what we're working with

i am known for having eyes much larger than my stomach.  it seems that i can never really tell how large anything really is.  taking on fifteen projects at once, piling my plate higher than a legos tower, thinking that an hour is plenty of time to run 5 errands, all in different areas of town (on my bike), and that raising a child just means feeding them once in a while is my m.o.  of course, it works the other way with myself.  i think i'm ginormous.  i always experience a moment of shock when i see myself in group pictures and i'm SO SHORT!  SO TINY!

all this to explain that when i "adopted" (returned) to the primal lifestyle, i jumped in with both bare feet.  and not everything stuck.  in a panicked effort to organize (control) all that, i regimented it.  that's when it really fell apart.  once i attach a "should" to anything, my extremely vocal inner child throws a tantrum and my inner revolutionary, well, revolts.

should is, to me, one of the dirtiest words in the english language.  i cringe when i hear it and want to cover my burning ears (EARMUFFS!).  it also seems to be one of the heaviest.  throw it into any sentence and the should side drops down with such a hard thud that it's hard to hear the rest of the words.

of course, i have a much more developed rebel inside me than most.  but it can be very difficult when the one i rebel against is myself, the task piler.

so, i've simply distracted the part of me that needs projects.  i'm buying (BUYING! holy crapola batman!) a new cave today.  so the project princess will be well taken care of for quite a while.

but what am i going to do about the rest of me that doesn't give a should?  i remember when i started this whole thing in july, that one of the things that i wanted to do was to play outside every day with my son. i haven't done that since coming back to the states.  play has given way to regimented exercise, standard american eating habits, lack of sleep, and a loss of community.

no wonder i feel like should.

so, i'm bringing play back as my first priority.  i'm not going to lay down any ground rules, i'm just going  to find fun again.

thinking and thinking leads to.....hopefully, insight

i've been gone for a little while.

the amount of stress that i've been denying has finally caught up with me and some very old habits and patterns have taken over.

the things that i KNOW would help me deal have fallen by the wayside and i searched out substitutes for the lazy.

i learned about 6 years ago to never feel guilty or to punish myself for these lapses.  they are just what i'm used to doing.

when i started this blog, i think i went in my default "i know it all" mode.  the thing with that mode is that it's false.  i don't know it all.  i sometimes feel as if i know nothing at all!  as someone who has lived too long in her head and been too valued for her smarts, it is painful to admit that there are libraries of books filled with the things that i don't know.

i am a cave girl but i am still becoming one.  there are days when i am not one at all, and am instead a very lost animal grasping at carbs and modern noise to soothe my confusion.

i have been writing with a bit of the 'i've arrived, let me show you the way" tone.  HA!  i'm bumbling around in the dark a little bit.  i know where i want to end up.  i want to live as my ancestors did, as my body and mind are genetically determined to live.  so many other sites about primal life really focus on the food and exercise portions of that life.  that goes a very long way.  but, i'm interested in my entire lifestyle, my mindset, my environment being transformed into something deeply nourishing to my deepest DNA.

i would love to explore this all with you.

how to know...part 2

there was that one moment when i probably emasculated my pre-pubescent son.  he had spent the previous two weeks counting his armpit hairs that were sprouting one by one.  one day, he could see a patch of dirty blonde fuzz (or just the shadow caused by the bathroom overhead light) in the valley of his pit.  he came running in to the living room where i was curled up in the deep concentration that i can only summon when reading a book about herbs or self-sufficiency or surfing or the suicide girls.

"mom, have you ever seen so much armpit hair?!" he almost sang.

i didn't say a word nor did i look up from my book.  i just lifted my arm.  i could almost feel the weight of his face as it fell about five inches.

i don't always look like i have don king in a head lock.  but, i sometimes do.  of course, there was that one hippie year when i easily could have braided it all, slapped some beads on, and at least i could have had bo derek's iconic hair...but, you know, under my arms.  the flowing pit-locks look is more of a winter-time thing for me.

i do have my reasons that reach further than my feminist leanings coupled with my ironic life-long struggle to "be one of the boys".  (when i was seven, i pulled my sister and the two boys that we grew up with into the bathroom and proved that i really could pee while standing up.)  i don't feel the need to bow to some societal standard of beauty that is counter to what my body does naturally nor do i understand why that standard only applies to one gender.  however, i think it's healthier to let my body do what it wants to do from time to time.

and, to top it off, the armpits are an erogenous zone but a little fuzz increases the sensation by a factor of ten.  anything that increases my pleasure on this planet is fine with me.

oh happy day!

the vibram five fingers and i on a hike in the north carolina mountains were so primed for adventure and the luring siren call of winding woodsy paths.  i know that i've been gone for quite a long time.  people, i went to the mountain since the mountain wouldn't come to me.  i camped for 4 days on the shore of a lake.  it was a small tent, very much like, well, a cave.  and this cave girl heard her own thoughts.  it was amazing to be far away from the constant jabbering of society's aimless quest for happiness through consumption.

now that i'm back, i am overwhelmed by the constant noise, the very bright lights, and the STUFF!  sweet baby jesus, the stuff.  it is everywhere, shelves groan under the weight of stuff, floors pant under the strain of holding up stuff, streets are congested with the glut of stuff, closet doors reach for their frames against the bulge of stuff.

so, i'm having a garage sale.  i have too much stuff.  generally, 98% of americans have too much stuff.  (okay, so i didn't consult a census.)  i marvel at the value placed on things.  here, one is considered living in poverty if the household doesn't own a two t.v.s and a microwave.  POVERTY!  i grew up in haiti where lying in a river of mud and pigshit to take a nap because you have nowhere else to lay your head in the carboard slums, THAT'S poverty.

i lived in a tiny tent with a pair of jeans, a skirt, a couple t-shirts, my sleeping bag and a few books.  looking out through the mesh window, there were trees whistling in the wind, canadian geese transitioning from comedic waddling to graceful gliding in the lake, the mist would kiss the water so lightly and the moon shone just brightly enough.  and i felt ridiculously wealthy.

i was camping and attending a women's herbal conference.  herbal medicine is cave girl medicine.  we have evolved alongside plants and even from plants.  that is why our bodies and plants can communicate on a cellular level.  we know what to do with plant information.  with pharmaceutical drugs?  not so much.  plants are not directional.  what i mean by that is that a drug formulated to lower hypertension can only move in one direction.  it will lower and lower and lower hypertension, which is why drug users need to be monitored so closely by their pushers...i mean, doctors.  whereas a plant used for blood pressure is a blood pressure regulator.  it doesn't move in one direction, it works with our bodies to bring about balance.

i will be including some cave girl medicine once a week here.

i've thought a lot about this blog.  i want to take it in a slightly different direction.  the cave girl lifestyle is so much bigger to me than just eating and exercise.  being a cave girl, which is what we all are (except of course, the cave boys), is an entirely ancient way of looking at everything.  everything in our lives is out of step with our true animal selves, not just the way we eat and move (or not).

for example, my teacher, Susun Weed, taught one of the classes this past weekend.  we were talking about stress.  stress has really been demonized in the past decade or two.  we need stress.  stress is what makes our bones stronger, our mind quicker, our muscles bigger, and our emotional range broader.  there are only two stressors that are so hard-wired into our reptilian brains, the oldest parts of ourselves, that we can not adapt away from: loud noises and fast movement.  both of those things signal to us DANGER.  get ready to run or fight for your life.  Susun Weed thought it was very interesting that with all of our talking about stress management, we go out and buy boxes full of nothing but loud noises and fast movement, then, put one of those boxes in nearly every room of our homes.  We then can't understand why those weekly yoga classes aren't working.

I haven't had a t.v. in years.  if one isn't ready to ditch theirs quite yet, maybe one could try to go just one week without turning theirs on.  cover it with a sheet and use the top to place a framed photo of a mountain, or a lake, or a waterfall, or the ocean. or, just tape a picture ripped out of a national geographic. see what kind of difference that makes on your stress level.  i dare you.

update

so far, i'm 4 days in to the new challenge i've given myself.  i've been spot-on, even in the face of coconut-macadamia nut butter balls by Mary Lou.  so flippin' yummy, BUT, much to my dismay, i finally read the ingredients (i know..rookie) and they contain rice bran.  that totally explains the, um, discomfort in the abdominal region i was having after eating them.

the only slight possible mishap is a cup of mysterious gas-station coffee.

i won't be posting at all this weekend because (drumroll) i will be off the grid, sleeping in a tent, in my new yellow, down-filled sleeping bag.  (where's the cave and the animal skins, right?)  woohoo!

i'll be attending an herb conference in the mountains.  cave girls really should know their plants.  the capacity to identify each plant as food, medicine, or poison was a skill that our ancestors had.  i consider it to be extremely valuable to the primal lifestyle.

i will also get to meet my teacher susun weed (www.susunweed.com) in person.  i've been taking a correspondence course with her, and i am totally stoked about this!

speaking of plants, the leaves on the trees outside my window right now are a glorious acid yellow.  summer is officially over.  it is time to start changing the menu a little around my cave.  i move from raw chopped salads and ceviche to stews and soups.  it's a gradual transition but the seasons are a wonderful reminder that we are as wild as the earth.

so, i'm off to dance wildly in the woods....and possibly let out a "barbaric yawp"!

duality

there are two of me.  i think that this is probably true for everyone.  i certainly hope that it is.  there is the me of sunlight, loud laughter, and bubbling energy.  there is the other me; the me of the shadows.

strictly a human condition, duality can leave us (and those who love us) confused.

who will i be in the next five minutes?

it is this capacity for choice, this intelligence that can separate us from other animals.  to me, it is often a source of my depression.  the rejection of my shadow can make me one-dimensional.  i feel best in the sunlight, but is that only because i have can compare it to the shadow?

i think the idea of the dumb cave girl is a myth.  i believe that my ancestor was incredibly intelligent.  was her psychology far different from mine?  was there even a concept of a person's duality?  these are modern concepts, apparently.  it wasn't until freud  in a cocaine-induced frenzy came up with the theory that what makes us who we are is not what we see, but the mystery that lies underneath the visible.

maybe.

or maybe we just think too much.

is there a place for such self-indulgent thought processes when one is foraging with one's tribe? or building a shelter on a spontaneous field trip?  or when dancing around a fire?  or running really, really fast from a predator?  or dancing hard around a fire?  or having sex because it feels good?

we have moved from our bodies to our brains.  when i set up camp in my brain, sit back and let the thinking begin, i can pretty much guarantee that depression, and his brothers, anxiety and fear, will rapidly be joining me.  but, when i move deep into my muscles, feeling the strength of my thighs, the power of my arms, the stability of my torso, the wave of my spine, and the domed structure of my feet, like sinewy temples, i know that i move beyond emotions completely.  i have moved away from narrow psychology.  i have stepped into being.  i am an animal again.  i can channel my intelligence into movement and sensory exploration.  i no longer have to judge my shadow.  it doesn't need to be rejected.  it is just a different movement.

my shadow is the slow stretch.  it is the skin's reaching toward moonlight.

to be beautiful

i am at the ocean.  i'm watching the waves slam into the sand as i write this.  the sea is reflecting the sun as shimmers of light.  there is a steady rhythm that hypnotizes me, but awakens me at the same time.  it awakens an ancient part of me.  the part that is the most primal stretches out in the base of my neck and remembers.  i may not know why the caged bird sings, but i do know why the fish out of water gasps.

yesterday, paddling out on my board, the waves would rise up right in front of me, the light would pierce the mystery of the wave, and schools of fish were shown to me.  dozens, hundreds of little fish were surfing the waves.  early this morning, earlier than i can wake up in my landlocked life, the waves were crashing far off shore.  there were dolphin.  they were leaping out of the water, flipping, splashing.  then they were SURGING through the water, then they were one with the waves.  five, six at a time riding through the wave.  the wave would fill up, reach forward to the shore, and in its bulk were a half dozen dolphin actually surfing.

two nights ago, i lay in bed feeling the numbness of too much fatigue and too much sadness.  my nerves were so overcharged from those two stressors, that i felt nothing.  the tall man mentioned my sister being gone and the switch was flipped.  the tears poured down into the pockets of my ears.  my ears filled with the sadness and it leaked out onto the pillow.  i could feel him caressing my arm as if in a faraway place and could barely hear anything over my sobs.  when i was calm enough to speak again, he asked me what it was that i needed.  what i needed.  what i needed.

when i saw the fish rising up as a unit, the dolphin playing like children in the waves, i knew what i needed.  what i need is to be in my environment with people that i love.

now i am here.  salt crystals are flaking on my skin.  the tall man and the medium boy are here.  i try not to focus on my sister who is missing from here.  i know that she is present in a dry place near the rio grande.  i do believe in blossoming where one is planted.  reach always for the sun and dig your roots deep.  but, it's decidedly harder to bloom in ground that is not ideal.  blue-green saltwater on my skin, sand between my toes, sun on my neck warming my reptilian brain, and the rhythm of the water is where i open up most easily.  my limbs stretch out in every direction seeking out the sun.  my colors deepen to their most vibrant.  i am as beautiful as nature intended me to be.

cave girl and the city: part 2

in haiti, i have two dear friends that saw the change in me since i went back to living like a cave girl.  "you look so happy!"  "i can see how healthy you feel in your smile!"  "you practically shine!"  "wow, you're able to life such heavy things!"  "you beat me and the elevator by going up the stairs?  you are so fast!"

then, i came back to the states: "have you lost weight?"  "you look like you've lost weight!"  "you're looking thinner!"  "wow, you've lost weight!"

i've gone back and forth with diets all my life.  my mother was overweight and her example was one crazy diet after another.  there was the nothing but boiled chicken diet, the diet coke diet, the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet, the leave-in acupuncture ear needles diet, etc.

i started dancing when i was twelve and felt the pressure to be smaller and smaller.  luckily, i danced folklore (like african dance, but with a lot more booty-shaking) as well as ballet.  folklore required that i be strong, not ballet fragile.

when i went to college, i flirted with eating disorders.  to my advantage, puking grosses me out and i can never go very long without food.  BUT, overeating?  THAT sounds like fun!  and pack it away, i could!

i stopped dancing.  i started "working out" in the way that americans do.  an hour on the treadmill, aerobics classes...nothing that was enjoyable, but things that were "necessary".

and so my body became my enemy.  it was something that needed fed all the time.  eating the carb-heavy american diet put me on a crazy roller-coaster of hungry and overfull.  doing "workouts" instead of moving to the music or playing on the field stuck me in front of the mirror with a lot of criticism.

there is still a epidemic confusion that skinny means healthy.  there is still the misconception that the slender girl is the happy girl.  we've all been sold a bill of goods that says if we can just lose 15 pounds, life will be everything that we wish it was.

i've been losing my way lately.  my eating has gotten erratic, movement has become something of a chore.  my recent desire has been to keep the weight loss going.  this is very anti-cave girl.  it's hard to rise up against the crushing tide of different priorities.  and my core priorities are very different than those of society.

when i move from health based living to wanting to lose weight, certain damaging behaviors raise their ugly little heads.  losing weight, being thin, as a goal is futile, fleeting, and potentially dangerous.  wanting to run faster, throw farther, sleep deeper, eat better, be stronger...these are things that one can have a greater measure of control, but most importantly, it is FUN.  it is PLAY.  remember being five years old?  that was when hopping was challenging.  that was when climbing a tree all by your big girl self was something that filled you with pride.  jumping rope was done to rhymes.  do you remember the way the inside of the house was cool and dark after the bright sun outside?  do you remember how red your face got when you were running as hard as you could?

i can't imagine cave girls wanting to grow up to be models.  i can't imagine cave girls worrying about an extra inch to pinch.  these girls were strong.  they were valued by what they could DO.  it was so much more important to be able to run away from a tiger carrying a toddler on your back than to fit into this year's loin cloth.

i'm trying to see myself, my body, as my tool.  it is my way to experience all the pleasures of this world: the breeze on my skin when i ride the bike, the tickle of grass under my feet as i run, the sun on my eyelids when i nap outside.  i am not an ornament or a statue.  i am dynamic.

to love a wild thing

i am different from other people.  the pat answers of parents, the church, society, and school have never been enough for me.  it has led me to search all my life for answers that are deeper, truer, and, possibly, harder to accept.

i have lived thirty-six years so far and i plan on living 2 more times that.  some of the things that i've learned so far are more like remembering things that i've always known, that my body has always known.

i do not believe in god.

i do not believe in societies' structures as truth.

i do not believe in eating things that were manufactured in a factory.

i do not believe in spandex.

i do not believe in "the family unit" as based on blood.

 i do not believe in doing something that makes one miserable just to pay the bills.

i do not believe in chasing the american dream.

i do not believe in farming as an industry.

i do not believe that surgically altering one's body increases beauty.

i do not believe that the fashion industry gets to dictate my self-worth.

i do not believe that inside the house is more valuable than outside the house.

i do not believe that progress is progress.

i do not believe in western medicine as preventative.

i do not believe that humans have been divinely endowed dominion over the earth and other creatures.

i do not believe in thong underwear.

i do not believe in polyester.

i do not believe in CNN.

i do not believe that food should have a shelf life.

i do believe in love.

cheesy, you say?  maybe.   all my life, i've believed in it as something pure, noble, and life-altering.  the problem with being a wild thing is that most people find wild things intimidating, unruly, and a tad frightening.  what happens to a wild thing that needs love but doesn't know how to find those willing to love a wild thing?  she quiets down.  she learns to laugh quietly so as not to disturb the peace.  she wears a thong and learns to smile through the discomfort.  she uses big words, reads a lot of books, and learns to wear pearls.  she blows her hair dry and covers her true face with "frosted cognac" lips and "mossy dream" eyes.  she stops eating when she's hungry.  she stops moving to the beat of her own drum.  she learns to walk in step.

until she can't anymore.  hunger for blood pushes her to eat to her fill.  the books get set down while she hears her own opinions, her own instincts flood through her mind.  she tosses the thong.  she laughs louder than anyone else in the room.  it's her roar, her power.

and she walks naked into the rain to bathe.

when the mid-summer morning sun shines through silver rain clouds, she rises from her sleep and hears the tickle of the drops on the tin roof.  she smells the earth-mineral-green of the water.  she gasps at how cold it is at it pricks her shoulder, her nipple, her nose. she breaks into a loud laugh.  the water cleanses her of sleep, of sheets, of inside air.  with her feet planted in the earth, her body touched by the wet, and her arms reaching for the sky, she is wild.  she knows who she is.

he watches her through the window, sipping coffee, and smiling.  he disappears for a minute.  he comes back with a towel that he sets wordlessly down near her.

a towel after the rain; that is how to love a wild thing.

how to know...

i've already written about how my body loves me when i eat a certain way (meat, vegetables, some fruit, some nuts, good fats), but is that enough to a cave girl make?

what else about me makes me know that i am just like those women who lived thousands of years ago?  if anyone has seen my feet, they'd know one very strong link.

also, being enclosed in modern society's institutions makes me sick and crazy.  seen a tiger in too small a cage pacing, pacing, pacing...that's me in a cubicle.  seriously, i did the corporate thing and my "team leader" had to call the ambulance three times in a year.  i see through the trappings of society for what they are.  they are traps.  living in step with society is de-humanizing.  it tames a person until there is no wildness left.  and wild, contrary to outdated victorian ideals, is a good thing.  darwin observed that the brains of wild animals were denser/heavier than the brains of domesticated animals.  make no mistake, we have all been domesticated.  it takes a strong person to stay wild inside.

being wild is generally more difficult than being domesticated, so i understand why so many people have      allowed themselves to be tamed and trained.  it is difficult to take full responsibility for your health.  it is difficult to learn to identify what real food is.  it is difficult to move like a wild beast, barefoot and free.  it is difficult to give up the "security" of a comfortable seat on the couch.  but, it is so simple.

being a wild animal means eating what you're meant to eat.  it means moving like you're meant to move. it means sleeping deep and often.  it means running with a pack that is like you.  it means using your brain regularly and being fully aware.

i was reading a book by andrew weil this morning.  he consults with a sleep expert.  the sleep expert tells him that we have "flatlined" in that there is not much difference in our levels of "awakeness" between day and night.  in other words, we sleepwalk through the day and stay on this edge of alertness in the night.

i've watched people, the tame and the trained.  they do things without questioning why they do them.  wake, work, eat, t.v., restless sleep...rinse...repeat.  where is the living?  where is the wild, awake beast?

one way that i knew that i was a cave girl was and is my need to be fully awake in my life countered by my need to be profoundly asleep in my nights.

watch a wild animal, or, a child before the animal has been trained out of her.  when they are awake, they are alert, using every sense to experience the world.  once asleep, they have completely left this dimension.

be awake.  be asleep.  just not at the same time.

cave girl and the city: part 1

the cave girl has been unable to post lately.  i've been trying to do what we are most evolved to do as the human animal.  i've been adapting.  it is essential to step frequently out of one's comfort zone.  it is essential because there are so many parts of ourselves that can never grow unless challenged.  we humans need to experience as many different environments as we possibly can.  that is what makes us who we are.  humans can exist, can thrive, in nearly every corner of the earth.  i do feel the nomadic genes of my ancestors pulling me to travel from and to different places that i can call home.  on the flip side, i can also feel the pull of my genetics to stay where there is plenty.


the 30-day challenge thrown down by www.marksdailyapple.com was undertaken by me in haiti.  (it's in the caribbean.) it is where i grew up.  under the haitian sun is where i learned to seek shade from mango trees.  in the ocean that haiti floats in, i learned to swim, collect seaweed-covered rocks, felt the suction of a starfish as it would crawl up my hand, and discovered that sleeping to the lullaby of crashing waves was the surest path to the wildest dreams.  in the kitchens of haiti, i learned to eat up all the tastes that the cooks around me could imagine.  haitian food!  where spice and sauce and vegetables and meat undergo a metaphysical metamorphosis and becomes deep nourishment that nurtures the body and the soul.  the music of the country taught me how to dance to every other beat that i would ever encounter because the music of the country is pounded out on drums in the night.  drums, different heartbeats, that sank through the veil of my sleep until they could no longer be separated from my own.  and, of course, haiti is the home of my father.  the man who taught me how to eat nearly every part of the cow, how to crush the mango leaves to release the twin fragrance of that tree's particular fruit, how to turn every day into an adventurous celebration of life, and how to march proudly to the beat that is unique to me.  


in haiti, being a cave girl isn't labelled or identified as something special.  at least, for me, it never was.  i've always been a wild thing that thrives like a worm wriggling in red meat.  the only thing that was different was my special attention to not eating grains or legumes.  oh my goddess, this was only difficult when the endless parade of different rice and bean dishes were carried out from the kitchen under my nose.  the spice-scented steam hitting the part of my brain that is nearly as strong as my primal one...the one of habit, the one of culture.  


other than that, haiti is a place where the sun still dictates the day.  when it rises, so does everyone else.  i got most of my "work" accomplished before nine in the morning.  relationships are the salve that heals the other hardships of living.  the food is fresh.  with no reliable or consistent refrigeration, it has to be.  that goat was butchered today, or yesterday at the earliest.  there was a coconut tree in the yard from which i picked my daily milk.  there was also a mango tree, an avocado tree, orange trees, lemongrass bushes, edible, nourishing vines, etc.  the yard was large and invited me to play.  the house is at the base of a mountain, so walking up the street is a hike.  sleeping and eating is understood by everyone as vital to one's happiness, so time is allotted for each.  and one can luxuriate over a two hour nap or a three hour lunch with no strange looks.


and the ocean.  outside of haiti, the only place that i see that color, that depth, that level of healing, is in the tall man's eyes.  when i see that ocean, the oldest parts of my DNA, the oldest little mitochondria, positively vibrate with pleasure.  it is no stretch at all to know, with certitude, that i rose up from the sea once upon a time.  that all life began in the ocean is just too obvious to even have to be stated.  millions of years later, i am me.  still wild and only tame enough to endure an hour of socially approved conversation over a proper meal.  


but these past few weeks, i've been back in the states.  in another place that i call home.  but there has not yet been enough time to let it sink deep into my bones as part of me.  of course, individuals don't evolve, groups do.  so maybe, i never will accept this place into my core.  but, i am adapting.  i may even be starting to love it.  it is just the journey that we all undergo when there is something new.  first comes the elation of newness, then, the shock of differentness, then the familiarity of knowing, then the love as it becomes important.


so, i'm trying to bring the elements from my cave girl existence here to the city while still allowing the city to offer me the things that make it so special.


here's a partial list:


1. the tall man lives here (waddaya gonna do?)
2. i can ride my bike everywhere
3. there are patches of wildness where medicine grows as weeds
4. CROSSFIT!!!  woohoo! (of course, if my performance in crossfit really were necessary to track down a mammoth, lets just say i'd be a very hungry cave girl.)  
5. water, water everywhere!  marshes and rivers and oceans, oh my!  i NEED this like others need...hmmm...i don't even know what other's need that i can compare to this.
6. sashimi tuna at the market...like any day of the week people!
7. my dog, my familiar, my primal inspiration is here
8. libraries and bookstores....the one modern convenience that i drool over.  the smell of ink on paper makes me HIGH!  (i'm not even kidding!  i'm a cheap date.)
9. quiet and privacy.  these are two luxuries that no one can afford in haiti.
10. hippies.  there aren't really any of these in haiti and their trail blazing makes me so comfortable walking down the street barefoot or knowing that i can always find a place where a drum circle is underway.


i am still working out the kinks to living primally, but authentically.  it isn't a gimmick to me.  it is my life that someone else has helped label.  now, i need to live my life with as much honesty as i can.

eighteen

the waves were great today, but it didn't work out to be on them.  that's  fine with me.  i went to the beach with the tall man to watch the surfers.  after watching, the water was just too inviting.  being in the ocean is like immersing myself in an elixir.  i am always healed.  the homesickness, the culture shock, has been rinsed off of me.  i can bathe in the same water that envelopes the land that i've known as home...home in my bones.  

i can imagine the cave girls that lived thousands of years ago moving from cave to cave, hunting ground to hunting ground, always searching for survival (or maybe just seasonal vacation spots).  how much easier it must have been to understand the interconnectedness of all places when she could count the paces.  how much better she felt each home blending into the next to create a world of home through the flexing of her thighs.  how much intimacy she must have created with each plant, each rock, each fallen leaf through the speaking skin of her feet.  how much commitment she must have felt to the water that she swam in naked and vulnerable.  

so, after the engagement with the waves, i headed to a field where i played with my wolf-dog.  with my skirt dancing in the breeze of our own making, i took in the land with large strides.  it is all the same, this home of mine.  it stretches out in all directions, reaching back onto itself, back in time and forward in my imagination.  i am home always.

this evening, i played tug-of-war with the tall man's akita.  she is beautiful.  she is fully dog in a way that i strive to be fully human.  i felt her strength.  i felt my own.  i was unafraid.  i am a cave girl.

B: coffee, blueberries

L: blueberries, peach, scrambled eggs, salmon, zucchini, tomatoes, red onions, garlic, and avocadoes with a sprinkling of black, lava salt and more coffee

S: a couple squares of....wait for it...chocolate (i know!)

D: hamburger patty with caramelized onions, mushrooms and a salad with blue cheese dressing (stranger danger, stranger danger!!!), with dark chocolate and sea salt covered almonds

the boy is far too teenagered out these days.  the video games and the anime have him completely hypnotized.  i realize also how much time and with what difficulty it will take to change his diet.  setting a goal to change someone else's behavior was probably not the "surest thing".

i've allowed myself quite a bit of rest this week, but i feel very ready to dial up the intensity.  

the friday forager-caribbean edition

every friday i will be posting some pictures of something that i've foraged.  cave girls know their surroundings and the plenty that can be found.  eating something that you worked to find, pluck, pick, rip up, hunt down, or pummel brings you closer to understanding how precious food is.  i find that it is fostering in me a deep respect for the plants and animals that die so we can live.  it also shatters the myth of the stupid, bumbling cave man.  (a shout out to geico's marketing people...they've got our cave brother's backs!  but, little gecko, talk to your peeps about the cave GIRL.  she was pretty important, y'know?)  our ancestors had skills that we've lost.  but we can totally get them back. 

 i hit the jackpot today.  here are the pictures of what i foraged:

not skilled enough to climb the tree so the cave girl uses what she can to get the job done, in this case, some bamboo, and shakes the coconut free

drinking the coconut water from an expertly placed hole by someone who has used a machete for far more than the last five minutes

THAT is how to wield a machete people!  a coconut or a tiger....it will be helpless before me!  roar!

once the coconut is impaled, smack the machete and coconut against something hard

and you can split it open to get to the meat...or as it's known here, the nan-nan

Cocos nucifera: the coconut

other than tasting fantabulous, the coconut is fantastic for helping with dehydration, the water was used in the place of plasma for transfusions, the meat is an excellent source of fat and vitamin D, as well as glucose, levulose, and dextrose, the oil is both anti-viral and anti-fungal, the husk can be used to make an alcohol tincture to help reinvigorate the elderly and a tea from the husk is helpful in stopping diarrhea, the shells can be used as gas masks and make awesome luau tops.

this info is from "les plantes et les legumes d'haiti qui guerissent, volume II" by brutus and pierre-noel

*thanks to the awesome kid with the big hair who calls me mom for the pics

 

**note to the chicken running around the yard:  you are SO lucky that i've just started sprinting.

the cave girl way

i had to laugh when i walked into my mom's kitchen the other day.  on the fridge is an old collage i did.  the paper is brittle.  the images are faded.  it was an exercise in one of my group therapy sessions.  (ah, depression!)  one side of the collage was who i was then, with my destructive habits.  the other was who i wanted to be, with new, nurturing habits.  i had folded the collage so that only the "new me" was exposed.  focusing on the good and all that crap.  

smack dab in the middle of the images that were going to save me was a cave man.  tall, fit, hairy, carrying a big stick, he was dressed in the skin of his last meal.  

when i was a little girl, i would sit at the kitchen table after school.  i would crouch on a chair like a little bird as my dad cut up steak, tossed it into hot oil for a couple seconds, then toss it onto my plate.  it was hot, seared on the outside, and still almost mooing on the inside.  i loved it.  

i also loved mounds of chard in butter, parsleyed carrots, salads, fish, and cow tongue.  

i was a strange child.  

i loved food.  but, specifically, meat and vegetables.  i hated peanuts.  

growing up, i read books.  i read all the health books, all the weight loss books.  it wasn't until i started following these diet programs that i started to gain weight.  it wasn't until i started working out twice a day that i started to have all sorts of body aches.  when i was in college, i became a vegetarian and gained 20 pounds.  later, i became a vegan and gained 10 more.  

i also discovered the self-improvement section at the bookstore.  wow, did i ever have a long way to go before i could be an acceptable human being.  i didn't realize how wrong i was about everything until the experts told me i was.

all my life, i've been a seeker.  of course, i became a seeker around the time i learned that i didn't know things.  i became a seeker when i was introduced to the concept of "the expert".  people that had never met me, didn't know my story, had never known it was even possible for a haitian girl to have white skin (see how very little the experts know?), didn't know what i loved,  and how i loved it, were experts about me.  and i, the only person that has been consistently around me since there has been a me to be around, knew nothing.

it has been a process, but little things over time have brought me back to myself.  oh, dorothy, it was inside you all along....the person that i was at 4 years old DID know everything.  she is the cave girl to whose knowledge i defer.  and this is what she knew:

1. meat (the bloodier the better), vegetables, soups, some fruit, and almonds (preferably cracked open herself near the roots of the tree) was really good food

2. playing was the best way to get anything done

3. it's fun to run around and get really sweaty while laughing and wearing pretty dresses and the wind feels best when you're not wearing anything at all

4. dancing is the best way to tell a story

5. it is physically impossible to be sad at the beach

6. hugs and kisses are better than dollar bills

7. god only exists because we have awesome imaginations that can create all sorts of other things, too

8. sleep after playing hard all day is especially sweet

9. catching a fish yourself makes it taste better

10. boys are great playmates

these things, and others have started to gel into something of a "philosophy".  i've found many very helpful sources on how to live like a cave man and what it can do for your health. i'm very interested in what my primal self, my true self has to say about the rest of living as well.

this blog will touch on all aspects of living true to our oldest selves, the selves that we were in perfect communication with before society cut us off.  my four year old self and my 40,000 year old self are in perfect communion, i do believe.

movin' on up, around, down, and at 90 kmph

Q. why is it so much more exhausting to sit in a car for six hours than to play, swim, run, jump, and dance for six hours?

A. because we animals were meant to use our bodies.

just got back from the other side of the island and i'm BEAT. i never feel like this after a day of activity.

*tomorrow begins the primal blueprint challenge at www.marksdailyapple.com. I'M STOKED! this may be a good time for anyone else to check out one of my sources of information and inspiration.