Uninspired ? Juice Fasting
Sunday December 18th, 2005
(From LJ) Juice fasting has become a familiar friend, one I am often ambivalent about but also gives pleasure. Generally along with the wanting to eat or other physical discomforts I get a day and a half or so of mental clarity, increased energy, and an ecstatic high in mood, which often culminates in some kind of insight whether psychological and personal or more universal and spiritual. This time it never happened.
Perhaps it was due to the unseasonable cold of this month. I was certainly very aware of the cold as I huddled in my sweatsuit with t-shirt, a calf-length sweater, and a poly-fil vest with a lap robe tucked around my feet. Even keeping up my exercises, which I did religiously, didn't improve my levels of warmth for long. Being cold is not my favorite thing. In fact, I strongly dislike it. However, I don't see it as interfering with spiritual insight.
Being cold led me to think of my children and their penchant for rushing over to the furnace whenever it came on during winter and I chose to mimic them while feeling sad that we are not close anymore. We certainly love each other but are not really a part of each others' lives except in a distant way. At this holiday season I miss the bustle, and planning, and decorating, and gifting that we did when they were younger. We have turned out to be rather non-festive without them as my husband isn't interested in it.
The third day of the fast I thought about my hopes of community/family with Faol and how far off they seem. I wondered if it is something that I really want anymore, not because of any lack of desire to have Faol with us, but I seem to require a lot more solitude and quiet than I used to. I am not sure if I really want to have a lot of people around frequently. My other "fantasy", and it is definitely a fantasy, is that of the wise woman of the woods, living alone in a cottage, studying, gardening, taking care of myself, with an occasional visitor for magick/counseling, etc. Certainly they are at opposite ends of the spectrum and there is no reason that I couldn't have some of both but that isn't really the point. I am not sure anymore what I really want in that regard.
Today, the day after breaking my fast and looking back it seems that some work got done after all. While no answers, no wonderful clarity, I looked at some issues in my life and contemplated them from varying angles. And that may bear fruit at a later time. As I exercised today I was thinking about someone who comes to me for an ear when upset and I found myself fantasizing that next time I would say "let's not get caught up in the story of who did what to whom. Let's not focus on the idea of being maltreated or the resentment and hurt. Let's focus on the feelings themselves. Can they be expressed without reference to the thoughts and analysis of what has caused them? Let's not mind read, imagining the motivations behind the problems. Let's just stay here and now."
It seemed like good advice to give myself in dealing with upsets. Now I just have to begin to apply it to myself. I guess it wasn't so uninspiring after all. It doesn't always have to be spectacular.
Sometimes insight creeps up quietly. Fly lady says, "Baby steps."
Copyright © 2005 Kyril Oakwind