Microdosing, juicing, and a morning of beauty

the divinity of presence and a morning in El Zonte

two juices, gifted to me by Puro Surf’s Covana Seaside Kitchen after a photo shoot

It is the early morning, a little after six am and I have woken with the sun. My three days of juicing are done, and I have more juice in the fridge waiting. I could keep going for one more day. Do I want to?

I pour water into the kettle and turn it on while I spoon heaping tablespoons of cacao into a mug gifted to me from a man I met at a conference. It has a big “B” for bitcoin and a picture of a lake. That’s where he is from, “Bitcoin Lake” in Guatemala. I still haven’t been and want to go visit. But every time I use the mug I remember him and the care he had in gifting it to me.

I head to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I keep a bottle of distilled water by the sink and use it to rinse my mouth and my toothbrush. I brush my night-guard as well and rinse it with more distilled water. The bottle is almost empty again and I wonder if I will do the same thing when I move to the city? The mansion has bottled water in tidy lines on the spacious kitchen counter waiting like little soldiers ready for guests. Maybe I will use them? Probably I will stick with refilling the glass one I have. I feel less guilty and I suspect too, that even the bottled water has plastic in it.

But I am not really thinking about those things. They are the quiet thoughts that hum in the background like a radio on low. I am thinking about my day and my schedule. The tide is low early today, at 8am. I have one obligation, my weekly call with Sandra at 10 o’clock. Otherwise I am free to write the book that is waiting for my fingers to bring it into being on my keyboard. It’s time to go to the beach for my morning meditation.

I am a little bit hungry. Maybe I am done with juicing after all?

The cacao has been soaking in the hot water and I give it an extra stir. I pull down my plastic tub of supplements and take out two of the tinctures from the Telluride Mushroom Festival I purchased. Some Lions Mane, some Cordyceps from orange mushrooms that grow out the bodies of insects (I try not to think about that). I squirt a little of each in my mouth and decide to add another: some Reishi honey tincture from my favorite vendor I met there. It tastes like nirvana, if nirvana had a taste…sweet and magical in my mouth.

I take out a glass bottle. It is Thursday and I take a small capsule, my weekday microdose of X. I leave it as an abbreviation as it is good to abbreviate such things that are healing, yet still unacceptable to a society with governments that prefer pharmaceutical drugs and hydrogenated oils to supplements. I think the government here is going to be different and change is a slow process and the people have to be ready. X is something that I consider sacred. People don’t always consider things that way though. I don’t know why. But I have talked to someone who works in the government about X and he understood its benefits. He is the one who told me people need time and things need to be done carefully. I agree with that. There was a lot of kindness and wisdom in his words. I am careful.

Usually I like to drink some water I have mixed with lime, and a touch of salt, first thing. I remember and notice I am out of it and don’t want to take time to make more. But there is a bottle of leftover juice I have from Puro Surf from the day before. In exchange for posing for some marketing photos for them, I have a meal credit and two glasses of fresh juice I brought home from the shoot which they gave me. I didn’t want them to go to waste.

I am suspicious one juice has sugar, which I like to avoid, but the green juice is good and I take a couple swigs anyway.

I have learned that lemon or lime juice is helpful for the body to utilize certain kinds of mushrooms and I like the synergy of my routine.

Afterwords, I approach my cacao and give it a stir. I add cinnamon, ginger, and some stevia and monk fruit tincture to sweeten it.

I stand sipping it as I hold a bookmark on which I wrote phrases. I don’t call them affirmations anymore. They are words that describe the energy I want to feel. This practice seems to be making a difference in my life. A tremendous difference.

This morning I notice that when I say, “My book is a success,” it doesn’t feel quite right. “The book is a success.” Yes, that is it. Better. I feel how my body feels with the imaginary book floating in front of me, a success. I realize I am like a sculptor and I am birthing something. The something is not mine, but I am friends with it. It feels good to feel it as a success.

I feel the other phrases on my paper. Some water has spilled on it, but it doesn’t matter. What I am doing now isn’t about the words, it is about feeling things, feeling myself in relation to those phrases. It is about feeling how wonderful they feel, if I put my body into a state where they are already true.

I set the bookmark down and change into my tan-through bikini. It is still early, only 7am now and I have time for an easeful meditation. It is Thursday, and my weekly blog is finished and scheduled to go out in two hours; I feel a sense of openness and freedom.

H is at the beach, but not in my favorite spot where I usually like to go, so I head towards the rocky outcropping. But I realize the tide is low enough to go past it, where I can perch on a large boulder with a flat surface. That sounds good to me. Today, maybe I will lie down and simply savor the sun for a while.

I climb up onto the boulder, up steps that are made by nature for any giants that might stroll by and spread out my blue towel so I can lie back if I like, and still face the sun.

Sun gazing is popular here. H is behind me catching the morning rays and another man told me he stares at it at any time of the day. That man said hello to me in a restaurant yesterday. He isn’t blind yet. I realize I no longer believe most things I have been taught. Light is good for my eyes.

I take off my prescription glasses so I can take it in. Dr. Jack Kruse told me at the farmer’s market I should wear them instead of plastic contacts on my eyes. “Your eyes are connected directly to your brain!” boomed the famous neurosurgeon as his amused mitochondriach followers looked on. They were used to his delivery style. I was not. “Why would you put plastic over the doorway to your brain?!!!!” he continued as he leaned towards me with all the New York Cab Driver energy only a brilliant neurosurgeon trying to change the world could offer.

Dr. Kruse, along with a yoga book and a man from a group I was in called Genius Network, have all told me that gazing at the sun at sunrise and sunset is important for my sleep cycle.

I wear my prescription glasses more often now and try to get to the beach in the morning so my eyes and skin can soak up energy and feed my brain and cells. One of the states with the highest rate of skin cancer is Washington. Not where the United States capital is. Washington State, on the West coast, where it is cloudy and people suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder). They also suffer from skin cancer. Vermont is high on the list as well. That makes no sense to me. I have decided Dr. Kruse and his followers are probably right. Plus, I like to be in the sun, and have never liked sunscreen. I feel better. Now I am learning why.

Like I said, I don’t believe much of what I have been taught in the past anymore.

The cliff in front of me is high, so when the sun emerges from behind it, it is bright. Too bright for my eyes.

But the light reflecting on the water isn’t. I put my glasses up on my head so they don’t filter any of the light. I want my brain to take it all in.

I gaze in front of me and the bright light makes the boulders appear as black silhouettes on smooth volcanic sand. The light sparkles on the grains and dances like tiny fairy’s that move in flowing rivulets of glassy dampness moving in gentle curves back towards the sea.

I wonder about light and water? It speaks to me in a language my mind can’t comprehend and I listen through my eyes. As I soften my gaze the sparkles expand.

A microdose is supposed to be something you don’t feel. But I realize I am feeling something now, that is even more than what I usually experience.

I realize I have juiced for three days, which puts me in an energetic state where my senses are already heightened and I feel lighter both physically and energetically. Without forethought, I topped off my cleanse with a microdose and this morning, the world is different, exquisite.

I find a place on the boulder and lie back while I slip my tan through bikini top aside and allow the early morning light to shine on my naked breasts.

But after a few minutes I feel someone may stroll by and I don’t want to do anything that might feel uncomfortable or inappropriate to any of the locals here. I slip the triangles of my top back over my breasts and sit up.

The boulders are still there in dark silhouettes except I realize one is not a boulder. It is my new neighbor, Z, who I spoke to last night, lying on the sand in a dark, still black shape that reminds me of child’s pose in yoga; he blends in like a chameleon against the earth.

Z told me he is one of the firefighters that specialize in fighting the really big ones. The ones that are so dangerous that they helicopter people like him in to take care of. He works summers and then has a lot of time to rest. He said he was here to work the trauma out of his system.

I watch him unfold his boulder-shaped form until he is lying on his back. A stream of sunlight paints a path, to him, through me, to H, who sits behind me. A line of humans bathing in the light.

The water laps around Z and then recedes. He doesn’t move. He stays, to savor it. I watch it come all the way up around his head and not over his face. Z looks relaxed, content.

I go back to looking at the sparkles of light dancing on the sand and water and the shape and beauty of the waves caressing the beach. I close my eyes and feel the wind on my skin.

All this will be over soon, at least for now.

I will be moving to the city.

This time I can savor my upcoming move, I feel at ease and less attached to the beautiful place that surrounds me.

I realize that I have learned and am starting to trust that the beauty of the divine, the beauty of God, can be found everywhere, sometimes unexpectedly.

Z stands up and shakes a little. He moves his body in ways that look organic somehow and less structured. Something that resembles Pigeon Pose, then a tiny backbend that reminds me of Camel…but Z is moving his own way, releasing his trauma, soaking up negative ions from the black sand.

I close my eyes again and feel how intense all the sensations are. The wind that caresses my skin. The book about Biodynamics I am reading that says wind carries the music of all it touches. The wind is talking to me too, just like the light dancing on the water.

I open my eyes and see that Z is gone.

I take a breath. The tide is incredibly low. I see that the part of the beach that is often inaccessible, is wide and spacious today. I think of my call and remind myself I have time. 10am is still a long way off.

I crawl off my boulder, down three steps nature made for the giant I haven’t met yet, and stroll down the beach. I see footsteps up ahead, weaving gently along the sand in soft, long curves. There are none that return and I realize either H or Z may be here too. The footsteps lead toward one of the caves. The big one, maybe with the bats in it?

I notice a little place amidst some rocks I found a few days before. The place is shaped like a curvy vulva and I had tucked myself into it and toned a bit. But it feels close to the cave and the footsteps and I decide to keep going.

Crabs scamper sideways periodically across the rocks in groups. I watch them and they remind me of people, a few alone and mostly, moving together like little villages.

Over my left shoulder I see a huge boulder. There is a few feet of space under it with a small pool of shallow water I see sparkling that leads deeper into the rocks. I decide the large boulder propped against others creating a portal won’t fall and get down on my belly. I move like a baby, and creep in. On the other side is a tiny cave in the rocks just a little bigger than me. There are still pools of water that glisten and look slippery. Mirrors catching the light, that seems so alive.

I see the variegated colors of the granite and volcanic stone in grey, green, black and pink and watch reflected light dancing against the surface. It comes from the ripples of a tiny pool of water next to me. The light reminds me of the shadows in Plato’s Cave and how people are lost watching shadows. This is different. I could be lost watching light, and life would be exquisite.

There are bursts of light in the reflected ripples that explode like stars and I realize they are created by tiny drips, falling from the rock into the pool, maybe an inch deep.

I see a tiny crab in the middle of the light ripples, smaller than half the fingernail on my pinkie fingertip.

I start writing these words in my mind and then wish I could stop. Why am I always writing? I want to simply enjoy this exquisite moment. And I do. Later I am told by the subtle beings that guide me, to observe my mind and its writing. They tell me this is how I create and there is nothing wrong with it.

I don’t have to write about this at all. In fact I probably won’t. I have lots of writing to do today.

I am finding these beautiful places this morning intuitively, like the way I live my life. It is a habit now for me to head out for a walk and sense which way I feel called to go. A larger wave comes in and I know it is time to leave. I will feel safer and calmer in the open space of the beach, if a big set of waves comes in.

I place my hands in the wet sand, ready to crawl out another way I see, different from the one I came in. I feel the texture as my hand sinks in. I feel the support of the sand. And I notice the water that is gently seeping away from the last wave that found its way in. Mostly, it drains through the multi-colored grains, but some of them move in fan shaped rivulets, dancing with the water and sparkling like tiny beacons of aliveness.

I emerge and head back towards my towel on the boulder with the giant steps. I forget to see if the footsteps I saw before have headed back as well. I notice the bottom of the boulders, close to the sand, which I have not seen before. More is visible at low tide. The sand has washed away from them now.

The rock gazes back at me in soft pink hues and I think of Chartres Cathedral, which I visited once. They were renovating it and under the dark stone, were columns made of light pink marble. I wondered if the boulders were the same, pink hiding under the dark exterior, only now exposed a tiny bit with the receding tide.

I climb the steps back onto my boulder. H has moved back to his usual spot nearby, which is usually my favorite place too. I wave at him.

At my invitation, he leaps over the sea like the giant I had waited to see and jumps from his boulder to mine. He calls his leap “natural movement”. I tell him I can move like that, except the height makes me afraid.

H wears his shorts as we sit and talk about light, life, and his dreams of opening a chocolate business here.

He has lost his blue light blocking glasses he likes to use at night and I offer him an extra pair I have to borrow. He and I make plans for him to come get them.

Then H leaves. It is 9am and he has a meeting with another young friend of mine. I decide to go in the ocean. I still have time and this is a morning so exquisite, I wish to savor it. I wonder if I can feel this way, this kind of connection and capacity to see and feel the beauty around me, as a more constant experience in my life and I hear the answer, “Yes.”

I walk into the sea and dance with the waves. We play together. They carry me in towards the shore as I skim a tiny bit above the bottom, trailing my fingertips along the sand.

The light continues to dance and all of us play: sand, sea, wind, waves, salty spray, while birds fly high overhead, tiny black dots against the sky.

I go back to lay on the boulder for a few more minutes until my inner compass, the part of me that keeps track of time without a watch or a cell phone, tells me it is time to make my way home.

I collect my towel, put on my red framed prescription glasses, and stroll back to my casita. I rinse off at the shower by the pool. The one that still has good water flow and doesn’t need to be cleaned yet.

Then I shower again in my bathroom, wash my hair, and take out a bottle of juice. The leftover one, the one I haven’t finished yet.

Sandra and I have our call. Something comes up about mothers and love and I try out some words that come to me to say to her from a motherly place: “Honey, you don’t have to take care of me and I am here to take care of you.”

Words we both hadn’t felt and thirsted for when we were young, without knowing we needed a drink.

And Sandra feels the words sink in. I feel what it is like to say them. It feels beautiful. My heart opens.

Our call ends and I pack up my computer, to go to Puro Surf and start to write the part of my book that has been so hard for me to put into words. The part I left out from fear and uncertainty.

There is a readiness in me to speak of things I used to feel were shameful and thus, unspeakable. Now I am curious about such things? Maybe other people are too? Now it is time to look at the light reflected on the stone and talk about what I see, the divine in it all, and what I know to be true for me. Now it is time to be myself and not worry about whether people will like me or not. Now is the time to be free of such worries.

Time to write. The book awaits. The phrases written on my worn bookmark sing in my body and pave the way.

I pause to feel the energy of fun in my body. That is how I like to start, even though I haven’t written it down as a phrase.

I feel myself when this is true: “The book is a success.” It feels good.

I feel my body again: “The process of creating the book is fun.”

All that feels delightful, easeful, and also in some helpful ways, separate from me. I feel like a midwife ready to facilitate the birth of something new, something that has its own purpose and energy and my participation in the process is a divine gift. Ok. Now.

I am ready.

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