Raw in Glastonbury :)

OoOOoOooooo I am having FUN in the south-west of England :)
I arrived here on Monday evening and have been staying with my lovely hosts Lisa and John in North Devon. Lisa runs RawLisa.com, sharing raw classes, gatherings and info in this area. Yesterday we went on a wonderful day trip to Glastonbury where Lisa organised a speaking event for me in the evening and we had major fun all day connecting with the sites and people of Glastonbury :)
As I wrote before, I'd never been to Glastonbury previously and it was wonderful to climb the 'Tor' where the Michael and Mary leylines conjoin, taking in the lovely views for miles all around. Then we visited the peaceful oasis of Shekinashram, where it turned out an old friend was now living and he showed us around :) This ashram used to be a raw food community and is now vegan with a lot of raw options. They have accommodation, courses, workshops and so on. Lovely atmosphere and a great-looking sauna too ;)
Then we went to lunch with the delicious Andrew and Angela of TheRawFoodSchool.com - YUMMMMMM :) What a treat. This gorgeous couple definitely know how to serve up the good raw eats. MASSES of fresh raw greens, simple, delicious and full of LOVE :) They run raw food prep courses both here and in London - see their site HERE for more info. They are also creating an edible forest garden around their home - love it :)
A walk through Glastonbury high street led us to, through and in to a myriad of amazing little shops abundant with crystals, eco-friendly goods, handmade clothes and crafts and so on...I suspect I could have happily lost myself into these little lanes for at least a week to explore all the shiny things ;O We pressed on to Mr. Free Love's Hemp Shop though, where we were lovingly greeted with more greeeeeeeeeeeeeeen liquid love and eye-fuls of hemp goodies...
Old friends seemed to pop up all over the place - pretty amusing in a town I'd never been to... Well, it's a small raw world... ;)
Thanks to everyone who came along to the talk last night too - it was lovely to share. I also speak tomorrow night (thursday 26th) in Barnstaple - details HERE. Hope to see you there if you're in this area... ;)

on February the 22^nd I had:

1 quart water

big mug of fresh ginger/lemon tea

3 cups green juice: celery, cucumber, local greeeens, spinach, Jerusalem artichoke, ginger, lime

30 chlorella ‘nuts’

2 tbsp bee pollen

2 cups green juice: celery, cucumber, local greeeens, spinach, Jerusalem artichoke, ginger, lime

2 apples

2 cups water

1 tbsp bee pollen

2 tbsp Sproutein

2 cups green juice: celery, cucumber, local greeeens, spinach, Jerusalem artichoke, ginger, lime

big mug of ginger/lemon/goji tea

Great news for all you budding raw athletes out there - HealthBookSummaries.com recently released their summary of Brendan Brazier's raw book 'The Thrive Diet'. If you're not familiar with Brendan's work, he is a professional Ironman triathelete, creator of the 'Vega' range of raw nutritional products and eats 100% plant-based foods. You can see masses more about him HERE and you can access the FREE summary of his wonderful book from HealthBookSummaries HERE.

He has masses of great info to share...ENJOY :)

on February the 23^rd I had:

1 quart water

big mug of ginger/lemon tea

2 cups green juice: celery, cucumber, local greeeens, spinach, Jerusalem artichoke, ginger, lime

30 chlorella ‘nuts’

3 cups green juice: celery, cucumber, local greeeens, spinach, Jerusalem artichoke, ginger, lime

2 cups energy soup with okra and tahini on the side

cup of spicy tea

2 cups green juice: celery, cucumber, local greeeens, spinach, Jerusalem artichoke, ginger, lime mixed with 1 cup rejuvelac

tub of fresh pineapple with a few gojis

2 tbsp bee pollen

2 cups water

on February the 24^th I had:

1 quart water

cup of ginger/lemon tea

2 cups green smoothie - orange, parsley, broccoli

3 yummy little apples

30 chlorella 'nuts', little handful of goji berries

AMAZING raw lunch with Andrew and Angela from TheRawFoodSchool.com (thanks, lovelies ;) - a gorgeous spread of lashings of green juice, homegrown kale/avo salad on a bed of fresh arugula, with crackers and outrageously delicious 'cheese' spread, followed by a slice of marvellously moist carrot cake. MmMmmMmmm :)

2 cups water

2 cups green/hemp juice from the magical Mr. Free Love's Hemp Shop ;)

mug of rooibus tea with more carrot cake and a chunk of handmade raw carob bar

1 quart water

MmMMmm, I started watching a WONDERFUL series of four videos on Permaculture before I left on this trip. They feature Bill Mollison - the 'father' of Permaculture - and they are all about using permaculture in urban settings. It was really fascinating to me to see the contrasts between a Western 'civilised' city like New York where tiny patches of food production had been eeked out here and there, compared to a city in Nigeria, where food grows abundantly all over the place and there are local markets all around the city.

Later in the vids, Bill visits the REMARKABLE looking 'Village Homes' eco-settlement in the city of Davis, N. California. WOW - what absolute blisssssful living they seem to have set up in this community. It seems long established now and listening to some of the residents discuss how amazing it has been for them to raise children there is just beautiful. The children have the run of the land, have grown up with food all around them, have many more people looking out for them than their parents alone, are healthy, strong, active, engaged with nature...just wonderful and so inspiring...

You can see these 4 videos HERE in a long playlist of Permaculture titles - these ones start at number 10 in the list - they're called 'Urban Permaculture Strategies' - ENJOY :)

All love and abundantly juicy flow,

Miss Stokes. xxx

Raw Radiance...

Looking for smthg inspiring for the New Year? Well, here is an opportunity not to be overlooked…there’s a course coming up soon in Hawai’i that I would attend in a heartbeat if I was able to go there…it’s a RAW Permaculture Course. YUMM. This is one thing that's been on my personal goal list for years…If the term ‘Permaculture’ is unfamiliar to you, it is a union of the words ‘permanent’ and ‘agriculture’ and is based around creating SUSTAINABLE living systems – for our gardens, homes, communities and more…It is all about working WITH nature and mimicking natural ecosystems. The intention is to move away from reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution. Permaculture was developed HERE actually, in Australia back in the 70s, by David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, who’s still running courses now :) I have long wanted to do the full-length Permaculture Design Course and am SO excited to see people holding RAW versions of the course – this is (unfortunately) rare it seems – the only people I’ve known to hold RAW Permaculture courses so far are the lovely Steve Charter in the UK/Spain and now this team behind the upcoming courses on Hawai’i – the beautifully named ‘Living Mandala’. There are actually going to be two courses running back-to-back – firstly a 2-week Permaculture Design Course from February the 3rd-19th, then later a hands-in-the-dirt Practicum from Feb 24th-29th. Participants get to learn in a tropical paradise, share with other like-minded yumsters, receive certification for both courses AND eat luscious raw food the whole time (made by someone else – nice – PLUS – other food options available if you’re not up for full-on raw… ;)…sounds blissful…hope it all rocks on in 2009 too, so I can play as well…in the meantime, if this is tickling YOUR interest nodules, do check out their website here for more info: http://www.livingmandala.com

on December the 21st I had:

1 quart water
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #1
= 8oz water, 2oz apple juice, 1 tbsp liquid bentonite, 1tsp psyllium powder
Followed by 10oz water mixed with 1tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1tsp raw honey
3 cups mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/celery/beetroot/apple/ginger/garlic/daikon juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #2
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/romaine/kale/cilantro/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/celery/beetroot/apple/daikon juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #3
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/iceburg/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/turmeric/beetroot/apple/daikon juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #4
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/iceburg/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/turmeric/beetroot/apple/daikon juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #5
2 cups water

Do you know any raw dogs? Do you perhaps live with one? Well…the lovely Anna from raw lifestyle magazine ‘Purely Delicious’ wants to hear YOUR story ;) She is putting together a ‘Radiant Hound’ calendar for 2009 and is looking for submissions. Here are the details:

“I would love it if those of you that are feeding your companion dogs a diet comprised mostly or entirely of fresh, raw ingredients, would consider sharing a bit of your experience with us. I would also like to include photographs of the dogs we select for the calendar. You are welcome to keep your personal information confidential (name, location, etc). If you have a story or recipe you would like to share, and believe that you currently have or can get a good quality photograph of your dog, please forward it to: anna@purelydelicious.net You may also send any questions to this same address. We don't need the photographs at this time, but if you have a thumbnail you would like to send along with your story/recipe, feel free to do so. There will be prizes for the winning entries… MINIMUM photo specifications are as follows:
- 8x12 (inches) or 3609x2406 (pixels)
- at least 300 dpi
- .jpg format
- full color (no black and white images, please)
- if you use a professional photographer to take the photograph, please get their written permission and appropriate credit line for reprinting in a calendar.”

on December the 22nd I had:

1 pint water
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #1
= 8oz water, 2oz apple juice, 1 tbsp liquid bentonite, 1tsp psyllium powder
Followed by 10oz water mixed with 1tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1tsp raw honey
1 pint mizuna/tatsoi/iceburg/kale/parsley/spinach/all-kinds-of-greens/cucumber/turmeric/beetroot/apple/daikon juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #2
3 cups celery/cucumber/apple/ginger juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #3
1 pint mizuna/dandelion/iceburg/cilantro/daikon/all-kinds-of-greens/tatsoi/cucumber/apple/carrot juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #4
1 pint mizuna/dandelion/iceburg/cilantro/daikon/all-kinds-of-greens/tatsoi/cucumber/apple/carrot juice
‘The Cleansing Drink’ #5
2 cups water

My psyllium-bentonite cleanse is still going grand. I’m at the end of day 5 as I write this…I've actually started to see some sections of the ‘black-tyre-rubber’ stuff come out of me. Nice. I've started using additives in the enema water like liquefied, strained garlic water or liquid bentonite. I LOVE the psyllium and bentonite products from the 7-Day Cleanse that I’m using. They’re the ones Bernard Jensen recommends in his book and they’re so quaint and old-fashioned looking ;) They also seem extremely high quality to me – I love that the psyllium is powdered – it seems to make it much more user-friendly to me than the full husk, which I’m used to using… I am brushing my teeth a LOT – about 8-10 times a day at the moment – there’s a lot of apple juice, honey, juices etc going in and I can’t bear the fuzzy-teeth feeling, so, much scrubbing is the answer ;) My energy today has been really great. I find that as long as I take time to rest after the morning enema sessions, I feel good for the rest of the day. I’m definitely at a much slower walking pace than normal though – I also stand up slowly after being seated for a while, as my blood pressure is pretty low right now… I also notice how sensitive I’m becoming to chemicals. We went to some shops a couple of days ago and one that had a lot of plastic items in it was almost unbearable for me – it felt SO toxic to breathe in there for me…I recall having similar experiences last year in Costa Rica on my Juice Feast and starting to consider just how far it might be beneficial in our modern world to keep on detoxing/ cleansing…there simply comes a point when being in a city full of pollution, for example, feels deadly, if you’re extremely ‘clean’. Those of you who’ve read Mr Monarch’s latest book – Raw Success – will know that he goes deep into these environmental factors in regards to our food/lifestyle choices…it’s a big area to consider...hmmmm... ;)

All blessings,
Angela. xxx