Music/ Dreams / Fast / Diet

I've been to a concert where my classmate Tatyana Kolesova was a soloist. She played the famous Tchaikovsky's Concerto no.1. The other hour it was Dvorak's cello Concerto, and it's the first time I've heard a cello solo not recorded. At first I didn't like it, but after some 5 minutes I felt something in the stomach area - the area which I perceive as the solar plexus chakra and which is the part of my body that gives me signals when I visit a sacred place. And there was a moment when I felt tears in my eyes... Who could tell me a couple of years ago I would enjoy classical music??? Well, I liked several pieces of music like Grieg's Morning mood but I wouldn't digest a classical music concert. "For the times they're a-changing", and I'm changing, too. (btw, I love this version of Bob Dylan's song)

I haven't learnt to meditate, not yet, can't organise, can't concentrate. But the images I already receive/see when I close my eyes while listening to some quiet and/or harmonious music or thinking good positive thoughts, - these images are great. Sometimes I can direct the stories, but usually I'm just passively watching and enjoying them. Sometimes they are full of colours, sometimes there are only a few colours, very seldom I see it in brownish&greyish&whitish. Usually the speed of actions is the same as I'm used to, ie not very high, but once in a while I receive images that alternate extremely quickly. Sometimes a new understanding of familiar ideas comes to me during this cartoon-watching experience.

My dreams are a bit different now. Sometimes when I wake up I physically, with my skin, feel what I was doing in the dream, for example hugging. It kind of surprises and puzzles me but for now I like it. =)

I can't fast more than one day :( The second day I feel too bad in the morning and a classical remedy glass of water doesn't help. But drinking 2-3 litres of schungite water a day is no longer a problem!

I tried eating a lot of nuts in the evening (mainly cashews that I ordered from London and pistachios, a bit of hazelnuts and walnuts) and yes, you can gain weight eating raw!!! (the question is Do you want to?)

99% of what I've been eating recently is:

-different sorts of apples (!!!)

-grapes (!!!)

-dried apricot halves (!!) (finally found a good supplier, untreated apricots)

-cabbage (!)

-carrots

-dill (!)

-parsley (!!!)

-green onion (!)

-melons (!)

-pomegranates (!)

-tomatoes

-cucumbers

-nuts

-lettuce

-persimmon (last year this month I was eating tonnes of persimmons, this year I've had maybe 5 pieces...)

Buckwheat, wheat, chickpea are bought for sprouting in winter.

Music, live

A schoolmate of mine is a gifted and internationally famous pianist. Every time she's in Moscow and gives a concert she invites us through vkontakte.ru (~Ru Facebook). Last Saturday I enjoyed a concert where they played Rachmaninoff's Piano concerto no.3 and Brahms's Symphony no.4. And during the first part (~50 min) I closed my eyes and tried to meditate. It was a fantastic experience! A good symphony orchestra and a piano live, it's what I really like. Each and every cell of my body was enjoying the concert and the harmony it brought.

Ecological footprint and Petroleum

Being a conscious consumer (or considering myself to be one) and trying to overcome the feeling of guilt before our dear planet, I'm on my way to lessening my ecological footprint and changing consumerism habits and I'm thinking about the (negative) impact I personally have on the world.

What I am doing or going to do:

~eat less as I am really consuming too much, enjoying a bit of this, a bit of that, and that thing over there please... while I'm already full after a couple of apples.

~make sure the lights are off everywhere when we don't need them as it's an old habit to turn on the light in the whole flat and the tv when I come home.

~try to avoid plastic bags ie try to persuade shop assistants in the supermarkets not to put each item in a separate bag but put several stickers on one bag with several items. Almost impossible: they keep telling me their boss will tell them off if they don't do that. Easier with the marketers.

~use double-sided copy and printing and scrap paper whenever possible. This is a big issue in my current job.

~transport. I move a lot around the city and use not only the underground but the marshrutkas several times a day. No solution now

~choose the greenest of the alternatives whenever possible. Here the budget constraints come into play. For example, just bought a couple of plastic containers from Ikea, not of wood or rattan nor textile mainly due to prices...

10 most surprising places to find petroleum here Comments are good as well..

Ok, in my case there's no toothpaste but tooth powder made of herbs only, but I still need the tooth brush, hm... After some months on a raw food diet one doesn't need a deodorant. No pillow is good for our health but sometimes I use it... And the glue and candles...

Not raw, not even vegan

I ate some khachapuri some time ago, and what surprised me was that it didn't seem too salty. Strange because my perception of spices had changed considerably and everything I had tasted (touched with the tongue, but not swallowed) was too salty/sweet/etc. As I like travelling and really hope to travel around the Caucasus some day I thought of trying a khachapuri when I was somewhere in Georgia, but now thanks to that good Georgian restaurant in Odessa, I can tick one more thing in life 'done' and continue lowering my psychological dependency on traditional cooked food.

October

This month I've decided to do some cleansing, for about 30-35 days. So I eat garlic, home-made tripharmacon (tansy, absinthe and cloves powder), pumpkin purée and seeds, lots of leafy greens (parsley, coriander, spinach, dill, lettuce, Iceberg lettuce, estragon), drink beet&carrot&apple juice every morning. In general this month I'm trying to focus on red food like red paprika or dark grapes but am not avoiding any other product whatsoever. And drinking water, yes, about a litre a day of schungite or silicon (Si) water already - a big progress for me.
Some people, including Victoria Boutenko, recommend drinking 'green cocktails'. They realised the importance of leafy greens in the human diet (their share "must" be about 45% (!) of the daily food intake) but didn't really enjoy eating them as they are, so they decided to use a blender. It's a nice idea for a raw green soup and I tried it once or twice but both my mum and I find it easy to eat leafy greens without any sorcery. 'Green cocktails' seem tasty, so we'll try them for sure =)

I think this book could be quite useful to me now :), it's in line with my own way of thinking.

Service to others

I have found an organisation I trust enough to transfer some 10% of my wages. Celebrity endorsement works! Well, it wasn't an advertising campaign, I was looking for information myself, but I found their website through a LiveJournal account of a famous Russian media person. Thanks, Татьяна Лазарева!
The fact that I already contribute somehow (very little, but better than nothing) to the society invigorates me to pass by beggars in the streets light-heartedly.

Raw stuff parcel

I've received a parcel from this raw foods shop in the UK. Door to door, fast enough! Just one week since I paid, no problems with the customs (anticipated, but highly hoped not to happen to me). Raw cashews, raw chocolate, raw nuts&seeds crackers... Lovely. A wonderful transition period =) (psychologically I still want some traditional food sometimes, every week less though, but haven't completely kicked it).

~

Programming

This is my favourite. I feel how true it is (как это правильно сказать по-английски?)

Eat mainly apples? No problem!

Meet Miss Appletarian

She stopped eating processed food at the age of 26, more or less my age now (I was 24 when I decided, and I guess I'll be 26 when I - eventually - say good-bye to processed food). Would love to learn more about this lady, her experience can be a real inspiration.

Some propaganda (EN, RU subtitles)

We have a choice every moment, indeed

Beetroot juice benefits

Beetroot juice
-to boost stamina
-to reduce blood pressure
-to use in treatment of different ailments

Jasmuheen (interview, Belgium 2008)

Toxic thinking, toxic feeling, toxic feeding patterns
What you focus on becomes real.

Gardens and a quote

К жизни нужно относиться с терпением, ведь она вечная (с) Карел Чапек
One must treat life with patience as it is eternal Karel Čapek (my rough translation)

One of the books by Karel Čapek is The Gardener's Year (1929), classics and a must-read for those willing to lay out their own garden. Well, I want to have a vegetable garden, not just flowers, but anyway I'm going to find it and read soon =)

One of my favourite countries

*I'm about to finish the book by Kapten, it's very good, with good overview and practical advice.

*Tried Turkish bananas, they are very good, sweet, but not mawkish.


Ate watermelon, figs, nectarines and peaches.


Not raw: ate Haydari (yoghurt with garlic dip) with warm Turkish bread right from the oven and felt really bad afterwards - no, not for me.

*Drank a lot of fresh orange juice, tried a mix watermelon-melon-apple-orange (or smth like this, tastes strange), tried melon juice (didn't like it)


*Enjoyed very warm waters of the east-Mediterranean and the wonderful air. Visited the Damlataş cave with the idea to breathe that special air (they say it's good for the lungs).

Two articles: on diet (EN) and apples (RU)

Here
key word: unprocessed

And here
healthful apples

Air ionizers, anyone?

Chizhevsky's air ionizing lamps (люстра Чижевского): can't decide.
I have an ionizer which produces only negative ions, and the author of this site, Aydar Tuktagulov, criticizes this type a lot, promotes bipolar ionizers as opposed to unipolar models and refers to the sanitary norms of RF. BUT one paragraph of the norms says that it's allowed not to have positive ions at workplaces with sources of electrostatic fields (office equipment etc), and it's exactly my case (well, not workplace, but at home I have so many appliances!)

"В зонах дыхания персонала на рабочих местах, где имеются источники электростатических полей (видеодисплейные терминалы или другие виды оргтехники) допускается отсутствие аэроионов положительной полярности." САНПИН

If you, (occasional) reader of this blog, have any ideas or experience or heard about somebody's experience, don't hesitate to tell me, ok?

Some quotes in RU with my rough translation

From the book by Kapten (Ю.Л.Каптен)

1)
"Болезни возникают в теле в основном по следующим причинам:
-сон днём,
-бодрствование ночью,
-чрезмерность в сексе,
-движение в толпе,
-потеря правильных отправлений,
-плохая диета,
-утомительная умственная работа"
стр 190

"Illnesses arise in the (physical) body mainly from:
-sleeping at daytime,
-staying awake at night,
-excessiveness of sex,
-moving in the crowd (?),
-(?),
-bad diet,
-tiring brainwork "
page 190

2)
"Спокойная уверенность в том, что самое лучшее обязательно случится" стр 191

3)
"... рассматривает грех как практическое или умственное действие или чувства, которые затрудняют, препятствуют духовному развитию человека" стр 199
~ "... see the sin as an action in practice or in mind or feelings that impede spiritual development of man" page 199

4)
"... покаяние есть не что иное, как психологическое действие по приведению в соответствие высших духовных устремлений и ценностей индивида с конкретной самооценкой его практической деятельности" стр 199
"... repentance (of sins) is nothing else but a psychological action of bringing into harmony 'the higher spiritual aspirations and values of the individual' and concrete self-assessment of his practical activities" page 199

5)
"Ложное чувство вины, ощущение своей греховности, по сути, препятствуют дальнейшему росту духовности, затрудняя прогресс" стр 199
"False guilt, feeling of their depravity, essentially, impede further spiritual development, making progress more difficult" page 199

From a lecture by Torsunov: hierarchy
^ реальный контакт с объектом
| медитация (концентрация ума для достижения связи с объектом, материальным или
| духовным) личностная или безличностная, на слух (поёт и слушает святое имя)
| практическое знание
| теоретическое знание

^ real contact with the object (when you see God you don't need to meditate any more)
| meditation (concentration of mind in order to connect with an object, material or
| spiritual)
| practical knowledge
| theoretical knowledge

8 things to work on

To improve your spirituality (according to Jasmuheen):
1) understand that your thoughts create the reality; programming power of mind
2) meditation
3) prayer (Thank you!)
4) service
5) nature
6) exercise your body (yoga, martial arts...)
7) diet (at least vegetarian)
8) music and singing (only positive lyrics and instruments that don't have a negative impact on cells)

I heard a lot about giving some 10% of income to charity but when I see beggars I don't believe them... And what I heard from Jasmuheen in one of the many videos on the web actually helped me to solve this issue of wanting to give some coins and not believing those who ask for money. Finally I've decided to change 10% of my income to coins and 10-ruble notes and give 10 rubles to each and every beggar and street musician I see till this 10% is finished. It feels good :)

Meditation

Dad gave me a book which is really worth reading. (RU) Рекомендую: познавательно про медитацию в разных религиях на востоке и на западе.
Ю.Л.Каптен, Основы медитации (вводный практический курс). Самара: ИЧП АВС, 1994.-362с.

Vocab

August

I've been eating mainly peaches and nectarines the last couple of weeks. Fewer meals a day but considerable amounts of fruit each meal. Psychological dependence on food is significant... Sometimes I realise that physically I don't want any food any more (!) but psychologically yesss.

He-he, during the last three weeks: (just trying to recall everything)
1 peaches (from Azerbaijan, Crimea, Greece),
2 nectarines (very sweet, or very juicy, red, pink),
3 cucumbers (from different regions of Eur part of Russia, or what my relatives have grown),
4 tomatoes (from different regions of Eur part of Russia, pink, red),
5-8 dill, parsley, green onion, garlic,
9 apples (from Crimea, or from our parcel),
10 raspberry,
11 gooseberry (a lot, from our parcel, or from the neighbours'),
12 several young carrots (what my relatives have grown),
13-14 some cherry (from our neighbours' parcel), some sweet cherry (it's not good any more)
15 yellow plums (from my mum's parcel)
16 some grapes
17 hazelnuts (from South Ossetya)
18 a couple of bananas
19-20 orange juice, tangerine juice (when I work in the centre)
21 several melons
22 black currant
23-25 one white marrow, one green marrow (zucchini), a couple of very small pumpkins
26-28 lowbush blueberry of two types (черника и голубика), cowberry (брусника), cranberry - one Sunday we spent some three hours at the marsh just eating these berries! =)

It took me some time to type this list, maybe I still forgot something. Anyway, about 30 different types of food, with peaches+nectarines+cucumbers+tomatoes comprising some 70-80%.

Breatharians Baranova and Jasmuheen

Smile =) Yoga Video

Yoga Videos 1938

Jasmuheen (talk) and Kailash (music)

Raw mono... what's next?

They tell me sometimes that I'm being too radical now.
I say no, it's not that radical.
They ask me "what can be more radical?"
Well, what about not needing physical food at all? Living on love/light/prana/...
A couple of links:
link 1
link 2
(in RU)

My current level of spiritual development is far from the one necessary for that. The next at least 2 years my new cells will be replacing the old ones that I got before going raw and you can't receive enough prana before the energy channels widen. You must first be physically healthy, and only then enjoy freedom from food.
Raw mono -> widen channels to receive cosmic energy -> be able to live without physical food

Meditation

I have never tried to meditate, but really want to! I've read and heard so much about the effects and importance of meditation that now I'm ready to learn. The only similar experience I have had by now were the 5 minutes of relaxation at the end of yoga classes, and I liked it.
They say it's easy, but something doesn't let me chase away the thoughts. I'll be trying to quieten my mind and reach that feeling of oneness.

Not about food

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that I didn't feel the need to talk about food any more. I don't initiate a conversation on "healthy lifestyles". Despite being absolutely sure about the necessity of switching to raw diet when fighting cancer, among other things, I don't promote raw foodism. It's actually quite hard to stay calm and not to react sometimes, because one of the people with cancer I know is mom of my best school friend, and at the same time my mom's good acquaintances are orthodox doctors who work with cancer patients every day and try to help them with chemotherapy. I don't even start talking about my views on cancer and treatment and what human beings shouldn't consume with them as they wouldn't want to see me or my mom again after that. I do answer questions though.
So food is not an issue any more. I think I got used to this diet =) although still only on my way to proper mono raw diet + drinking water. I'd need a couple of years of that way of life to see my physical body and health improve.
Now I'm focused on the part of myself which is not the physical body. I can't find the right words for it. It's not "psychic", it's not "soul", it's not "thoughts"... Non-material part of me, maybe?
One author who influences me most now is Wayne Dyer. Many of the ideas similar to those he touches upon or discusses in his books are not new to me, but somehow I tend to forget them and need to be reminded time and again. I am grateful to him =)

In the countryside (nostalgia)

Last Friday I went to the place where I used to spend summers in my childhood. My family has a house in a village not far from Mozhaysk and Borodino (the fields where the famous battle between the Russian troops headed by Kutuzov and the French troops headed by Napoleon Bonaparte took place), it's to the west from Moscow. The house is actually abandoned, nobody lives there in winter and very few people very seldom go there in summer. I hadn't been there for some 3-4 years and this time took the keys and went there alone. It was upsetting to finally come and see what I saw. I can say it's the place I loved most in Russia. And when nobody takes care of the land and the house you can easily feel it.
We used to plant paprika, tomatoes, a lot of cucumbers, strawberries, peas, zucchini, pumpkins, marrows, but this time I saw only one row of cucumbers, carrots, onions, garlic, several square metres of potato. When I was a kid my family had several beds of potato at least 1 km long each! No wonder we never bought potatoes. The apple trees in the garden are so old now, but still bear fruit. The raspberry bushes when not taken care of start to dominate other plants, and it is exactly what's happening in one part of our vegetable garden. Poor bushes of gooseberry and black currant, all surrounded by raspberry bushes. Yellow raspberry grows where it used to. In other parts of the vegetable garden the same old black and red currant bushes appeal to the eye. I remember one cold rainy summer day when my relatives lost me. They found me sitting under a black currant bush hiding from the rain and eating berries :)(Heard and liked the phrase: In Russia there are two winters - one white and one green).
It's a pity it's only several times a year but still it's so good to eat something directly from the bush =) They say the real good from a vegetable/fruit comes only the first 15 minutes after we pick it (tear it off) because only then the fruit is "living", the energy of Life is still there. It tastes better for sure =) And I fully enjoyed it that day in my garden. I really want to live in the countryside and grow my own vegetables and fruit, as we used to do years ago.

Prices at the Preobrazhensky market

July is a wonderful month! It's warm, the daylight is long, and there are so many yummy things at the market. I've been focusing on fruit and berries recently.

1 EUR ~ 44.5 RUR
Cherries: 40-50 RUR a kilo
Sweet cherries: 50-80-100-120-150 RUR dark, pink&yellow. Yellow sweet cherries from Armenia 200RUR (my favourite)
Peaches: from Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, the Crimea (Ukraine). 40-70-80-100-150 RUR, my choice is 80 RUR
Nectarines: 40-80-90-120 RUR
Blueberry: from Vladimir, Murom (regions in Russia). 70-80-90-110 RUR a kilo
Raspberry: from different Russian regions. 100-120-150 RUR a box (~700gr)
Melons: Astrakhan, Uzbekistan. torpedo, kolkhoznitsa (varieties). 40-50-80 RUR a kilo
Hazelnuts: South Ossetya. a new harvest, those milky hazelnuts, sold still covered with the green part, love them. 150 RUR a kilo. Sold only at one stall.