinach)
1 quart beet + carrot + apple/pear
depending on day 1 quart orange (there is a shop next to work that does freshly squeezed organic)
1 quart greens (cucumber, celery + kale or spinach)

Tonnes of ginger in everything and packets of cayenne pepper during the first week (totally off it now).
Supplements:
MSM, hemp oil (sometimes), bee pollen (3 teaspoons).

Weekends I tend to experiment with kiwi + grapes + mint and blood oranges.

That's it really. Simple!! If some more seasonal produce comes into town I'll jump on the band wagon.

Poetic lustre not as flowing as I'm now surrounded by flashing lights and computer screens.

I'm on an all nighter tonight.. connecting with the plant spirit. I may be outta my body for a while, but hope to descend again before Monday.

Much love, Lucy xxxx

Day 16

2008-01-24T01:39:00.000-08:00

Tears were already in my eyes before I woke: as I lay a dream of a pirouetting ice skater, like the hunchback of notre-damm who almost fell in love with the lady with deep set almond eyes. But instead of dancing straight into her arms, he fell in love with the castle and caressed the old stones and mortar, harbouring memories and dreams of old.

I woke with an overwhelming sense of having missed the point. What is the point? I'm not sure any of us are sure but at times we have all have a clarity of vision that lets us reside with, in and inside the divine. But can we do this at all times? Can we maintain and carry the roaring power of it in our lives with a grace and presence that is capitivating and welcoming to all around us? Can we cultivate this divine nectar, like a lotus flower crafted from silk as we rise from the depths below. Our daily intake of organic bio-thermal fruits and veg, our deliveries of superwazmakosumduntioussupra nutritionals that come plopping through our letter box with expectant awe are just aids. Nothing but aids to help us see that the unending and expansive roar of the universe is there for us all, whether we are surrounded and full of shit (as Terilynn so beautifully put in one of her posts) or whether we be filled with the most nutritious foods in the planet.

It's just a hell of a lot easier of we follow plan B, and tends to have more immediate and saught after results in this life time. And as Suki so spunkily epolstulates THERE ISN'T ANY TIME TO LOOSE, if you are not connecting with the universe in WHATEVER way it is that works for you, you life is but an unopened bud, a cacoon of hope and promise set to disolve and fall back into the very earth it came from.

And now there are tears again, to see the wonderful comments of support I have received from the magical family of juice feasters. I feel so much joy to have joined the family. Time to get juicing for the day. Toodlepop xxx

Day 15

2008-01-23T08:18:00.001-08:00

OK, time to join the gang. I've been quietly hiding myself for the past 15 days, struggling it has to be said, but gaining enormous support from all of those wonderful bloggers out there who unknowingly have been dragging me minute by minute through the past 15 days...

Jack and Jill, Neeta, Carrie of Radical Living Laboratory, Courtney, Melissa and Terilynn of Inspiration: Life and of course, the wonderful Suki @ Quito who inspires me to conintuaully take the next step toward a connection with the Divine.

A little about my self... I'm a 27 year old who spent 3 years travelling the globe .. one year in South America and after a year working for Radio 3 I decided to head forth once again on a 6 venture to India. 2 years later, a sourjourn with the Bedouin of the Jordanian desert, a spell in the Palestinian refugee camps of Beirut and the West Bank, cave dwelling in the mountains of Tibet ... I came home.

The past year I have been in London trying to gain some sort of health back in my life. My energy is failing me now, more will come.. but I'm now on Day 15 of a juice feast as inspired by the wonderful David and Katrina and feeling terrible, but absolutely loving it.

If you want a feel for the way I can write when I'm not undergoing serious detox reactions then please check out:

www.mytripjournal.com/LucyCrisfield

Start with "When the Sky Fell to Earth". .. it's about my time in Tibet and I kinda like it.. . .

struggling

2008-01-13T07:41:00.000-08:00

Day 5 of juice feast - absolutely no energy. Slept for 13 hours yesterday and 12 hours on Friday night. Also no poop for 4 days despite 6 cascara's a day... not quite sure what's going on .. trying to trust and annon...

2008-01-09T02:01:00.000-08:00

2008-01-08T07:48:00.001-08:00

Gosh, this is it. This is the beginning of new world of thought and revolution. Will anyone read it, does anyone care. Let's see, let's dream, let's hope....

When the Sky fell to Earth

2005-05-31T08:31:00.000-07:00

It turns out that Nepalese hospital beds are made for Nepalese people. And Nepalese people are considerably shorter than Western people are. This was just one of many thoughts that popped into my head, back suspended, hair sweeping the floor, as I gazed just a little nervously at 4 pairs of flip flops hosting a collection of Nepalese doctors all peering over me to watch the spectacle. Another thought was for my mother who had arrived in the country only 5 hours previously and, now prohibited from joining me in the ward, was on the floor in the litter strewn corridor trying to make polite conversation with a crowd of incapacitated hacking invalids.

Varanasi, one of the holiest and also one of the dirtiest places in India, was the cause of the unfortunate state of affairs. It is one of the most auspicious places for Hindus to be cremated and it was here that my foot went septic and a red line started rising up my leg. Amputation was the only thing on my mind when I met my mother at the airport. Speed was the only thing to take us to one of the worst hospitals in Kathmandu, and severe pain was what led me to let out a guttural bloodcurdling scream as they plunged a 3-inch blade into my foot prior to administering an anesthetic. My mother had had a crash course initiation into the secret lore of Nepal's crumbling health care system.

But I quickly disregarded any subsequent feelings of violent pain, for there was no place for attachment to the material body where we were going. We were heading to the Roof of the World, to become initiated in the esoteric lore of Tibet's tantric Buddhism. We were to seek out the ancient Bonpö shamanists, occult masters, magicians and mystic lamas, for this would ensure us supreme spiritual illumination, freeing us from all worldly struggles and ambitions.

There was only one thing standing in our way: the Chinese and their communist ideology. It seems that they don't like people who don't do things their way, and they have developed a rather particular way of doing things. Not only do you need to hire your own private jeep to visit almost anywhere outside Lhasa, but you need a Chinese approved guide and a handful of inexplicably expensive permits. Never one for guides, or for collapsing in the face of authority, I decided that we should play the Chinese at their own game (my mother's attempts at protest were swiftly cut short with a quick reminder that the whole state of affairs was essentially her fault for letting me read too much Tin Tin as a child).

So we stole out of towns before dawn, hid from patrol cars in ditches, sneaked onto buses, hitched rides in the back of lorries, slept in caves, and in monasteries, and incognito in local Tibetan's cattle sheds.

Our first stop was the politically sensitive area of East Tibet, officially off-limits to independent travellers. It is illegal for bus drivers to take foreigners and hitching would bring attention to ourselves, so we decided to first make ourselves invisible and to then get onto the bus. Invisibility is quite a simple technique Tibetan ascetics use, and involves stilling ones being and vibrations as completely as possible so that the physical body makes absolutely no impression on the mind or memory of others. Judging by the bus driver's reaction when he looked our way, it appeared we hadn't totally mastered the technique and, despite our back up plan of back seat dwelling, large rimmed hats and shrunken spines, we were fairly quickly noted.

Luckily, our refusal to understand anything he said and a couple of Dalai Lama pictures not only secured our ride, but the protection of 3 nun's robes as we hid under their seats while passing the checkpoints en route.

Only once were we forced back to Lhasa. Having reached the Yarlung valley through various means, and after the success of our previous bus ride, we attempted to take a bus half way back to Lhasa, to Mindroling Monastery. Clearly not many foreigners had attempted this before as everyone at the bus station was thrown into a state of turmoil trying to work out how we had managed to get there without a guide in the first place. After being thrown off 3 buses by officious uniformed men we had attracted a fairly large crowd of Chinese listing the reams of paperwork we needed before entering the bus. I decided to deal with things the Tibetan way and, assuming the character of a Tibetan hermit, proclaimed that I had to get on the bus as I had "seen it in my meditations". Unfortunately, this didn't get the response I was looking for, so I instead assumed the character of a thoroughly pissed off English person and tried "why the fuck don't you bastard Chinese get the hell out of this country and leave the Tibetans to get on with their prostrations in peace", further proclaiming that they would have to either kill me or throw me in jail before I got off the bus (at this point a slight intake of breath from my mother suggested that this was not a situation she would have been best pleased with).

20 minutes later I was alive, not in jail and off the bus leaving behind 20 thoroughly confused Chinese officials and a collection of Tibetans, collectively thoroughly amused by the confusion of thoroughly uncollected Chinese officials. Stalemate. We just could not continue indefinitely discussing the various pointless merits of having all appropriate permits, documentation and insurance. And as every good little Buddha knows "thou must bow down to the Chinese when they start becoming real obstinate pigs". We hitched back to Lhasa.

So we had slept next to butter lamps in the assembly halls of crumbling monasteries, we had been to the subtropical forests of Eastern Tibet, we had slept on the shores of Tibet's sacred lakes, we had had tea with the nomads of the Northern plateau, and finally we had slept at the foot of the tallest mountain in the world.

But what about our search for nirvana? Our search for the inexpressible reality: for an end to desire and suffering; eternal bliss? I had a feeling that we may be able to learn something from the naljorpas, ascetics living in the recesses of Tibet's highest mountains. These were people who had renounced everything in order to spend a life of deep contemplation and meditation, seeking salvation through the mystic "short path".

We had heard about a whole warren of such caves at the top of Drimong mountain, one days walk from Samye Monastery. These caves, collectively known as Chim-puk hermitage, were once a retreat for Guru Rinpoche, Tibet's infamous superstar, renowned for suppressing Tibet's malevolent forces in the 8th century and clearing the path for the spread of Buddhism.

So as the first rays of the sun escaped over the horizon mother and daughter, already heady with altitude, set off along the banks of the Brahmaputra toward the base of Drimong mountain. And as the luminous sun of central Asia beat a path from east to west, they climbed higher and higher until the sun disappeared and the sky and the mountains became one. And the clouds exploded into a blizzard of snow into which they were swept and finally discarded in the cave of one of the very naljorpas they had set off to find.

Shivering on the floor under fleecey layers, I noticed that our new host sat perfectly at ease in only a ragged cotton cloth. Could this man have been an adept of the practice of tumo, the art of using ones mental power to warm oneself up without fire? A common belief among Tibetans is that everything that can be imagined can be realised: I could only gaze into the sparkling eyes of this man of the mountains and muse over the trances he must have been able to cultivate, materialising visions to weave into his dream like states.

As the blizzard subsided we continued further up the mountain to Guru Rinpoche's cave and, as the snow settled on the mountains of the Tibetan tableland, the moon rose glistening in the sky.

These hermitages are now slowly disappearing from Tibet's landscape as monks and nuns now need a special permit in order to go on a retreat. The numbers of monks and nuns in monasteries is also decreasing as the Chinese continue to place strict quotas on numbers. Children below the age of 18 are prevented from joining monasteries and many of the most senior and learned monks have been expelled for their ability to "corrupt the minds of the young monks". Such restrictions make it nearly impossible to receive a complete religious education and forces many into exile.

Schemes such as the "Patriotic re-education" campaign ensure that the majority of monks and nuns left in Tibet remain uninspired and frustrated. This campaign is part of the Chinese administration's plan to adapt Buddhism to the socialist ideologies of the state and forces all monks and nuns to study party policy as well as to submit written denunciations of the Dalai Lama. Furthermore, re-education through labour camps is still enforced as part of China's "Strike Hard" campaign for anyone who expresses support for Tibetan independence. As recently as 2004 a 40,000 square foot new re-education camp came into operation in the Ngari County.

Although China's constitution allows "freedom of religious belief", in practice they view allegiance with the Dalai Lama as a threat to the legitimacy of their rule in Tibet. They remain active in their control over religious expression and deal brutally with those who dissent. Cases of torture and ill-treatment of political prisoners, arbitrary imprisonment, and indiscriminate use of the death penalty are still found on a wide scale in Tibet.

Of the Tibetans we spoke to, few were prepared to discuss their political viewpoint with us. Those who did see little hope for the future of an independent Tibet.

So when did the sky fall to earth? For me it seemed that the sky and earth were in an inextricable unity at every moment. Mountains rose out of the earth to meet plump clouds, so close you could pluck them from the sky before they were swept up by the wind, as snow fell upon snow beneath the great starry expanse that came to meet the stark desert landscapes below.

For the Tibetans, "when the sky fell to earth" is a reference to the Cultural Revolution. A time when Mao's Red Guards carried out the systematic destruction of virtually every religious object in Tibet. Today the cultural genocide persists: Tibetan culture continues to be suppressed, the surveillance of religious activity is unrelenting and the policy of Han Chinese immigration continues without restriction.

Yet no matter how hard they try, there is one thing the Chinese will never be able to remove, and that is the opportunity the Tibetan plateau offers to be in a place of stark overwhelming silence: no wind, no people, no trees, and no birds in a silence that cloaks vast mountain ranges in a hushed stillness. Mountains of such timeless majesty that, just for a moment, they reveal the deluded importance of all our anxieties and fears, fears which are dissolved and then absorbed back into the silence they came from before being carried away on one of those perfectly formed little clouds.