The Raw Food Lifestyle

Today was my first day doing the Raw Food Lifestyle. So far, there have been a series of hits and misses in regards to food, but I do not feel unhappy about my choice in changing what I eat and drink.

I have spent a great deal of time looking up Living Raw online and have been pleasantly surprised by the number of positive thoughts that surround this way of life. Everyone seems to say, “Do it!”

A few years ago I did a three-week vegetable/juice/protein shake detox that made me feel fabulous and, after it was over, I began a very restricted way of eating that involved eating mainly nuts, seeds, fruit, vegetables, brown rice, and meat. I was walking six miles a day and had a wonderful schedule that involved waking up at 6 A.M. and journaling for a couple hours before I began my work. (I am a writer.) I was writing for about ten hours a day, with two days off a week, which I tried to keep open for strictly fun stuff.

Soon after this lifestyle began – and I call it a lifestyle, not a diet – I was then diagnosed with Celiac Disease, which restricted my diet enormously, and Candida. I went on a stricter diet that involved limiting my fruits, as well as my vegetables…

Well, that lifestyle lasted for quite some time, but I soon got derailed with personal problems and started eating badly this summer… But now I have decided to reclaim my old eating lifestyle, with some major changes to the old regiment. I am going to adopt a 100% Raw Lifestyle that will include eating seeds, nuts, fruits, veggies, and a number of other things, like superfoods. I adore sushi and I do realize that some 100% Raw people eat raw fish, but, with the oceans being as polluted as they are, I question the health benefits of one of my favorite foods.

It’s amazing how important it is to have a streamlined lifestyle in order to be a successful, happy, healthy individual. And I don’t want to use the word “restricted,” because then I am setting myself up for failure. I have so many things that I want to do with my life and I know making sure that I am healthy will help, aid, propel me forward in my work. Our bodies are our vessels, our machines, our temples, and if we don’t take care of it, we will not work the best possible way we can. If you don’t put the good gasoline in your car, it won’t work as well as if you had.

When I was shooting my film in October, I stopped doing Pilates 3 times a week and now I am going to go back to that schedule, as well as start running with Tara T, who is also going (back) on the Raw Food Lifestyle. We will support one another through our journey. We will do it at full speed and not half-assed.

I put the photograph on the top up in order to show me at the beginning of this lifestyle… Stay tuned to see how this decision affects me – physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically – and I will keep you posted on how this decision of mine is working out for me…

Right of Passage

Experiences involving intensity, creativity, passion, growth... change you. You can blossom, like a Gladiolus, in the sun. And, of course, you can shrivel like an Autumn leaf as winter descends.

Since returning from the North (after I shot my short film) people have commented on how I have changed, especially in my confidence. Even though I have gained more weight than I care to acknowledge, I am happier than I was before we made the film. I am more secure in myself. I believe in my own talent now without any doubt in my abilities. One of the greatest things I heard since in Auburn, California, was my friend, Steve, saying that when he saw me directing, he knew that I couldn’t do anything else with my life. I belonged there. I was a natural. I had an eye. I was in my element.

When I left Los Angeles for that week, I was embarrassed whenever someone learned that I was a “director;” however, upon my return, I feel no shame in calling myself a “Director.” I believe it myself. I know I am supposed to do this. I am not lying to myself about my place in this World. I am not lying to anyone else.

I feel like I have gone out into the wild and slayed the dragon.

It's just the beginning

Deletion of Old Film Blog

As some of you might see, I just deleted the blog I had for “The Weight of It,” the short film that I am directing at the end of the month. This doesn’t mean that I am not doing the film, but rather that I wanted to start afresh.

Life lately has been about starting afresh, which sometimes comes when we end things in our lives. Lately, I have been very sidetracked by a variety of things in my life – namely a man – and it has taken my complete and total attention off my short film. And now I say to myself, and to the World, “No more.”

I have to have a list of priorities in my life and my film is number 1 (although family would quickly debunk that statement if there was an emergency.) There is so much going on with this film that I have been forced in the last week to truly focus on it. My life is starting to be controlled by it. My time is spent in front of the computer, with my ear to my phone or sitting at the kitchen table drawing storyboards.

But this is why I moved to Los Angeles. To be in the thick of it.

A Review...

Since we were in college, I have had the desire to create a literary & arts journal with Amanda and now – with the addition of a couple of our good friends – we have made the first step toward bringing our dream to life with the creation of Black Willow Review.

We have a lot of steps in front of us before launching the Online Literary & Arts Journal next year – we aren’t sure if we are going to shoot for a January 2008 or a Spring 2008 launch – which involves the creation of a website and the submission of “high-quality, broken-out-of-the-mold and burned-the-box work that is accessible, fire-starting, and initiates & documents a new movement in the world of literary and visual arts. We are not interested in one aspect of art, but are drawn to a variety of fields. By bringing together writing, visual art, criticism, interviews and reviews, Black Willow Review strives to put forth a quarterly sampling of literature and art along side a critical and technical view of these crafts. The journal is for the lover and the creator. The artist immersed in this world. And for the person who appreciates their work.”

I know that we have bitten off a great deal, but I think that it’s a mountain that we will be able to climb, because we have each other and we are driven by the project. I am excited by the prospect of finding and bringing together high-quality work! I am excited by being part – as a publisher, an editor, a writer and an artist – of a literary and artistic world filled with people I respect and look up to.

I grew up in an amazing World filled with lecturers and scholars, who would sit around dinner tables and in living rooms discussing art, politics, and religion, amongst other things. And I have always been fascinated by the groups that are formed by the writers, artists, politicians, scholars, and diplomats. People who shaped our World through their words, their art, their knowledge and their actions.

By creating this particular Journal, which we would like to be physical in 2010, I feel that we are doing our part in bringing together art and literature and articles and reviews that might not have found a way together. And in doing this, we are making each other aware of what else is out there.