A day of apple fasting is part of the tradition at the Qigong healing retreats I’ve attended for the last two years. I’m feeling grateful for those experiences today.
The purpose of apple fasting is two-fold. One is to give one’s body a rest. One apple, three times a day. Lots of water. Maybe a spot of tea. The second is more about noticing. What is it like to feel what you feel? To set aside anxiety, which is always about the past or the future, and be in the moment? With the scent of an apple. The crunch. The clean, not quite sweet taste. To eat, for just one day, what is offered?
This year I am on a different retreat, in a different place. Hawaii, to be exact. A group of writers. Magical learning. A site that, in many ways, is Qigong.
No apples that I know of. Mostly organic food grown on the property. Fresh local fish. About as “clean” as food gets in our world.
So why am I pondering apple fasting?
Well, because I’ve been following a program called Wild Fit for just over 90 days now. Good, clean food. A bunch of rules that work amazingly well for me but which require fairly strict habits and choices. Choices which have already begun to seem natural. Mine.
This week, however, is not about that. This week I will eat what is offered to me. What is available. I fiddled with the choices a bit up front. And, when I venture out to breakfast, I imagine I will find something that closely resembles the mythical green goo smoothie which begins every day at home.
“Closely” is, of course, the operative word. Green goo did not come naturally to me. As a friend of mine said, “I like my salad solid!”
I tinkered with the ingredients a lot. A big handful of fresh mint and one of fresh parsley, along with the juice of a lemon, will almost make me forget I’m drinking a glass full of spinach and dandelion greens and even collards!
Today, a lovely woman named Jeanie will fill the blender with whatever is growing here, on my behalf. And I will drink, gratefully, because I’ve learned that I’ll feel better with it than without.
And the better I feel, the more I write. I’ve got two books coming out this fall!