September’s Challenge
September Covenant: Planting Seeds, Bearing Pain, Preparing for Change
This month is mine.
September is the month when the body aches and the soil cools. Some harvest, some sow, but all must prepare. I am planting seeds today, and at the same time planting discipline into my own soul. I will grow in front of you with these flowers and try my best to be a living example of what an ordinary man can achieve without medicine. I gave up my medicine to start Seeds of Vice but did not take the steps I should have to maintain my physical self. I will control what I consume, add pain on top of my pain, and show you it is possible to get better and how. So… I would like to ask you all for your prayers and attention.
The Season of Pain and Preparation
September is a turning point. The air sharpens, days shorten, and with the cooling nights comes a reminder of what it means to live in a body that feels everything.
For those of us who live with pain, this season is a double-edged blade. Joints stiffen faster. Muscles grow colder, slower to respond. The mind whispers about giving in, about waiting until spring to begin again. But September is not a call to hibernate. September is for growing. It is as good a time as spring to grow. Physically, Emotionally, Spiritually, Intellectually, and Botanically.
The Osage people, my ancestors, understood that this was the time to start making deals with God & Earth. Some crops would be gathered, but some seeds — medicine seeds — were sown as well. Not because they would grow today, but because faith requires foresight. To plant in September is to trust that tomorrow is coming and that it is worth suffering for. To do so expecting God to make the sun rise, and to bring the rain. To have faith that God will do his part and that there is a point of doing your part is the beginning of a new way of life.
I have lived in pain for over 30 years. Medicine had taken the edge off there for a moment, until I gave it up to begin SeedsofVice.com. That sacrifice has left its mark. I learned most of what I am teaching right before I gave it up. I did get a taste of health, independence, and have experienced what it feels like to be completely responsible for my health and what it is like to have it in hand. It’s everything we dream it is.
Since I started speaking boldly though I had to button up. In response my body has grown heavy, my mobility has become more limited, my endurance is much less than it was even a year ago. But this month I am shifting my focus from what was and is to what can be. As well as my ability to create opportunity. An ability we all share.
So this month, I am planting two kinds of seeds:
- Poppy seeds in the soil, so that the safety net of potential medicine may rise in time.
- Discipline in my body, so that strength may return in the same time.
Seeds are promises. You bury them not for today, but for tomorrow. When I cast poppy seeds into the soil, I have 90 to 120 days before their growth can be seen. In this time I intend to walk a path anyone can walk down in their own way on their own terms.
This is what I want to show: the time it takes a seed to become medicine is enough time for a man to reclaim authority over his health without access medicine.
The Discipline of Diet
Discipline is not about pleasure. It is about truth. The truth is that I cannot eat as I once did if I wish to reclaim my body. The truth is I am an emotional eater which means my weight is in direct correlation to my ability to control my emotions.
I hate seafood. Yet I will eat it and do my best to not think about it, how it taste, or how pissed off I am that I have to eat it.. Fish… lean cuts from the sea — they bring protein that is easy to digest. They carry omega-3 oils that ease inflammation, strengthening joints and aiding recovery. I eat them not because I love them, but because they don’t inflame my stomach. That is one of the biggest things I’m mindful of with regards to my pain. My stomach. I want it calm, running smooth, happy. If it is not it lashes out in every direction amplifying all pains. Physical and emotional.
Steamed vegetables are not a feast for the senses either, but they are a feast for the cells. Broccoli, spinach, carrots, squash — they deliver micronutrients my body has been starved of, fiber that keeps the system clean, and volume without excess calories. Rice, plain and simple, will appear only when needed, a servant of energy, not a master of craving.
Water is my lifeblood. Coffee keeps the mind sharp in the mornings. An occasional beer is my nod to joy — but joy in moderation, never indulgence. If you ask younger me it’s healthier than an apple. Older me would agree. Anyway, it is my indulgence I’m allowing. My Vice.
The Stoics spoke often of food and hunger. They reminded us that food is fuel, not luxury. Seneca advised setting aside days to eat the cheapest and scantiest fare, asking: “Is this the condition I feared?” Hunger, he said, teaches freedom. Musonius Rufus warned that gluttony is the enemy of self-control and that simple foods sharpen virtue as much as they strengthen the body. The Stoics understood what I am relearning now: every meal is an act of training.
So I eat what I must, not what I crave. My plate becomes a classroom in which discipline is taught and hunger is a tutor. The lesson is simple: he who can master his stomach can master his pain. He who can master his emotions conquers himself.
- Eat not for taste, but for transformation.
- Choose foods that serve your body, not your taste buds and feelings.
- Inflammation is the enemy; nutrients are the allies.
- Hunger like all other pains is a teacher, not a curse.
The Training of Endurance
My workouts will follow the philosophy of Mike Mentzer, a man who understood the paradox of strength: you grow not by endless toil, but by precise suffering and deliberate rest.
I will not train every day, nor even every other day. I will train once every third day. That is enough, because true intensity does not need repetition — it needs recovery.
Each workout will look like this:
- The first set, the first rep, held. I will hold the weight in position until my muscle fails, until it trembles and lowers itself against my will. This is not showmanship. It is science. By holding, I recruit every fiber of that muscle, exhausting it fully.
- Then, a single drop set. I reduce the weight and push until failure again. Nothing more. Nothing fancy. Just complete, honest exertion.
- When I am done, I do not add another set. I rest. I recover. Because it is not the lifting that grows the muscle — it is the healing afterward.
Mike Mentzer built his “Heavy Duty” system on this truth: the body does not grow from volume, it grows from intensity. One all-out effort, followed by enough time to recover, produces more progress than ten lukewarm sets done for pride or habit. Athletes who applied his fundamentals discovered that fewer sets, done with uncompromising focus, built strength and muscle more effectively than long hours wasted in the gym. His system is brutal in its simplicity: do less, but give more in that moment than most give in a month.
The Stoics would agree. Epictetus taught that “we are not disturbed by what happens, but by our opinion about what happens.” When the weight feels impossible, the pain is not the problem — my belief that I cannot bear it is the problem. Marcus Aurelius reminded himself daily: “If it is endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining.” In training, that is the rule: endure the strain until you cannot. That single honest moment, when the muscle fails, is where growth begins.
For those of us in pain and unmedicated, this philosophy matters more than ever. We cannot afford wasted effort. Every set must count. Every rep must have purpose. Less is more, if the less is done with total conviction.
- Do not confuse motion with progress.
- Exert everything in one controlled act. Then let your body heal.
- One rep done with conviction outweighs one hundred done otherwise.
- Endure what is endurable in silence — then stop. Rest is at least half of growth.
On top of these workouts every morning, I will walk my neighborhood. The walk is simple, but sacred. Walking improves circulation, reduces stiffness, lifts mood, and reclaims endurance. For one in pain, walking is both ritual and restoration.
- Begin with walking. It is the foundation of endurance.
The Witness
By spring, I will be 35 pounds lighter. My endurance will return. My mobility will be mine again. Not because of what I swallowed, but because of what I planted.
The poppies will rise from the earth, and I will rise beside them. The time it takes for their medicine to grow will mirror the time it takes for my body to change. This is no accident. This is covenant.
The Stoics understood this covenant well. Seneca said: “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” Growth requires patience, not panic. Just as a seed cannot be forced to sprout by digging it up every day, the body cannot be rushed with endless sets or frantic diets. It grows in silence, in the space between exertion and rest. You have to be willing to sacrifice for that which you can not see knowing it will come.
Mike Mentzer knew the same truth: intensity brings the spark, recovery fans the flame. Muscles grow not in the gym but in the days after, when the body repairs itself stronger than before. What looks like stillness is in fact transformation.
This is the witness I will carry:
- That patience builds strength.
- That less, done with conviction, is greater than more done half-hearted.
- That endurance is not about pushing without end, but about planting faith in what will rise tomorrow.
- Trust the silence between exertion and growth.
- Give everything in the moment, then let patience do its work.
- As the seed transforms unseen beneath the soil, so too the body transforms unseen in rest.
So I will wait, as the earth waits. I will endure, as the seed endures. And in time, both will rise to meet next year anew.
The Call to Action
This September, I plant for myself, but also for you. If you are reading this, you too need to sow. Plant something — a seed in soil, a walk in the morning, a meal that heals instead of harms.
Pain is not the end it simply is. Suffering is optional. The deal this September is this: endure today, to set yourself and others up in the future with a better quality of life.
Why This Works for the Unmedicated
Pain without medicine can feel like a chain. But the body itself is medicine, if given the right chance.
- Seafood & vegetables: high in anti-inflammatory compounds. When pain is unmedicated, inflammation control must come from diet.
- Mentzer-style workouts: prevent overtraining. Pain often tempts one to avoid movement entirely, or to overdo it chasing results. One workout every third day keeps joints safe while still demanding growth.
- Walking daily: loosens stiff joints, improves circulation, and builds endurance without breaking the body.
- Water & coffee: hydration reduces pain sensitivity; caffeine improves focus and reduces perceived exertion.
- Weight loss: every pound lost removes ~4 pounds of pressure from the knees and hips. Losing 35 lbs is not vanity — it is freedom from pain.
- DDPY (Google It)
This plan is not easy. It is not glamorous. But it is doable. And it proves a point: in the same time it takes for seeds of medicine to rise from soil, you can rise in your own flesh without leaning on the crutch of narcotics.
Suggested Hashtags for sharing.
#SeedsOfVice #SeptemberCovenant #PainAndPreparation #WalkWithMe #BodyAndSoil #HealingWithoutMedicine #DisciplineIsMedicine #PlantThePromise
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