Interview with Raw Superhero David Richanbach

I recently got to interview raw vegan superhero and yogi, David Richanbach, as the beginning of more interviews to come, with people serving humanity’s well-being – physical, mental, spiritual.

David has been work-playing in Olympia WA, Bali, and the Bay Area, on personal activation and liberation projects. He’s taken hatha yoga trainings at (?) in California, is a kriya yogi in Paramahansa Yogananda’s lineage, and raw food training at the Tree of Life – and has created an extensive exploration of superfoods and chocolate alchemy, wherever he goes. I met David a few years ago at The Evergreen State College, back when the Freedom of Consciousness Club was up and running.

Mmm… Binaural beats…

Most recently, a Sacred Fire workshop in the wilderness of Washington with Victory Moon and (?). We got to talking while David was down at the Occupy Olympia camp, and I was able to jot down some notes from our conversation. We talked about:

• What it’s like to be putting on workshops,
• The personal living-workshop of yoga sadhana, and
• The unnecessary, yet vitalizing practice of raw super-food-veganism.

I wanted to share these so that people interested in community organizing, the lifestyle of a yogi, or the experience of living the high-energy vibrant-happiness raw vegan lifestyle, could learn from the case study that is David’s life. May these notes be a blessing for your path. About the Sacred Fire workshop, and putting on workshops

• The Sacred Fire workshop was focused on the practice of Bioenergetic Shaking, from the teacher Ratu Bagus. (youtube videos of shaking here and here)
• During the weekend workshop, each day included about three 1-2 hour sessions (for four hours total) of the Shaking practice, including warm-ups and cool-downs of hatha yoga.
• The workshops were well structured for providing activities: between the Shaking practices, food service, and hatha yoga, the attendants had a little bit of time to do their own thing.
• From 5:30am to 6:30 am, David offered a yin-style yoga to help wake up the body and prepare it for the very yang-style shaking practices.
• The medicinal teas offered at the retreat were a critical element. They included an amazing collection of herbs, including
• pau d’arco
• cat’s claw
• damayana (opening to the heart), ginger, rose,…: stimulating to digestive system
• dandelions – which is cleansing for liver
• yarrow – feminine empowerment, good for blood & regulating body temperature
• In addition to the shaking, the attendants went on plant walks to learn about local herbs and edibles, and they brought back their harvest to see what they could do with them in the kitchen.
• How did David connect with the other facilitators – how did they come up with the idea to do this event together, and how did their relationship form to be able to make that happen? With community symbiosis: They connected at festival after festival – which helped to see the gifts in each other.
• With the mutual recognition of each person’s gifts, and what they could bring to the table, Victory Moon organized and spearheaded the event, did the promotion, and hosted at her cabin.
• David’s personal mantra: “God, please help me keep my inner workshop & laboratory organized.”
• “I want to cojoin ceremony so that I can stack functions and reality together, and make everything mutually symbiotic… How good can it get?”
• Try to distinguish between states and stages of consciousness. We might experience samadhi, bliss, devotion, but there are linear sequential steps to achieve liberation. It’s going to look different moment to moment to moment.
• Raw foods is a fun subject because it’s a delicious subject. Most of us are profoundly affected by how we eat.
• When you’re tuned in to how you feel, you want the best food ever. When you break free from ancestral conditioning and heal, the healing is coming into the moment, you’re going to be attracted to the most vital foods.
• “I really enjoy the bliss that you can see in people’s eyes when you’ve brought something forth that’s really nourishing…”
• “My personal process with raw foods is a really funky path. I don’t personally enjoy putting together gourmet meals for people… I just go for the most potent meals ever. Everyone gets high on different staples.”
• Chia porridge with Varnished Conch and Devil’s Club tea
• Devil’s club:
• Decoct a tea overnight for six to eight hours at a low boil until morning.
• Let it cool, and put in chia in 15 minutes.
• Filled the glass with superionic concentrated fulvic acid, blue green algae, cacao, maca, ashwaganda powder, local raw honey, salt, vanilla, fulvic acid (helpful for breaking up calcification in the body, helpful in the process of absorption of minerals), ocean derived minerals and aloe vera juice.
• The point of living this lifestyle – the motivation – is to do everything we possibly can to destroy victim consciousness. We get to love every little bit of life, so the more gratitude we have for it, the greater we will be able to offer service to the world. This is about Fulfilling Our Ancient Sacred Vows.

If you want to learn more about what David is up to, to hear about retreats upcoming, or to ask him about all things yoga and raw vegan, be sure to friend him on Facebook (“David Richanbach”).

Today is a Good Day To Die: Ending The Feeling of Failure

Monks who, though receiving little, do not devalue what they have received -
even the gods will praise them if their lives are pure and if they are not slothful.
-Buddha

There is a common question that I’ve heard circulated around the peak performance/best day ever/superhero community, usually given to people who are feeling down on their luck, and oppressed by the events they’ve recently experienced:

What would you do if you knew that you couldn’t fail?

Note: Before you read further, jump in. Answer the question for yourself, and have a clear and conscious response before you read on, if only to be able to resonate with what’s written here from your own experience.

Get out of your head, into your heart.

This is a great question for that state of mind where nothing in the future seems to be enticing anymore. However, it has limits to its uses.

Like any good tool, if you apply it outside of appropriate boundaries then it fails to produce the intended result; if you apply it within those appropriate boundaries and in a meaningful way, then results can be expected to be beneficial for your directed purpose.

A simplified example:

• If you add hammer + nails + teapot, this does not equal building a house; however,
• When you add hammer + nails + lumber, this can equal building a house (when those things are added together well)

So when and where can you apply this question?

Being conscious of the appropriate boundary to bring this up can be helpful, when this question digs up our understanding of what our very dreams and aspirations are.

• If you’re ambitious and/or driven, and want to save the world from {evil people, hunger, disease, a business competitor, capitalism,…}, then this question holds clarity for you, and coordinates your efforts.
• If you’re unambitious and/or timid (though, many people politely say “humble”), even if you’re a monk, then this question will give clarity into what desires and attachments are still holding you back from perfect equanimity and universal compassion, because in the asking, your fears will surface in the form of excuses and disempowering beliefs that you currently imagine “are yours”, which, actually, are only getting in the way of your evolution and are obstructing the benefits you want to give to other people.

What would you do if you knew that you couldn’t fail?

What kind of a being would you choose to embody?

I believe that three important guidelines of using this question effectively are as such:

1. manage your extremes,
2. intensify your passion, and
3. clean your house.

When I began writing these guidelines in further detail, I kept writing and writing until they turned into longer articles. I’ll be posting links to these soon.

BodyTalk Observation

I noticed today that when I practice the BodyTalk pattern called “Body Chemistry” – which essentially balances the brain to the current chemical strengths and disharmonies that the body is experiencing – that my diet changes radically.

I often feel more naturally drawn to raw foods, away from starches and sugars, like bread and processed sugars.

Yes! How awesome is being able to overcome a limiting pattern through the practice of a beneficial pattern!

I’m feeling so grateful for this pattern; so much so that it seems easy to act in a congruent way to bring this pattern in my life. I want this pattern in my life, deeply.

I’m also curious about “how it works” to continuously develop my awareness and sensitivity of the Body Chemistry pattern. That way, I’ll know when it’s working, when it’s not, and what the difference is. When coupled with awareness, the more that practice occurs, the more developed an understanding becomes.

What practices are you learning about in your life? What are some “aha’s” that have come up for you? What was the difference in what you did that brought them to life?

Banini’s

Here’s a simple recipe for an amazingly tasty smoothie.

• 9 bananas
• 1/2 cup of raw tahini
• 2 t vanilla
• 2 T raw honey
• 4 cups of water
• 2 T raw cacao powder
• 2 T spirulina powder
• 1 t coconut oil

Makes one full Vitamix. This recipe is very filling, so be sure to share with your friends!

We made this on a rainy day in Bellingham, and spent most of the digestion time enjoying a very satisfying full stomach.

Adapted from the recipe by A Gentle World, a Vegan education center in New Zealand and Hawaii.

Stormy Weather Soup Recipe and Benefits

We welcomed the spring last night with a celebration of our superhero essences, in costume, and are now looking forward to a joy-filled spring (and sunny summer ) in my community Fairhaven house.

Today, however, the weather is soupy. Not quite the legendary London-soupy (image), but soupy nonetheless. The kind of day where a mind looks away from the world’s environment for comforts, and turns towards its immediate tools for creating happiness. Like hands, and a kitchen. Which brings us to the recipe:

Cilantro Pea Soup

• 3 c Peas (frozen)
• 1 small avocado
• 5 c filtered hot water
• 1/2 c cilantro
• 1/4 c chives
• 3 T lemon juice
• 1 1/2 c sunflower seeds, soaked overnight and rinsed
• 1-2 t cumin
• 2-4 T olive oil
• 1-2 T apple cider vinegar
• 3-5 garlic cloves
• 1 T chickpea miso (optional)

All of these, blended, make for a beautiful soup.

As for the benefits of the ingredients:

It’s warming due to the garlic, and cumin. According to Paul Pitchford (link), cumin promotes energy circulation and increases the metabolic rate, all of which involve and grow the fiery energy in the body.

Lemons are a neutral food on the heat/cold scale, as they’re balancing to yin and yang energy-types in the body (*1).

Sunflower seeds contain all kinds of goodness, like

• linoleic acid – an essential polyunsaturated fatty acid that humans cannot synthesize, and must eat directly (*), which also shows up in chia seeds, kiwifruit seeds, flax seeds, and hemp seeds (*),
• Vitamin E, specifically tocopherol – as opposed to the other type of Vitamin E, tocotrienols – which is an antioxidant that prevents cell membranes from oxidation(*), and a regulator of the activities of certain enzymes (*),
• Vitamin B1 and B5, or thiamine, which allows our bodies to properly use carbohydrates, and pantothenate, which helps the body to synthesize and metabolize proteins, carbohydrates, and fats (*)
• copper, which
• as well as manganese, potassium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, selenium, calcium, zinc, betaine, phenolic acids, choline, arginine, and lignans,…

which, if you’re not a nutritionist/dietitian, is way too much to remember offhand. If, in case, you are a nutritionist, or a similar type of human interested in digging into this science further, I’ve included the sources of the above information below.

1. Lemons are a neutral food: Phyllis A. Balch, CNC, Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 4th Edition: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies Using Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs & Food Supplements
2. Thiamine and carbohydrates: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/965.html
3. Pantothenate’s uses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantothenate (from 3/20/11)

Have the soup with a bit of chai almond mylk, and you’ve got a beautiful meal. Enjoy!

A Chef’s Concept of Safety

A chef’s concept of safety is quality.

Delivering quality is their goal. Their actions are designed to meet their mind’s perspective of an ideal outcome: customer satisfaction.

In holding this vision, chefs are focalizers of all efforts to create this, like leaders of a business organization or the leader of an expedition. All movements, from dishwashing to the menu, and all the food in between, are defined and connected to support this creation. [Safety] means effectively manifesting.

This is where it gets tricky. Effectively manifesting enjoyable experiences, also known by the word “quality”, becomes increasingly complex with the number of people involved in producing food. Everyone eating the food, serving the food, plating the food, preparing the food, and, dishwashers too, preparing the cleanliness of the plates; everyone is actively creating the experience. Chaos. Massive chaos. So, the question becomes “How can I find safety in this random and distant movement?”

For a chef, truly all focalizers of visions, the action taken that has benefited effectively, most consistently, is that of forgiveness.

Forgiveness applies itself with the actively diligent effectiveness of water. Simply by being, it is never-endingly progressing towards its goal of movement and erosion. Constant effectiveness is the by-product of the forgiveness of water.

The forgiveness of water is yielding in its ability to host elements of living form, to provide space and energy for their existence and expression.

Being as forgiving as water is the master chef’s concept of safety. Then does such a chef coincide with chaos and complexity in such a way that produces the best results.

Then, do all the creations of production chaos become good for business.

The Universe Is Round, Contains Zombies

A friend of mine sent me this:

Good News, Bad News

http://www.economist.com/node/17626874

http://web.archive.org/web/20050428004220/http://65.127.124.62/south_asia/4483241.stm.htm

I feel frustrated when I can’t see a way to use information like this virus to help humans be more compassionate.

My mind heads towards thoughts like, ‘what if the US even planted it there, then blamed the country’s administration?’, even when I don’t, nor probably will, have proof of their involvement. I don’t even know what the disease is like first-hand, let alone what events generated it.

Even having such an understanding would make little difference in being able to help anyone involved – especially those infected and deceased – towards embodying a peaceful and joyful state of being.

I know there is a way to use it though. That is my faith.

How can we, or anyone, use such information to help people be more peaceful?

I heard a story on martial arts today. It reminded me about a philosophy of martial arts being about ‘self-protection’, but in a unique sense. Many that I’ve met have learned martial arts to protect themselves from attackers like thugs, thieves, rapists.

I’ve heard of tai chi practitioners using the art to protect others from themselves, and not necessarily themselves from others. This is a great source of bravery, of compassion, and of intense clarity. Protecting one’s body at that level of consciousness becomes about preventing a tool for healing from being broken.

Part of the martial arts seems to be intentionally seeking out challenges that are beyond oneself, so as to evolve one’s abilities.

I think this can apply to a zombie-like strain. Any other dis-ease for that matter. These are challenges to our current ability to heal.

I do not know how to directly and effectively help its creators in this moment, nor how to aid the governments who become known for placing blame instead of becoming known for healing the cause of a legendary dis-ease.

Yet, this is the path I have chosen. The path of helpfulness.

I must find a way, and I must help others who are similarly directed towards balance to find their way.

And where there is a will, there is a way.