When I found out that I was going to Bhakti Fest 2010, I was extremely excited but realized I had to get in shape. Why you may ask? Well, the festival is 4 days of Kirtan, yoga, and speakers. Kirtan is almost happening 24/7, so I knew I’ll be sitting for a long time.

To prepare for Bhakti fest, I did what I usually do for any concert or event I go to. I practiced all the songs and studied all the musicians and learned everything I needed about the event. I don’t need to memorize the mantras for kirtan, because we know most of them already from all other kirtan events we have attended over the last 9 years.

For Yoga though, I actually started by registering for yoga classes early this year. But then I quit for awhile and then panicked that time was running out and I was still not ready for 4 days of yoga. So I signed up for an unlimited class pass for vinyasa flow yoga and have been attending three times a week. I guess you may think I’m nuts preparing like I was running a marathon, but if you think about it, I’m doing a “yoga marathon”.

To add more pressure, Denis actually registered me for an all-day-intensive with my FAVORITE yoga teacher/master/goddess ever! Shiva Rea! If there were yoga groupies (I’m sure there are), I would be her groupie. I absolutely adore her and have taken every class she has taught in South Florida. My favorite class is her Yoga Trance Dance.

One year, she invited Denis and I as special guests to one of her classes and it was awesome. I don’t know if she’ll remember me this time because I have lost a lot of weight since the last I was in her class, but I always keep her in my heart. So I gotta be ready for her class.

It’s going to be an exciting time for us, since we get to see a lot of our favorite musicians and speakers. Krishna Das, Deva Premal, Jai Uttal, Geoffrey Gordon, Bhagavan Das, Wah, Prema Hara to name a few. Speakers include Ram Dass, Sam Geppi, etc. Yoga teachers include Shiva Rea, Saul David Raye, Sean Corn, Duncan Wong, and many more!

Hopefully in all my bliss this week, I’ll be able to tweet about this wonderful event.  In the meantime, here is a preview of my favorite kind a yoga. Blessings!

About a week ago, Denis, my new BFF, and I drove to Fort Myers to ECHO Farms to check out their edible plants and trees and see what we could get. After a quick stop in Naples for lunch, we headed north on I-75 to Bayshore Rd and arrived at the farm.

ECHO stands for Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, they are a non-profit organization that educates and trains people that work or volunteer around the world to help communities in need.

It was getting ready to rain so we had to hurry. But the staff at the farms was very friendly and spent time with us showing us all the greens and fruits available.

The prices were reasonable and they had a nice variety of edible greens.  So here are some of the trees and plants they had at ECHO farms:

Avocado Trees! This made me want to have a yeard to plant some of these!

Grapefruits! Our favorites! Once again I caught myself staring at it and wondering how I can grow a grapefruit tree on the beach! LOL

Neem: We bought this little tree and I hope I won’t kill it. Don’t know exactly what I’ll use it for, but I’m sure I be making something!

Tropical fruit trees: As most of you know, Denis and I stay away from tropical fruit as most is acidic. But ECHO had a good variety of tropical fruit trees if anyone is interested.

Jaboticaba Tree: This is one we love, but won’t be growing in our yard anytime soon for sure. But at least now I know where I can get one.

Katuk: This one will be on my salads this week for sure! We got it and it was about $5 bucks! You can get any better than that!

We also purchased two varieties of hot peppers, a moringa plant, spinach plant, and cilantro seeds for next season and worm manure. It was a great trip to the West coast!

]]> http://www.panyvinito.com/road-trip-to-echo-farms/feed/ 1 http://www.panyvinito.com/becoming-a-morning-person-and-exercising/ http://www.panyvinito.com/becoming-a-morning-person-and-exercising/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:50:25 +0000 Lina http://www.panyvinito.com/?p=640

One of the intentions I made for the Blue Moon was to become a morning person. I have always been a night owl, better yet a vampire. I become alive at night and died during the day. Always have.
Denis is the same way. Which is not good when we both have 9-to-5 jobs and neither one of us wants to go to sleep at night.
So this year I decided I was going to try and teach my body different, to wake up early and also exercise in the morning… after 29 years of being a night person. “YEAH RIGHT” my body said and laughed in my face.

I tried many times and failed. Of course it didn’t help I stayed up watching TV, reading books, or blogging. But I made a breakthrough! After two weeks of waking up earlier and earlier, my body is finally doing it on its own. Mind you I still wake up ready to kill someone and destroy the world, but I wake up. And to my surprise, I wake up to roller blade!

I don’t know how long this will last as so many of my other “trends” for lack of a nicer term for addiction, but the great thing is that I was able to do it and enjoy it too.

Of course, it’s now 1:48am and I’m here typing away, and probably won’t get up by 7:30am to rollerblade, but that’s ok. I also need to learn to give myself some credit for trying.

Some of you have heard me say this before, my online friend Mike at 365 Ways to Go Green, has a blog about how you can do one green thing a day, well I can open another blog call “365 excuses to NOT exercise” because I can come up with all sorts of excuses why I cannot exercise.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying rollerblading in the morning. Now if I could just get myself to a yoga class, that would be awesome! LOL But one thing at the time!

Photo by alykat

When I started this blog, I decided I didn’t want to rant and be negative. However, lately I’ve been feeling absolutely fed up about people not awakening to what is happening and taking action. I know that part of my frustration is because I don’t want to “convert” people and preach, so I stay quiet and don’t express how much other people hurt me by not participating in conserving resources or protecting the environment.  So in this blog I’m actually going to complain and rant about this situation, and then offer my suggestions as to what people should be doing to contribute to the planet.  Specially raw vegans and people with children!

Warning: If this is the first blog you are reading in my site, please stop now and read everything else cause in this one I have nothing positive to say!… well maybe at the end.

Raw Vegans

Ok, so first let me start by complaining about the people who are raw vegans, and I’m referring specifically to the ones that don’t recycle, don’t re-use, don’t compost, don’t drive fuel efficient cars, and don’t simply care. I go to a farmer’s market on Saturdays and noticed that they don’t recycle at the market. So EVERYTHING becomes trash! Everyone that eats there, uses the plastic containers and utensils provided that later wind up in the trash. Every juice at the market is bottled in plastic as well, which winds up in the trash. I’ve been observing the customers of the market, and they don’t even care, and since I live in my own little “green” world, where everyone recycles and reuses, and doesn’t waste, I didn’t realize how much trash they wind up with at the end of the day.

I brought back all my glass containers for them to reuse and another customer asked me why I did that. My answer is: if they can reuse it and don’t have to purchase more glass containers, they may be able to reduce the price of the butters, olives, etc that are packaged in these glass containers. He was looking at me like I had giving him the best news of his life.

When I sit at the market to eat my food, for which I bring my own containers, utensils, and reusable towels for, I see people drinking juice after juice and throwing away the plastic bottles. Then these same people eat their food and throw away the utensils. Then, they order a dessert or ice cream and take a BRAND NEW PLASTIC utensil which they then throw away again! Oh and if they have another ice cream, then they get a brand new spoon and repeat!

What’s the point in being a raw vegan (of any flavor) if you still an aware ridiculous person that doesn’t care for the environment? This is why I say that food is not all that matters!

Parents

So now for the people with kids! One of the reasons why I choose not to have kids is because there is not much to leave them. Water is going to run out in a few years, if we are lucky maybe two decades. And that’s just one very important resource that I’m using as an example. So why have kids? So that they can suffer for my peers’ and my ancestors’ mistakes and laziness and greed? No thank you!

But if I was a parent, I would certainly be doing EVERYTHING in my power to leave something of substance to my children. And I don’t mean a car, a house, a trust fund; I mean clean water, clean air, stable fauna and flora, a world to live in.

How is it possible to bring a person into this world and be so unconscious and irresponsible? Driving an SUV, living in big house that waste resources, eating shitty food and feeding kids that same shitty food, not being conscious of the impact of every action. Every piece of trash, napkin, paper towel, diaper, toy, clothes, hamburgers, soda, designer coffee, bottle of water you use and consume came from somewhere possibly a natural resource, an animal, or an underpaid person/child in China or Bangladesh.  How will you explain that to your children?

Now that I’ve complained enough and probably got many people (and possibly friends) pissed off, I’m starting a “Green” series of blog posts that can help all of you zombies out there to contribute in your daily actions little by little to wake up and smell the trash you are making. So I’ll post them as I write.

This is How YOU Make Me Feel

Your actions hurt me and the world.  I cry when….

I see you grab paper towels, paper napkins, printer paper, anything paper and forget that was once a tree.

I hear you letting water run and be wasted.

I see you throwing away a recycle or reusable plastic/glass bottle.

I see you uses plastic bag for your shopping and then throwing them away in the trash.

I see you purchase a brand new plastic tupperware instead of reusing containers from other foods.

I see you feed yourself and your children garbage.

I see you contribute to companies that abuse children and workers.

I see you feel up your stupid useless hummer, your porsche cayenne, or your vw toureg‘s gas tank.

I see you water your useless lawn instead of planting food.

I see you vote for people like Sara Palin that kill animals for fun.

If you care about me, your children, your family, and your friends, please take a moment to think about how you can change one thing in your life TODAY and contribute to save resources.

Blessings,

Lina

My Aunt and I

After over 8 years in the path to health, I can safely say it’s not all about the food. The more I learn, the more I understand that one thing alone is not going to make a difference. It can start the way to a healthier lifestyle, but it’s not the ticket for sure.

My favorite Aunt passed away last year. She was a happy woman who drank coffee and smoke for a very long time and yet she was in good physical health. She was surrounded by friends and family who loved her. She also kept herself very active and had a great memory and would tell me great stories about her family and friends. She worked hard and enjoyed her life very much.

I was lucky to spend a few summers with her and was able to learn so much from her. In fact, my love for romaine lettuce started because my aunt would eat them for dinner everyday. I didn’t know there were different kinds of lettuce back then, but she taught me and inspired me to eat them. We also eat a lot of candy and coffee, but we had a great time!

She taught me to reuse and not create garbage before it was trendy. She was creative and the first marketing guru I learned from. She taught me how to count money backwards and how to clean windows the right way. She took me for my driving test when I first got my license and helped me pass the test. She was very charming and polite to even the hardest people and customers ever and that’s something I apply in my life everyday. She always smiled and kept herself busy and up to date with news and trends.

She was 90 years old when she passed away a year ago, and that’s how I know it’s not all about the food. She was happy with what she had, her work, her daughter, her dogs, and friends, and of course her favorite niece, ME!

I miss her very much, but I know that she’s with me in my heart and that what I learned from her will stay with me forever. I want to honor her memory with this blog but also share that there is more to life than food. We all need love, purpose, exercise, food, happiness, friends, pets, plants, air, ocean, candy, and more to live a healthy life.

I’m not endorsing smoking or drinking coffee or eating candy, not did I changed my believes about raw vegan organic food. I simply believe that food alone is not the key to a healthy long lifestyle. So today, I encourage you to see what is missing in your life to make it complete, and to remember that one thing alone is not enough. Healthy food is not the only solution!

There are many little things that make me happy everyday and help me enjoy life. But there is always stress that keeps me from remembering to have fun and enjoy life.

I’m very thankful that my job is not stressful and I do enjoy everything I do. There is rarely anything that gets me upset. Even the time when I was preparing reports for a very important client and my boss made run them about four times on a Friday afternoon when my brain was fried. I didn’t mind because I wanted to ensure the reports were correct.

I work on customer support and deal with a lot of people on the phone and by email. But as it turns out, I’m good at it and I enjoy it. But whenever I need a good laugh or a break, I just go to the bathroom and come back happy.

No, it’s not what you think!  This is what I mean, the signs in our office bathroom are what makes me laugh and enjoy my day. So as I walk out, this is what the door says:

First, there are so many things I would like to do to this sign! If you know me, you know I’m well known for making signs for everything! I would love to change the font, the color, and obviously change the color of the paper.

There is second door that leads to the hallway, and there is a second sign there in case we forget what the first sign said:

OK! So you may know that I think in pictures, and when I see this sign, I picture a woman so angry and fed up at the mess in the hallway that she runs to her desk, sits in front of her computer and writes these words: “TO THE PERSON WHO THINKS THIS HALLWAY IS THEIR TRASH CAN: PLEASE WALK YOUR TRASH TO YOUR OFFICE.”

This sign makes me laugh every time! I feel her pain and frustration in this sign. At the same time, I feel happy when I see it because I’m thankful I’m not that woman who is so angry that she had to make it known. I would have purchased a trash can and put it in the hallway to take care of this problem. But years ago, I may have been that woman, and sent a memo to the entire building, passed out flyers about it, and started a campaign in twitter and facebook, and even written to my state representatives.

I felt compelled to write this blog because I don’t know who wrote this sign, but I hope someday I can tell her that she brings joy to my life every day. Not because of her frustration, but because I’m glad it’s not me writing the signs anymore.

I love Ted Talks and this video summarizes what I believe we all are capable of doing to live a healthier and joyful life.

I strongly believe that there are several areas in one’s existence to live a happy life, and they all connect and interact with each other. It’s not just about the food and/or exercise. Or if we are wealthy and have no financial worries, we are going to be happier. I think we all fall into a trap of thinking that if we change our eating habits, work out more, and have money all of the sudden our lives are much more contented.

Dan Buettner shows in this video what it’s been proven to work in these “Blue Zones” or communities around the world. A “Blue Zone” is an area where the population lives pass 100 years old. Dan and his team summarize 9 lifestyle tips that these communities practice to live a longer and blissful life.

I hope this video inspires you to find the path to your higher self.

Enjoy!

Lamoy's Living Foods in Glaser Market

I received this email from a friend of mine about another friend who needs help. I thought the best I could do is share Lamoy’s story with all my friends.

If this story speaks to you, please share with others. Or use the information below to help Lamoy and her family.

_________________________________________________________________

“Got Kids? Feeding them Veggie? In Florida that makes you a Criminal.

Find out why and what you can do about it.”

An innocent Florida family has been convicted of child neglect and sentenced to 15 years probation for feeding their kids a raw, vegan diet. Their case is on appeal to the US Supreme Court and we can help them set the record strait and set a new standard for the health of our children in the future.

The courts themselves are on record as being in conflict with each other in this case. The criminal court ruled for 15 years probation for feeding the children a raw vegan diet while at the same time the family court ordered the children be placed on a raw food diet with soy.  In the family court all the radiological reports and blood tests performed by the State of Florida on behalf of the prosecutor came back normal. The judge even said, “The state didn’t prove their case against the Anderson’s” and that’s why he placed the children on a raw food diet with soy.

We have a chance to support the Andressohn’s as they take this case to the Supreme Court and set a precedent for parent’s rights to choose their child’s diet.

If you can help fund their defense (and yours) mail a check to:

Marcia J. Silvers P.A.

2937 S.W. 27th Ave Suite 101

Miami, Florida, 33133

On behalf of the Andressohn family and all parents who wish to feed their children a healthy diet, Thank you very much for your support.

Call Lamoy and she will thank you personally at 786-447-1875.

_________________________________________________________________

Lamoy's Pie

You can meet Lamoy and her family at Glaser Market in Coconut Grove on Saturdays where she sells her amazing raw food.

To read more about Andressohn‘s case:

Joseph & Lamoy Andressohn Story

What Really Happened to The Andressohns Raw Vegan Baby?

Vegan couple cleared of starving baby, guilty of child neglect

Raw food philosophy killed their baby?

Raw food adherents acquitted in baby’s death

Raw Party 7/31/09

Last Friday we hosted our first Raw Party! Not a potluck or meetup… a party!

After the Raw Spirit Fest 2008 in Sedona, I realized that what we were missing in our lifestyle was entertaining our friends.

When Denis and I fist moved in together, we used to have parties every weekend. I would cook all sorts of dishes (beef kabobs Russian style was a favorite), and friends would bring beer and such. It was lots of fun to entertain our friends and enjoy their company. As we got older, the parties stopped. Not because we didn’t want to or because our eating habits changed. Life just got busier with all of us graduating, moving away, working full time, getting married, and having kids.

Last year, Anthony Anderson of Rawmodel.com wrote a touching blog post that has stayed with me everyday. It was about friendships and judging others that are different from us. People believe we judge them by what they eat because we eat raw vegan food. We didn’t have any friends that were raw vegans when we started and all of my friends were not even vegetarian. I feel that most friends thought that any socializing that revolved around food was out of the question. Even now most of my friends think that we can only eat in “special” restaurants.

In fact, a few weeks ago one of my coworkers confessed that for months she thought that she could not go out to eat with one of her friends who has been a raw foodist for over 15 years. I was astounded! And I don’t know why because after years of being vegetarian/vegan/raw foodist I still get emails from friends and family members asking me what we can do that doesn’t involve food. Or if there is a party (and recently a wedding), they always call and ask what can they make us so that we can eat. We love all our friends and food is not going to change that.

I also noticed that people feel like they cannot eat their regular food in front of us. I have a “don’t ask don’t tell policy.” I don’t ask or tell anyone anything about their food or my food because everyone is different and only one knows what is good for oneself. We are all different and being a raw vegan is good for me but I won’t tell anyone is good for them because I strongly believe that everyone is entitled to live their life the way they want to. I won’t judge anyone for what they eat. My brother sits in front on me and eats a steak and I don’t judge him.

So I wanted to have a party to entertain all my friends… beef eaters and fruit eaters, babies and adults, single and married, black, brown, white, yellow, small and big, they all were welcomed! It was not about the food and it was not about converting anyone, simply to have a good time with great people. And that’s what we did! The energy was amazing and the live music was awesome! Kids were running around and adults were enjoying a night of much needed fun. Drinks and food were provided and many friends brought other delicious dishes to share. There was no plan agenda but to have fun all night and get to know each other and enjoy the company of everyone.

Thanks to all my friends that came out to our first raw party!

For the recipes see the party menu.