The Journey To Raw Food, Part One
This post was syndicated from the following source | Source Feed
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Lao-Tsu
One little conversation can change everything.
For me, my world changed after one simple conversation. It was not overtly profound or deeply inspiring. It was just me talking to my co-worker named Ami. Ami and I had been working on a project together for a few months, and we knew each other pretty well. She had been vegan for years, and now on this particular day she was telling me…no, wait, she “declared” to me that she was now eating only raw food.
I remember this moment vividly. I remember the room, the smells, the crisp fall air, her excitement about what she was talking about. I remember concepts and phrases, but I could not recite the conversation word for word. Only fragments…I see her telling me she was going to do something called a “cranberry liver cleanse” next week. And cooked food is bad. I remember everything about that moment …except the words themselves. Just bits and pieces from memory that I have tried to piece together a million times.
At the time I didn’t think this conversation was very important. I never thought I would want to hold onto this moment. It was just another memory in time.
I did not know it at the time, but my journey to raw food had just begun. At the time it didn’t seem very special. I just knew during our conversation that I sensed a little spark of excitement inside of me. I couldn’t explain it, but something had changed inside of me. We soon changed the subject, and then I left to go home.
This whole raw food thing could have just been a subject of idle conversation, and I could have forgotten it forever. Think about the many conversations you have with people in your everyday life. Think about the topics people talk about.
I could have ignored Ami and her silly phrase called “raw food”, but I took it one step further. That day, I did one very important thing: I took one step forward.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
You may be asking: What was my first step into raw food?
For years, I always thought my first step was at the moment when I was talking to Ami. But I recently came to the realization that the conversation was not the turning point…it came later…
My first step into raw food was on the drive home.
One beautiful, contemplative drive home.
Those meditative moments; driving in my car, CD playing quietly in the background, alone with my thoughts. It was in this state of daydreaming concentration that firmly planted the concept of raw food deeply into my mind.
On that drive home, I thought long and hard about this thing called raw food.
What does it mean to eat raw food?
Who eats raw food?
What do you eat when you eat raw food?
What can you eat when you only eat raw food?
Will I ever eat cheese again?
What happens when you eat raw food all the time?
I thought about all these questions, and many others. Alone in my car, I did not know any answers. Only questions. Many, many questions.
And the deepest question of all was this:
Will I ever learn the answers to all of my questions about this thing called raw food?
As I continued to drive towards home, I heard the soothing hum of the tires racing across the road. I was afraid to know the answer to my final question of the night, but I heard a small voice inside of me that quietly yet knowingly said two words:
“Someday….yes”.
I wondered what that meant, but I figured that I would learn about raw food very soon, perhaps I would talk about raw food when I would see Ami on the next day. Someday is a relative term, and what I did not realize was that some of my questions would take time to answer. And it would take years before I could truly understand the answers I was looking for.
Yet the journey into the world of raw food started for me on that fateful day.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
I now see that the questions I had was what started it all. I wanted to know more. I had to know more. Something inside of me was calling me towards learning more about this strange conversation about eating only foods that were raw. Questions. Many questions was what started it all on my journey to raw food.
I kept driving down the freeway, exit signs pointing out I was close to my destination. I sat in the drivers seat feeling serene, knowing that somehow and someday, I would eventually find out about this thing called raw food. And that is how my journey started, with one single step.
Later this week I’ll share with you what happened after that first step into raw food.
Stay tuned.
~ Heidi