Category: Healthy

I am re-posting this from 2020, we need all the natural immuno-health we can get. This was a regimen of optional, organ and system-specific natural supplements that helped me get over long covid. I put this together with the help of a professional natural medicine doctor, and my mother, who has been a strict natural medicine practitioner her whole life, and mine too.

TLDR scroll to the bottom

I had COVID in June of 2020. I had mild symptoms, but they lasted for 1 month, and included shortness of breath, fever, heart palpitations, foggy brain, and COVID rash on my hands and feet.

After my fever and rash left, I continued to feel shortness of breath. Before the illness, I was happily hiking up to 10,000 feet twice a week. Afterwards, I would gasp for air simply lying in bed, or standing up. It felt like I was trapped in my own body. And every so often, my heart would pound randomly. My resting heart rate was high, and my blood pressure was elevated (140/90).

Western medicine is great for saving lives, but when it comes to systemic long term health, not so much. So I turned to natural medicine. I put together a regiment of supplements designed for me, my particular symptoms and the specific organs I needed to care for (lungs, cardiovascular, and liver). After consulting with several Naturopathic doctors, this is the protocol I came up with.

Because we live in a litigious society with little common sense, I must make the disclaimer that this is in no way a medical opinion, and I am not giving advice to anyone. If you feel naturopathic medicine will help you, please consult a professional before trying any of these things. There. done.

However, after 6 months, my lungs have come back to full function, my resting heart rate has mostly subsided (65 in the morning, after getting out of bed) and I have very few heart palpitations. Some of these things I will continue for the rest of my life. Combined with exercise and a healthy diet, I have lost weight and now weigh what I did in my early 30’s, and feel fantastic.

Some of my friends have asked me to share this, so I am sharing it here. I’m happy to answer any questions about my experience with this protocol. May we all heal and thrive in health, harmony, and happiness.

Every Instrument has a personality. I started playing music when I was 3, before my earliest memories. I have always played music, as long as I have a sense of myself. But I do not remember making the choice. And therefore it wasn’t ‘mine.’ Since much of the early pressure to play came from my outside myself as a kid, and I am naturally resistant to nagging, the element of choice was instrumental in continuing to play music through adulthood. Finding the saxophone made my music belong to me in a personal way that carried through the trials and tribulations of the transition into adulthood.

The Piano

My first instrument was the piano, and I started taking lessons when I was 3. The piano is a kind of patriarch of the musical world. It has depth, context, facilitates abstract understating of structure, musical theory, and is semi-universal amongst all genres of music. Anything can be played on it, and it is an orchestra in itself – capable of melody, harmony, rhythm, counterpoint and key all at once. The piano is also a percussion instrument, meaning the action to make a sound is a physical strike. Many young kids love to bang the keys and delight at the sounds it produces, no matter how cacophonous. Like the ‘many flavored jelly beans’ in the Harry Potter stories, you never know what sounds you will make when you strike keys randomly. But you made them, and that is fascinating enough for a young child.  However, the Piano has a very gradual learning curve and in order to really find a voice playing it, one needs many, many years of steady access. The Piano is sedentary and weighs a literal ton (grand pianos, at least), and therefore prone to the risk of losing access as a young adult.

My relationship with the piano is slightly different. I had access, both my sister and I grew up with a piano thanks to the fortitude of my mother.  But I never chose the instrument. I had no memory of ever starting to play, or making the decision to start. As long as I had been alive, in my memory, the piano was a part of my life. As was the obligatory daily practice. It was an hour as far as I could remember, though as a 3-year-old I’m sure it was less. I can’t recall. For a kid with a fierce streak of independence, I equated my reluctance to sit and practice for an hour every day with my lack of choice.

The Piano can rumble like thunder, or prance like a pony. It can roll like the second half of Rock. It can dance, swing, waltz, bop, slap, clap, and laugh. You can ask a question of the gods; walk jump, or fall like an avalanche. It can stampede, trample, or tiptoe. It can be furious, or cry like a weeping, wailing widow. You can summon the spirits, tell the future, cast spells with the piano. It summons jazz tension, speaks of pain and anguish, blesses with resolution, if even for a note only. It can hammer. It can kick. The Piano gives voice to so many things we have no words for. We can have an entire conversation without speaking, all at the touch of our fingertips.

String Instruments

Classical string instruments are the ‘old man’ of music. Stuffy, curmudgeonly reluctant to help you in any way. They don’t even have frets on the finger board.  Whiney and in need of bows, classical strings are mostly played in small groups of 4 or 5, or large orchestras. Almost all violins I know of were playing classical music in respectful, stodgy venues. The violin is the star of the orchestra, and usually takes any solos or key lead parts of an arrangement. They are the rock-star of the string family, though that is an oxymoron. The violin has come to be synonymous with the idea of ‘classical music.’ It has been used by great composers and brilliant musicians for millennia, to explore the depths of the human condition, to voice both devils and angels. To speak, wordlessly, of secret things. It stands as the Everest of musical talent, among the most complex, inscrutable and divine pursuits of those that would speak the language of the soul. From folk to fine art, the violin has its place, cemented in the center of all lyrical truth.

The violin sings. It seduces. It dazzles, barks, chastises, all without taking a breath. The violin asks the best questions. It dances too with the most beautiful dexterity. It cuts the silence like a knife, like a fin through water, sometimes a shark, sometimes a whale, pushing silence aside in eddies and currents of resonant vibration. For this reason, the violin sits alone on top of the whole orchestra, crying out with a single sweet sharp voice, above all others. The violin is the only instrument played equally by Angels and Demons alike.

The rest of the string family does not deviate much from the gravitas of their star violin: The viola, a little more sober enterprise… The cello, a rich, somber counterpoint to the violin, is strong enough to have its own heroes and myths… The cello can move even the most recalcitrant of obstinate souls, all on its own. But still, it is a clear second to the soaring, soprano arias and odes of the violin. The bass… well, all musical instrument families are required to fill the full standard range, set by the original instrument, the human voice. Instruments tend to range further than that, because they have the mechanical ability, and because the human ear can hear it, and so there are usually rare oddities all the way from double-soprano to double-contra bass… but for most instrument families, the bass is the lowest you will see, and its usually an afterthought. It rarely has a personality, let alone any inspired repertoire. Besides, the lower an instrument is, the bigger and heavier it is too, meaning bass anything is a logistical nightmare to carry around, especially for zealous young students. 

The bass violin, aka the ‘upright bass’, is an exception to this rule. It’s actually a testament to the design of the wooden string instruments, both that they are so ancient and that they have so much individual personality (relatively). The bass has been adopted, in many smoke-and-laughter-filled dark basement bars, by that cult of personality – Jazz. But its primary role, and character, is that of a support instrument. The bottom of the orchestral string family. Not for me.

Drums

Drums are an enticing prospect. A drum set rumbles, bubbles, toils and troubles. In an orchestra, drums come in many forms and shapes, together which are known as the ‘percussion’ section. Drums come as tympanies, kettles, snares, hand drums, bongos, many more odd shapes, and are the most ubiquitous form of musical instrument across all cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Music exists without drums, but is rare among genres. The percussion section also includes other objects to strike: chimes, cymbals, the xylophone, bells, cabasas, castanets, cowbells, gongs, and high-hats. The Percussion section in an orchestra or wind ensemble, or any large musical group, takes a large amount of space, and is further filled out with oddities such as maracas, marimbas, and musical saws. There are thousands of percussion instruments from all over the world, including the human body. Anything you can strike or manipulate with your hands to make a sound can be considered a percussion instrument. Of all of these, the drum set most people think of, the rock-star of percussion, is a distilled, ruthlessly edited and simplified version of the percussion section.

I could have become a drummer. But I was too far ensconced in the rich quagmire of melodic structuring, harmony, chord changes or progressions, and of course melody, the heroic voice of music… that playing drums would be like returning to the black-and-white movies after the invention of color-vision. A recidivist choice. Drums are cool though, and an essential part of the ‘new’ musics- the rock, jazz, and folk bands. Like the piano, they are foundational… but rarely are they the lead.

The Guitar

Many boys fantasize about the Guitar. It fits all the right places- it can soar, it can wail. It can rip or cry. It can bounce, or blow your mind. It can complete a single songwriter. It can be amplified or acoustic There are steel strings, plastic, gut, hide… It’s old. Images of stringed instruments similar to guitar, such as the lute, or the oud, have appeared in artworks since the Egyptian empire passed it to the Greeks. The modern acoustic guitar reached its current form in the early-mid 19th century. still produces some of the freshest sound being made today. A man and a guitar can (and may) save the world. Like the piano, a guitar can be all parts of music: the melody, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, chords. It can accompany or be a solo lead. It has a very active cult following, skewing towards recent musical history. There are pantheons to the greatest guitarists, guitar solos, and bands, and guitars are collected like works of art. The guitar marched in the counter-cultural movement of the 60s, it kept pace in the bubbling turmoil of the emerging jazz art music of the 20^th century America. But its true moment was the rock and roll revolution. Amped by electricity and fueled by fame, drugs and sex appeal, the guitar is a lifestyle all its own. Likewise, it reaches far back in many local cultures. Flamenco is every bit as majestic as any rock song, or jazz tune, and quite a bit more complex than pop music. But perhaps the mythology of the guitar has overgrown its actual true existence. I didn’t even consider it.

I was 8 when I added my second instrument, and had been playing classical piano since before I knew there was an I. My entire sense of self included the piano. The guitar was too much a deviation, it would feel like starting over. Besides, I knew every kid out there would probably choose the guitar, so competition would be fierce. Not for me. This, combined with the failings of drums, and there too goes the bass guitar off my list.

The guitar is the instrument most able to ask questions like ‘why, how come, and where?’ The Guitar, similar to the piano, is also a percussion instrument involving strings. Instead of hammers, anything can pluck guitar strings, and the tones that are possible to call forth are infinitely varied. A true chameleon. guitars weep, thrash, and wail. It can take the lead, or offer complex ‘comp’ chords under any other instrument. Guitar chords can be thick as walls, or sweet as a small forgotten summer night comes rushing back to memory after a long absence.

My choice

In my world, there were only two viable families to choose from, both woodwinds. I was not conscious of it at the time, but I believe now that I wanted to be even closer to the human voice, and wanted my music to come from my breath, like singing does. Like meditation does. Like spirit does.  I believe it was Brahms who said he preferred writing for woodwinds, because he felt the music made from breath was closer to god. I didn’t learn this till much later. But it makes sense to me. 

Woodwinds is a little misleading, since many of them have no wood…

The two families I thought about are brass and reed instruments. Brass consists of the flagship trumpet, evolved from an early ancestor the bugle, still played in military ceremonies. Brass is much more diverse than that, though, and includes french horns,[1] tubas, souxaphones, flugelhorns, trombones, and myriad hybrids of all of the above. Reed Instruments are even more diverse, divided into families by reed. The oboe and bassoon[2] are double-reed, and the oboe is considered the hardest wind instrument to play, followed by the bassoon. Mostly because the bassoon is the bass member of the double-reed family, with less flashy music written for it. Then there are single-reed instruments, most popular being the clarinet family and the saxophone family, soprano, alto, tenor saxophone,[3] baritone, bassinets. Then there are wnd instruments with neither wood nor reed: the flute and piccolo.

I could have been happy playing the trumpet. In fact I did try it out, years later, for a month. The trumpet is sharp, smart, and brings you to attention. It can be sexy, in the clean-cut kind of way, and it rings clear through any bright summer day, or misty dark winter evening just the same. There were trumpets all around, even back home at school. It was familiar to me the way you stand, straight at attention, all right angles and square stance, with only three fingers moving, ever. The only sound comes straight from the vibration of your lips. You can’t play many high notes when you are starting out. My imagination ran with what happened to your lips so that you could… The thought of this all was exhausting, if also slightly scary. I wondered about looking like a fish with swollen lips as some of the other kids did on occasion, just after an hour practice. They would all have a red circle around their mouth. With the saxophone, I had a constant scar on the inside of my bottom lip where my teeth bit into the reed.  That too built up over time. But at least it wasn’t visible… I admit thought the trumpet is not that big, and not hard to carry as I was walking to school every morning at that age. Even small things can be heavy for an 8 year old. Weight mattered. But I had more exposure to the saxophone, mostly by chance. There was a musical college near me, and the dean, Dr. Stoltie, played the saxophone and agreed to teach me, thanks to the help of my mom. He was a very patient man. I do owe a lot of my music to him.

The Saxophone

The saxophone is a sexy instrument, all curves and speed wrapped in pale gold metal. Lithe and supple, each note has its own distinct finger position, the pitch determined by the length of the uninterrupted tube formed by each combination of fingering. It makes sense, easy to understand intellectually. There was no other instrument that looked like it, the Saxophone is unique in its hip, expressive self. It seemed to me to be the opposite of a stuffy thing. Some pop artists had saxophones in their music, and on the cover of their albums too. The saxophone was a living instrument, not stuffy and ancient like the violin. Or the straight, stoic, stodgy clarinet with its too-fat mouthpiece and illogical finger patterns. The saxophone wails, rips, sings, and riffs. Many jazz bands were led by saxophonists, and the music it played had a lot of solos, and opportunities for the spotlight. That was exciting to me at 8. The saxophone is a foundation for that esoteric art music Jazz, that whispered unnamed promises to me as I practiced my same old major scales year after year, and played the same melodic chord progressions written for hundreds of years by Europeans.  I could be myself, express my sorrows and joys, and maybe get a gig on a Sade album. Or wallow in the smoky underground of the NY nightlife. I could sing of the torture of being made to practice music for an hour every day, for each instrument I played. That added up to a lot of time. The saxophone it was. I was hooked.

[1] The French made some pretty wacky instruments, 99% of which are not made anymore and therefore really rare.

[2] I started my third Instrument, the bassoon, when I was 11. A rare instrument that got me accepted to any school I applied to.

[3] John Coltrane’s instrument. Coltrane was always a mystery to me, musically. I couldn’t make sense of the thinking behind the mess of notes he played. I knew nothing about him, either. Later, in College, I took a class by Anthony Braxton called “the music of Coltrane, Mingus and Coleman” that changed my entire understanding of jazz music. Professor Braxton was a recipient of the McCarther Grant, aka the ‘Genius Award’ and he spoke his own language. I had to copy down verbatim everything he said, and couldn’t actually understand any of it until halfway through the semester. He was also a Saxophone player, and his picture was in the books we read in class. He listened to my music, and I heard he liked it… but that’s another story. Coltrane was an artist, there are a few, who not only was the best of his generation, but expanded what it meant to make the art. Those are the artists that are remembered. It happened through a mix of the changing Civil Rights environment of the late 50’s and 60’s, as well as a personal spiritual revelation that happened in his sleep, that set him on the path of modality, sheets of sound, and the search for the divine note he heard in his dream.

It has been over 2 months since my last post. That doesn’t mean that things are slow. In fact, they are coming faster than ever before. But IRT crypto, it’s been a long , cold HODL winter, and I am so grateful to be seeing the springtime again.

I wrote this as the crypto slump was starting, in June. This was the first real challenge of my crypto journey, where I chose to HODL.  During that time, it was hard to be enthusiastic about crypto and I felt a mix of defensiveness and defiance about sharing my enthusiasm with my friends, some of whom may have been influenced by it to buy. Now the market is back up to where it was and more, and all that is gone. As much as I hate to admit it, nobody is made of steel and it takes a steady faith to put money where your mouth is.

I still feel this way. I do also have healthy concerns that an onslaught of regulatory missteps will derail crypto. But taken as a whole, it is something that has always been a threat and has never worked. Not even China’s best efforts can stop Bitcoin. That’s the point of a decentralized, trustless currency. It will succeed because it is better technology: better for more people, a redistribution of power to the everyman, and away from controlling institutions, governments, and private interests.

So, after a long hiatus, I’m posting this as a lesson. Stick to your beliefs. Trust yourself. What seems true in the sunshine is still true in the fog. Literally, that mirrors my own physical journey from the sunny shores of Mexico, where I fell in love with Crypto, and the foggy shores of Pacifica, where I came to move through the last remaining tethers of an old life. Only to find the flowering of a whole new one. But that’s a story for another time…

Notes from the start of the crash:

I’ve been soaking up information, specifically on Cryptocurrency and Blockchain, at a pace I haven’t hit since Undergrad.  I have spent the last month immersed in podcasts, videos, papers, articles, and reaching out to my friends who know a lot about Crypto. Needless to say, there is a lot more complexity and diversity and specialization than there was in 2017. I am not going to try to trade crypto, and am not your financial advisor, but I believe anyone can learn these things if they are passionate about it, as I am.

Having said that, this is my personal blog, so I shall tell you what I am doing, and thinking. Learning about cryptocurrency is a new addition to the minestrone soup that makes up my daily schedule, that I have so diligently and patiently put together over the last six months. I’ll tell you about that later.

I’ve been ‘attending’ the virtual conference ‘Consensus’ by Coinbase. It has been a bit like trying to drink my way out of the middle of the ocean. There are lots of things that I liked learning about, here are a very few random selections;

What about the price crash?

As far as crypto goes, you know the entire market value has dropped 50% in the last few weeks. It has changed the feel of the entire community and certainly the non-community about it.

• These are the major impact factors for the crash:
  • Elon musk tweet
  • Whale attacks from Bitcoin and Etherium, dump out (young coins)
  • China news cycle
  • FUD for retail investors
  • Leverage liquidations

Bitcoin has had 7 drops over 50% in its average 200% YOY growth since it began. And China has banned or threatened to ban Bitcoin half a dozen times since its creation.

I personally am not worried, though I am glad I didn’t put more in before it crashed. Full disclosure, I’ve been buying this whole week, not a lot, but whatever I can spare. Every bit will add to the gains when it hits its next explosive cycle. And even longer term.

I’ll be clear. I believe crypto (that is an increasingly broad word, I’m coming to realize) is going to grow, faster in relative value (to other currencies and a store of wealth) and faster in absolute value (as a means of purchasing goods and services) than any other type of money, currency, bond, equity, precious metal, new tech startup, real estate, commodity, or any other asset class I can think of. In the next decade we will look back and this will seem like the early days.

The question isn’t ‘how many dollars is that crypto worth’ but ‘how many (insert a number of very sound chains, coins, or tokens etc) is that thing worth?’

I agree with many that Bitcoin will become the gold of Crypto, the undisputed king of value storage. The entire crypto market can be described (and has by Michael Saylor) as layers upon layers of decentralization, all protecting Bitcoin from being controlled by any central interest.

I believe Etherium will be the backbone from which Decentralized Finance will spread as it replaces classic financial systems. We are already at layer 2 application marketplaces popping up everywhere.

I think there will be a tension between centralized (government and private enterprise-sponsored) finance and decentralized (tech-driven, mission driven, empowering and accessible to everyone) finance, and we are seeing battles play out across the price fluctuations. It is a volatile factor, and adds to the general volatility of the price of crypto. But that’s what we are here for, is it not?

The Community:

I have been attending the ‘Consensus’ conference put on by CoinDesk, a fairly sophisticated crypto news network that makes part of the largest Crypto holding group iiiin the US The US crypto community is a mishmash of seemingly disparate groups.

• Among the community you will find:
  • Media nerds
  • Sci Fi fans
  • Tech Bros
  • Financial mavericks
  • Wall st renegades
  • Conspiracy fans
  • Futurists
  • Hackers
  • Smart immigrants from countries with large inflationary history
  • Alt Right
  • Outlaws
  • Libertarians

Like the technology, this group is smart, decentralized, and forms a trustless network. Often the value of a new project is, as in all new ventures and startup companies, entirely dependent on the integrity of the community that builds around it. Crypto has passion from its adherents, and offers a lot to get passionate about. The potential is quite staggering.

I see a grand, epic and global story in the intense activity that surrounds cryptocurrency now. And it looks a lot like an early stage, distributed, decentralized, trustless community that is disrupting the largest industry in history: cash.

Cryptocurrency seems to me to be like the internet of finance. DEX and DeFi run on chains, and the number of chains are multiplying, each with an ecosystem built on top of it. The ecosystem itself is what drives value of the central ‘Coin’ or ‘proof of work/proof of stake’ blocks. Cross-chain protocols are currently being built, such as Cosmos, or staking

The sharks and the whales.

The media environment right now is a self-perpetuating cycle, either virtuous (hype) or destructive (market downturns and crashes). What is happnening right now is a sequence of factors, all happening in a way that compound the downturn enough that a critical mass of investors has changed into a mode that is designed to shake out the individuals and entities that are not as aware or calculated as they are. The big entities are buying the dip, and some are even help the downturn to get the cheapest price, regardless of wrecking overleveraged little fish.

And the ‘Environmental’ criticism of Crypto, and Bitcoin specifically? Well, the same people working on Bitcoin are working to use technology to achieve what policy and politics has failed to do: save the world from special interests. It is a potent criticism, but without getting in to a whole sub-discussion, I will say do your research, don’t listen to ‘influencers’

What am I doing here?

I am most interested in the promise of decentralization and trustless networks. It seems that there are some potential large power struggles happening in Cryptocurrency, that are changing, and may eventually come to align with other, geopolitical power struggles in the real world. Decentralized vs. Centralized power centers. Eastern vs. Western regional regulatory environments, that shape specialization. Finance vs. Engineers.

Therefore, the thing to remember is that these are the same people that inhabit the current world. At some point disruption becomes the new normal, and an equilibrium of sorts arises. I have seen cycles of this in the 20 years I have been in the bay area, working in tech for many of them. However, I will end with some spice:

Good or Evil?

I do think the value of cryptocurrencies will continue to grow, over the years-long timeframes. I don’t think anyone actually thinks otherwise, or at least the numbers are already in the minority. So I am buying and holding a planned amount of creditable projects as a part of my total portfolio, based on my mid term and long term goals. I have some serious questions about how things will shake out, and it will be fascinating to watch history unfold.

But I believe there is a beautiful story that we are watching unfold, now, in the present, faster almost than we can keep up with. And it will be part of all of the things that shape our future. Like all technology, it has the potential for incredible salvation, and also can be used for dark and destructive purposes. Its up to us, which one prevails. The best part is, my interest in the space spans several major areas of personal effort at the moment, and brings them closer together. So I am deeeeep down the rabbit hole. Feels like grad school. SO.

Take a deep breath. Relax and practice patience Observe as the world changes in front of our eyes.

Addendum (June 2021)

I have been drinking the ocean at ‘Consensus‘ convention this week, put on by CoinDesk, the media company owned by the largest Crypto Invsetment Group Greyscale. I am not associated with any of these companies, nor do I own any coins I am talking about. But there were some fascinating nuggets to save and chew later. I look forward to it. Here are a few:

Crypto powered VPN

Space Crypto. Send Crypto via Satelite

Gemini Crypto Credit Card (waitlisted)

Hack Insurance for Crypto assets on loan

Quadratic Voting being tested in Colorado state budget allocation

Cryptokitties

Crash Tax Loophole

My time in San Francisco of the South is coming to an end. I have a lot to share, and some experiences that were truly exquisite. I can’t wait to get a computer that can render video fast enough to process them… Soon. In the mean time, please enjoy the daily greeting I get from the multitude of Mexican birds. I want to take this feeling home with me…

This journey begins at the source, before time. Before memory. In the mist of childhood myth, the legendary beginning. Origins have crystalized, like water seeping through miles of sandstone; down, backwards through layers of time, pulled by the gravitational force of All That Is.

Too faint to be seen, a secret domain lies deep within, in the molecular spaces between hard, brittle tangible structure. Perhaps also too subtle to express in obvious ways, nevertheless it is ubiquitous, elemental, all authentic, all genuine, true thought. Sweetness surprises by bubbling up into word and deed, given optimal health. The sediment contains a mix of layers, some soft and porous, some hard, dense and imposing. Fossils of ancient entities lie unseen and waiting to be excavated, or remain hidden, deep within. These too are touched by the sweetness, which turns organic matter into silicate and stone, slowly, relentlessly, and permanently. These fossils dot the landscape of my buttes and bedrock, and occasionally reveal themselves as the elements of life’s storms and droughts, wind and weather, wear me away, these fossils, these layers, both soft and hard, purify and filter out the anger, animosity, frustration, pain, sorrow, and sadness that come and go, like the sun and moon passing overhead.

There are pollutants in the air, wrought by the din of industry and apathy, and they can tarnish and blemish the sandstone, marring the face of my monument. But deep within, the sweet water still stays pure, filtered by gravity and form. 

Just as time erodes the body, so too do experiences pile up like fresh sediment, building new layers on top, containing the particulate and pollutants as well as the natural material of each moment. My body is ever-changing. It’s possible, I think, that this metamorphosis can turn my sweet water foul, and so care is needed for the preservation of the purity of my body. I must be the steward of my own conservation, a warden of uncorrupted natural biosphere. But lucky for me, the bulk of my mountain, its roots, its birth, are pure and strong. I am this physical self. I am this monolith, and I drink deep from the fountain of sweet water.

I invite others to drink too, if they come to me unburdened by lie or façade, if they openly share of this generous, rich soil.  For it is the combination of sweet water and rich earth that sprouts life, and the cycles of life and death that form layers of my bulk, eons in the making. Rich minerals are brought through me by sweetness, and impurities removed. There is no single center, just the sum of each element, and no end to the deepness, no end to the process, and no limit to the sweetness found inside. 

This sweet water finds its way down and trickles out in hidden springs, remote and unseen by mere passers-by. But to those who develop intimacy, the fountain is never-ending supply of fresh, pure sweet nourishing water, more delicious for its journey, richer than anything manufactured by man. It is an ancient, unalterable sweetness, because it is of the earth, and without end. 

Dew gathered at each passing gloaming or startling dawn starts its journey through my body. Just as the rich life-giving torrents of violent storm inject deluges of water, to begin its own journey through my molecular body. These events provide different volumes of raw experience, but the process is the same.

My sweetness longs to find a pathway out, into the open, where it can meet seed and sun, and become life in a new form. It longs to be cultivated, tended, to irrigate the harvest that is its destiny.  This too is an unstoppable longing, and exists in the landscape of my body, not forced by will or synthetic fertilization. It longs for nature where it can become. Authentic, true, pure, and life-giving- like the trickle at the headwaters of a stream, running forever to the sea, my sweetness will find a way to join the ocean, the garden, the forest, and the wildflowers that color the highlands of my psyche with delight and wonder, always and already, before me and long after I erode into dust.

There are some very good things that were written, produced, built, made, learned, discovered, or otherwise came in to being in the 90s… that we should remember. This was a time just before social media, with all collective knowledge right before the great digital shift, before the internet took over the world. These things, being mostly analogue, have possibly gotten the short end of the stick from our collective Third Millennium attention. That is why I will use this blog to occasionally write about some fascinating, useful, interesting, delightful, informative and generally value-add cultural phenomena from the last great analogue decade.

This first one is a book I just finished called ‘Body, Mind, and Sport‘ by John Duillard.*

I have chronic structural injuries and imbalances caused by accident, and deeper than that, by chance, circumstance and a dash of recklessness in my youth. I destroyed my knee in a snowboarding accident, and dislocated my sternoclavicular joint in a motorcycle accident a few years later. Both injuries are inoperable and both on the right side cause me to have chronic pain (knots in my back, and my knee swells up if I run more than a mile).

I had been training for a marathon when I blew my knee. After it healed, I have not been able to run more than a mile or two, for the last 15 years. But after reading this book, and practicing its method of ‘listening to my body’ during exercise, I run 2x per week each several miles, along with hiking and yoga and weight training the rest of the week. The impact on my life has been phenomenal: I have lost 15 lbs in the last 7 weeks, and am stronger than I have been since high school. It feels like I have superpowers.

The Point

Long story short, the book’s main thesis is that exercise should be a practice to integrate the mind and body, and the ‘no pain, no gain’ attitude towards fitness is actually destructive. First, the book runs through some exercises to identify the specifics of your body and energy and athletic types, based on Aurvedic practice. This includes diet, type of exercise, and also things to avoid for the three main types. These correlate roughly to ecto, meso, and endomorphs, though there is much more to it. Each type has an entire diet outlined for it as well as an exercise regimen.

The book then goes on to its main point- that we, like most mammals that run, evolved to breathe through our noses during normal exertion, and that breathing through the mouth is actually a stress-response, one we learned as kids stressed out by expectation or incorrect information, or simple illness. The entire second half of the book is about how to train yourself (and why) to exercise while breathing exclusively through your nose. For something supposedly natural, it’s a very unusual thing to attempt.

My Experience

But in the month since I have read this book, I have been practicing the techniques outlined by Dr, Douillard, and the results have been nothing short of spectacular. I am now running while breathing entirely through my nose. Not only has my breathing slowed down to about 16 breaths per minute during exercise, but my exertion and stress levels are minimal, and I end each run feeling fresh, energized, and rejuvenated rather than exhausted and stressed. My legs are strong, my knee remains stable, and I enjoy exercise immensely. I ‘work out’ 6 days a week! The book tries (and so far looks to succeed) in normalizing that experience that athletes talk about of being ‘in the zone’ – achieving perfect mind/body harmony such that everything just seems to flow.

The author is a doctor and athletic advisor who has spent his career proving the premise in this book, with lab testing, up to and including the Olympic level athletes and professionals. I will let the book stand on its own, but for anyone who has had stress injuries, or any other debilitating exercise experiences, or for those merely curious, I can’t recommend this book enough. The main premise is that, through a different, listening approach to exercise, we can return to the original (Greek, Ayurvedic) practices of mind-body integration that used to be the goal of exercise, before the obsession with winning took over.

And one final note about that- not only have these practices been used to win, but think about this: if you hate working out, or if you get injured, then winning will be the last thing you experience.

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