Day two and it really hasn't set in yet. My blood pressure is 106/64. My resting heart rate is 50 bpm. I again slept like a rock 10 hours. I worked out hard at the physical therapist's for 3.

I have trouble, even on a regular schedule, slowing down my mind. It is my strength. It is my downfall. So I'm guessing it will take the exhaustion of not eating for several days before I mentally surrender to this cleanse. Needless to say, it did not happen on day two. I kept myself occupied and with the exception of a tummy growl at 4pm and some deep emotional hunger at bedtime, I did not even register the fast. Which is absolutely not the point, but absolutely part of the process.

For the most part life continued as normal. Kinda boring in fact, just like this journal entry. The only insight worth self-analysis at this point is this deep emotional hunger I am experiencing at bedtime. This overwhelming desire to stuff myself into sleep, which is obviously:

a) an effective way of grounding for a woman who, in the past, has endured considerable psychosis over insomnia - (see above for "strengths" and "downfalls").

b) an ineffective way to feed the emptiness I feel, this pervasive Loneliness which even when I am happy has become a theme in my life, and when the mind does slow down enough for sleep, is impossible to ignore.

How's that for self-analysis? But knowing this is not enough. That's why I love the discomfort, the vulnerability, the fear of cleansing. You see, every nite for five more days I will not be able to stuff, drown, thicken or avoid intimacy with my Loneliness before bedtime. I will have to live it. This is my self-chosen opportunity to become sensitive, lucid and courageous. This is when I grow.

Today a dear friend I met in San Francisco wrote me to share how inspired by my email she is to fast, but at the same time, what traumatic childhood memories come up as soon as she considers it.

Often times, the amount of resistance we have to something is in direct proportion to what we have to gain from doing it.

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Remember the smell of Strawberry Shortcake dolls? The soap I am using is very Purple Pie Guy.

This is the first day of a week long cleanse. Though that could change if at any time my body says "We're through - gimme grub". Listening to and respecting this soul container's signals is a much more accurate road to health than any regimented cleansing program. So assuming I have the bod's thumbs up: this is the first day of a week long cleanse.

I'm only ever wrong when I think I know. So I suspect I am on the right track when I admit that I have no idea what to expect. I am aiming for complete regeneration, total transformation: a Phoenix's insane flight into the Sun, scorching wings, plummeting to earth, rebirthing as she rises from her own body's ashes. But I am willing to accept soggy fireworks' fizzle, anticlimactic and a bit embarrassing, if that's what the omniscient bod's got in store.

Reasons for Commencing Cleanse: Right knee sore and inflamed from recent performing injury involving a renegade car rim and my unsuspecting knee cap. Digestive system feeling lethargic and thick from recent overconsumption of every raw nut on earth. Emotional state dipping below water level, snorkeling too often with Lonely and Lost...My theme in all three cases screaming density and sluggishness. Time to fast and speed things up.

Day One: I slept 10 hours, weighed in at 127# and did physical therapy after which my knee felt a bit worse than yesterday. Every hour I intook, rotating either: 1T apple cider vinegar diluted in 1C of warm water (foster beneficial bacteria in digestive track) and 1C of Pau D'arco tea (anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal) OR 1/2 C fresh juiced beet (gall bladder stimulant, mild-laxative), cabbage (blood purifier, antioxidants), carrots (regenerative beta carotene), barley green (oxygenating, neutralizing), hemp oil (those crazy omega 3's and 6's) and betonite clay powder (sucking up digestive toxins like the Quiker-Picker-Uper) all diluted in 2C water. Instead of psyilium seed husk, I added about 1/4 C of my juiced vegetable pulp back into the latter drink (to broom the intestines), and performed an enema upon awakening and again before retiring. This will be the foundation of my daily cleanse. I deviated only by consuming 1/2 C raw honey throughout the day, though I hope to not need the sugar tomorrow.

But Most Importantly, the Official Mascot for the Duration: Purple Pie Guy. Hates berry talk. Has a spoon.

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My favorite was always Mary Anne because she was punk rock. She was a doer. She was active.

But I loved Ginger's clothes.

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I am convinced there is a revolution happening. A subtle revolution. One that won't be on the 6 o'clock. One that won't come up in general conversation amongst the norm. Because it is happening on a personal level. You know, the cliche changes they say start with the man in the mirror, which of course creeps me out every time I see him over the shoulder of the only person I can actually influence the change of, which is to say growth of... me.

Yes, this is the kind of revolution that does not explode so much as it materializes. One moment it is everywhere you look, suddenly and completely, like chlorella, like an algae, like a sunrise. Last nite in Vancouver, I snaked my way up the twinkling light stairwell from what we called the Chill Room, up the hallway, squeezing between dreadlocks and hand sewn skirts, through elaborate lipstick nymphs and just plain amazing people. i threaded them like a necklace, getting caught almost constantly in another's open, friendly and direct gaze, stopping for a moment to learn a name, ask a few questions, then, repeating their name, continue up to what we called the Rage Room. You can not convince me that the warehouse was not the coolest place in Vancouver to be last Saturday nite. A regular bar or dance club can't provide this. As a touring performer, I absorb intimate artistic moments like these. You see, I am one many young dark bohemians who decided privately on a personal level to be a leader in revolution of health. Choosing it on my own, just like the other funky people I see. At least the cool ones. We are all choosing health and many of us are entirely sober. A warehouse full of people who have learned that how they feel normally is their favorite way to feel.

So here I am. I'm a raw foodist and I'm choosing health and Vancouver seems like a great place to do it. Where organic produce is absolutely mainstream - every downtown market, even the small one, offering a remarkable selection of organic greens, gourmet olives, sundried tomatoes and often even young coconut. It was strangely delicious mingling amongst the average population in a regular super market, wanting for a health food store not once. And on Granville Island, surrounded by glass blowing studios, wood carving shops and candle pouring kitchens, was a farmer's market to spoil any vegetable-lover rotten, with all the leafies and fruits (from which I am presently abstaining in yet another personal experiment) a girl could want.

You see, it has been three weeks of perhaps three months that I have been eating a green diet; consuming only uncooked greens and fats - omitting all simple sugars, including fruit. Therefore, I won't be able to write a sonnet about Raw Health Cafe's Raw Chocolate Cake, made of dates, blueberries, raisins and soaked nuts, Icing: avocado, banana and carob, yes, making my fruit fast seem a little extreme from behind the dessert case glass. I also won't be able to dictate prose in praise of the 4 year established vegetarian/raw cafe's smoothies; color of easter eggs dipped in strawberries, blueberries, mangos and raw hemp protein powder, for that full nutty flavor (I'll have to assume). But this Jolly Green Giant Creature can speak with authority and approval about a spinach based House Salad, drizzled in sesame oil, and decorated generously with cubed avocado, cucumber, tomato and red onion. Happily, the owner himself, the chef, the cook, Oliver, personally sprinkled it with sliced raw almonds at my giddy request. As well, and of special note, was one of Oliver's prized creations, the Raw Falafel Burrito; a sprouted chick pea/sunflower seed belly that is best wrapped in the crunchy purple cabbage bowl it is served in.

I really relished Raw Health Cafe's open air kitchen; a clean sunshiny work space with no walls, allowing for conversation and curiosity from over the counter on all four sides. And in West Vancouver, where the unspeakably wealthy spend every afternoon sitting outside of little restaurants sipping espresso martinis making sure everyone knows who doesn't have to work for a living, I can only assume that a majority of the raw cafe's business derives from organic juices, exotic teas and the idea of raw being a "specialty" cuisine. All the while, Oliver maintains a delightfully affordable menu and an authentically warm hospitality.

No disposable utensils are used. Recycling is prominently offered.

And with the help of a certain website set up by British Columbia's raw community, www.rawbc.org, it was effortless for this traveler to find a raw cafe as well as the weekly potluck hosted there at which a dozen raw foodists, out of respect for one anothers' lives, feed each other of the highest quality ingredients as if to say being sober and clean is pretty good just the way it is.

What a revolution! Feeling healthy is my favorite way to feel.

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I can smell it walking down the street. That aroma like Miles Davis, heavy on the high note. Bright like sunshine drying clothes on the line. Evaporating into your nostrils, focusing your third eye, the scent always fleeting, here then gone, lingering just long enough for you to register a question mark.

...?

I've learned from excessive outward motion (my current record in one city without leaving: five months) and obsessive inward emotion, that comparing cities, people, communities, solar systems, lovers and breakfast cereals only breeds dissatisfaction and the craving for someone's else's Lucky Charms. Judging and choosing favorites also fosters the most selfish of human emotions: missing, which has absolutely no use in a touring artist's life. So I won't exactly say that Vancouver is a favorite, but I will say that in the past year of touring, there are three cities I would like to challenge my five month record in: Portland OR, Anchorage AK, and now Vancouver BC.

In other words, I've fallen in love. And I walk down the street, checking out the real estate, as another question mark comes to mind. I mean, doesn't it seem ludicrous? It's a plant. It grows. It is native to....earth. A government making a plant illegal is like outlawing elbows. Laws can't stop a seed from sprouting and as far as my spirituality is concerned, the Creator doesn't make mistakes.

So when I walk for an hour without seeing litter or graffiti, I give this city a shout out. When I open my bedroom curtains and see Cypress Mountian posing for her postcard, I blow her a big sloppy kiss. When I buy my hemp seed foods right off the grocer's shelves, when I smell the unmistakable aroma of sweet jazz sunshine being smoked on the street, when I feel uncommonly safe walking alone downtown after dark, I try not to make comparisons, but simply appreciate Vancouver for what she is.

Howdy, Neighbor... pass the Grape Nuts.

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“Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven’t experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.”


- Goethe, 1814
Translated by Robert Bly

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