February 22nd 1998
THE "LOVING YOURSELF DIET" PART 4
I hope that some of you tried last week to start making some choices. For example have white and brown bread on the breakfast table, eat a bit of each and then decide which you like most. It is not an easy thing to get out of old habits. Spring is certainly a good time for a fresh beginning. Before you begin with your weekend fast, you can follow a one week diet as follows
Breakfast: 2 slices of rice- or rye-bread with margarine, sugar-free jam or umeboshi paste or cooked whole oats with stewed apples or pears, roasted nuts, figs or dates and soya or rice-milk, bancha tea or barleycup with soya milk
Lunch: cooked whole rice, millet or barley with two cooked vegetables with miso sauce or salad with a dressing made from olive oil, cider vinegar, soya sauce and fresh herbs
Afternoon snack: oatcakes or ricecakes with tahini or sugar-free jam, bancha tea or barleycup with soya milk or fresh fruit
Dinner: Miso soup with fresh vegetables and seawheed, rye-bread or rice-bread with tahini or humous, stewed fruit with soyamilk or soya dessert
There are good books on macrobiotic cooking at the bookshop in the East West Centre in Old street, London.
If you wish, you can also have a one week fruit diet. before you start with the fast.
The fast begins preferably on a saturday morning. It is good to do the fast with a friend in the countryside. Put all the food away and avoid going to places where you have to watch people eat. Also avoid crowds, driving, traffic,television, smoke and noisy places. The fasting will make you more sensitive. You will like massages, sauna, bath, country walks and swimming. During the cleansing the body will eliminate old waste products. Memories from the past and feelings such as anger, loneliness, grief and bitterness can easily come up. Make sure that you will have someone to listen to you. Express yourself through writing, drawing, singing, dance and play. Have as much water and fruit juice as you like
After two or three days break your fast slowly. Eat very little fruit or brown bread and chew it really well. Then again go on a one week diet similar to the one before the fast. Enjoy your sensitivity and try to make it last for a while. Only eat the food you really like and do not overeat. Keep taking the crab apple for another two weeks.
I am only making suggestions. Every person is different and has to find out for themselves what they like.
I am planning to start a workshop on the "Loving yourself diet" after easter in the Bonnington Centre, Vauxhall.
KEEPING YOUR SACRUM MORE SACRED
After having started to look at our extremities and the heart area we moved to the head, the mouth and the eyes. From there we came to the belly, eating and dieting. Now we move on to the lower back, an area which causes plenty of distress to many people.
While studying psychology in Munich I had singing lessons and bioenergetic sessions.
I had a very high and thin voice and I always wanted to sing deeper and with a bigger volume. My singing teacher asked me to breathe into my lower back and hold the breath for a while. He also taught me panting, a breathing technique which is used for pregnant mothers to help them with the birth process, I received my first deep lower back massage and became aware of my lower back and the tension I was holding there for the first time in my life. The tension was mainly situated around the sacrum. Deep massage and breathing exercises helped me to free the tension and thus deepen my voice.
If you imagine the body as being like a double bass you would think that vitalising the lower half of the back would enlarge the "sound body" and deepen the breath and the voice. It would also increase people's sexual sensitivity. They would be more able to feel the orgastic energy stream going up the spine.
Alexander teachers are helping people to become more sensitive about the energy movement up the spine with exercises and creative visualisation.
Pregnant mothers and people with big bellies apply a constant forwards and downwards pull on the spine. Thus the muscles along the spine will have to carry a lot of weight. They will tense up and eventually build a layer of tissue around the tense muscles. The tension will be constantly held by the muscles. People stop breathing into the lower back. The area will become painful or insensitive and numb. The breath will become more shallow and the voice will get higher and thinner.
All this will take years to develop. There is a strong tendency in the body to keep it alive and in balance. But through constant strain it will eventually give in and develop a safety armour that will keep it functioning. The person has to pay for it by becoming less sensitive.
A few years ago I wrote a song where I compared this process with the fakir sitting on his board of nails. Two children pass by and the boy says: "I wouldn't mind being like him, then I would not feel it if father hits me." The girl answers:" But you wouldn't feel mum's kisses and cuddles either".
The song ends with the verse:"And our false smile shines miles ahead, we are racing nummed on vast streets through the city, between movies, star fighters, Hot Dogs and TV and if someone has still kept their senses alive and is still amongst us they should pack their things and leave as soon as possible, because it seems that we are all dying on the board of nails and nobody is aware of it....
Sleeping Beauty in Grimms fairy tale sleeps in a tower for 100 years. Then the prince has to come through the thorny rose hedge with his sword and awake her with a kiss.
Quite often, people who find their life force again through massage, healing, flower essences and other means will feel exactly like Sleeping Beauty waking up from a deep, long sleep.
Next week more about the sacrum.
On Monday February 23rd I will hold a workshop on "The eyes, the windows of the soul" in Vauxhall from 7-9 pm, cost is £ 10( conc. £ 7). More info on 0171 735 4513.