RawandJuicy.com - Curing Disease Naturally With Raw Food

MEET RUTH SHIVANI

The expression of deep inner seeking and yearning has led me to being blessed with the meeting of many wise and wonderful teachers. Since very early in life I always felt a deep hunger for an intimacy of communion that often eluded me – I felt a sense of ‘knowing’ that somehow there was ‘more’.

I studied and explored many religions – and found a comfort zone resting place in the ancient science of yoga. I found nourishment in nature – surrendering into the lap of mother earth, feeling the warmth of the sun and the magic of life expressing in every plant. I could ‘feel’ the aliveness in the plants and flowers and the gift they held.

I could feel the Life Force in fresh foods and I enjoyed the sense of spaciousness when eating fruits. I was guided as to the potential benefits of choosing foods to nourish my intentions. Food choices became an integral part of my life.

Starting at the health food store and the many high street books emerging, I found my mind and body in harmony with choices to no longer take any foods that were processed or less then optimally full of energy and life. I found out about ‘brown’ rice – simply cooked foods – organic foods and the potential in foods to evoke differing responses in the body, which in turn stimulated the mind and offered more calmness and tranquility.

Many yogic practices involve an awareness of dietary choices – so as to strengthen the body, ‘still’ the mind and open the portals to differing realms of consciousness. Fruit was part of the journey that led me towards a deeper intimacy and a meeting with my own self – a recreating of the relationship with the body in which I lived and a sense of living life alive. I would often spontaneously eat fruit for days and weeks – celebrating the deepening intimacy of communion with life for which I had been seeking. A wider horizon blossomed in interactive relationship with others – My heart sang and Spirit found a more coherent expression in my life.

Over the years my diet shifted to very simple foods and any time I felt in need of clarity or deepening my practices – I would choose fruit, or juices.

I never entertained the concept of RAW FOOD as such – it was just foods alive with the subtle Life Force of Prana. During the colder winter times I would have very little fruit and be quite content with rice and simply prepared vegetables. Bread always created a disharmony in my body – but I liked the sprouted bread occasionally and chapattis.

I never felt a sense of need to stay on all fruits or all fresh foods – I would weave my diet of rice and steamed vegetables and some occasional pulses into my times of less intense sadhana.

Three years ago I chose to go on a couple of days fruits before a reiki attunement. The weather was good, I felt good after the attunement – so I just carried on with the fruit. I felt like somehow I didn’t want to break the spell of that profound attunement by eating less pranically rich foods like rice and cooked veggies. This was an effortless effort, no sense of struggle, and because I chose to eat fruits in celebration of my experience, I never had any feelings of temptation to eat anything else.

I never perceived I was denying myself in eating alive foods – more that I was celebrating myself. During that summer I encountered groups of people who ‘ate raw foods’ all the time and called themselves ‘raw foodists’! This was the beginning of an exciting journey into the Raw Food movement.

I have never been much into the politics of movements or group dynamics! But within weeks I found myself part of an ‘ism’ – it was exciting at first, exhilarating and I got caught in the dogma and doctrines of the raw food movement. I made a commitment to go raw for a year. A closed system commitment, not giving my mind permission to terrorize my intention or to weave its tendrils to sabotage my choices. This was to be a discipline and an exploration.

My first winter with living foods was fairly uneventful. I used to drink hot water and I did eat a lot of dried fruit that first winter, but overall, I had no real hankering for cooked foods.

I didn’t lose pounds of weight like many other raw fooders seemed to be doing? But I did observe that I was very slowly shedding some surplus fat from my body. I didn’t suffer any great physical detox. I could feel layers of behavioral patterning being exposed. Issues that I had thought I had worked through – some lingering expressions of those patterns surfaced – in order to be finally released and let go of. For me the journey into raw was seemingly more subtle than the stories I read. I had no radical health issues before going raw. And once choosing all raw all the time, I didn’t get sick, come out in spots or release layers of mucoid plaque either. Part of me was wishing for more bizarre happenings so I could be part of this merry throng of people who were going through all sorts of major detox.! I put this lack of noticeable physical detoxing down to my several years on a simple organic vegan diet.

I was very much aware of profound shifts in my ‘keenness’ of perception and a much higher clarity in observation. I felt more in harmony within; also felt I had reclaimed the more youthful part of my inner child, who seemed to have drowned a little during the biological transition into crone hood. I noticed that many of the people into raw foods were considerably younger than myself, so I was quite cheered when I created the Harmonious Living yahoo egroups to meet some others systers of my own age.

My experience was very much about seeing deeper into myself – I was fascinated by layers of myself that were emerging and seeking exit. I allowed the process and observed in awe the unending layers of many of my own belief systems crumbling – After having ‘read’ all the ‘proof’ of why my body was designed to eat raw foods I began to question my vegan choices. I was lucky to be able to make living food choices – to find fruits and vegetables. What if I were in nature as all these books were talking about. Sure I would take fruit if I were in the tropics. But what would I eat (seeing I was not born with a cooker on my back) if I were not able to buy fruit out of season at any time of year! Surely I would eat raw birds eggs, insects and maybe utilize milk from an animal. My mind reeled at such thoughts – I had been vegan for many years.

So I allowed my mind to stretch to look into all potential possibilities for my optimal in body experience. I didn’t try animal foods – but I am grateful that I have created more space around the concepts of veganism and accept those who choose in a conscious way to take some raw animal foods. It’s not my choice – but I am no longer emotive about it.

But hey, as I was exploring the logistics, I got more and more confused. Within various raw foodist groups I could almost feel the zeal of a crusade to get everyone eating raw foods! I started to encounter many different views about raw foods, all very strongly held by those who purported ‘their way’ to be the correct and only way. I again felt that sense of distorted zeal that one often encounters in politics or religion and I felt myself pull away big time from the nuts and bolts of the raw food dogma.

I learnt so much from our loving circle. Listening to others and realizing that trying to force anyone to eat in a specific way was an invasion into their process. I observed the dejected sense of failure felt by many who moved too quick or too eagerly into changing their diets over night. Bodies need to be heard, listened to and loved and appreciated.

The mind has become a powerful all invasive tool in our western societies and it’s silly to negate its power and try and violate ourselves by overnight shifts without the fire of love and passion to fuel our intentions. For me – it worked to go raw overnight – but it was effortless. I strongly recommend a gentler approach overall.

During this whole time I became very involved in learning and reading much about raw foods. I studied Natural Hygiene, I encountered the ‘raw food gurus’ and listened in enthusiasm to all they had to share. I pulsed with much of what I read and learnt – but I felt a strong inner resistance to the evangelical approach to Natural Hygiene which repelled me, rather than attracted me.

I was grateful for the many that chose to share their longer term experience with living foods. I felt enthused for sure, but I also felt questions of resistance and reaction being evoked in response to ‘set in stone’ opinions shared by teachers who seemed to have a personal addiction to getting everyone to agree with them.

It felt great to have encountered this sense of living life alive all the time, not just when I was encountering or exploring a specific practice or intention. I did get quite confused once my mind started assessing the various sets of belief systems and dogmas that seemed to abound from many differing sources. I had no argument with eating alive foods – but I started to observe that there was certainly much argument amongst these raw food camps as to what raw foods to eat, when, how and how much and I did start to feel some cynicism.

I started to encounter people talking of success and failure in relation to the raw food diet. I started to observe how some peoples’ personal experiences were being propagated as the ‘only way’ and regurgitated as dogma and belief systems which evoked quarrel and argument.

I had met many teachers in my life that oozed a depth of Spirit and consciousness and they were not all eating raw foods. I questioned the seeming dogma that cooked food was poison?

For me the preference of eating foods alive with Prana was not in debate. I didn’t feel any need to prove or validate my choices. I didn’t feel the need to make myself right in my food choices. It was what was working for me at the time and still is.

I encountered a lot of talk about detox of the physical body but little mention of deeper cleansing at an emotional level. Slowly I realized that no one was addressing the powers of emotional detox – the parts of us that become exposed when we open the door for Spirit to express and bring us in touch with deeper expressions of our potential.

In June 2003 I will be coming up to three years on living foods and I am feeling good. I have recently been re-inspired by Shazzie’s latest book ‘Detox Your World’ I felt I needed that inspiration – as I had been contemplating exploring some simple cooked foods again – just to see how it felt.

I am not fully sure why. I had not had such a good winter. I was fed up with the prevailing attitudes about raw foods and the seeming neurosis around it. But Shazzie’s book re-established my core center knowing. It was a book that I could share with others, without repelling them. What was special with this book was sense that the book had found a pulse between sharing, caring and livelihood. An open hearted gift. Just as this book you are now reading and the book ‘Dying to Get Well’ also written by the author.

There are books emerging from the heart and the celebration. There is a new wave of feminine energy flowing into the celebration of living life alive. A circle of systers and brothers who are not attached to their own opinions but purely have a passion to invest in opening the lives of others. How people choose to be with living foods will very much depend on all of us.

There is no trial or error once we remember that our bodies are programmed for wellness and that we are here to embrace our fullest potential of expression and relationship with each other.

It’s going to be publications like this book that will give empowerment back to the people and fire glowing in the hearts of all. In a circle all points are equal. There pulses a synergetic harmonizing of peoples experiences shared ‘not to be right’ but to be in loving and encouragement and trust.

So what has been my experience over this relatively short time? Am I pounds lighter? Nope not really, have lost some weight, but still hold some fat on my body. My hair has thinned a bit, but this might be post menopausal? My energy levels have been great most of the time and I feel more ‘skippy’ inside.

I think my greatest lesson has been to remember that I live in ‘my’ body – no one else’s and that there is no success or failure with raw foods for any of us. The hunger of seeking and exploring is part of the expression.

We choose to live life alive. Not in order to be part of a group, but because we deserve optimal wellness in our lives. I have felt a strong sense of sharing and caring amongst those who are seeking a deeper expression in living foods.

I have felt an empowerment emerging as the expression of living foods is now being felt outside the lecture halls and books – its happening in people’s lives. The power of ‘life’ is being celebrated as more people seek to eat their foods in an alive state. Not always cause they are ailing, but because they deserve the very best experience of their earth walk.

Many young mothers are making conscious choices with their children. The experience of our own journey into abundance with living foods will touch the next seven generations. Many systers and brothers are moving beyond the conceptual boundaries and ‘feeling’ their own ‘remembering’ as living foods weave back the magic into homes and families.

I truly feel that living foods is part of a rising of consciousness to embrace and feel the Light of Spirit in our lives. Living foods is not only about the calories and the vitamins and the minerals and the temperatures at which dried fruits are cured – NO – it’s about ‘letting life into our lives’ – getting out of our own way and celebrating our awesome communion with this planet on which we live.

As we eat from mother earth, so we deepen our intimacy with her ways, her children, her seas and forests and trees and plants. Living foods are just part of a process of coming back home to ourselves and embracing once more the energies of creation and birthing and family and home and life nourishing life. When we get out of our own way, when we risk peeking from behind the veneers of our personas and meet each other as daughters and sons of The expression of life unfolding we will all naturally and joyfully enjoy ripe, raw and organic foods.

Living foods is about so much more than health – it’s about breaking through into our human potential of being consciously aware. Loving and caring with each other without fear of each other. Living foods is about empowering us way beyond our behavioral patterns and belief systems. It is freedom to dance once more in the Light of Spirit and remember who we are.

In love and celebration and thanks to Shelly for inviting my heart to flow with yours. Shelly has touched my own heart deeply with her story, her sweet heart and her passion of sharing and caring. Thank you Shelly.

About Ruth Shivani

Ruth works as a wholistic lifestyle counselor, wellness counselor and yoga therapist in Cornwall UK.

To return to REAL LIFE RAW FOOD TESTIMONIALS main page click here.

MEET SHELLY - Meet the owner of RawandJuicy.com and find out how she reversed her LGS (Leaky Gut Syndrome), Fibromyalgia, insomnia, migraines, and chronic sinusitis with a raw foods diet and other natural steps.

Everything you Need to Learn Raw and Live Raw



	MEET RUTH SHIVANI The expression of deep inner seeking and yearning has led me to being blessed with the meeting of many wise and wonderful teachers. Since very early in life I always felt a deep hunger for an intimacy of communion that often eluded me – I felt a sense of ‘knowing’ that somehow there was ‘more’. I studied and explored many religions – and found a comfort zone resting place in the ancient science of yoga. I found nourishment in nature – surrendering into the lap of mother earth, feeling the warmth of the sun and the magic of life expressing in every plant. I could ‘feel’ the aliveness in the plants and flowers and the gift they held. I could feel the Life Force in fresh foods and I enjoyed the sense of spaciousness when eating fruits. I was guided as to the potential benefits of choosing foods to nourish my intentions. Food choices became an integral part of my life. Starting at the health food store and the many high street books emerging, I found my mind and body in harmony with choices to no longer take any foods that were processed or less then optimally full of energy and life. I found out about ‘brown’ rice – simply cooked foods – organic foods and the potential in foods to evoke differing responses in the body, which in turn stimulated the mind and offered more calmness and tranquility. Many yogic practices involve an awareness of dietary choices – so as to strengthen the body, ‘still’ the mind and open the portals to differing realms of consciousness. Fruit was part of the journey that led me towards a deeper intimacy and a meeting with my own self – a recreating of the relationship with the body in which I lived and a sense of living life alive. I would often spontaneously eat fruit for days and weeks – celebrating the deepening intimacy of communion with life for which I had been seeking. A wider horizon blossomed in interactive relationship with others – My heart sang and Spirit found a more coherent expression in my life. Over the years my diet shifted to very simple foods and any time I felt in need of clarity or deepening my practices – I would choose fruit, or juices. I never entertained the concept of RAW FOOD as such – it was just foods alive with the subtle Life Force of Prana. During the colder winter times I would have very little fruit and be quite content with rice and simply prepared vegetables. Bread always created a disharmony in my body – but I liked the sprouted bread occasionally and chapattis. I never felt a sense of need to stay on all fruits or all fresh foods – I would weave my diet of rice and steamed vegetables and some occasional pulses into my times of less intense sadhana. Three years ago I chose to go on a couple of days fruits before a reiki attunement. The weather was good, I felt good after the attunement – so I just carried on with the fruit. I felt like somehow I didn’t want to break the spell of that profound attunement by eating less pranically rich foods like rice and cooked veggies. This was an effortless effort, no sense of struggle, and because I chose to eat fruits in celebration of my experience, I never had any feelings of temptation to eat anything else. I never perceived I was denying myself in eating alive foods – more that I was celebrating myself. During that summer I encountered groups of people who ‘ate raw foods’ all the time and called themselves ‘raw foodists’! This was the beginning of an exciting journey into the Raw Food movement. I have never been much into the politics of movements or group dynamics! But within weeks I found myself part of an ‘ism’ – it was exciting at first, exhilarating and I got caught in the dogma and doctrines of the raw food movement. I made a commitment to go raw for a year. A closed system commitment, not giving my mind permission to terrorize my intention or to weave its tendrils to sabotage my choices. This was to be a discipline and an exploration. My first winter with living foods was fairly uneventful. I used to drink hot water and I did eat a lot of dried fruit that first winter, but overall, I had no real hankering for cooked foods. I didn’t lose pounds of weight like many other raw fooders seemed to be doing? But I did observe that I was very slowly shedding some surplus fat from my body. I didn’t suffer any great physical detox. I could feel layers of behavioral patterning being exposed. Issues that I had thought I had worked through – some lingering expressions of those patterns surfaced – in order to be finally released and let go of. For me the journey into raw was seemingly more subtle than the stories I read. I had no radical health issues before going raw. And once choosing all raw all the time, I didn’t get sick, come out in spots or release layers of mucoid plaque either. Part of me was wishing for more bizarre happenings so I could be part of this merry throng of people who were going through all sorts of major detox.! I put this lack of noticeable physical detoxing down to my several years on a simple organic vegan diet. I was very much aware of profound shifts in my ‘keenness’ of perception and a much higher clarity in observation. I felt more in harmony within; also felt I had reclaimed the more youthful part of my inner child, who seemed to have drowned a little during the biological transition into crone hood. I noticed that many of the people into raw foods were considerably younger than myself, so I was quite cheered when I created the Harmonious Living yahoo egroups to meet some others systers of my own age. My experience was very much about seeing deeper into myself – I was fascinated by layers of myself that were emerging and seeking exit. I allowed the process and observed in awe the unending layers of many of my own belief systems crumbling – After having ‘read’ all the ‘proof’ of why my body was designed to eat raw foods I began to question my vegan choices. I was lucky to be able to make living food choices – to find fruits and vegetables. What if I were in nature as all these books were talking about. Sure I would take fruit if I were in the tropics. But what would I eat (seeing I was not born with a cooker on my back) if I were not able to buy fruit out of season at any time of year! Surely I would eat raw birds eggs, insects and maybe utilize milk from an animal. My mind reeled at such thoughts – I had been vegan for many years. So I allowed my mind to stretch to look into all potential possibilities for my optimal in body experience. I didn’t try animal foods – but I am grateful that I have created more space around the concepts of veganism and accept those who choose in a conscious way to take some raw animal foods. It’s not my choice – but I am no longer emotive about it. But hey, as I was exploring the logistics, I got more and more confused. Within various raw foodist groups I could almost feel the zeal of a crusade to get everyone eating raw foods! I started to encounter many different views about raw foods, all very strongly held by those who purported ‘their way’ to be the correct and only way. I again felt that sense of distorted zeal that one often encounters in politics or religion and I felt myself pull away big time from the nuts and bolts of the raw food dogma. I learnt so much from our loving circle. Listening to others and realizing that trying to force anyone to eat in a specific way was an invasion into their process. I observed the dejected sense of failure felt by many who moved too quick or too eagerly into changing their diets over night. Bodies need to be heard, listened to and loved and appreciated. The mind has become a powerful all invasive tool in our western societies and it’s silly to negate its power and try and violate ourselves by overnight shifts without the fire of love and passion to fuel our intentions. For me – it worked to go raw overnight – but it was effortless. I strongly recommend a gentler approach overall. During this whole time I became very involved in learning and reading much about raw foods. I studied Natural Hygiene, I encountered the ‘raw food gurus’ and listened in enthusiasm to all they had to share. I pulsed with much of what I read and learnt – but I felt a strong inner resistance to the evangelical approach to Natural Hygiene which repelled me, rather than attracted me. I was grateful for the many that chose to share their longer term experience with living foods. I felt enthused for sure, but I also felt questions of resistance and reaction being evoked in response to ‘set in stone’ opinions shared by teachers who seemed to have a personal addiction to getting everyone to agree with them. It felt great to have encountered this sense of living life alive all the time, not just when I was encountering or exploring a specific practice or intention. I did get quite confused once my mind started assessing the various sets of belief systems and dogmas that seemed to abound from many differing sources. I had no argument with eating alive foods – but I started to observe that there was certainly much argument amongst these raw food camps as to what raw foods to eat, when, how and how much and I did start to feel some cynicism. I started to encounter people talking of success and failure in relation to the raw food diet. I started to observe how some peoples’ personal experiences were being propagated as the ‘only way’ and regurgitated as dogma and belief systems which evoked quarrel and argument. I had met many teachers in my life that oozed a depth of Spirit and consciousness and they were not all eating raw foods. I questioned the seeming dogma that cooked food was poison? For me the preference of eating foods alive with Prana was not in debate. I didn’t feel any need to prove or validate my choices. I didn’t feel the need to make myself right in my food choices. It was what was working for me at the time and still is. I encountered a lot of talk about detox of the physical body but little mention of deeper cleansing at an emotional level. Slowly I realized that no one was addressing the powers of emotional detox – the parts of us that become exposed when we open the door for Spirit to express and bring us in touch with deeper expressions of our potential. In June 2003 I will be coming up to three years on living foods and I am feeling good. I have recently been re-inspired by Shazzie’s latest book ‘Detox Your World’ I felt I needed that inspiration – as I had been contemplating exploring some simple cooked foods again – just to see how it felt. I am not fully sure why. I had not had such a good winter. I was fed up with the prevailing attitudes about raw foods and the seeming neurosis around it. But Shazzie’s book re-established my core center knowing. It was a book that I could share with others, without repelling them. What was special with this book was sense that the book had found a pulse between sharing, caring and livelihood. An open hearted gift. Just as this book you are now reading and the book ‘Dying to Get Well’ also written by the author. There are books emerging from the heart and the celebration. There is a new wave of feminine energy flowing into the celebration of living life alive. A circle of systers and brothers who are not attached to their own opinions but purely have a passion to invest in opening the lives of others. How people choose to be with living foods will very much depend on all of us. There is no trial or error once we remember that our bodies are programmed for wellness and that we are here to embrace our fullest potential of expression and relationship with each other. It’s going to be publications like this book that will give empowerment back to the people and fire glowing in the hearts of all. In a circle all points are equal. There pulses a synergetic harmonizing of peoples experiences shared ‘not to be right’ but to be in loving and encouragement and trust. So what has been my experience over this relatively short time? Am I pounds lighter? Nope not really, have lost some weight, but still hold some fat on my body. My hair has thinned a bit, but this might be post menopausal? My energy levels have been great most of the time and I feel more ‘skippy’ inside. I think my greatest lesson has been to remember that I live in ‘my’ body – no one else’s and that there is no success or failure with raw foods for any of us. The hunger of seeking and exploring is part of the expression. We choose to live life alive. Not in order to be part of a group, but because we deserve optimal wellness in our lives. I have felt a strong sense of sharing and caring amongst those who are seeking a deeper expression in living foods. I have felt an empowerment emerging as the expression of living foods is now being felt outside the lecture halls and books – its happening in people’s lives. The power of ‘life’ is being celebrated as more people seek to eat their foods in an alive state. Not always cause they are ailing, but because they deserve the very best experience of their earth walk. Many young mothers are making conscious choices with their children. The experience of our own journey into abundance with living foods will touch the next seven generations. Many systers and brothers are moving beyond the conceptual boundaries and ‘feeling’ their own ‘remembering’ as living foods weave back the magic into homes and families. I truly feel that living foods is part of a rising of consciousness to embrace and feel the Light of Spirit in our lives. Living foods is not only about the calories and the vitamins and the minerals and the temperatures at which dried fruits are cured – NO – it’s about ‘letting life into our lives’ – getting out of our own way and celebrating our awesome communion with this planet on which we live. As we eat from mother earth, so we deepen our intimacy with her ways, her children, her seas and forests and trees and plants. Living foods are just part of a process of coming back home to ourselves and embracing once more the energies of creation and birthing and family and home and life nourishing life. When we get out of our own way, when we risk peeking from behind the veneers of our personas and meet each other as daughters and sons of The expression of life unfolding we will all naturally and joyfully enjoy ripe, raw and organic foods. Living foods is about so much more than health – it’s about breaking through into our human potential of being consciously aware. Loving and caring with each other without fear of each other. Living foods is about empowering us way beyond our behavioral patterns and belief systems. It is freedom to dance once more in the Light of Spirit and remember who we are. In love and celebration and thanks to Shelly for inviting my heart to flow with yours. Shelly has touched my own heart deeply with her story, her sweet heart and her passion of sharing and caring. Thank you Shelly. About Ruth Shivani Ruth works as a wholistic lifestyle counselor, wellness counselor and yoga therapist in Cornwall UK. To return to REAL LIFE RAW FOOD TESTIMONIALS main page click here. MEET SHELLY - Meet the owner of RawandJuicy.com and find out how she reversed her LGS (Leaky Gut Syndrome), Fibromyalgia, insomnia, migraines, and chronic sinusitis with a raw foods diet and other natural steps.
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