Time to take a break

I've enjoyed blogging about my raw food experience. My posts have covered the British autumn/winter and now 6months later, Spring is here. It's a busy time for me workwise as I plan my summer work shedule. I've decided to pause my raw blogging, maybe indefinitely to concentrate on my yoga and healing work. I will be contining to blog as Jivayoga Thanks to all readers and see you out there in the blogosphere...

Raw in Goa: Cafe culture - the Shore Bar, Anjuna

The heat has been rising steadily throughout March and I have been spending afternoons lying under the fan in my room, reading or watching Bollywood movies. However in recent days I've been enjoying a change of scene, loafing around at the Shore Bar. Anjuna beach is lined with cafe-bars, so it's a question of finding one that suits you. I picked the Shore Bar for its chilled vibe and tasteful quirky decor; think mature hippy with money to spend on furnishings. So it's 'no' to plastic moulded chairs, yes to colonial style hardwood deckchairs with ample cushions. There are a couple of day beds if you get so relaxed you need to get horizontal. The keet walls are currently hosting an art exhibition, photographic images of India , tres tasteful and available to buy.
Its a great place to look out on the ever changing tableau of Goan beach life; packs of dogs barking at nothing, tenacious beach vendors armed with sarongs and ankle chains, an impromptu cricket match, pudgy white Europeans turning red, wealthy Mumbaites in designer denim.
The raw options revolve around the classic juice menu; orange, papaya, pineapple, watermelon. You can get a fairly pricey fruit salad here or opt for a Greek salad, extra olives and hold the feta.
The Shore Bar stocks alcohol and I dont know how the place transitions into evenings; as a yogi I prefer to drift homewards as the sunsets.

Giri Bala: the Indian yogi who gave up eating & drinking

I'm loving the cross-fertilisation of yoga and the raw diet and the connections I am encountering on personal retreat in India. I suppose that to approach life holistically is to integrate all aspects of healing and well being. I recognise that until now I have tended to mentally separate my yoga and my faw food practices; whereas in fact they are facets of the whole, the soul's journey.
With that in mind, I though I'd write about Giri Bala, the woman yogi who lived in India last century and who renounced food and drink.
The raw food paradigm offers a broadening of our understanding of nutrition so as to include that which nourishes us on all levels. Gabriel Cousens writes authoratively on this in Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow Diet. As we become more selective, applying greater discrimination to our food choices we find we can consume less and keep the body fuctioning at an optimal level. Moreover, thr nourishment we are sseeking on a deeper level is spiritual nutrition, to come to know our higher self, God, source, spirit. Feeding the subtle body through a raw food diet, yoga, meditation and other healing arts, prayer and intention; all such practices are soul food.
I am currently reading a classic yoga text; Parahamsa Yogananda's account of his life's journey and travels, Autobiography of a Yogi . Yogananda visited Bala in 1936 in her remote village home in Bengal. He interviewed and photographed her, witnessing and verifying her story.
A gluttonous child, at the age of 12, Bala received the impulse to to pray for a guru who would teach her how to live without food. Such a teacher appeared one morning as Bala bathed in holy Ganges river one morning. He granted her desire, teaching her a yogic kriya, a mantra and breathing technique. From then on Bala was absteminous from food and liquids, recharging her body with cosmic energy, the air and the sun. Her motive was simple and pure, in her words, "To prove that man is spirit."
Bala did not advocate nor teach her method, following the wishes of her guru. Parahamsa's book is widely available and the Chapter on Giri Bala makes a light easy read.

Raw in Goa: Simplicity, mono-meals, pratyahara

On retreat in this lush easy corner of India, habits fall away easily. Ways of being that serve in the west are no longer appropriate. The steady heat of Goa is a joy - my being is saturated with the sun's benevolent radiance.
When I left the UK, I had spent 3 - 4 winter months as a transitioning raw foodist working out how to heat the body: now it is all about staying cool. Fruit, fruit and more fruit, coconut water and tender green leaves is all it takes. A date, maca, banana hemp mylk smoothie, rich and soothing in the British mid-winter would just be wrong now.
In this environment I find myself moving towards mono-meals, eating one food at a time, as an elegant & simple solution for how to stay nourished and cool. Hence breakfast can now be a cup of green tea and a plate of sliced pineapple; lunch a bowlful of green salad leaves, tomato and cucumber. Elaborate mixed salads and even a tropical fruit salad feels complicated. I rarely take mixed juices now and have dropped the ginger so it becomes all about pure fruit goodness and getting closer to Nature's intention; offering meals to go from the tree.
I feel that there is a connection here to the yoga I am doing - I teach in the UK, here I am on retreat and focussing deeply on my personal practice. Beyond the poses, breathwork & meditation there is an aspect of yoga, pratyahara, the withdrawal of the senses. I explain this in terms of removing excessive distraction and stimulation from our lives. Permitting one to journey deeply into oneself and find what is real, what is truly needed. It is beautiful to experience this a desire to move from the complicated to the simple, to less rather than more.
I wonder how things will be upon my return, whether or not I will import these new habits, whether they are applicable to UK living. Will I become re-absorbed into the world of unlimited options; oils, powders, supplements, superfoods and fancy concoctions. The lesson I am glimpsing is that choices must be managed mindfully. Through integrating these apects of the yogic & raw food lifestyles, I am aiming for a truly holistic experience of empowered health & wellbeing. Om prem.

Raw in Goa: a typical day eating & drinking

I thought I'd bang out a post about what I'm eating and drinking in a typical day, a subject that I find endlessly fascinating, as there are so many raw folks having such diverse daily experiences. Well the living is easy out here in Goa and one can be raw with minimal strain, planning or expense.
Mornings: I rise at 6.30 and take a large spoonful of bee pollen before heading out to practice yoga.
Breakfast: Papaya juice and chunky tropical fruit salad (papaya, pineapple, banana, watermelon)
Cycling home : 1 or 2 green coconuts, juice & jelly
Lunch: Green salad with sprouts, carrot ginger juice, wheatgrass shot
Late afternoon: fruit salad/simple green salad
Evening: Green powder mixed into water
Occasional snacks; dried figs, cashew nuts, bananas
As the day progresses I get though 1 - 1.5 litres of mineral water
I feel that I have reached a beautiful place of simplicity, moreover I havent had to explain to anyone that I am raw, it's such a natural way to be here.

Raw in Goa: Cafe culture - The German Bakery, Anjuna

Undeniably something of an institution, established in 1979, set back off the market road, follow a meandering path through trees and past cottages and one finds onself in this beautiful space which nourishes on all levels.
By the entrance, Shiva makes his first appearance as Nataraj, dancing the destruction of the universe within a ring of flame. The great Lord presides over a bed of wheatgrass, which is energized further by the placement of an enormous quartz crystal.
Inside a large blue Shiva statue with golden dreadlocks effectively grows out of a large tree at the centre of the cafe space. Here again he is surrounded by crystals and a permanent cloud of incense.
The German Bakery is a great place to hang out; lounging is made easy with low seating or tables and chairs if you prefer. On my most recent visit Krishna Das was floating from the speakers and I was joined by a lean tortoiseshell cat who nestled beside me for his afternoon nap.
The staff are cool, courteous and professional, the food is fantastic, a truly healthy menu with ample choice for Rawees. Juices galore and a good selection of salads. Filtered water is available free of charge or you can have bottled water from the Himalayan mountains.
Most commonly I take: a wheat grass shot, a carrot & ginger juice with a green salad, rich in sprouts and containing plenty of fresh salad leaves in a good balsamic dressing.
Good vibrations.

Raw in Goa: shopping around

This is my 5th visit to India in seven years and every time I return I witness the accelerating pace of change in all areas of life. I haven't been to Goa since 2005 when already there was a higher degree of availability of 'foreign' foods than elsewhere on the continent. Goan culture represents an easy fusion of east and west, it was colonised by the Portugese and then the hippies moved in. Today there is an intake of well heeled domestic and international visitors who according to their intention have different food requirements and the Goans yield happily to serve us. The Germans brought their heavy, nutritious breads and baked goods, the Israeli's falafel and hummus and the newest international tribe, the Russians, vodka bars.
Yogis and raw fooders have always been well served by the natural abundance of the place, and there is much to be said for the simplicity of tropical fruit and coconuts.
However, there is so much more to be had in this luscious tropical haven. There is a particularly well stocked emporium here, in Anjuna, Orchard Store has an extensive fresh produce section. I have seen cherry tomatoes, organic grapes, sweet corn, fresh figs and salad leaves.
I was quite surprised to find bee pollen, himalayan sea salt and a good selection of cold pressed oils, imported items from Italy in this case. A recent addition to the dried fruit section are pumplin and sunflower seeds, available at a premium in small amounts.
I have yet to see a goji berry and the ubiquitous raw chocolate/cacao is nowhere to be seen. Surely a gap in the market for a budding Rawntrepreneur...