The best day ever when everything goes wrong

So I am going to do something totally out of character today. I realize I haven't blogged in quite some time and there are many reasons for that. One is that I am such a Germanly organized person that I want my blog do be perfectly chronological and feel guilty writing new without being caught up first. I am being reminded a lot these days that I am living in the here and now so I am taking the plunge and posting a blog NOW. It's an education in freedom from convention and a character building exercise for me. Which actually fits the very theme of this post :-)

If you've been on my facebook you've seen a number of best ever photos, posts, smiles, etc. from the supercharge I got from the Wurzelkongress in Berlin. I most definitely had the best time ever at the event and came home ecstatic and inspired. But I know how supercharging at a festival or event goes, you come back and you crash. I was wondering how this post-partum was going to compare to a "normal" non-superfood event post-partum experience.

First of all the high dragged on and on. I got to spend Monday night with a lovely new friend, slept in, talked most of the day away, just totally hitting it off. When I finally left and went to my cousin's house I was really wiped out but so amped that I had trouble sleeping. The next morning it was quite the culture shop to sit around a breakfast table with unhealthy overweight family members, even young children showing early signs of the typical civilization diseases. I sat in front of a bowl of weeds I had collected in the garden as well as half an avocado while the table was filled with white bread, nutella, butter, cheese, and tons of different kind of meats. Eating breakfast was sort of like a reality warp and it took a while for me to adjust to the concept that these items on the table were considered food staples.

That afternoon we went to the forest together and visited the largest accumulation of ancient sacred burial mounts in Europe. Apparently the site is placed on a ley line and I remembered translating David Wolfe saying that reishi mushrooms are typically found on ley lines. I entertained the thought of finding both reishi and chaga with enthusiasm and prayed for both to happen. I figured I might as well ground myself and started running barefoot up and down the mounts and found a birch polyspore within minutes, then a reishi, and finally two birch trees with chaga mushrooms!

I left my cousin's house physically exhausted but emotionally and mentally energized. My family met my enthusiasm somewhat reservedly, as I had expected, but the next day I got to share my first wild-harvested chaga supersmoothie with Joerg, whom I met in Berlin. I felt like the magic would never end. While the feeling of manic ecstasy started to subside I continued to feel confident that a real change had occurred and I would be able to hold onto the positivity that had been rising within me.

Today came the ultimate test. Today I was faced with the question whether it was possible to maintain a "best day ever" attitude while everything went wrong. I woke up yesterday with an intense craving for maca dipped brazil nuts and bought some nuts right away and dug right in. They tasted somewhat "off" and as I kept chomping on them I kept thinking they were contaminated with some kind of mold or something. I felt a little queazy in the afternoon but attributed it to other factors (such as getting my period). At night I made myself a raw soup and joined my family eating cooked food at the table, feeling a little frustrated about the tension and disapproval energy always accompanying me eating differently than my family.

In my frustration I started craving comfort foods and reached for the brazil nuts. I knew it for a mistake before I was done eating. I had an adverse reaction almost immediately but forced myself to ignore it. Not even an hour later I started feeling really sick, as if I had contracted food poisoning. Within the next hour I was violently throwing up and kept thinking about the nuts every time I hit a wave of nausea. It took a lot of discipline to not berate myself for ignoring my intuition and to cycle into a thought pattern of self-condemnation. "This too shall pass" I repeated over and over again for the following hours of a miserable night.

This morning I woke up feeling totally spent and manifesting cold symptoms. I knew I had crashed my immune system and was careful to treat it gently today with healing foods but relaxing on detoxification. The disadvantage of having an extreme personality is, of course, trying to get extremely healthy extremely fast, which in turn ends up being unhealthy. But what can be more healing than laughter, I thought, and decided to laugh at my own silliness. In the afternoon I had a rough negative energy encounter with my family that made me sad and challenged me to practice forgiveness and not accepting feelings of guilt. Then I drove to the place where my brother goes to University and enjoyed the drive there, thinking I was going to have the best day ever after all.

Little did I know that the real test was yet to come. On the drive home I struggled to stay alert due to the cold and detox symptoms and the weakening of my system that was still going on from last night's ordeal. I decided to listen to best day ever lectures to keep my brain moving and my motivation up. At one point I was reaching for my water when I should have taken a freeway exit and breezed right past it. In trying to get back I ended up getting lost and ran into a traffic jam. Next I sat in traffic for a good long time until I finally had a chance to take the next freeway exit where I hoped to get directions.

I was so busy reading signs when I got off the freeway that I didn't notice the radar trap. Apparently I have earned my first speeding ticket today. The little demon on my shoulder started yelling all kinds of obscenities at me, about my failure and stupidity, but the angel on the other side won the yelling match and had me laughing at the absurdity of the fact that I had just had the most expensive photograph ever taken of me. Hilarious that I should be leaving a lovely stressed out portrait of myself floating around the German bureaucratically system before I head off to the States.

When I finally got directions and found my way back on the freeway I got into the worst traffic jam ever. What should have been an hour drive dragged into a three hour long stop-and-go ordeal. Then my bliss of having freed myself of all of my menstrual symptoms through raw foods turned into horror as I realized that once again I had forgotten about being on my period. I know, TMI, let it suffice it was not a pretty incident and I was stuck in 4 lanes of traffic with no way to get to a bathroom. I reminded myself that the only reason I got into this predicament is that I am no longer suffering from menstrual pain and that that was an incredible blessing. Then I thought about writing about this on my blog and how my American friends would get all freaked out because in the US we just don't talk about bodily functions so openly. And soon enough I was back to laughing again.

I finally got home after half an eternity and told myself that this way I was given the wonderful chance of learning so much about amazing new health strategies and discoveries on the drive. Oh, how I was looking forward to a hot shower. I jumped in, cranked up the water, and for the first time ever the water heater in our house gave out and there was no hot water. I washed in cold water, explained to my mom why I came home so late, and decided this would make for one of the best blog posts ever. I decided I would go to bed having had the best day ever. And just as I was ready to log off and lay down I got the most uplifting phone call, and believe it or not, logged off feeling like this was the best day ever!

If love is

If love is an ocean
let me drown in its depth
If love is a river
let me be swept by its currents
If love is like thunder
let me go deaf by its roaring
If love is like lightning
let me grow blind by its brightness

If love is a fire
let me be singed
no, burned alive,
through flesh and skin
through bone and heart

If love is a mystery
let me ponder
let me wonder
for all eternity

If love is
let me be