Avebury Moot: A very Social setting...

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Greetings all, another splendid Moot! I don’t know about you but I really enjoyed the moot being at the village hall. It was more intimate, focused and much more social. We also enjoyed the use of the kitchen for hot drinks and we opened the Tantric Café for the first time, providing various snacks for donations.

Anyhoos, this month’s talk was presented my none other than me. It’s the first moot I’ve ever given and I have to admit, it was thoroughly enjoyable. Thank you for being a great bunch of listeners who gave me some great interaction. Also thanks to Steve the Stag, he locked horns with us and told us all about the astrological events that will take place over the following month – a new and regular contribution to the Moot.

The topic of the talk was about additives. I first described what I thought an additive is i.e. a product that’s sold to us by a corporation that uses marketing to appeal to our non-rational minds – often backed up by misleading and bad science… or words to that effect.

So first I discussed Fluoride and talked about how this toxic substance found its way, not only into our water supply, but also into orange juice, vegetables and toothpaste. I didn’t mention at the time but often toothpaste contains fluoride 1000 times more toxic than that found in our water. As a result all American toothpaste comes with the advisory that any child swallowing any amount of toothpaste should be admitted to hospital immediately. My main point however was to discuss how bad science, marketing (Edward Bernays!) and political influence pushed through a toxin for profit into our food supply.

I mentioned Edward Bernays just then because I think it’s important to find out a little about this genius. This film is about Bernays and gives us an insight into marketing and corporate control… the story starts by telling us about the,

...relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar. His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world.

Bernays was also the guy drafted in by the military and the Searle Corporation to market fluoride as a beneficial product.

The Century Of Self Part 1 (of 4) Happiness Machines - well worth the education.

I then went over Aspartame in the same vein before discussing pharmaceuticals, insulin in particular. We then discussed food and how many of the additives contribute to addictions – especially MSG.

For a bit of good insight into the addictive quality of additives have a quick watch of this short vid about MSG

For more info on Fluoride it's well worth having a look at this video, if only to demonstrate how big business essentially use marketing and politics to manipulate science and people...

And the same sort of thing for aspartame...

I brought up toilet paper and running shoes as well – both of which I view as additives i.e. things we believe we can’t do without, which we consume and consume and consume. Even moon cups we’re discussed which are a great way of breaking out of poisonous tampax styled sanitary products.

Martyn suggested that I maybe outline a day in the life of me! to demonstrate some of the ways in which I’ve been able to break away from some of the ‘additives’ that were in my life.

OK, well, in the morning I’ll get up and maybe go for a run. As part of my training I include a small element of barefoot running with the aim of ridding myself of running shoes by the end of the summer.
I’ll have a shower and will only use a couple of drops of diluted essential oil (I often have a oil/water mix in a small spray bottle). No shampoo, No soap. I’ll then shave. To date I get through maybe 10 bic style razors every 6 months or so but am currently looking for a old, serviceable cut throat razor. To shave I have a small bottle of almond oil, which I find better that olive oil because it’s lighter, with a few drops of tea tree and lavender essential oils. I use just maybe 5 drops or so and shave. Easy, and the oil keeps the blades sharp. As for the oils, I think I have a way of manufacturing my own nut oil and am hoping to work out how to make my own essential oils.
Breakfast. Fruit – maybe a banana, apple, orange and a few almonds.
Lunch. Crazy Salad. An anything salad, as long as it’s raw and vegan. I might have spinach leaves, celery, apple, banana, avocado, carrot, broccoli, pepper, onion etc – all with my own dressing. Dressing is normally something like olive oil, cider vinegar, mustard, maybe honey, maybe pepper, maybe chili oil… you get the picture.
Dinners - same sort of madness.
Drinking water is a pain. I have to stay hydrated so I mix up my sources – some tap, some bottled. I’m going to get myself a big old British Briefed ceramic water filter which will both will reduce some of the fluoride from tap water and also allow me to collect most of my water from a local spring. These filters are washable and last a long while but come at a price. I don’t know of any other way of avoiding fluoride in tap water without spending lots of money on kit to treat water using reverse osmosis, the only way to truly remove fluoride I think.
The only problem with filtering this way is that you wipe out some of the useful minerals that a healthy body needs and so in response to that I will be adding some types of dried seaweed to my diet. This will replace the missing minerals but is a short-term solution really.
As for food. I have different ways of getting food that’s either free, cheap and good quality. As the spring comes in I will be stomping about the wilds more and more in search of edible weeds. Most of these are true super foods – your ramsons, dandelions, nettles etc etc. Full of micro nutrients, anti oxidants, photo chemicals etc. We’ve also been given use of a large 750m2 plot to develop a permaculture site – so by the end of this year most of my food will be either picked or grown and picked by me. No chemicals, transportation, big business, processing etc. Raw, live food in abundance for everyone involved on the project and hopefully a surplus that can be passed onto others.
One last thing that I do – sprouting. You can sprout so much stuff and it changes a legume, nut or seed from a useless pile of starch to a living organism rich in amino acids, chlorophyll and enzymes that your body yums up. You can pretty much live off of these.

So that’s some of the things that I do and plan to do get out of the constant buying of products most of which appear to have harmful chemicals added to them, be it food, clothes or furniture. As we agreed at the Moot, the change happens in your own mind first. It did for me. And I’m not sure if these are the answers, but they are my answers that I have faith will lead me to a place of excellent health, a crystal clear mind, a greater spiritual connection and freedom from… all that other stuff.

I'll also add a quick intro to permaculture and a rather jazzy raw food documentary - it's very American but very much worth a watch to gain a deeper understanding about how nutrition is the magic red pill.

Establishing a Food Forest the Permaculture Way.
Geoof Lawton
(I've got copies of this full film if anybody would like one)