I stopped eating red meat back in 2010 and sporadically decided to go cold-turkey (pun intended) on the poultry on the 2012 winter solstice. I was originally going on the fleshless diet for at least a year, but a few months after exploring various vegetarian door-ways, I quickly began to lose interest in eating food involving blood and bones. Although I'm aware that there are impressive health benefits that accompany eating animal organs and wild-caught meat, I think there are an unparalleled level of health advantages if you incorporate modern-day super-foods into a vegetarian diet. Popular and time-proven super-foods such as maca, hemp seeds, avocado, raw cacao, chia seeds, coconuts (and oil), goji berries, quinoa, chlorela and spirulina are meant for the supermen and wonder women of this world.
If you miss the texture of meat, look no further than the rich-tasting world of mushrooms. While traveling around Mexico I found and fell in love with the taste of nopal, a delicious, meaty and edible cactus usually grilled and served in your soft taco or tlayuda. And I don't have to mention the overabundance of avocados in Mexico. You have to be be careful you don't step on a pile of guacamole on the street, or that a ripe avocado doesn't fall on your head while walking under avocado trees.
Below is a short, four minute TED talk by Graham Hill, the founder of treehugger, introducing and explaining the idea of becoming a weekday vegetarian.
During the epic solstice maelstrom, the elders informed us that this monumental winter solstice ceremony could not be held in the logical location inside of any of the resonating ceremonial temples in the heart of Palenque. After all, what purpose did these megalithic temple structures serve if it were not for ceremonies on sacred celestial dates? The elders explained the "westernized" people on the tourism board thought it would detract or frighten ordinary tourists from visiting the site. Instead, the tourism board decided to force the ceremony out into the far, muddy corners of the giant archeological site of Palenque. The Palenque tourism board apparently refused to sully the sanitized image of the ancient ruins by having modern Incas and Mayas performing an ancestral solstice ceremony.
The indigenous people pleaded us to inform the greater public that the temples their ancestors built should be accessible to them for ceremonies such as that as the winter solstice. Why are they forced out to the fringes of a muddy jungle to perform the ceremony rites that should be performed inside of their ancestor's temple?
I'll leave you with some footage of the 12/21/12 ceremony in Palenque last year. Have a Happy Solstice!