The Awake Diet

One of my Potato Mountains: Mashed potatoes 100 ways all named after mountains.

Diet is not always the first thing that enters a person's mind when thinking about the planet and the environment. But, diet is crucial to a person's health and to the balance of nature, including the climate we have known for thousands of years. As recent as 1998 when the United Nations Agriculture Department published their report, we have known that a change in diet that highlights whole foods and little or no meat, is necessary for slowing-or at that time perhaps stopping-the effects of global warming. The number of animals farmed for food is an activity that statistically has more than doubled the human population. Indeed, the animals raised for food are so great in number that it is the same as having 15 billion people on the planet instead of the 7.5 billion we now house. These animals are not pets or wildlife, they are animals being raised to slaughter needlessly and often violently-without compassion. 

John Kabat-Zinn (founder of the mindfulness based stress reduction clinic in MA) says that people who are physically and emotionally spent are usually people who are living life un-awakened. They have lost the ability to live life in a consistent awareness and with thought. Most of us live re-actively; controlled by schedules,radio shows, television, habits, routines and rituals. We don't have time or desire to be aware, to be selfless, to be awake.

In addition to the huge amount of methane that farmed animals add to the environment, the process of eating at the top of the food chain is taxing fresh water resources and fossil fuel supplies required to feed, transport, process, package and distribute. Few people have taken the time to understand how much it costs in natural resources to produce such a wasteful product. For those of use who value all of life, we are alamed at the conditions, pain, suffering and death that accompany this terrible habit. Yes, this human activity is also partly responsible for the declining habitat for wildlife, even as far from our daily lives as the penguin.

While we can face the challenge of global warming without ending this practice altogether, we can still lessen our dependence on meat and meat by-products. In the process of this lessening, we can also realize less obesity, heart disease and multiple other illness and diseases that cost governments and individuals billions of dollars each year. It is not just a good, moral and healthy idea, for the sake of the environment it is lessessary.

Taking one day a week to eat a vegan diet will challenge the average person and especially the cook at home but, the rewards are selflessness, health and a new creative twist in home cuisine. Try it, for everyone.

Float On

Greetings, especially to those who wander and wonder.

It's a hot day, your air conditioner in the car is not working. The kids are restless in the back seat. The diesel fumes permeate your vehicle. Horns are honking. Brakes are squeaking. Tires are squealing. Music is thumping. And, oh yes, it's one stoplight at a time. Turn, stop, go. Turn, stop go. This is life. In many ways it is all of life, not just on the road in a busy city.

Now, you are stepping into a comfortable raft on a gentle, flowing river. Slowly it winds through beautiful greenery. Wildflowers wave gracefully as you float by. You glance and catch the inquisitive eye of a squirrel on the bank with a nut in her mouth, looking at you. The sun warms you in the moments you escape the cool shade of the trees on a picture perfect cool, late summer day. You notice your breath is calm yet sure, your mind is alert, yet relaxed. Your senses are alive, but not stressed. Your spirit feels home and free. And, you are harmonizing with the melody of life. Your life is the river. You are connected. Your soul soars, your mind dances and your body breathes. A beautiful journey. And to think, it is largely a choice we make.

Are we puppets unable to control the hand that moves us as a species, as a society, as a culture? We like to think we are critical thinkers and independent intellectuals. I believe we are, or can be, the latter. To begin that journey we do not have to get angry and throw our hands in the air. I am convinced we need to only be silent. While the following acronym may have some general and external applications for all of humanity, it is more a place of the heart. An individual thing. And, consequently, if we all practiced it, it would change everything.

P: Perform acts of kindness. Make it a habit because that is the way you are, not just a random decision.

E: Embrace times of silence and solitude in natural places.

A: Avoid the unhealthy pursuit of wealth and power.

C: Consider the interests of others as equal or more important than your own.

E: Encourage non-violence in all of life and every situation.

Peace, friends.