[Note:  This message was written over two weeks time so the end of it
comes at a different time.]

Well, KIrt has asked/demanded that I come out with some sort of
conscious and detailed story about trichinosis, instincto, my own
health, etc.  I agree that I have a responsibility to share this.
I've found a lot of resistance to putting this out.  Partially, I
must admit that I feel scared of Kirt and his judgments and
conclusions, and I have a feeling of unhealthy competition with him.
Part of my fear comes in having a different view than Kirt.  I want
to agree with his opinions, because I respect what I know of him, but
I feel differently about what that I got trichinosis means to me,
individual instinctos, and instincto theory.  I believe the reason I
feel this with Kirt is because Kirt and I are the only long-time
practicing and publicly vocal American instinctos.  He has also
written a book, which many of you know.  Deborah and I edited/read
the latest draft which articulately weaves instincto, primal therapy,
general semantics, and ideas about community, child rearing, and
realistically integrating all these practices and ideas in today's
wacky world.  I found Kirt and Melisa's writing to be powerful,
inspiring, and without the unfortunate hype that often surrounds
these topics.  I, myself have been quite guilty of such hype in the
past.

So, this is an unusual preface to a personal confession of my
experience and reflections upon this experience, but for me it is
right, because I've felt this resistance to share this so vulnerable
part of my self.  One fear has been that I will be dissected and
yip-yapped about endlessly in an unfeeling way by a bunch of
head-tripping raw fooders.  I also suspect that every person on this
list is capable of great compassion, sensitivity, and nurturing; but
given the medium of email it tends to stay intellectual and not very
feeling-emotional.  My experience was very feeling-emotional and
communications about it I find more easily outpouring in face-to-face
conversation.  None-the-less I want to share here, and I will.

Since Deborah sent out that long email chronologizing our experience
I am not going to go over that.  For this letter I'm going to focus
on how my recovery is going, my considerations about instincto for
myself and communicating it to others, and what I've learned through
this experience on emotional, relational, and spiritual levels.

I must say that I will always look back on my six weeks of being bed
ridden as a blessing.  Though most would say trichinosis almost took
my life, I must confess that in fact it has saved my life.  It took,
for me, being this weak and vulnerable, this baby-like to be able to
feel the need to let go of several parts of self.  The parts I'm
beginning to let go of include the self-absorbed adolescent, the
super hero, the messiah, the know it all, the insensitive
intellectual, the slovenly rebel, and more.

 (I would never call this a cleanse, in the traditional raw fooders
use of it, but it was certainly very cleansing.)

1.  I had to give up control of my health and food choices to
Deborah. I did not eat instinctively during the experience (the only
time in six years).  I wouldn't have chosen it myself, but I could
recognize Deborah's and the alopathic doctors' greater wisdom and I
surrendered to it.  Just this act has had many reverberations in my
life.  I find that I'm now "choosing my fights" from a more centered
place.  In the past I was more suseptable to over-identification with
forms and things being done not exactly how I want.  Now, I can
bodily feel how it's better to let it be or let people do what they
want, keeping my identification with my own inner/personal state,
rather than upset myself in the righteous name of support or teaching
(a.k.a. control and domination).  A perfect example of this is that
during the experience Deborah began eating rice cakes, popcorn,
making salads, and ate a few other non-instincto items.  I found that
I didn't have the strength to fight with her.  Not having the
strength, I found that I felt better letting her simply do her own
bidding.  The energy I would put in to try to have her not eat those
foods would add more upset than help.  Also, I saw that in the long
run, by letting her do as she wishes, without my pressure (or less of
it) that she'd more quickly come into her balance than with me
putting in my own stuff.

She's still not eating as I would most wish, and I'm feeling closer
to her than ever.  I see that the process and act of loving her is
the true way to supporting her in health.  Where the bombardment of
ideas, dogmas, theories, and guilt is, for the most part, sabotage.

2.  Being so weak has forced me to see the world through other sets
of eyes other than Mr. healthy, permaculture, instincto, white,
dominant, male.  I was dependent, impotent, and at times incoherent.
I had to ask for everything.  I was blessed to be able to receive
what I needed, which also has changed me.  I've never been in love
like I am with Deborah.  Even my mother, who of course loved me, was
not able to sustain the focus Deborah can.  My mother was a single
mom, working, going to college, dating or being with her lover, and
though I was her #1, #2-8 added up a lot.  With Deborah I'm getting a
whole body experience of being loved, which is one of the primal
forces - human love.  Being so week and feeling her, not just there
for me emotionally, but out there running errands, paying for
everything, organizing doctors, blood tests, market trips, my meals,
and more has instilled in me a true sense that I am loved for my
spiritual self, not for me deeds or personality, etc.  This whole
body realization is one of the prime gifts of this experience.

As I was saying I have new sets of eyes.  Yesterday we went to town
and I was seriously worried if I could cross the street fast enough
before the light changed.  While stuck in bed I had a 24hr live in
male nurse who wiped my but, brought me food, was my legs and mouth,
etc.  Being in such a state, being so unable to do the basic things
of life has given me a new found appreciation for doing the mundane.
To be able to stand is an achievement worthy of applause, so to is
being able to use the toilet.  I've reemerged, as if from a cocoon or
womb.  Interestingly, my 28th birthday and Saturn return came just
two days before I stopped taking the deworming pills (vermox).  Truly
a time of change and rebirth.  I feel my adolescence is finally
losing its dominance in my life.

3.  Another blessing is that Deborah and I got to feel each others at
our worst, weakest, and most frustrated and needy.  Again, not
something I would want to recreate, but passing through such places
and being able to come out the other side cultivates relationship.
We seem so ill matched in so many ways, yet we are bonded more than
ever.

4.  All in all I feel a new focusing of my energy.  For example, I
had to eat for five weeks at about a 45 degree angle while my organs
and intestines were less than happy, and towards the end I was very
hungry.  I became viscerally sensitive to my body to a whole new
level.  This experience has forced me to feel and notice my own
states.  So there's a movement in me from outward focus B the book,
permaculture, creating community, seeing and saying what's wrong with
the world B to a more inward focus B learning to move in this
house without leaving messes in my wake (Deborah keeps an immaculate
house, whereas I grew up untrained in real domestic care), feeling
and expressing gratitude with more consistency and heart-feeling,
husbanding/nurturing Deborah, growing food for us as a homemaker, not
a superhero, observing myself, especially when I become invulnerable,
impatient, or mean, and healing my own body.  All these things I've
brought attention to before, but the level of commitment, focus, and
intention has been been raised to these things being my priorities.
It's scary to change and let go, but I can feel that this is what I
need to do.  It's certainly what people have been telling me to do;
I'm finally responding.

That feels like enough on that topic, so I'll move on to my feelings
about instincto.

Hmmm.  Well, I am back to eating one food at a time, raw, whole and
organic.  This gets shorthanded instinctive eating, though whether or
not I actually "eat instinctively" is up to the judges.  I'd say
right now I'm still eating rather planned do to my illness and the
amount I'm eating now.  I'm very hungry and have to manage my hunger
it seems.  I feel somewhat like a baby, not eating to have energy to
go and do things, but rather like I'm feeding, then waiting to digest
for the next opportunity to eat.  Only in the last day or so do I
feel some noticeable movement out of this, but I still have a lot of
rebuilding to do.  We never weighed me, but I estimate I was down to
115# from my normal 145#.

As of now I'm still taking Doctor Dophilus, a friendly intestinal
flora product, and Ultra Clear, designed to help my liver and
intestines heal. Probably the biggest change in my diet though is the
reintroduction of raw meats.  I've eaten about seven meals of around
two pounds of either beef, lamb, or ocean fish since I finished with
the vermox two Thursdays ago.  All the meat has come from good
stores, and are hormone free, free foraging, etc. ("instincto
quality" or close).  After eating them at lunch the first three
times, I've to eating them for breakfast.  Because I'm eating so much
at a time, I find I need my full days attention for digestion.  The
meat, though it has been at times challenging to digest, has been
putting weight and strength on and into me.

Deborah and I went through a few day struggle over whether she would
get meat for me.  Eventually she decided that my very intense desires
for meat was worth exploring.  She has been very afraid at times of
meat reinfecting me.  In my mind I draw a great distinction between
what I did with the mongoose and beef, lamb, fish, chicken, and other
commonly eaten foods by humans.  I and around ten people I know have
been eating raw tuna for five or more years and clean raw beef for
two or more years with no health complaints or problems to speak of
(past the usual fear of over eating).  That's quite a batting
average, 95%+, compared to mongoose at 00%-.  I have made a
commitment to myself not to eat rodents, varmints, or land dwelling
carnivores (bears, tigers, wolves, etc.)  I've never tried any of
these except the mongoose anyway.  The possibility of parasites are
higher in these animals, so I've read.

It seems to me that the immune system, my immune system can handle
viruses, germs, bacteria pretty well.  I had a full case of staff for
two weeks, four or five years ago, a "disease" that puts many people
in the hospital, and most in bed.  I was only laid out for two half
days.  During that time I was still climbing cocos, tearing my scabs
as I go into the tree, because I was the only "nursing mother,"
person who could forage cocos for us.  Since then I haven't been down
with any illness/cleanse for more than a day or so.  I've been
smashed by emotional overwhelm and childhood issues, but my physical
health has been ample.  All this time I was regularly eating raw
meat, usually a pound to a  pound and a half per meal, any where from
once every two weeks to six times a week, depending on life.

Jean-Louis Tu said on 4/29:

>Of course, the fact that many SADders are infested without serious
>symptoms, and that a long-time instincto like Zephyr has a low
>immunity (and cholesterol problems, and so on) may be a serious
>argument against excessive meat eating.

Where do you get this idea?  I feel I have a very strong immune
system, relative to my first twenty years.  And I don't have
cholesterol problems.  Maybe you are referring to some figure you
heard while I was in the grips of the trichinosis about my
cholesterol, I'm not sure, but this seems inaccurate to me

> Anyway, frugality is perhaps
>as important as eating raw, and counting flesh in pounds instead of
>ounces sounds a bit like overeating to me. Our cousins chimps eat only
>very little meat (1% of their diet+5% insects), and maybe our instinct
>is not adapted to handling such heavy quantities. Maybe meat is very
>valuable to chimps because it is scarce (like sugar?)

Then why is it that I go sick on about the smallest meal by weight
that I've ever eaten of meat?  I certainly had less than a half a
pound of mongoose, which is two to four times less than my usual meat
meal.

>As for instincto theory (and Natural Hygiene and many other dogmas), I
>have never believed that Nature was so harmonious, that all diseases
>appeared because we had broken the Laws of Nature and that everything
>that is artificial should be treated as poison. It doesn't mean that
>such an extremist point of view is not interesting or doesn't have
>some underlying truth. But just as the traditional medicine's point of
>view, it may be excessively dogmatic and extreme.

This, and the rest of the email I essentially agree with as far as
instincto.

To sum up my position on meat, instincto, parasites, and alopathy I
need to say that 1.  I intend to keep eating meat.  2.  I intend to
keep eating "instinctively"  3.  I am concerned about parasites, I
don't want to go through this again, and I'm also concerned about
plane crashes, car accidents, and having my heart broken, but I still
fly, drive, and love.  I feel that avoiding varmints, rodents, and
land dwelling carnivores, as well as fish that comes from dirtier
areas is enough of a safety belt.  4.  I believe that alopathy is an
appropriate option in certain situations, including dental work, bone
setting, trichinosis, and malaria.  I don't need to make instincto a
panacea or a bulletproof vest.  For me, it's obviously the way of
eating that gives the most opportunity for health and clear knowledge
about how food(s) effect(s).  Whether I eat the palolithic right way,
or the Burger right way, or the Nieft right way, or the Pangaia right
way is not what's important to me.  Eating to me is a personal,
intimate, and direct experience.  I'm sick of all the talk in my
head.  I'm not about to be stupid, and ignore the experiences and
insights of others around food, but I just want to eat and get on
with the rest of my day.  I feel more stress worrying and trying to
do it right than it's worth.

Six years ago I found a way to eat that I could trust, was simple,
brought me health and joy, and I could do.  This mongoose/trichinosis
experience has deeply moved me, but not out of this paradigm, just to
a more experienced and intelligent and discriminating member of it.
I will continue to support people in instincto and raw meat eating,
and I will honestly convey this story.  I'm trying to figure out an
appropriate way of inserting this information into the already
printed copies of my book.  Both Deborah and I feel this is important
and she has urged me to do this. It's hard for me to invision doing
it because it's already such a delicate topic, I don't think I can
just put in a loose addendum or errata, because it would be the first
thing read - "ATTENTION:  Don't eat raw rodents, varmints, or land
carvinores you might get parasites like I did!?(*&^  Please enjoy the
rest of the book".  Hmmmm.  I think I'm going to offer a free
information package about it to those who are interested and put a
sticker or insert in the remaining copies.  I don't have this clear
yet.

One thing I need to make clear is that I disagree with Kirt when he
said this to Jean-Louis earlier this month:

>As for whether Zephyr's experience should deter any RAFing: it should at
>least make them think twice, maybe three times. It makes me eschew
>carnivores on principle, which I _would've_ eaten according to pleasure
>before. (As for omnivores, like raw-fed pigs, I wonder if I'd be able to
>resist. Like swordfish, which is reportedly among the most polluted
>billfish, I might well eat pig, especially if I raised it myself.) BUT, my
>days of recommending RAF to anyone are over. How can it be otherwise, JL?

I do agree with the carnivores part, but even after going through
this experience myself I don't feel RAF is the culprit and I am a
victim.  When I see this experience as a whole it is obvious that my
spirit or higher self was calling this experience to me to assuredly
teach me some very heavy lessons.  I wouldn't trade the illness and
this recovery time for all the durian in Thailand!!!  If anything, I
trust life more than ever.  I trust it to deliver exactly what I
need, even in ways I, my small personality, would never ask for,
desire, or even consider beneficial.  This may all sound crazy, or
just a story cooked up so I can blindly follow my religion,
instincto.  I don't feel that's the case.  I feel the truth of it on
a spiritual and emotional level, obviously on a physical level I must
look to something I ate, whether we can absolutely determine it was
the mongoose, as the source of the trichinosis.

That we need to use our brains to stay alive, and to aid in food
selecting does not undermine instinctive eating, INMO, perhaps it
undermines the naivete of Burger's and many of our theories, hopes,
and beliefs.   Even undermine might be too strong.  I remember
reading in Kirt and Melisa's manuscript about theories and how the
expand due to the discovery of new information, and how there is
often resentment within the theory makers at exceptions to their
theories which ruin the elegance of the initial "smooth circular"
theory.  To expect there to be no exceptions in the smell good, taste
good, is ONLY good theory is perhaps naive wishful thinking.  It
seems to be well over 99% effective, which is pretty damn good.  I
figured in five to six years I ate between 500 and 700 meals of RAF
(mostly Hawaiian tuna, second most beef).  One real sickness out of
that is a saftety average of 99.83% .  This also doesn't consider the
people I've lived with who also never got sick.  Just mathematically
RAF looks pretty safe, especially if one doesn't eat varmints,
rodents, and land carnivores.

Why else did we develop such a brain over these eons if not to aid in
life, including food selection and survival?  Every tribe has a list
of taboo animal an plants that they teach their children, that their
children might have to learn about through pain or death.  Being
armed with such information in a vast and ever changing, dynamic
world is a a blessing INMO, not a sign that my nose, tongue, and
inner senses are bogus and untrustable.  We have so many overlapping
systems of information gathering and processing to make life easier;
so I say, let's use them all, let's be grateful for all of them, and
let's maximize and integrate each of them to make life as safe,
pleasurable, and easy as possible.  Is this defending instinctive
theory while ignoring this exception the smell good is good rule, or
is this integrating instinctive eating and theory into the reality of
culture, exceptions, and our brain and compromized immune systems?

This is my goal.  Not to become a paleothic, or a "nature boy."  Not
to sell out or drop out, but to truly understand, respect, exercise,
and integrate as many parts of self and life as I can.

All this talk seems to lead well into my final topic for this email.
Now on to what I've learned:

Allegorically, this trich experience started on our flight back from
Hawaii in early March.  When I got home I discovered my fanny pack
missing.  I still haven't found it.  In it was a wallet that I've had
since 1981 - an tattered OP velcro wallet with a see through change
pouch.  I had been separated from the wallet many times in the past,
once it was stolen in a Toronto train station and still it came back
with only some of my money stolen.  I've long considered this
ever-returning wallet as a sign of my safety in the world, that I am
loved, and protected.

I boasted to Deborah that I knew my belly bag would come back,
because it had my enchanted wallet within.  It hasn't, probably
won't.  During the 5+ weeks I was bed-ridden I began looking for a
new metaphor for my wallet, seeing its loss as a significant sign.  I
began seeing it as my adolescence, my messy, irresponsible,
rebellious, proud, self-centered self.  The young punk with his
tattered OP, invulnerable, confident, blind.

Now it is time to let that person die.  I've protected him and
cherished him because he was me, he was fun, he saved me from the
hell of high school suburbia.  But he is no adult, no true lover, no
parent, no true server of others.  It is ok for me to have been that,
what else could I have become given my raising.  But now I have an
opportunity for true love, intimacy, and bonding for the first time
in my life, and this relationship demands me being an adult, a lover,
a parent, a server, a team player, a nurturer, and so much more.  The
urgency of this has exploded during my illness.  Deborah has at last
found the strength to voice herself in my weakness.  And I see how
destructive to life, relationship, and continuity that adolescent
part of me can be.

Emotionally I am to become steady.  I need to see how I've sought
outside myself for my own centering, wanting everyone to be mommy and
being disappointed/angry when that is not the case.  I must drop this
lens and begin to see people as they are.  Some are for me, most are
not.  If I feel myself looking to others from a feeling of "save me,
I'm a helpless baby, will you be my mommy, my daddy" then I must back
off and first handle that.  In the past I would simply follow this,
pleasurize myself, subtlety or grossly manipulate the other(s) for my
own needs, without truly giving or identifying with the other as a
living spiritual being.  They were essentially pawns of my needs and
desires, and I would do what minimal activity was necessary to keep
the juice coming my way.  (This is a somewhat extreme and blunt
portrail of me. This is not who I always was, but this part of self
dominated all too often.)

Now, with Deborah, I feel a true opportunity to create something
else.  I now have a living person who wants me and who I want, so
there is an actual vehicle for being more than self-centered.  I can
expand and practice service in safe, intimate, and desiring company.
This vehicle has been lacking in my life, and this vehicle, this
relationship, is perhaps the greatest blessing I've received since
receiving life itself.

On a spiritual level the changes I'm going through are more about
intensity of practice than of new information, but there is new
information too.  Mielle, a spiritual healer delivered many of  the
reflections which I've shared throughout.  One of the most
reoccurring lessons for me is how strong my imprint is.  Despite all
my seeming progress and work to manifest more compassion, humility,
and service I somehow manage to do the opposite or nearly the
opposite.  I must say confusion and frustration and feeling like I've
actually made no progress are dominant motifs in my emotional and
spiritual and interpersonal novel.  Sometimes I feel so uninspired.

I don't know how useful or specific this has been, but this is what I
have to offer currently.  Deborah has given me a list of emails that
she wants me to read that talk about instincto, meat, and at times
me.  I've purposefully delayed reading them so I could get this
communication out with minimal amount of incumberment.  I will read
them soon, and respond as appropriate.

As of today, May 8th I can walk up stairs with a railing, I can
drive, I can push a pretty full shopping cart on a level surface,
I've done some light gardening, I'm feeling less hungry, and I'm
considering what new actions to take to support the changes I want to
make.  I believe with Deborah's love and support I can do it, and it
seems that my love and support is serving Deborah too.

If you read this, thank you for giving me the time.  Blessings to all
of you.

Fingers crossed...

Zephyr