..and one to prepare for the break-fast.

hello everyone, the following are a few suggestions that might support the uniquely inward-focused state a person can -in the best sense- get into on a water fast. Hindsight being 20/20, this is what I'd want around...even though often on a water fast all I've wanted is silence and rest - maybe some flowers for company:they are food for ALL the senses, imv. My ideal fasting 'retreat' would probably be in a yurt or a bell tent in some secluded garden place that bees and birds find appealing. Would love to create such a place, where individuals can come to find the value and the power in transcending their normal modes of experiencing whereby we filter everything darkly through a glass half-full, to mangle a few metaphors. :-)


One preparatory idea: the day before you begin fasting, or maybe on the very day(if you feel confident) you might want to make a huge pot of mineral-rich vegetable broth that you simmer for several hours, or the whole day, to get you in the mood for the WFast. People may laugh, but chopping up vegetables is more than mere mechanics, and can be an act of deep appreciation: all this enters the soup.

Simmering the soup will attune your nose to good food, and fill your environment with the subtle power of your intent to simplify and cleanse. Some people approach a water fast as a form of penance, and might want to have a big 'last supper' before the slow purge, but this is not the way to access the best of the water fast, in my experience. I would rather not have the three day headaches that are the result of suddenly quitting everything, and suffering its withdrawal.

This is the time to use all the very best vegetables you can find. (After all, you won't have to be buying food for awhile, and you are worth it, even if you don't feel it pre-fast. )You can colour the broth an appealing rosy-caramel tint with red chard and/or brown and red onion skins. Be sure to put in the roots of cilantro as well as the greens, and the greens of carrots and beets, if you can find them... Add lots of garlic, just rough chopped whole bulbs, if you like garlic. Lots of onions too. (Onions are anti-radiation and so much more...) Sometimes I like to add lime leaves and green chilies; later, to this same broth you can add a little coconut milk, and have a lovely Thai soup base. You might want to take the time now to crack a real coconut and grate it, and freeze that too for later. While you're doing it, revel in appreciation for the strength of a body that can do such things--you will marvel at it, on the days you feel weak, and you'll remember that yes, you will get your strength back, when the body is finished with its cleansing and housekeeping.

Cool the soup, then add a bit of apple cider vinegar, (this helps extract more minerals. Let it sit for an hour or more, then strain and squeeze out all the solids to get the most goodness. (put the solids in the compost--you do have compost, right? I have a balcony, no yard, but I make compost for my potted plants.) Store the broth in smallish containers that you can freeze. If glass jars, leave lots of room for expansion, so the jars won't break. Having so much goodness 'on hand', but out of sight will put your mind at rest about how cravings, and how you'll manage later.

You can simply thaw a batch the night before you break the fast. Yes, the body *may* decide it wants fruit after three weeks of water, but it's equally possible it will crave some simple broth. It's one step up from water and yet into a whole realm of abundance. And the broth will give you almost-instant energy.

If you have never water fasted before, or have only gone for a few days and barely made it out of the 'intro' stage, you will be AMAZED at how sublime a simple cup of vegetable broth can be when appetite fades away and THEN comes back.

This is perhaps the easiest way to break a water fast (esp. one that leaves a person feeling weak)and supply the cells with easily assimilable nutrients. If you happen to live with young coconuts growing nearby, you are hugely blessed. Their water is an almost perfect human food, second only to mother's milk). In fact, a person might want to transition from water to a few days of coconut water-- this is very healing for kidneys especially, and kidneys do work hard on a WF, as does the liver.



That was a long preparatory note!

then there's music.

There's every possibility you might tune into music of the celestial spheres at some point during your water fast, but it's more likely if you feed yourself with music conducive to healing and restoration.This isn't the time for the adrenaline-lifting music that makes for good housecleaning backup.


Listen to music:

I have some old loves...

Brain Eno: Music for Airports is gorgeous, spacey and calming. (Not for when those moments you have to be outgoing and engaged with others, although they might like it too, for relaxing to.)

Harmonic Resonance--Not sure of the artist: I lost my copy.
This is music you can play while you are out running an errand and it literally acts on your home while you're gone as a sort of angelic housekeeper--much the way a calming bath does on you. It realigns the environmental energies.

There are a ton of new things in this same vein, but I have found a lot of it is mediocre rip-offs of some of the older (then pioneering) stuff.

Ambient music: a thunderstorm
I have one that begins as a canoe ride in a gentle pattering rain, and then goes into a full-blown storm. Nowadays the storms we have can be frightening, but I've always loved a good, natural thunderstorm.

Abbess Hildegarde of Bingen:
(She was an incredible woman, in hers, or any time)

I've misplaced that cassett and haven't found the music again--I'll go look for it.
edit: found one of the songs on Youtube. The album is "A feather on the Breath of God" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXvm7ZW1-5I&feature=BF&playnext=1&list=QL&index=1
This is music I came across in the mid/late eighties. heard it one day filtering through some leaves on a tree-lined street and was mesmerized. Followed the sound to its source: a tiny second-storey store. Bought it. It was my birthday, and this was my gift.

You might start following one link/idea and letting it lead you to downloading and saving some playlists, for those times when you want to take a break form everything else, and swim in sound.
those are just a few ideas. Other days, it might be African music that appeals. One thing I've noticed on a water fast is that your senses can be breathtakingly alive, and yet there's nothing going on in terms of  'anybody home'. physically, you can be like a river flwing past. This makes it an ideal time to listen to music. Remember lying on the floor listening to Pink Floyd, and other such complete entrancements of the olde days? As some of the fasting masters have noted, there was a brilliant kind of presence, but nothing to come of all that clarity and brightness until AFTER the fast. I think it was Purinton who says he wrote twenty-some poems immediately following his "conquest fast".

"I like the idea of a water fast for a rebirth of creativity. Not "my" will, but Thy will, that sort of thing...

Watch a film:

Into great silence
The White Balloon
Brother Sun Sister Moon (For the pure hearted: "I'm not asking to be loved! I want to love!")
Wind in The Willows (The 1983 film, not for kids only! But great for 'retracing' through younger days)
The Straight Story (Haven't met a person who didn't love it)


Read a book--the kind you can crack the binding on, and hold in your hands. (Some days just holding a book is enough exercise! :-)

A Course in Miracles
Any "Holy" book of your choosing
I do not recommend reading water fasting books--I think the pre-fast is the time to do that.

Once begun, I like to "go deep" as a dear friend used to say. In the past, I collected numerous recipes for artisanal bread. A symptom of clearing, no doubt. Next time I water fast, I hope to be for the most part doing very little; and almost nothing in terms of the computer.

Dolce Far Niente. Sweet Doing Nothing. If I was T Shirt person, that'd be my slogan. It may still be, if I ever find that (literal) haven of peace.


C