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I'll give your advice to the guy pouring cement in my backyard tomorrow. He said that three months ago he stopped drinking and went on a keto diet. He lost 30 lbs but got gout. My ex also has gout, and is a relatively healthy eater. But he doesn't have the raw milk dairy delivering to customers in his driveway, like I did during the lockdown. We were the Unmasked Underground.

Your story with the butter reminded me of The Vegetarian Myth. She talks about falling off the vegan wagon by consuming a whole tub of, was it french onion dip? With a spoon. Her body was so craving fat, animal fat, she couldn't stop. And yes, she talks about how being vegan wrecked her health permanently. And she preaches the gospel of animal fats and why our body needs them.

And my Appalachian Trail partner yesterday does the Weston-Price diet and HER husband has gout. Is there anyone being spared? I'm sticking to my daily cup of cream colored with a bit of coffee ;-)

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hola, tereza. so glad that this information seems to be coming to you in a timely manner. in the next two following essays i will share more nuance and details with my gout that kept coming back. and if your cement guy, or the husband of your appalachian friend, would like to talk to me directly, via whatsapp, i'm open to that. let me know and we can arrange that, no problem.

(nb: and i have now organised 3 types of yogic/breath courses that puts diet as part of the process, a key part, of returning to the sacred body as soul. an 8wk on-line course, a 3day or 10day in person intensive that includes silence. if you know anyone who might be interested that would be great.)

thank you for reading and commenting!

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As an aside, another reader recommended to me Peter Duke's interview of Jasun and I'm going to do my next episode on that. Fascinating! May I mention that he's your sister's husband or would you prefer I didn't?

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hola, tereza.

you may indicate that we are in fact related. although i think is jasun's interview of duke.

you may find his last essay engaging as well.

all the best!

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haha, that was something I was going to mention in my episode. Peter talks more than Jasun. But that's actually my kind of interview, when I used to do them, where it was more of a conversation. I don't think I can't read Jasun without being a paid sub. Thanks!

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ah! yes the payment part. hmmmm. maybe i'll cheat him and download the text for you and you can see for yourself if you want to read that and then go forward and pay.

if you want to pay he offers the option to use paypal to lessen the cost because the rake from substack is so high. and then he will comp you. i kind of laugh at that, sorry jasun. is that an act of social lack of integrity more strongly than his feeling of the integrity of being minimalist in his expenses. he and michelle have spent many many years in near destitution. their relatively recent changes in fortune haven't lessened their strong cost minimalisation urges. (i have a bit of that and in my mind have reached a limit of paid subscriptions at around 8 i think. hmmmm. maybe time for me to up that because there is you and a couple more that would be more honest to pay. although... hmmmm. something came to mind. thank you for helping me with that. another story for another day.

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Actually, I'd prefer you didn't. I think that those who read us are already paying with their attention--something we're not reciprocating for the most part. I'm not critical of anyone for how they make a living, but in my system it's small, local acts of community reciprocity that earns us our daily bread (is anyone still eating bread?) and a roof over our heads. That leaves us all free to give our greatest gifts freely, maybe with tokens of gratitude that have no monetary value. That's what I'd like to see.

When someone paywalls me from reading them, they've made the decision that they think their words are more valuable to me than my attention is to them. Frankly, my time is more valuable to me than my money. So it simplifies my reading list to eliminate those who paywall.

I feel more conflicted about that with people who don't paywall, like you. But there's been something strange that happens when I have turned online relationships into transactional ones. Within the year I've paid, it seems like something always turns sour i.e. Malone and Eisenstein. And with people to whom the money means more, I worry that it would make it harder for people to disagree with me. It subtly shifts the balance of power.

Your feeling that it would be more honest to pay me touches my heart. I'm so moved that you would feel that way. I don't monetize or enable 'pledges' because it's your attention that 'pays' me and you have always given that generously. Thank you.

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Fascinating stuff. Our ongoing experiment with ourselves has had to involve breaking down all the walls that have been created by Pharma, even before it was BIG Pharma 😂. For several thousand years we have been prevented or discouraged from doing these experiments to cure ourselves up until today where there apparently are no cures for anything only management and remission, because there is good money in that!

Robert Sheon, in the book Coping with Arthritis: “among the Egyptians in 1500 BC… Each part of the body was the province of a different “priest,” who could treat only that particular component. Moreover, the treatment had to follow a careful, prescribed-by-law ritual. Any deviation in the administration of the cure meant capital punishment.” This was quoted in an interesting article on SS by Theory of Cure.

Those in power have always wanted us ill because we are more easily conquered. If we learn the truth in managing our bodies then we become powerful.

Keep experimenting Guy! Another great post - well done.

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hola, april.

wow! the egyptian information is a great bridge of understanding for me! and it also ties in to the medicinal 'sleep-dream' temples of asclepius. when i read about this at the time, when deep in my dream study via/with jung, i did not associate the practice with disempowerment! and yet, now, i see that that was the case: the power to heal was given over to the priests and dream practices attributed to the god asclepius. the temple priests also had elaborate ritualistic processes to prepare for the physical healing. at the time of my study what was powerful and very important for me was the connection between dreams and physical reality. that was a key turning point for me towards looking at the body the way i do.

wow. thank you, april, for this really great comment and resource and reframing for me. love it.

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Thanks, Guy - a pleasure to read as always. Such a rich topic.

" We are not listening to what is healthy in large part because we have been drilled to distrust this disgusting and unreliable thing that walks us around and to rely on experts — preferably, for food and medicine, those from the FDA who are fronting for allopathic-enriching narratives that support the pharmaceutical industry."

Yes, another aspect, another result of a hijacked world. Particularly insidious.

I was fortunate to have a mother who thought the most important thing about food, was blessing it. She was also 'organic' before anyone understood that, bought local when possible, and told us to pay attention to our cravings. Fast food never happened in our house. At the store when I would ask for the things my friends had at their house - junk food - she would read the ingredients and just say, "Oh, that's not food. I don't know what those words even mean, but I wouldn't eat it." She ate mostly vegetables - a vegetarian - but didn't suggest her kids do that. She would always point it back to you - "I don't know what your body needs" or something like that.

My dad was the cook, meat and potatoes for the most part, and she never suggested that wasn't fine too.

She also didn't trust Pharma, knew natural remedies and made the connection between our emotional lives with how we were feeling and eating.

Still, just being in this culture, even with a solid foundation, I've done my share of diet detours and lost that direct-connect to my body for periods of time.

Now I mostly eat as I want, naturally moderate, (which means lots of butter) always bless and assume my body knows what to do with what I consume. Thanks, Mom.

The hijacking of the world has created so many convoluted detours, so many ways to not trust our immediate experience, our bodies and ourselves. Are we reorienting back now? I hope so.

Okay, I'm rambling. And hungry! Toast and eggs on the menu for breakfast. Best.

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