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Day 58 - Post Retreat
Re-feeding and Retreating
Date: 9/14/2016 5:42:01 AM ( 8 y ) ... viewed 1057 times I completed a wonderful retreat, accumulating the mantra commitments to charge up the mantra and help my friend with her fight with cancer - today was the first day off the retreat and I've been pretty busy all day getting all sorts of things accomplished and haven't done any practice yet - a bit of a day off after so much concentrated practice, tho I did do a morning waking exercise and will do at least some evening something --
It's just on 8pm now, I'm starting to go into my little pre-leaving the country house for a big trip flurry of activity, getting all the loose ends here nicely stitched up - my friend/fiend and I have been talking and he's been helping with things and spending time at a dharma center and repenting and trying to do good stuff to make the situation improve - he's no longer allowed in the house here, and not on the property at all when I'm here - our friendship now can only operate on the phone and in a public place we had lunch once to discuss stuff that needed to be sorted out -- so I've left him with a list of stuff he can do here to help while I'm away - tho he can't come in the house or stay here at all - he's going to come here a couple times in that 3 weeks I'm gone to make sure the animals have enough food and water and see someone around so they don't get too lonely or skittish and do some lawn mowing and weeding and so on.
So I got those notes written - I'll give them to him tomorrow, I got his key off him the last time so this will be our second lunch - in the past few days he also was in the city doing a bunch of work to help with the houses there and playing music and visiting his teachers seat. Well - I guess its better to have the help and a friendship at a distance - he tells me his close group of friends who he has an art association with have re-instated him as a board member with the stipulation that he get ongoing therapy due to the violent episodes (there have been 3 in total - the last one the worst and I told his closer friends about it all) -- I don't know if he is ever going to really get better and I am going to keep a big distance, he's moving up out of state in the next few weeks and will only be in vic occasionally after that - after many years of very close friendship and music making and so much dharma and amazing stuff shared its really hard to know what to do or how to process all that he's done - wish him well - be wise about contact, hope I'm not going too far or being an idiot, strong boundaries in place while recognizing the need for us not to be alone together or him to be near my house when I'm there. Seems to be out of the red zone as long as that's in place - he certainly didn't plan or pre-meditate his psychotic episodes so I don't feel he's gunning for me... I know he's genuinely just very sorry, very messed up and that he has a hell of a lot of growing to do - I hope he manages it and to change, but that's up to him.
So anyway - besides preparing for that stuff - I've got a bunch of juices to blend up tomorrow or the morning before I head off - so much fruit and offerings here from the retreat - I made many offerings for auspiciousness as part of it - I've been eating every day but not so much - some days just a few biscuits and a smoothie or two then some soup for dinner, other days a bit more, an egg with one slice of toast for breakfast a couple mornings, other mornings just a one egg omelette - then shepards pie for dinner --- my periods come and its all back on track and normal now I'm eating and made sure to include plenty of iron rich foods in my re-feeding - a couple hamburgers, the shep pie and some duck liver pate would have helped it along. I am doing really well apart from I've still been sore from the attack, he really hurt my ribs and my throat - still hurts a little to swallow like there's a lump there, it was pretty bad for well over two weeks and still can feel it but its a lot better now and not bothering me so much. Nasty. I guess that long delayed period during the fast was purely a result of the deep fast I was in the midst of - its all come clear now.
My digestion is going pretty well - still feel like taking it easy and taking days where I do mostly liquid and just a soup for dinner - I'm still inclined to do a bit of rest, like do a few days of just liquids and go back to that tho I'm not sure my situation over the next few weeks is going to accomodate for that - traveling and being with friends and so on - I think I'll just do my best to juice in the mornings and and have a smoothie lunch and keep to the only one or 2 small meals rule - keeping it light and keeping the fluids up. I can feel that it does stress my system to go back to eating, my intestines complain a little and sometimes feel very firm or full at night when I lay down to sleep - so mindful of these things its nice to just keep with a good portion of liquid diet as much as I'm able. I have had a lot of sugary things, not heaps but just little bits of chocolate and biscuits that were all part of the big offering plates I made every day for the retreat - a lot of it was fruit tho that I did juice up or eat some of, I also made another batch of fruit paste with the slippery elm, and drank a lot of golden milk made with fresh tumeric - been having quite a lot of milk over the retreat and that's been good - milk and a few eggs and the shep pie and the potato soup was what I refed on, as well as some good quality french bread and duck liver pate - not a whole lot of bread, a bit some days, other days none.
Well - I'm going to be juicing up a honeydew melon, a little watermelon and grape juice, and I have half a small papaya which I might just eat as well as 3 bananas, a bunch of little mandarins, a few green apples and a couple pears all left and one passionfuit! It's not all going to make it into the juicer by friday morning, I'll juice all the melon and might just take the other fruit with me - maybe I'll fry up the bananas one night for a fruit dinner after a day of juicing - and keep the mandarins as snack food - that would be good for me... I've also got an abundance of eggs here as my chickens keep laying them and there's not that 2nd person now to share them with - I made a jar of homemade mayo, I'm going to use another 10 up in a couple jars of lemon curd - that's an easy thing to give away and I'll freeze the egg whites for low cal breakfast omelettes later when I'm back... ah... I'll hard boil a few of them I guess and try and leave some for my friend if he's able to use them or take some to the city house and share them with the peeps there... I would cook a dozen of them into a big egg slice but I really don't have any other ingredients to make one appealing.
Have been very short on exercise this past week doing massive mantra accumulation - so that's a bit difficult - its part of a retreat usually, and considering i was injured it was probably a good time for that lack of activity tho my bowels and digestion could have used some - again, not sure I'll be in the right place to do much about that over the next few weeks of traveling, if I'll even have space to lay out a yoga mat -- I'll try and do some walking and yoga as I can tho & and prep myself for getting back to my normal bushwalking and yoga when I return early October.
I'm really looking forward to the next little fast - and to continued juicing and not stressing the body with too much solid stuff - I've probably gone back into eating a little faster than is ideal tho its been pretty good, I still feel the calling to take it easy and take time off - its hard to always be focused on everything, the retreat really took most o my focus this past week - May it bring great benefit to my friend and hep her completely overcome this health battle - She's truly someone I want to see grow old and grey with me :) Love her heaps. Heading off to the city the morning after tomorrow and then to her the tuesday after the weekend!
All for now,
best luck to all you readers out there
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