Mira Stop!!!!!!!

[Klara]

Wish I'd read your first blog on the rice fast before you started - I am VERY concerned!!!!!! Are you seeing a mb counselor at all on this?? Was there a very solid reason for doing the fast or just curious??? Have you read and studied alot about the fast before trying to embrace it?????

I am not with you, nor am I a counselor - I have heard both good and bad re the brown rice fast. There have been some great discussions here on it - also someone who tried it journaled his experience here on the forums and some wonderful words of wisdom from manymoon.

What you are experiencing could be dangerous - Or it could be just what mb love to call discharge. I haven't a clue - I just know what I LOVE about mb is it's not jolting to the system like medication - it's more like a wonderful soft billowy cloud that allows you to land softly. You sound like you're having a VERY rough ride and my guts are screaming, this isnt the mb way. You do NOT have to do this just to prove to yourself that you can. That's not what the diet is for!!!!!!! I hope you read this and I convinced you to stop, or at least consult with someone who truly knows about rice diets. Please.

Klara

[bluebird]

i'll have to agree with klara on this i think she is giving good advice. why fast with out a good reason. three days is not too bad, BUT there are some people that should not do even that. any rigid diet can be dangerous. even (or should i say especially) macrobiotics. feel free to contact me any time if you need to talk about this. thank you, howard

[Manymoons]

Mira

Unfortunately my comments come after the fact.

The rice fast can be very powerful. It opens you up (without much protection) to ones own real balance. If not done carefully a momentun can be created that is hard to control and be very dangerous. Remember the front is as big as the back. All the potential for healing carries also the potential to harm.

Your blog suggests that as early as the second week of December you were eating fruit. Several weeks later you do a rice fast. This is far too sudden a change. The contraction was putting pressure on you to match the expansion you had a very short time prior. Ouch!!!! The previously ingested yin was burning off rapidly, and during an Australian summer. Your lucky to have not burst into flame! It may have felt like that, however. I can well imagine that to be the case.

The universe gives us our youth to compensate for our ignorance and blind enthusiasism. This may be your salvation. There is far more to balance than just the food, which is a fundemental key but remains only simply food. The dynamic flow of yin/yang energy is everywhere. The food can help align us with it, but the real balancing comes in the living of our lives- the relatedness to other people-the things we do and especially the way we do them-what we think-what we feel and how we respond, etc.

The part of all of this that I notice to be under discussed and probably least understood is the effects other people's balance can have on each of us. You made referrence in one of your entries about the "flack" you get in school because of the way you chose to eat. You will get this in all stages of your life. People tend to want to bring you to their own level. People do not generally take kindly to reflection. If you are or do things that reflect their own (dare I say) imbalance, be prepared for the resistance. This is not to say you should be cut off or "above" but simply to hold your own--contain and carry your own yin and yang.

Use the food gratefully, respectfully and with all the gratitude you can generate. Listen to it and your self. It speaks quitly for the most part. It can also yell, as you may concur. The food and the universe are on your side.
You do not need to force it---unless of coarse you enjoy being forced. Finding and containing one own's yin/yang is "the balance".

You will be challenged from within and from without. There will be times when it seems like to much work to maintain your own. There will be times when others will not want you to maintain your own. It can be taken from you and/or you can give it up. Maintaining you own is the substance of living. It can be daunting and unbelievably exciting.

Take care and take it slowly. There is much ground to cover and if you go too rapidly you will miss some very sublte but impotant things. The small things add up to the big picture.

Manymoons

[Klara]

Manymoons,

I am so grateful you are still here. Your words, as always, are so inspiring. I had a flash, what about those of us who no longer have our youth to combat our ignorance - well, we all have our life experiences which have taught us whatever our own stories are. I wish I had all the awareness that you have of the power of mb - but you make me realize I have still much to look forward to!!!! In a very special class that I am experiencing, we are now working on opening our hearts - our first assignment was to recognize every moment what physical feelings our heart is experiencing - we've been trained for so long to use our brains, our hearts kind of weren't in the picture. Growing pains.

I am sorry Mira's last post doesn't indicate that she's read the forum - I hope she will - and will just gently coast back into a nice even way of eating. No rush, Mira, you have plenty of time!!!!

Klara

[Manymoons]

Klara

I hope your not using knives to open your heart. It could get messy!

Generally contemporary culture functions from a seperation of body and soul--as you say more from the brain than the heart--more from the yin than the yang. The quality of standard food fare reflects this. It is empty and yinnizing. It really does not support the body (yang) very well. It actually can be quite depleating therefore forcing the spirit to go above the body because the body becomes a less hospitable place for the spirit to be. At this point the body is living mechanically (synthetically healthy) without much relatedness to the spirit. This situation is big trouble and the condition where disease and unhappiness trive.

Getting the spirit back down into the body can be quite an ordeal. This food is the most supportive for this process. The food will not do it for us but it will open a door and a path that is supportive. One still has to travel the path and pass through the door. Knock and it will be opened.

As we loose our youth we must depend more on our jugement. Seeing the yin/yang of things affords more clarity (objectivity) so we can see more than through our own deficiencies and needs (egos). Yinnizng is easy. Yangizing can be painful. Of course if one does not yinnize, one need not yangize, but we all come to this food quite yinnized and must endure the yangization accordingly. How much and how fast is an individaul thing.

We develope our judgement through the food and by the way we relate to the yin and yang around us. It is everywhere so the excercise is perpetual. The more we can encompass and deal with yins and yangs the more we can contain our own and thereby become more of what we are--wholly--holy.

Enjoy the ride!

Manymoons

[Klara]

If and when you write a book (or a journal, or poems, or anything!!!) please do let me be one of the first to know. I do so love how you use words.

Klara