in the beginning....

so, several months ago, while chatting on the phone with my dear friend christina, to be verbal company on her trans-island commute, i explained to her this flash of genius that i had just had.  i was going to live in a way that would honor my animal self.  not in that mystical "my animal spirit is a yellow-crowned blue jay" kind of way, but, i am an animal, a mammal.  i decided to do it mostly because since i taught myself how to read at the age of 3 1/2, i've lived my life as a brain and in my brain, wrapped up in my thoughts (and the thoughts of others).  

as a result, i ate with no connection to my food, had sex as a mental exercise, worked out to certain routines i'd read about in magazines, analyzed the people around me, and generally approached my life as a watcher...from a safe distance.

this led to ill health and depression.

deciding to live like an animal (nor do i mean like that freaky cat man who is looking to get fur implants all over his tiger-tattooed body) was one way that i knew would help me manage my depression.  the downward mental spiral that depression was further cut me off from my sensory self, my instinctual self, the animal self whose first priority is survival, then fully being.

now, when i had this flash of inspirational insight, i really did feel like some kind of savant, some kind of genius cracking the un-cracked nutty mystery of happiness and health.  i watched all the animals around me and they just were.  they ate when they wanted to, slept when they wanted to, fucked when they wanted to, and played when they wanted to.  it all seemed so random, spontaneous and free.  although i couldn't actually read any of their thoughts, i was willing to place big money on them not thinking any negative thoughts of their self-image nor really hoping to lose those last five pounds before they could run around shamelessly with the opposite sex.

come to find out, this revelation was right up there with the time i was 24.  i was sitting on my balcony, watching the mangoes ripen on the tree, when all of sudden i realized that life was a spiral.  i knew that it couldn't be a linear sort of thing, but i also knew that it wasn't a circle.  we revisit similar themes, but we aren't in the same place when that happens.  sweet flying spaghetti monster!  had anyone ever realized this?  i wrote poetry about it, called my sister long-distance (in the days before unlimited long-distance, when i still had to go through an operator with my rotary dial phone), and felt all around like the most enlightened being who ever was.  and then...boom.  books on eastern mysticism fell into my lap.  a book on universal symbols found in most human cultures found its way into my hands.  the first one was, yep, the spiral.

SO, after this last burst of animal insight, i spent a few months starting to let go of the shoulds in my life.  i was pretty sure watching my dog, kenai, that he didn't think should a whole lot.  then, as soon as i was ready to take it further with lifestyle patterns, with eating, with movement and with curiosity, book after book and blog after blog seemed to just pop up on my radar.

and guess what?  

this may come as a shock, but i'm not the first to have thought about this.  loren cordain, mark sisson, arthur de vany...these are just a couple names for you to look up.

evolutionary fitness or living primally or paleolithically...whatever you call it, these thinkers have done the research and written the books.  

i've been called a cave girl for many reasons and i do tend to give society the big finger...a lot.  so, this way of life REALLY appeals to me.

i thought i would write about it as i start to actually adopt it more and more fully.  i have no idea what the outcome will be and that is so exciting to me.  this is going to be fun.