Touch Me

by Juliet Klieman ( I found this beautiful poem on the Esalen Massage and Bodywork website - just had to share it)

Touch me...
In secret places no one has reached before.
In silent places where words only interfere.
In sad places where only whispering makes sense.

Touch me...
In the morning when the night still clings.
At midday when confusion crowds upon me. At twilight, as I begin again to know who
I am, In the evening when
I see you and
I hear you...
best of all.

Touch me...
Like a child
who will never have enough love, For I am
a person who wants to be lost in your arms,
An individual who has known pain to love,
An adult who is strong enough to give.

Touch me...
In crowds, when a single look says everything,
In solitude when it's too dark to even look,
In absence when I reach for you through time and miles.

Touch me...
When I ask,
When I'm afraid to ask.

Touch me...
With your lips,
Your hands,
Your presence in the room.

Touch me...
Gently, for I am fragile,
Firmly, for I am strong,
Often, for I am alone.

Persimmons and Windowsills

One of the secrets to living Raw is to eat a vast variety of fruits and vegetables. I love to explore produce I have never tried before. Persimmons are a new favourite of mine and are available from now and into winter which is perfect because they are an excellent source of vitamin A and a good source of vitamin C to keep away the colds and 'flu that may sneak up on you at this time of year. They also contain a very good protein profile (15 or more different amino acids!!!) and they are high in fibre which must be the soluble mucilaginous type because, although the skin is rather tough, the flesh is very pulpy - especially when very ripe. They also contain calcium and iron.
The type I have found in our local produce markets here in the Eastern Cape are the Fuyu Persimmons which look somewhat like a large squat tomato. These may be eaten when still quite firm, unlike the heart-shaped Hachiya which need to be well ripened and pulpy or they are very astringent due to a high tannin content. I chop my Persimmons into the blender with bananas but they are also wonderful chopped into fruit or vegetable salads.
The first time I examined a Persimmon in the local supermarket I wasn't quite sure what they were or whether the hard yellow/orange fruit was ripe or not. Fortunately, a kind gentleman dispelled my dilemma when he pounced on several and added them to his basket telling me that a few days sitting on an east facing windowsill and they would soon darken and soften to perfect ripeness. Luckily my kitchen has an east facing window - every kitchen should have an east facing window so that you can see the sun rise - and yes, those Persimmons ripened beautifully and I still don't know why it must be an east facing windowsill yet every autumn my Persimmons are placed on the windowsill above the sink where they ripen in the rays of morning sun dappled through the leaves of the Wild Pear tree.

I went pillowless this weekend .....

Have you ever tried it, or even given it a thought?!
Victoria Butenko, in her book on eating raw, mentions how she and her family have been sleeping on hard surfaces without pillows ever since their Pacific Trail hike, and have found it beneficial to their health. So, finding myself sleeping on a fairly hard flat sofa this past weekend while visiting on the West Coast (of Africa) I decided to discard the pillow and sleep on my back. Sleeping on the back is mostly a cosmetic consideration yet having found myself so very easily drifting off to sleep in the corpse pose on a hard floor without a pillow at the end of an hour of Yoga I figured that that position would be the best one to start with sans pillow.
I drifted off to sleep very quickly and awoke in the early morning without having changed position once in the night. Could just have been that I had driven 11 hours to Vredenburg that day. However, I felt refreshed and had none of the usual cricks from sleeping in a strange bed with a different pillow. In fact, I was quite excited at this new experience and have not needed to use a pillow since.
Next challenge........ to sleep on the hard floor. The thought of bugs crawling over me in the night keeps me from attempting this although I guess the solution is just to discard the mattress and sleep on the bed base. We shall see.