Discussion
It can be helpful to know about specific experiences of cleansing and fasting to know what types of emotions and healings can arise, as well as what works for individuals and what does not. In looking at such experiences, I’d like to offer my first encounter with cleansing and fasting as an example. My cleansing and fasting experiences began while I was living on the big island of Hawaii with my partner. I had given very little thought to cleansing, but after hearing about peoples’ experiences letting out mucoid plaque during the Arise And Shine Cleanse, I strongly felt that I did not want my intestines to be lined with old emotions and food residues. My partner and I decided to invest in Richard Anderson’s Arise And Shine Cleanse, with which he had previously experienced with good results. I had the unique experience of cleansing in a cottage that had been used for group cleansing retreats during the several years prior to when we moved there. The healing energy around cleansing was very strong.
I began reading Richard Anderson’s book Cleanse & Purify Thyself (1998) and became highly motivated to cleanse. I started setting goals that I would release mucoid plaque and felt very excited about it. Around this time, however, I talked to a friend who had experienced several intestinal cleanses. She told me about her experience with setting intentions of letting out plaque and how she found that when she focused on this, she didn’t release anything. It wasn’t until she accepted the possibility of not releasing plaque that she actually began to let the plaque out of her body. Her overall advice was to set intentions of cleansing the body, but not to hold on to specific results. I took my friend’s advice and set the goal of cleansing my body of any toxins, emotions and energies that I was ready to let go of and that would be of benefit to my highest level of Being.
Before we could start the cleanse, we needed to do a series of pH tests to assess the level of electrolytes in our bodies and the health of our livers. For one of these tests, we needed to eat only raw greens for one day. This was a very intense experience of detoxification, during which I released many toxins through my urine. I remember sitting outside on a grassy lawn and feeling extremely connected to nature. The colors of the plants, flowers, and insects around me were extremely vivid and in this way appeared more beautiful to me than ever before. During the same day, however, I also had several periods of feeling weak and tired, which I feel was due to the amount of toxins that I was releasing. This showed me the power of raw food to cleanse the body.
After starting the Arise And Shine Cleanse, my partner and I both passed mucoid plaque on the second day of cleansing, which often doesn’t happen until the fourth week! We were extremely encouraged and continued to heavily detoxify the next few weeks. I found that my addictions to food were deeply tied to giving food the power to make me feel good. The food I had given this power to was acidic food that felt comforting to me, such as bread.
I began to tune in to the fact that during my entire life of eating large amounts of acidic foods, I never experienced the beautiful highs and healings that I felt during the cleansing process. I can clearly remember the first coffee enema that I decided to do on the Arise And Shine Cleanse. With the encouragement of Richard Anderson, I deeply listened to my body, and with muscle testing would find out whether I would benefit from more juice, an enema, or some other type of cleansing aide. The coffee enema is especially helpful for detoxifying one’s liver. When I was through releasing the toxins from this process, I remember looking at myself in the mirror and being astonished by my own light and beauty, which I had never seen to that degree before! A lens from society of what is beautiful and what is not was suddenly lifted from my eyes, and I felt that I finally saw myself for who I really am. I had rushes of extreme joy flowing through my body and felt that absolutely everything in the world was perfect. Experiences such as these were bright lights throughout my time of cleansing. I had many inspirational insights for my path in the future that I feel came to me through my body being more purified of fears and other old energy patterns. I allowed myself to dream the highest visions that I could imagine for both the world and myself. I then set intentions for those to come about, and I can say that at the time of writing this course they indeed are still happening. Doing the Arise And Shine intestinal cleanse altered the course of my life in such a positive, clear, and focused way. My partner and I let out over fifty feet of mucoid plaque during the four weeks of intestinal cleansing! We strongly feel that this will help us to have healthier and more vibrant lives.
In looking at what helped me to be able to cleanse for four weeks, I can see that other cleansing practices complimented the Arise And Shine Cleanse and created a more comfortable time of detoxification. Several of these practices are massage, enemas or colonics, skin brushing, and saunas. Massage helps the body to work out points of stagnation, while also helping the body to release toxins held in the muscles. I found the massage that I had during my cleansing process to be extremely relaxing, which was exactly what I needed during my week of heaviest detoxification.
Enemas and colonics both help the intestines to release mucoid plaque and other toxins that can become stuck. Although both of these practices can seem unpleasant to the mind before doing them, I found them to instead be a source of great relief during cleansing reactions. Colonics are even more affective than enemas in that they are able to cleanse a larger portion of the intestines. Colonics are given at hydrotherapy offices, while enemas can done alone at home. Richard Anderson talks about the different types of enemas and how to use them in his book Cleanse & Purify Thyself (1998).
Another practice that I did daily while cleansing was skin brushing. This helps the skin to detoxify by removing toxins and dead skin cells. It cleanses the skin without clogging the pores. Saunas and steam baths can also help with detoxification through one’s skin by helping the body to sweat more. I have continued to practice skin brushing and taking saunas since completing my cleanse and have found them both to be useful for continual detoxification and renewal.
In addition to these outward practices, I have found that intentions, affirmations, and meditations were all beneficial aides to my detoxification process. The intention of releasing toxins from my body helped me to make peace with feelings that arose when I experienced cleansing reactions. Meditating became easier at times than it had ever been for me, and I received guidance from parts of myself that I did not know existed prior to the cleanse.
I found that visualizations were a powerful tool as well. One such visualization to aid with the transformation of our energies that I’d like to share involves calling on the presence of St. Germaine. I have used this visualization regularly ever since I learned it about a year ago and have found it to be very helpful. In this visualization, you can first close your eyes and begin to sense your aura, or energy field. This can be through visualizing it or sensing it in whatever way feels comfortable to you. Next, take several deep breaths and on an inhale, breathe your aura in to about two feet around your physical body. Ask St. Germaine to surround your aura with his violet flame, allowing it to penetrate through your entire aura and physical body. Ask St. Germaine to transform any energies of lower frequencies to higher frequencies. Feel the transmutation of your energy and stay with this violet flame around your aura for up to several minutes. When you feel ready, ask St. Germaine to lift the violet flame that surrounded you. Thank him for helping you. Feel any differences in how your emotions, mind, and energy are now. Visualize a beautiful, golden light beginning to surround your entire aura. Golden light is often used for healing. This visualization and invocation can particularly help in cleansing one’s self of feelings taken on by certain situations or people.
The Arise And Shine Cleanse can be an intense cleanse because of the smaller amounts of food and types of food that are eaten during it. A family member of mine has started a milder level of the Arise And Shine Cleanse by taking the herbs and shakes from the cleanse kit, but not following the food recommendations for the heavier levels of cleansing. For her, this means a longer, but gentler cleansing process that is conducive to her body and lifestyle at this time. She has recently passed her first mucoid plaque, showing that her personalized cleanse is affective as well.
Some people that do the Arise And Shine intestinal cleanse do it once, while others go through it several times during their first year of cleansing and then continue to cleanse once a year afterwards. The testimonials of the Arise And Shine Cleanse, offered in Richard Anderson’s book Cleanse & Purify Thyself (1988), show other cleansing experiences and benefits of detoxification. Anderson quotes one woman who was told she could never become pregnant and did so after cleansing: “As far as benefits of the Cleanse, to name a few…I have more energy than I know what to do with. I wake up clearheaded, don’t need coffee, I do skin brushing instead, I’m not sleepy after meals. I feel light and energized. I watch very little TV because I can’t sit still that long.” (227) Another woman is quoted by Anderson as saying, “A very large cyst, very painful, had been growing in one of my breasts for seven (7) years; it dissolved by the end of my first seven days on the Master Phase. Painful, swollen areas of my colon got unblocked. Four inches vanished from my waistline. Lower back doesn’t hurt as much…My menstrual periods are now perfectly in time with the New Moon and not as painful.” (232) Changes in many areas of one’s life can occur after cleansing the body of toxins.
After completing the Arise And Shine Cleanse, I felt very motivated to alter my eating habits so as to not form more mucoid plaque in my intestines and stomach. I tried a vegan diet consisting of mostly cooked grains and vegetables and experienced very low energy with this diet. My partner and I have since started eating mostly vegan raw food and have the goal of eating all vegan raw food at some point in the future. It is amazing to me how nature has provided us with the perfect foods to keep our bodies from having built up toxins, but that we have changed the nature of these foods by cooking them and adding chemicals to them. The potential for raw food to change the world is huge, but addictions to cooked acidic foods seem to stand in the way. On the individual level, raw food offers extremely high levels of health to people, which mainstream medicine does not seem to document as being true for its system of healing.
People who are raw foodists are proof of the benefits of raw food. David Wolfe says that he never gets sick, which is, of course, so different from many peoples’ realities. I feel very excited to see how raw food can affect people as they enter into the later years of their lives. Illnesses that our society seems to say are normal for old age, such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, may be linked to people’s cooked acidic diet and lifestyle.
On a global level, vegan raw food could mean the end to world hunger and the rapid deforestation of the earth. David Wolfe talks about being very surprised to learn that a large portion of the deforestation of third world countries is due to the cutting down of trees to use as firewood for cooking. This was surprising to me, being a stove user, just like most others in the United States. If people worldwide embraced raw food, deforestation could be slowed down. Not raising animals for meat and dairy would mean there would be room to grow vegetable and grain crops to feed hungry people.
Although I would like to embrace raw food completely, I know that for others this may not be so appealing. Cleansing the body and mind can allow for more life force to flow through the body, creating changes necessary for optimal health for the individual and the planet, whatever they may be. One great benefit of cleansing is becoming more in tune with the effects of food on the body, mind and spirit. Becoming more conscious at any level can help to raise the consciousness of the entire world.
With all this being said, I would also like to share with you some of the challenges that I currently face with the changes in my eating and lifestyle habits that I am making. I have recently moved back to an area where I previously lived a life full of eating habits that I am trying to let go of, such as drinking coffee. Various parts of myself want different lifestyle choices. One part very much desires my old habits, while another part is extremely ready to make radical diet changes toward the raw food diet that it would like to fully step into. One aspect that many of the cleanse books leave out is how to deal with these different parts of ourselves in a way that doesn’t mean complete denial for the part that isn’t so willing to embrace a pure diet. Although for some people going “cold turkey” and completely giving up a habit is the only way that works, for me this does not. It instead sets rules up that lead me to feel a sense of scarcity and strictness in my life that do not feel good.
I was amazed when a friend of mine recently shared with me a tool for appeasing the two or more opposing voices of wanting healthy and less healthy activities or substances. His discovery of this tool came about from a dream in which he was in a castle trying to defend himself against an invading army. Upon analyzing the parts of this dream as symbols, he found that the army represented his ego self. His spirit self was the one trying to stay safe inside the castle walls. He very much felt that they were constantly opposing each other, one saying, “I want to meditate all day long,” while the other said, “I just want to go out with friends and have fun!” Using his imagination, he asked each part of himself what it wanted, wrote these desires down on paper, and then found compromises between the two lists.
With myself, I’ve found that part of me wants to do long cleanses and the other desires to eat whatever food makes me feel good in the moment, regardless of how I feel later. I have decided to try this process myself and make compromises so that both selves are happy while I continue to grow in steps toward the healthier self that I’d like to become. I have found this to be an effective way to honor the many parts of ourselves, while slowly embracing the benefits of health that we all deserve. It seems that one of the great challenges of being alive in a human body is to find the harmony between the aspects of our selves. There are people on either extreme, some fully living a material, outward, sensory life, while others live fully in a spiritual, inwardly focused world. There is a great challenge to living both inwardly and outwardly, of the earth and beyond the earth. Many great spiritual teachers encourage those who seek this path that it is certainly possible. The Essene Gospel Of Peace, Book Two: The Unknown Book Of The Essenes (1981) offers us an eloquent symbol of this unity: “And just as the roots of the tree sink into the earth and are nourished, and the branches of the tree raise their arms to heaven, so is man (humankind) like the trunk of the tree, with his roots deep in the breast of his Earthly Mother, and his soul ascending to the bright stars of his Heavenly Father. And the roots of the tree are the Angels of the Earthly Mother, and the branches of the tree are the Angels of the Heavenly Father. And this is the sacred Tree of Life which stands in the Sea of Eternity.”