What is a Tiny Little Spark?

“To heal ourselves and the planet is the Great Call of Our Age; Juice Feasting is the door through which we can walk and significantly transform the major health challenges in ourselves, and in our healing ourselves, the problems we face collectively will all be addressed in dynamic unity. Getting into Juice Feasting you begin to focus not on who you were, but who you can be; not what you are doing now, but what you have the unique opportunity to be doing in each moment.”

– David Rainoshek, from his book, Secrets of Juice Feasting

I've been preparing my mind, body, and spirit for our upcoming Juice Fast, Soul Feast here in Bar Harbor. When I say preparing, I reeeeallly mean preparing. I've feasted on every type of juice you might be able to imagine - including a giant juice from greens and herbs growing wild and foraged right from our own back yard. (You can see the photos here - left: in process through the Omega juicer; right: fully juiced!).

This was a juice made from Rye grass shoots that we planted in our beautiful round Moon Garden late last fall as a cover crop. The rye stayed so green all winter long, and stayed the most amazing a vibrant color right into April. So, that was a base for my greeeeeeen juice. I added young wild strawberry leaves, a few mullein leaves, baby clover, tiny sprigs of dandelion greens which have been popping up all over my driveway and yard, coltsfoot, and pine needles to this juice. This was, I dare say, THE most cartwheel-inducing jug o' juice I've ever had. Granted, I should've sipped it - instead of throwing most of it back over the course of 5 minutes.

I learned my lesson on that one - the plants have their own very unique way of reminding me to go slowly on the green path. Even though I've been infusing my body with vegetable dense juices full of micronutrients for the past two months, it was very apparent that this WILD juice had more prana, levity, and just plain AWESOMENESS than many of the other grocery-store-bought fruit and vegetable juices I had been making.

I had an intense cleansing reaction with this wild foraged green juice. Within minutes of consuming the drink, I felt a surge of electricity through my body, like I'd been "plugged in" to some grand power source. (In essence I WAS!) And though this is such a healing source to be plugged into, it's always a good idea not to overload one's circuits.

For a few minutes, I was buzzing. Like drinking Red Bull on steroids. And then, then came the stomach cramping, headaches, rash all along my inner arms. I was so weak I had to lay down for an hour. After many trips to the bathroom, and about 8 glasses of water later, I promised the plants growing around my home - that protected the energy of our whole home - that I would respect their energy...even if many people DO call them weeds.

These plants make our marshy terrain colorful and ambient. They welcome our feet and our pets and our screeching, running children. They never say no. Thus, they've got a whole heck of a lot of spunk! Really, these wild plants and herbs have a density of energy that is so incredibly different than store bought food. I'd been making and drinking giant jugs of celery, lettuce, green apple, lemon and "superfood" juice blends for the past two months. Each time, I would sip the juice over the course of 20 minutes or so. And while each raw, fresh juice I've ever made clearly does have an incredible living vibrancy, I can truly say that nothing compares to drinking the plants that grow right in your own back yard. It's as if these are completely different animals, so to speak.

I had never truly realized the incredible radiant difference between store bought and wild foods as clearly as I did with this shining example. Anyway, all of this is to say, I will be drinking a shot glass full of this green energy drink next time - not a liter full!

When we embark on our Juice Fast, Soul Feast we WILL be drinking some wild and foraged food juices, but we will be doing so 1 ounce at a time (as opposed to my 40 ounces). We will also be taking some juices that aid in detoxification of the blood, such as one ancient formula I learned about this weekend during a training at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. This training combined Kundalini Yoga with Juicing - specifically raw juice blends designed to assist in cellular and organ detoxification along with rejuvenation of the nervous system. One of the juice blends we drank on the first full day of the training just totally blew my mind. It was a formula given by Yogi Bhajan to help people with various addicitions. Since every single one of us has - or has had - an addiction to something (alcohol, drugs, food, gadgets, work, sex...the list goes on), I figured that this particular juice blend would be one for our cleanse. And don't worry, I will be sure to give each participant the exact recipe for this drink, which you will want to enjoy sipping whenever you blood feels a little bit overloaded with junk.

While I want to save a whole seperate blog entry for the details of the training I went to at Kripalu, I will say it was one that helped me to understand the multi-layered approach to Yogic health and healing. It was the first time I had seen Kundalini Yoga paired specifically with therapeutic juice blends for optimum health, stress response, and nervous system function. The name of the program, is Superhealth (www.super-health.net). Superhealth Executive Director, Mukta Kaur Khalsa along with her incredible assistant Joycelyn inspired us all weekend long with yoga kriyas, meditations for forgiveness and healing addictions and releasing habits, mantras to relieve sadness, plus Kundalini Yoga Aquarian Sadhana at 4:45 a.m.! Wahe Guru!

So, with all of this inspiration under my belt, I'm getting more and more excited for our Juice Fast, Soul Feast taking place in two weeks! I've just hand juiced my own blood orange-grapefruit concoction on a beautiful antique green depression glass citrus juicer from my dorm room. Now that it - and this blog post - are complete, I'm ready for some Vigorous Vinyasa taught by Abhi (one of my Kripalu favorites!) followed by an afternoon nap in the sunSHINE!

Left: Pure, raw LOVE from a simple citrus juicer :)