Fasting Day 3

This is the strangest fast I have ever done. Normally, I don't have any hunger, and I have a hard time eating again at the end and I don't really have any reactions to fasting. This time, I had headaches the first day and half of the second, and a belly ache during that same time. I kept drinking Master Cleanse and water and finally succumbed to the bed on Monday night. It is fair, I suppose, to say that being in an entirely new country, with entirely new surroundings, not even half as much stress as I used to have, and a totally different intention for this fast might make a wee bit of difference. But, wow, this is like, a totally new animal that I have never met.

I am fasting for two, or maybe three reasons. First, to support Nic in her fast that she has to do before the 12 hour meditation day on Saturday at her Dojang in preparation for her third dan test (third black belt). We'll break fast on saturday evening after the meditation (which I will not be attending), for which I will bring a big pot of carrot avocado soup, the recipe of which is from my friend, Micki, who is amazing and has a link in the friends column to her pictures of what she calls, Everyday Artfulness. Please look at these handmade beautiful beings that she has created. She is a true sister of the handmade life and an inspiration for me every day, especially when I receive a picture of her beautiful artfulness in my email box. Annoyingly, I still cannot get pictures onto the blog, so I can't show you.

OK, so, second reason I am fasting is because I have hated my belly and especially the fat around it since puberty, and I think it is time to come into relationship with my belly exactly as she is and stop all of that nonsense.  I have been doing all sorts of writing and questioning and diving down into what is buried in there. It is a powerful thing to do, and i am getting to look at all sorts of stuff that I thought I had dealt with already, or, that I would really rather not have to look at. The belly, known as the Hara or Dan Tien in japanese and chinese respectively, is the center of our power. Our digestion, assimilation of nutrients, our life energy, and our sexual energy are all housed and generated in the lower halves of our abdomens. I think partly it is my piece of the cultural repression of the feminine and the demand that we look a certain way etc. that I carry, compounded with my own shames and guilts and secrets and everything that I will not spill all over this blog. Just know, this is a major piece of work and supported by the fasting.

Third, because I would have liked to do a Vision Fast (see School of Lost Borders under "nourishment for the handmade life" on the right) between leaving the zen center I lived in for 7 years and moving to another country on another continent. It can help us to consciously make a change during life transitions by marking them with some kind of ceremony. I have found deep healing and power in the wild places in the world and in myself when I entrust myself to them. I will also be "verpartnered" ,meaning partnered with nic, in a civil union in a month's time and this is another good reason for going out onto the land and crying for a vision, of wholeness and beauty, to bring into our commitment of a life together. However, I am in a town in Germany and don't have the resources to do such a ceremony of fasting in the wilderness, but this is a good intention to carry while we both fast together this week. We took our rings out last night and showed them to friends and looked at the pictures of our Blessing Ceremony in May in Connecticut. It was beautiful to see all of the faces and smiles of the people who were there giving such love.

And the sacredness of the time during a fast is somehow always present, even in the midst of our lives.There were moments today, when I was walking from the train to my school, for example, when I had no idea where I was. Or, better said, I could have been anywhere- no one spoke german during those steps of mine to give some context of place and I was wrapped in the anonymity of travel. I was walking within a world of people and things, all particular in their beingness and all a part of the world fabric in that moment, and there was nothing to make it a thing to speak of, only a shared creation of place and time. This was a moment of freedom, a gift from the lightness of the fast and the faith of being here.