Among many tools that my raw food
coach Karen Knowler developed, The Wheel of Natural Beauty, Glowing Health
& Dazzling Radiance is my favorite.
Although the raw food diet is
crucial to optimum health, just eating right is not enough. There are many
other factors contributing to one’s overall well-being and if we only
concentrate on food we are setting ourselves up for a failure.
Karen’s Wheel of Radiance consists
of 12 spokes, each indicating an area of a well-rounded lifestyle. When all 12 areas are addressed and at
least one corresponding practice is implemented, our life becomes one of
balance, radiance, and joy.
So every Friday I will address one
area (“spoke”) and will explore it in greater detail and offer you easy
practices that you can bring into your life. I encourage you to choose at least one simple practice,
implement it and see how it works and then report back to me.
Connection
Feeling connected is one of the
basic human needs. We are social
beings and need to feel like we belong, like we are a part of something (a
family, a group, a nation, the Universe). The yogic texts teach us that in
reality there is no separation, that we are one with the Universe, God, the
world around us, each other. The
separation exists only in our minds created by our egos.
Centuries ago humans were much more
in touch with their true nature and more connected with the world. Religious
beliefs were less rigid, everything in nature had divine qualities and was
worshiped – the Gods of Wind, Earth, Fire, Water, and many more. Men had
much more reverence for the world around them. Healers used such natural
remedies as herbs, flowers, mushrooms, sounds, colors, and body’s natural
healing abilities, to cure diseases.
People ate more naturally, locally, and according to season. Even when animals were killed for food,
there were rituals performed and the animals were thanked for sacrificing their
life. Nothing was used to access,
nature was preserved, and the animals were not mass-murdered.
But the more “civilized” we became,
the more disconnected we got from everything. These days we have reached the heights of separation, in my
opinion: neighbors barely speak to each other, children kill each other at
schools, animals are killed in massive numbers and are treated most cruelly,
wars are ragging everywhere, environment is destroyed in record speed.
It didn’t happen overnight, of
course: hundreds of years of religious brainwashing, social programming,
consumption of heavily processed and de-natured foods - no wonder the world is
in such sad condition.
So re-birthing of the raw food diet
(aka natural way of eating) is indicating a change coming. I believe people are
slowly beginning waking up, coming to see that the old ways of living no longer
work. People are getting tired of
being sick, miserable, living in fear and limitations. The raw food offers them a change to
awaken, restore health and bring positive change into their lives. Eating naturally gives us a change to
re-connect with nature, re-discover the abundance of tastes, colors, and shapes
available to us. When we stop
clogging our brains with harmful substances we begin to think clearly, we become
more aware of our choices and are more capable of making decisions that not
only benefit ourselves but the world around us (hence eating raw goes hand in
hand with green living and spiritual practices).
Here are three simple ways to experience
connection: