Good Monday to You!
I hope you all had a restful weekend.
My weekend began Saturday with a mini-fast. Vidya and I often do a day a week (usually on Saturday) where we drink a special tea I make for balancing the body-mind energies and healing the organs.
We typically fast throughout the day while doing art or working in the garden. Then we break the fast at dinnertime and have a lovely meal to celebrate the day and the week.
I really enjoy fasting like this because it lets my body catch up on unfinished healing.
When my body is empty and free of the work created by having food in the system, I find my creativity and inner-vision are at their best.
If you are ready to try a mini-fast, I’d recommend using either freshly squeezed carrot juice, orange juice, or a mix of vegetable juices cut with water so there’s just enough sweetness to keep your blood sugar level.
Vidya juiced half a pineapple, celery and ginger together. Very good!
If your fasting juice is too sweet, it sends your blood sugar too high and causes a lot of hunger pangs when your blood sugar drops on the rebound.
I’ve also used the Yogi tea companies “Fasting” tea regularly for this purpose and it works very well and tastes good too.
While I was visiting Angie Lustrick (The Ultimate CHEK Professional) in Riverside last week, she shared the organic Maca powder you see in the image above with me.
It was really great stuff!
I’ve never tried it before so didn’t know what would be the best way to take it. I closed my eyes and asked my soul how to enjoy it best and my soul said, “mix it with some kombocha tea”.
Angie just happened to have my favorite brand (GT’S) in her refrigerator.
I mixed a couple teaspoons of the organic Maca powder in the citrus kombocha and it was awesome! It tasted just like the Orange Julius drinks I use to have as a kid.
The mix gave me a beautiful uplifting without any uncomfortable buzz like you can get from caffeine containing products.
INTO THE ROCK GARDEN WE GO!
Enter The Garden
Here you can see and feel the entry into my rock garden.
Saturday morning, when I walked out into the rock garden to see what had been blown over by the strong winds and rain we’d been having, this is what I say on the ground:
A while back, when my friend Csaba Lucas was visiting, he and I were on my roof looking down at the rock garden and I noticed that there were heart patterns all over the rock garden.
I had not tried to create them. They just appeared. I’ve seen this happen many times and it’s quite cool.
In the photo above, you can see all the rocks laying where they fell when the stacks were blown over!
The row of rocks on the right was there before, and the few at the bottom of the heart were part of a connecting line, but they were originally in a circle.
Once my awareness was triggered, I saw these heart patterns all over the garden.
No wonder the locals keep coming to take photos!
After our dinner, Vidya made this amazing desert out of butternut squash:
I know it doesn’t look like much from this photo, but I guarantee it’s delicious!
Vidya bakes the squash first, then removes the seeds and skin, mashes it all with butter. She then added some coconut milk, maple syrup and currents and back into the oven it went to blend all the flavors.
Here you can see me in hog heaven. This squash desert is totally organic, healthy and vital food.
I put a little more Canadian maple syrup on mine with a nice big chunk of organic butter melted into it and boy! the world could fall around me and I’d be in such a state of bliss I wouldn’t even know it!
It’s very simple to make so why not give it a try!
DEFYING GRAVITY
I really love this photo Vidya took of me as I was putting the capstone on my creation.
Though I’ve learned that some of the cool effects often seen only on iPhones are due to photo cell defects, they still produce some lovely images.
This image really captures my inner sense of readiness. I’ve just balanced what would otherwise be deemed impossible and the photo carries that sense of being ready to move and catch the stone if it fall in any direction.
I’m standing on a large stone so I can reach to the top of my stack.
Here you can see my finished creation. That big quartz crystal next to my hand weighs over 200 pounds and it was not light duty getting that baby to stand up nice for me!
Try doing a 200 pound front squat while balancing the load perfectly on a hard slippery surface below without knocking the whole thing down on your legs and feet and you’ll get some sense of the athletic ability involved in building this type of stone sculpture.
When you view my rock sculpture from this angle, you can actually see where the patients and inner-balance comes into play.
When you are standing next to this creation, it looks like it should be falling down!but it isn’t! I love creating stacks and sculptures that defy gravity.
They actually don’t, but it does take a lot of practice to learn how to manipulate the center of gravity in each of the stones to create the right relationships to allow this to occur.
Believe it or not, you need to learn to manage your own center of gravity effectively before you can manage such relationships outside yourself.
This work is an integral part of my own spiritual development practice.
I find that the key to spiritual development is to find any means you can that allows you to integrate your body and mind, becoming fully present, while at the same time, doing something you truly enjoy.
Here you can see one of the many rock sculptures Vidya created this weekend. She was very busy and productive in the garden over the weekend and now the garden is looking very cool.
Between she and I, we must have put up a good 6-8 new creations.
I get a little nervous when she’s in the garden with me because for such a little woman, she goes for some pretty big stones!
Every now and then, they come crashing down and I’m always checking to see if she’s OK.
This weekend she earned her next level of awareness training from the StoneBuddhas. She’s got some nice scrapes on her shins from stones hitting them.
Now we have both left blood in the garden. All good, it really helps plants grow strong and healthy!
Though it is common for human beings to anthropomorphise (see human forms in almost everything), I must admit that I do get great joy out of seeing all the human and animal forms that appear in the stones.
Many of my friends and the locals have been amazed at all the human and animal forms they see emerging from the stones.
I love the magic and mystery of it all and if nothing else, it’s a great way to access the child within yourself again.
Getting old isn’t for sissies, it’s for people that are closed-minded and are afraid to act young enough to convince their bodies and minds that they are still young in spirit.
I created this one right on the side of the road. This is my impression of my rock stack saying “A HO!, Peace be with you”.
Here’s a couple other little gems I created along the road for the locals to be inspired by.
Sunday the weather warmed up a lot. Here you can see me outside getting a world class workout!
I was out with Vidya almost the whole day Sunday creating rock sculptures. After even an hour, you can feel your whole body getting involved.
This photo was taken by Vidya while working on my newest rock project.
I’m bridging three very big rocks with stones. My goal is to create a giant zero symbol out of stones.
I’d share some images with you now, but!right when I was getting near completion, I accidentally knocked about half of it down!
Oh well! I’ll enjoy perfecting my technique and sharing it with you when its done.
When I finish working in my rock garden, I feel amazingly well-balanced.
I feel like I’d been doing tai-chi; the difference being that after tai-chi, I don’t wake up feeling like I’ve found 40 new muscles!
My body feels as good at 50 as it ever has and it is because of the simple methods I share on my blogs and in my teachings via the CHEK Institute that I can honestly share that with you.
If you want to have a healthy core so you can enjoy the outdoors safely, I’d recommend studying the many effective methods I share in my video series (or correspondence course) titled Scientific Core Conditioning.
For those of you that want an approach more suited to the lay person that doesn’t have any background in anatomy or physiology, my book titled How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy! guides you through your own individualized self-assessment and shows you how to begin effectively balancing your body-mind so you can enjoy unbound play and stay young and vital.
I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
