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Fasting

  
  

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Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:47 / 27.11.05
Good luck, Money $hot! Keep us posted.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
11:18 / 28.11.05
DAY 1

OK, so 19 hours in or thereabouts, and predictably no real issues so far. I'm used to a weekly 36 hour fast now, so this was never anticipated to be be much of a muchness. As it happens, I burned the candle at both ends a bit last week and this weekend just passed, so I've had the morning off today, and just risen really (ah, the beauty of self-employment), so it's been extra easy to just lie-in and kip. I have a meeting at 4pm, though, which I'll walk to (about 2 miles)...and then walk home.

I tend to walk to work and back every day, it's about 4 miles there, 4 miles back, the former downhill, the latter uphill. I find it just so much better than taking a bus or the tube, which are crammed with irate or distracted people manipulating all manners of curious energies, which I prefer to remain apart from if at all possible...the only exceptions, really, are if it's extremely windy and chucking it down with rain at the same time, which is just too unpleasant to fight through. Any other weather is fait game, really. I find it really relaxing, a good opportunity to meditate on the order of the day beginning or to put the day just passed to rest...plus it's good exercise, even if the air is pretty thick with petrol fumes.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see how that holds up in the absence of food...8 miles at a hefty pace is fairly energetic work, so we'll see.

Worst thing today: Loads of lovely food left over from sister's b'day bash yesterday! Kingfish, Snapper, Tuna, Shrimp, Noodles, Spring Rolls, Rice and Peas, the works. All in the fridge, beckoning my belly even as I type.

Lousy month to pass up food! Still, I expect next month would be worse. I shall relish every mouthful of my Chrimbo feast.

Peace.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
14:41 / 28.11.05
Bugger.

Works have been cancelled at the weekend due to various circumstances.

Oh well. Dimension X will have to wait. I'll rebook my ticket some time soon.

Now an hour away from 24 hours, and everything is just gravy. I think I will use food-related adjectives to describe everything this week, just to, you know, up the ante a little bit.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:06 / 29.11.05
DAY 2

At around about 40 hours now, so well into the second day, and so far so groovy. Hunger pangs are pretty much gone completely already, I'm drinking loads of water, I'd guess about 3 litres + per day.

It's recommended that one save samples of urine for several weeks when fasting, just to demonstrate the levels of toxicity being expelled...it spereates into crystals and mucus and yick and you can really see the poisoons being flushed from your system. I'm not bothering this time though, I just accept that it is so!

I've stopped the cleanse I was doing, which I'll resume for 10 days once this fast is over. I've also stopped taking any of the supplements I regularly take, milkthistle, silica, cal-mag and evening primrose oil. Ain't nothing passed this hole in my face but H20 since starting, and that's the way its gonna be for the next 5 days...I might even exten an extra 3, now the trabalhos are cancelled, we'll see how it goes.

My brother-in-law, who's a chemist, is supposed to be getting me 12 litres of distilled water today...I'm drinking Highland Spring at the moment, which I've chosen cos it has the least possible minerals, especially low in chlorides and sulphides compared to most of whats on the supermarket shelves, having way under half the residual solids / litre when evaporated than even the nearest competitor. Filtered through soil certified as organic, all that malarkey. None of the minerals dissolved in mineral water are organic. Your body cannot use them, they just clog it up, forming crystals in the joints between your bones, over years.

Saying that, though, recent research suggests that drinking distilled water exclusively is not necessarily a good idea. Don't buy that shit that it transports essential salts and minerals out of your body - that's a crock. However, it is so reactive, it absorbs CO2 from the ambient air, and becomes acidic very quickly, which can lead to an acidic internal chemistry if care is not taken...this is not so good, you should be mildly alkaline inside.

During a cleanse / fast, however, distilled water is exactly what you need. It is the perfect solvent, and will pick up and transport out of your body just about every toxin and poison thats accumulated in there.

Anyway, enough preaching the epistles to the apostles...its going really well so far. See you on the other side!
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:14 / 29.11.05
This is fucking great! I've got ENERGY! HaHA!

Drinking H20 like you wouldn't believe. Urinating constantly. Poisons begone.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
10:57 / 30.11.05
DAY 3

Just passed 66 Hours...Interesting. Had what I can best describe as 'mental hunger' last night...I definitely was not physically hungry, as in I had no sensation in my gut / digestive tract which I would interpret as hunger pangs, but I worked late (about 10.30 pm) and once I got home, I was a bit at a loose end...eating becomes a sort of living punctuation, providing the odd comma, semi-colon (huh huh, 'colon', huh huh) and full stop to the days events...in its absence my mind was wondering what else to do to provide the same sort of closure...

Yoga, as it turns out, is absolutely ideal. I'm doing full ashtanga series twice, maybe three times a day, it completely removes any notion of food nostalgia, and also gives all theinternal organs a really healthy and warming massage. Feels bloody marvellous.

I certainly feel 'lighter', quite floaty, and can attest to the carity and sharp-mindedness even this 3 days has lent my attention. I feel like a dynamo at the moment, doing loads of tasks with great aplomb. Working a full day, then finishing some personal projects in the lab with my mate until late each night this week...very positive, very different, as the historical precedent has been to get twisted and gnarly throughout such sessions...not such a great way of getting things done, tbh!

ANyway, still going great. Today I have taken some 1000mg organic Vitamin C with bio-flavinoids and a load of extra herbal goodies in tablet form...have decided to keep this up throughout the rest of fast, as there seem to be loads of sniffles and coughs doing the rounds, and though I am merciafully free at the moment, I don't want any weaknesses in the immune system to fall prey to them...fasting is ideal for fighting off such things anyway, but you can never have too much defense.

Drank literally 9-10 pints of water yesterday, maybe even more. S'marvellous. Friends have noted sparkly eyes and glowing skin, look and feel bloody great right now.

Gor blimey, I hope I'm not doing your collective head in here.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:07 / 30.11.05
You're making me feel all inadequate. Oh well, maybe in the New Year...
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
11:59 / 30.11.05
Well, why not? I've decided to make this a quarterly feature of my life...24-36 hour fasts once a week (Fridays at the moment, I'll probably rotate this through the year) along with 7-10 day fasts every three months...one in winter (End of November), another in Spring (End of February leading into March) a really good 10 dayer in Summer (End of May) and a just-Autumnal (End of August)...I genuinely feel better than I have done for about a decade, and would say this is the most positive thing I have done for myself without the aid of external agents in as long as I can remember...

Personally - though I do not apply this anywhere except to myself, I do not think this is anyone elses qualification at all, just mine - I feel as though I have qualified as a human being at the moment...The abstinence and will-power with which I have avoided everything I said I would...booze, have completely quit nicotine, have been to parties and around all manner of usually greedily gobbled naughties, wheat, dairy, fish (I didn't eat meat anyway) and subsisting mainly on raw organic foods, or lightly steamed oil free stuff, I just proved to myself for myself that I can claim the mantle of human. Like, I'm not a Pavlovian Dog, after all (I definitely have been at many points over the past decade or so).

It's not as though I'm really looking forward to going back either...I'm probably going to maintain a 6 day vegan diet with 1 day for fish, and an exception:

I bloody LOVE CHEESE. Vegan cheese is Shite. S'orrible. I am looking forward to Cheese. I have some Gouda in the fridge my brother brought over from Amsterdam, so that's going to be great.

Also, I'm not too fussy about wheat...it's not like I'm allergic, and I love Vogel's Bread, though it's been great eating Sourdough Rye and other wheat free breads...I'm just not going to be really strict about it.

There is a lot of truth in that saying 'You are what you eat', I reckon.

Gutted the trabalhos are cancelled, it would have been purrfect. I'm going to maintain vegan until Winter Solstice, though, as there is a whole juicy week of works! Wheeeeee! A whole bloody week! Fff-TING!
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:40 / 30.11.05
The glow others have noticed around you, have you noticed it around others, seeing the difference between say families and children, older people, a group of children playing, two people arguing, two people kissing.

I am wondering can you see a complex network of events as you traverse a town centre, minute body language into the reactions of others emotive displays, projections and reflections/absorbtion, voices mingling with sounds and sight and all the other senses.

non seperation of consciousness and flesh, not just in yourself but in relationship to everything around you.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
14:48 / 30.11.05
Um...why do you ask?

One thing I have noticed is ill people. So many very sick looking people. Pasty, angry, vex, grimacing, snarling, distracted and sick looking.

But then I do live in London.
 
 
Unconditional Love
08:02 / 01.12.05
I am wondering if your senses have heightened in any fashion.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
09:00 / 01.12.05
DAY 4

Woah. Approaching 78 hours, just 8 hours shy of 4 complete days, and I have to say, today I am fatigued.

I worked really late again last night, til 11pm, which was, all things considered, not very advisable. In fact, bloody minded. My calf muscles really cramped on the way home as I ran for a bus at Euston, which was the last thing I needed. Really had to work them with deep, quite painful massage for about 15 minutes each when I got home.

Anyway, today, I'm knackered. Bound to happen, really. Luckily I don't have a late running day today and no evening session scheduled, so I'll break off home at about 4.30pm.

Not so sure about senses sharpened, though my visual acuity has definitely, no doubt, improved. I'm a little near sighted, and this has improved vastly as of yesterday, really. Also, my eyes are super lubricated, I don't have to blink at all, even in the wind. Same goes for tongue and mouth, I'm practically dribbling like a St. Bernard.

My tongue has very mild ulceration on the middle right and front left, which according to Taoist medicine suggests that my Spleen and right lung are undergoing a healing crisis. As I said, it's very mild, and not really of any concern. Some people get a complete thick greay coating over their whole tongue when they fast more than 3 days, so all things told, bearing in mind the life I've lead over thepast 15 odd years, not too bad.

I feel extremely light. I've lost weight like you wouldn't believe, my trousers don't fit, my belt is back two notches. I've taken 1000mg Vitamin C with bio-flavinoids, calcium phosphate and magnesiun stearate again today. No point getting scurvy.

My mind is extremely receptive to internal teachings at the moment, like a very mild and subtle version of entheogen lessons (see Daime thread). Subtle, but surely there.

I am so going to appreciate and be incredibly grateful for and give thanks for the first food I eat on Sunday evening. Menu is all planned, it has to be gentle obviously, no dairy, no whole grains...

Anyway, feeling the benfits, feeling the grind, feeling the fast!

Tootle-oo.
 
 
Jub
10:10 / 01.12.05
Hi MS, - just wanted to pipe in to say I'm following your progress too and good luck with it all! Keep us posted.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
11:12 / 01.12.05
Cheers Jub!

Feeling much better already, actually, hunger gone.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
05:18 / 02.12.05
DAY 5

And we be Earlysiftin', dawgs!

This is noe vwry intriguing. I went to bed at around about 12.00 midnight, took a good hour to doze off, then woke up PING! wide eyed and ready for action at 4.30 am this morning. I finished reading One River, the book by Wade Davis, which I heartily recommend to everybody (Ganesh may find it paarticularly interesting, being, amongst many other things, an ethnobotanical exploration of, to all intents and purposes, magic), read a few chapters of a fantastic book I picked up on a stall in St. John's Wood called Prayers of the Cosmos, which is a meditation and study on the Aramaic words of Jesus, dealing specifically with The Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes. What an incredible language Aramaic is (was), what rich depth and resonance and subtext and layers of meaning. The Hebrew to Greek to English translations of the KJV and New Amercian Editions of the bible are anorexically, bulimically starved of information regarding the teachings of this sage. Anyone interested should definitely hunt the book down...it also includes body meditations and mantra's for exposition on each line of the relevant texts. Great stuff, which I'm practicing at the moment.

So, come 6.00 am this mornign, my son and other half are still soundly sleeping, so I did a full series of Ashtanga yoga and my usual LBRP. My practice of this has got quite rich and detailed of late, and I'm enjoying the subsequent calm and feeling of protection and guidance it seems to be lending my journey at the moment. Definitely a useful closure to yogic training.

All hunger completely disappeared now, and I'm feeling really charged with energy. My other half has begun fasting alongside me today, going for three days, so we finish together on Sunday night (aaaaah!). I have great clarity and purpose, and have thoroughly enjoyed and been fascinated by the journey so far. Weekend tomorrow, and it's all done Sunday at about 7pm (6 really, but I'm going 'til 7 for my partner)...I can't really recommend this enough, though depending on your lifestyle you might want to ease into it carefully and over time, begin with weekly 24 hours, then progress to a 3 day, then up 7 days after a couple of months.

Have a beautiful Friday, everyone, and may your weekend be full of whatever you like.
 
 
Loomis
08:01 / 02.12.05
I'm also reading this with interest Money $hot so please keep updating us, and good luck with the rest of it.

I'd like to ask a question though, as you seem pretty clued up about the process of fasting. Could you explain any of the theory behind it, in terms of how you can have so much energy without putting any fuel in? A couple of friends of mine have done a couple of week long fasts and they basically lay about all week without much energy. They still said it felt great and they felt cleansed at the end of it (and they eat a vegan diet anyway so they're not exactly full of toxins).

Is it basically fuel stored in your body that you're now using up? And would there be a different effect depending on how much fuel you had stored, for example your pre-fast weight, or other factors?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:38 / 02.12.05
I can't really speak for anyone but myself, but I think yoga might help a lot with that. I'm a pretty energetic person anyway, I walk either 4 or 8 miles everyday (4 today, but I'll probably bus it home), do yoga at least once, often twice daily and generally have a fair bit of get-up-and-go.

As far as not putting fuel in your body, it's pretty much a myth that you need to eat to 'keep up your strength' or 'have lots of energy'. After eating a big meal, do you feel full of vim? No, you're crackered. The digestive process, mastication, digestion, absorption and waste elimination eat (couldn't resist that one) enormous percentages of your Vital Force, your prana, chi, whatever you want to call it, your Life Energy for getting your shit together.

So long as you have plenty of good water (definnitely not tap, and many mineral waters are so dense with inorganic, useless crud that they're probably worse than the shit piped through your taps) and plenty of good oxygen, your body is a fucking miracle. Fasting facilitates a natural healing process, wherein the enzymes which usually spend all day and all night digesting the probably badly combined foods that are eaten throughout the day, alcohol (gigantic molecules, take ages to break down) and other crap, flood through the digestive tract and, because the system is really rather well worked out, automatically begin consuming only the shite that is not in the original blueprint...ulcerated cells, tumors, cancers, atrophied cells, waste matter, impacted food in hard to reach places, extraneous body fat, toxins stored in your body from sprayed veg and fruits (DDT, herbicides, pesticides, growth hormone, whatever), toxins from medicines that may be stored in the system for many years, basically everything that isn't part of the DNA coded perfect machine you were born as gets eaten.

Up to 40 days (if very experienced at fasting). Beyond that limit, you are starving, and your stomach will basically start to eat you, from the inside out. Ouch. As someone pointed out upthread, if fasting for any length of time, you are likely to suffer hunger pangs (more like noticing the breakage of a deeply entrenched routine, a habit, than actual bona fide hunger, in my experience) for up to 4 days or so, then you may (or may not) be fatigued for a couple of days, then SHAZAM. Energy. As if by magic. Your eyes sparkle, your skin glows, the whole works. I think if you have lead a poor life of nutrition and abuse, you may suffer cleansing and healing crises, all sorts of weird stuff. headaches, aches, pains, muscular spasm, vomiting possibly, even passing weird stuff in your stool (howabout mercury? It was used in lots of medicines many years ago, and remains in the body...a long fast will cause it to be passed, rectally)...you can end up with halitosis, spts, loads of garbage as your body eliminates toxins like never before through every eliminative organ at its disposal (the skin being a lrather large one, obviously).

I haven't suffered any of this, though, which I think may be down to being a veggie for many year, naturally fasting a fair bit when I work, anyway, and avoiding doctor's when I get ill because I trust my body to do what it does best without the aid of suspensions of alcohol, painkillers and decongestants.

Incidentally, it is completely blatantly natural to fast whn you are ill...you know how your appetite goes? Talk about a clear signal. LET ME HEAL MYSELF. THIS IS YOUR BODY TALKING. Do not occupy me with lousy digestion right now, I'm trying to get rid of the toxins and invasive bacteria/virus by trapping it in mucus and getting it eliminated.

Still people insist 'Oh, you must eat, just a little, just something, how about soup, you know, keep your strength up...'. What fucking cobblers. Trust. Your. Organism.

So yeah, there you go. Thanks for all the support, by the way!
 
 
illmatic
09:13 / 02.12.05
it's pretty much a myth that you need to eat to 'keep up your strength' or 'have lots of energy'

I dunno about that mate, I always experience a severe drop in energy levels whenever I miss an evenings meal, often even if I only eat lightly. I find it difficult to motivate, my mood drops and I find it hard to move around and do anything. I've always found this quite reassuring, noting the very real connection between my body and what I eat.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
09:42 / 02.12.05
Nonetheless fasting is proven throughout history as 'the physician within', and absolutely works...Pythagoras refused to initiate anybody into his Mysteries unless they had completed a 40 day fast beforehand.

I wonder what that might be...I suppose each of us different, so it could be just absence of food...although as I say, the early stages of a fast are horses for courses, some get bad pangs, loss of energy, enervation and so on, but it does pass.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:28 / 02.12.05
I tell you what, though - I never knew quite how much I truly, madly, deeply enjoy cooking and eating. Not just the sustenance angle, which is obviously quite key to the process, but setting that aside, the whole ritual of food is one which I really have missed this past week. It's bloody great, innit? I love cooking, I love, preparing food, and I bloody love sitting down in good company to share it and sup a glass of vino and savour every flavour, texture and taste.

It's humbling doing this, trust me. Brings you right back to basics.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
16:58 / 02.12.05
DAY 6

1 hour into the sixth day, and I have to say, smelling cooking makes me dribble...

It's not bloody easy. I think this is the point of retreats and getting away from your usual environs for lengthy fasts...so that you can avoid the hubbub and cooking smells...

Still, only 47 hours to go...just keep repeating...only 47 hours to go...t minus 47 hours, and counting...
 
 
Sekhmet
17:43 / 02.12.05
Regarding the energy level issue - I've done two three-day fasts. The first one occurred during an extended period of very healthy eating and living - vegetarian diet, lots of exercise, etc. The fast produced an amazing sense of clarity and tons of energy. I didn't even want to start eating again.

The other one I didn't prepare for properly; my diet was poor, and exercise spotty, health generally sluggish - also ten years older. I crashed and burned, was completely exhausted on the third day, pale and wobbly.

My guess is that preparation is everything.
 
 
Sekhmet
18:04 / 02.12.05
And, not to be cheerleady, but this is a fascinating and inspiring thread, no less than your Sainto D. stuff.

One more day! You can do it!
 
 
Char Aina
07:43 / 03.12.05
i'd like to echo that last post.
i'm both impressed and interested.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:16 / 03.12.05
Thank you, Sekhmet, it's helped me to keep this wee journal, as well...

DAY 6

Plus ca change, cos today I am now 9 hours away from day 7, but I am absolutely shattered. Really, very tired. Somehow or other I was up until just gone midnight last night (this morning), which following my 4.30 am wake-up means I stayed awake for a 20 hour day! Not that unusual under ordinary circumstances, but under the present circumnstances, well, it certainly surprised me.

To my increasing bewilderment, i woke up at 4.30am again this morning. This time it was less FF-TING! and a bit more UUURGH! though, as I was bone-tired. Did a full yoga series just before bed, and the LBRP, and my goodness, can I ever feel it today...It's not like post-gym feeling, which is often the result of overworking or exerting muscle groups, it's much more gentle (yoga), working with and in harmony with your muscle strength/weight ratios, but Ashtanga is far and away the most trenuous physically, requiring a lot of upper body strength and conditioning of the abdmoinal chakra's, or Tan Tien...So yeah, I'm pooped.

Last thing my beloved mentioned before falling asleep last night was a Subway sandwich. Last night proved to be my Wilderness moment, actually, as I spent the entire half-watching, half-reading a book (Total I Ching, by Stephen Karcher, highly recommended to students of the oracle) duration of Matrix: Revolutions completely distracted, drooling over a rotating 3-D semi-hallucinatory fantasy of a foot long Subway sarnie, with double cheese, tuna, toasted, everything in it, and Honey Mustard dressing. God, I love those things at the moment. Bit of a pig that I'm satying vegan until Winter Solstice, or I'd lay into one in the middle of next week...

But, I'm nearly there for this fast. After my Long Dark Night of the Subway, I feel refreshed and strong again today. Very glad its the weekend, I don't think I could face work today...Will chill out with my son today, then go shopping for food to prepare tomorrow for breaking the fast...need spinach, dark greens, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, beets, turnip, celery and alfalfa sprouts. Will have the cabbage, carrots, beets, celery and turnip all shredded in a salad with the alfalfa sprouts, and Apple Cider vinegar and squezzed orange juice as a (large!) raw salad and dressing to start...this acts as a big 'snowplough' through the gut, forcing the digestive msucles to work hard and really get shifting...followed by steamed spinach and dark greens and tomatoes with garlic, topped with apple cider vinegar and liquid aminos, and maybe some brewers yeast flakes to follow, which is delicious, and really, really good for you...

Fruit in the morning for brekky, loads of it, vegetable juices throughout evening and morning, then more raw salaads and perhpas a cooked (steamed) vegetable for lunch - buttersquash, probably, then Monday night I can start eating wholegrains, bread, rice etc. again, and whooppee to that. I've got some home made houmous on the way that is deeeeeee-licious, and some nice bread and, bean curries and all sorts that I just feel ready to explode anticipating.

It's been a mad ride so far. I don't think I could go on for 10 days just yet. I'll resume my daily fast regime for another threee months, leading up to another cleanse and 7 day fast in February, then same again up to a possible 10 day in the middle of Summer.

I'm currently experienceing mild, and not unpleasant, closed eye hallucinatory effects, purple squares that dance about in interesting geometries, and in low light my vision becomes very squamous, and breathes in a manner familiar from mild psilocybin intoxication. I definitely have great clarity, my mind is purposive, undistracted, and the connection from this experience to spiritual clarity is clear, even over this realtively short duration...it is a very humbling exercise in the cultivation of a foundation of Gratitude, something my work with the Daime has spelled out in letters as large as the Universe. The foundation from which an honest and correctly lived life springs and is built upon is, deep, deep at the base, gratitude. Without that, one is nothing more than a channel being hoppped through looking for something more compelling, a side-show of self-absorbed showboating. The notion that life owes one something, that there must be more to it than this is, imo, completely missing the train. Trapped at station Oblivion. This is it. You've arrived. Here it is, Heaven. Welcome!

Abwoon d'bwashmaya, that's the Aramaic for the first line of the Lord's Prayer, translated, though Hebrew, to Greek, to English, extremely poorly and stripped of all it's resonance, as 'Our Father, which art in heaven'. The word taken to be 'heaven', a word which appeared in many of Jesus' sayings, is shmaya, from it's root shem, which may mean light, sound, vibration, name or word, and the ending -aya shows that this shining includes every centre of activity, every place we see, as well as the potential abilities of all things. Thus the vibration or word by which one can recognize the Oneness, the Unity - God's name - is the Universe...Aramaic is (was) a very different language to Greek, and the concept of 'heaven' as presently understood, being an abstraction, an afterlife dwelling palce, seperate from the Universe would have been totally alien to Jesus, as would the notion of God as seperate from universe, nature and man. A closer translation for this phrase, though by no means accurate or exhaustive is more along the lines of 'Absolute Being, Oneness, source of all process and appearance, vibration of creative breath from One as it touches and interpenetrates form, Divine Birthing process, Holy parent, whose sound and name as it rises and shines in space we are able to recognise by manifestation in and of the Universe'...

Wow. Not quite as staightforward as the KJV, then. It's hard for Western mind to grasp how single words in Aramaic can have such multiple and textured meanings, but this was and is totally natural to native Middle Eastern mystics. Isn't it beautiful?

Anyway, enough preaching, this is my work, no-one elses, and I hope it's not vain sharing it this way - the way it comes out sounds like I mean it as TEH TRUTH!1, but it's only my take...

Enough for now, I have to tidy the devastation wrought by my son and his mate around the house. Gah.

Laterrrrzzzz
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:36 / 03.12.05
Haha, synchronicity alert:

Jusr received this as part of an email from a buddhist newsletter I subscribe to:

Notes on the Importance of Gratitude

1.

How deeply you feel gratitude
is how deeply
you treasure and enjoy your blessings.

2.

If we should be grateful
even to our greatest "enemies"
for perfecting one's patience,
how can we ever be ungrateful to anyone?

3.

Just as contentment for what one has is the greatest wealth,
gratitude for what one receives is the greatest satisfaction.

4.

Ingratitude is the beginnning of the end of one's blessings,
just as gratitude is the beginning of their perpetuation.

5.

To take even the smallest thing in life for granted
is to not be grateful enough.

If the bald fat fella says so, who am I to argue?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
17:36 / 03.12.05
DAY 7

Well, well, well.

I feel well.

I'm one and a half hours into day seven, and the end is looming large. I actually take back what I said earlier about not being able to go on...it passed about an hour after that post, all the fatigue disapeared, and I got a burst of incredible energy. I could easily extend this to 10 days.

I'm not going to, though. Because you can do something, are able to, is not necessarily a good reason for going ahead and doing it, methinks. Arguably, that's a dictum we as a collective species frequently allow to be crushed under the weight of curiosity, rarely to great consequence, and often to enormous suffering of something somewhere. So, I'm still going to cease in 22 and half hours.

Middle - today, for the first time, I have begun to experience a taste of what you were fishing for upthread. I went shopping for my food for tomorrow in the middle of the afternoon...(quick aside - I managed to buy a Romanescu Broccoli, which is bar none the most gorgeous an dstunning vegetable I have ever, ever seen - I've yet to taste it, but if it tastes anything like it looks, I'm in for a culinary orgasm. Isn't it fucking incredible?)

...and by the time I'd got hold of the brewer's yeast and liquid amino's, the sun was setting...I began to experience what I can only describe as euphoria. It forcibly reminded me of the last hour or so of Philospher's Stone intoxication visually, with the first hour or so physically. All senses were hyperactive, particularly smell and vision. I was in the midst of rushes from the base of the spine (muladhara chakra) up, over the head and down to the Manipura chakra (which is associated with Power and Will, thelemically enough) at the solar plexus...this then spread to a warm and amazing sensation throughout my belly...I couldn't stop laughing ansd grinning and was properly euphoric, rapt and high. I also experienced classic and renowned sensations of the dissolution of self and awareness of the unity in everything...it wasn't anything like as powerful or all-encompassing and entheogen gnosis, but was unmistakeable and beautiful for its gentleness. It lasted approximately 2 hours, and I still have very vivid colour exaggeration and general heightened senses, a feeling of great clarity and beauty.

This occurred only today, it was not present at all in the preceeding days of the fast. I can only imagine the sorts of psycho-physical changes that manifest on fasts of 20, 30 or 40 days...

I walked miles today, after my sluggish morning, and feel exhausted now, but in a very positive way. I cannot stress enough how clear and positive and upbeat and optimistic and full of strength I am felling right now. I have some beautiful, beautiful food to look forward to tomorrow evening, and I feel like I have turned such a large corner in my life, something deep has shifted and is not going back, I am a new creature. Big changes afoot.

I'm going to hit Christmas with a totally different outlook, vibe and will for the first time I can remember head into January without a hangover! Fantastic! (Trabalhos New Years Eve. yay!)

Peace, and have a groovy, relaxed, fun and awesome Saturday night.
 
 
kowalski
18:13 / 03.12.05
Is there a good/easy place to start if I'd like to read up on the whole Aramaic > Hebrew > Greek > English translation debacle and what else can be gleaned from reassessing the Aramaic?

Oh, and further echo: everything in this thread has been simply fascinating.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
23:00 / 03.12.05
Aramaic and Hebrew are very similar, all European languages not really having all that much in common with either. Far more words, each with far less meaning.

Have a read over here...
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
07:08 / 04.12.05
DAY 7

So, friends, here we are. Just 9 hours left to go, and I will have completed my longest ever fast.

There is little more to say that has not already been said, really. Last night I had another late one (the energy I have at the moment translates to physical fatigue after a day, particularly in my lower legs around the calf muscles, for some reason, but not mental at all...I was wide awake unitl 1.00 am, and the mental alertness continued as I lay in bed), but when I finally dropped off, i slept like a baby. Very deep sleep. Still, woke up bright and brisk at about 7.30 this morning, so six hours or so sleep. I've been getting by on 4-6 hours over the last few days, which is unusual...well, no its not, but its unusual to feel this energized and ready for action after that amount, I usually need a good 8 hours or it all catches up with me at the weekend...

I'm looking super healthy in terms of skin tone, bright eyes, helthy hair, spirits and general aura, though my face is of course draw and defined, and I've lost loads of weight around my waist, not that I had that much to spare in the first place. I suspect this will remedy very quickly once I begin eating again, we'll see.

My tongue still has mild roughness on the sides, very mild, but indicating liver and lung healing...not surprised, really, the terrible abuse I have subjected both those organs to over the past decade or so. I'm sooo quit smoking, and drink is definitely re-positioned as a celebratory occasion rarity for me now. I've been able to very consciously and carefully analysze the life I have now, my feelings, optimism, ability to function calmly and with clarity and mindfulness over the past month, and contrast this with my moodiness, emotive response and general haphazard ability to cope with day to day reality after boozing in the evenings, and all the attendant rash decisions that accompany drunkenness, in my case...Not preaching in any way at all, I love a drink, but its re-positioned in my new gig, is all.

I'll be resuming milkthistle three times a day for the rest of the month, then twice a day for the rest of the new year, I think...Yoga is also doing wonders for the internals...throughout this fast I've coughed up lots of phlegm (ugh. sorry) so I guess my lungs are doing their best to repair what horror I wrought on them in my yoof.

So, nearly done. Although a handful of you have been really supportive, for which I thank you most sincerely, I still feel the need to apologise for generally being a tumorous bore, discussing my sputum openly and generally waxing lyrical about my bodily functions...It's been an important returning post for me each day to remind myself how I'm doing and restate my purpose, a place to return to when I'm feeling a little weak and need to remind myself what I'm doing and why, so it's helped me loads. Anybody who decides to conduct their own can of course jump right in and diary a different experience in the future, so it can remain an open ended resource for fasting loons.

Viva Barbelith.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:45 / 04.12.05
I dunno dude. You see any lock/delete tantrums?

I'm usually very eye-rolly and get-a-bloggy about lengthy diary-type threads, but this was a specific magic/spirituality related project, undertaken during a set period and likely to be of considerable relevance to current and future readers. I think it's valuable.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
18:32 / 04.12.05
OK, cheers MC.

I ate tonight at 7:45 pm, 1 hour and 45 minutes into the eighth fay of my fast.

My God, was that a meal. So, so grateful to have food. Fooooood. Tonight, a rooibus tea beckons, and a day of taking it very gently, veg and fruit only, maybe some sourdough bread with hummus tomorrow eveing and more steamed spinach and tomatoes and wotnot.

After that, I should be ok to resume my recent diet, wholegrains and rice and so on should be fine.

What an experience. What an amazing thing. I'm really chiffed with seeing it through.

Very glad for food again now.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:55 / 04.12.05
*Applauds*
 
 
Sekhmet
21:53 / 04.12.05
Yaaaaay!

Again must say that I think this is a fascinating and valuable thread. Thank you for sharing your experience.
 
 
SteppersFan
08:03 / 05.12.05
Well done, that was excellent.
 
  

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