The unparalleled magic of a 14-day Master Cleanse with Cacao and a 14 day water cleanse.
I've had a calling since December of 2019 to do a serious fast. In January of 2020 I did 8.5 days and then in April four days. Both water. I kept caving emotionally as rage came up wondering why I was putting myself through that much pain and discomfort. Why I wouldn't enjoy the incredible 5-star mostly organic vegan food that was before me. Why would I starve myself? For what? I was already weak at the time. It felt right, yet masochistic. A tough dance when both sides are passionately expressing themselves.
Then, in November of 2020, the call came again and this time I wasn't denying myself food. I was discovering myself. Eating away at the stories that had been locked inside of me. I was recreating myself as my body would naturally begin to carve out my David by consuming the stories of my ancestors, past lives and this one that wanted to be honored, heard and felt. Hidden stories of old wanting to be seen. Seen they would be, as I would lay there finally allowing everything without a fight to talk to me through the silence.
Extensive fasting is no joke - especially dry and water fasting. It is one of, if not the most, intense experience(s) I have ever had. For me it is one of those things that you only do if you HAVE to do meaning - your soul has a passionate or serious reason to do it. Otherwise, I don't see why anyone would ever put themselves through something like this. I was fortunate enough to have the time and space to do it. I had just recently arrived on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica in Punta Uva where I was traveling to do some work. The cabina I was staying in was beautiful and simple. Eight sided one room with an open bathroom and a small porch and hammock. The space was based on Bribri designs (local indigenous tribe) nestled just off the road at a wonderful little location called Korrigan Lodge. About a 25 minute bike ride from Puerto Viejo. There was a small community of five living there at the time. Four Cabinas and one common area/kitchen all connected by stone pathways in the middle of the jungle. It was perfect for what I was doing. A beautifully epic gem nestled 5 minutes from the Caribbean Coast.
The vibe on the Caribbean side is chill. The water warm and clear. I decided to dive head first into this one. My mind had been filled with so much I was desperately in need of something to help support a space of deeper clarity, presence and connection to my channel, intuition and heart. In order to ease in, I started with the Master Cleanse for 14 days with Raw Cacao. This part was relatively smooth. I lost a decent amount of weight and my energy was stable enough to still operate at a pretty high level throughout the day. That all changed once I started with with just water. I was probably averaging 1-litre a day with a few 2-litre days and about a week around a half-litre or less. My body handled it well and was quite content with those quantities.
By the third water day I started to feel weaker and by day five I was aching, walking hunched over at a crawls pace and in bed most of the day. Over the course of the month I was able to give three 6-hour sessions and seven 2-hour sessions. I had no idea how I was going to do it. Due to my extremely low energy levels I had to do the work differently. Though I wasn't sure how. All I know was that I just needed to show up. It wasn't until each session started that I would know exactly how different and unique every session would be. Yet they were always epic, expansive, powerful and beautiful. Far more subtle yet just as profound and effective. Once the channel took over the energy showed me all kinds of new techniques.
I saw a whole new way of operating and using energy. It blew my mind and provided me with enough funds to go to a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training at Punta Mona scheduled for the end of the month with the Kula Collective.
As the water fast progressed into the end of the third week my movement, speech and mannerisms became progressively more and more slow and childlike. At one point I could imagine asking a sloth to slow down. Energy levels pummeled. My thoughts began to quiet and simplify. Ug. Door. Cat. Shower. Rain. Pen. Scorpions (I found three tiny ones in my shower for several days in a row). Window. Hammock. Stop. Lay Down Breath. My breath got shorter and shorter and I slept more and more as the grief of ages past poured unapologetically through me. I wrote when I was able to though it was few and far between. At least until midnight. It was then that my channel would suddenly explode open and ruthlessly and relentlessly pummel me with information. It was like I was hired to dictate for a UN Conference. It wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote everything down. This went on for the entire week from midnight until 5 or 6 in the morning. Every night beginning with a sudden spike of energy around midnight. It was like I had drank 6 cups of coffee. When I asked the channel why midnight it said because I am a shadow worker and I like to work in the dark when the world is quiet and I am most connected. So between midnight and 5 it was like I was fasting on Red Bull. And Coffee. During that time I would ravenously write. By the end of the week I had amassed more then 200 pages of channeled information that included, to my surprise, over 200 recipes and my dreams. Dreams that had been forgotten and buried under fear, doubt, unworthiness, discouragement and self hate. As my body ate away at those stories I began to see what was hidden underneath. Tears and anguish shedding the skin of those parts of me so that they could now join me and the rest of my body. The recipes were mostly sweet based. No quantities. Only ingredients occasionally with options. I had never channeled a recipe before. It was different thought they all sounded incredible. Combinations I had never thought of before. Below is a sample of some of the ones that came through.
Blueberry chocolate lemon zest lavender oil crème brulee to Baked Brownies with blueberries, chocolate chips and powdered sugar on top. Strawberry ganache. cardamom and/or cacao nibs optional
Avocado pancakes with blueberries on top and goat cheese with your choice of fruit in it. Add maple and cinnamon. Bananas in the place of oil is optional.
Grilled Chorizo with Avocado, peppered in lentils in bone broth with sautéed onions, celery and pink salt.
Japanese Apple Strudel: Organic Japanese pears/apples in a regular strudel recipe with raspberries and almonds on top. Raspberry and pulverized almond paste with a dash of coconut milk can be used inside the strudel if desired.
Squash with chorizo, basil, avocado, pesto, roasted garlic and onions.
Avocado toast with sesame oil, lemon, diced tomatoes, onions and banana peppers. A side of hummus with pine nuts and paprika and lime (can also be swirled together keeping the two colors active. Option to puree banana into the avocado.
Bratwurst, onion, honey, and pepper no sourdough with cheese sauce (Gouda suggested)
Spanish Rhubarb Pie: with honey, cinnamon, paprika, raisins, apple, laced topping and strawberry on top with rhubarb banana puree filling with coconut (made milk), cinnamon, honey whipped topping with shredded coconut. Raisins optional and/or walnuts
Banana pumpkin pie: Purred with a banana coconut cream cover - 2 layers. Edge(crust) is coconut cream with shavings. Chopped abuts are optional.
Lamb dog with kimchi, pickles, onions and hummus
There were about 200 more. All screaming at me relentlessly through the night. I wasn't even hungry. Just physically, mentally and emotionally depleted.
Over the course of those 7-10 days I filled three notebooks and emptied every pen I could find. Each day went essentially the same. I would wake up between 10 and noon and write down my dreams. Lay there for 30-60 mins. Check my phone and take care of anything I needed to. Make my bed. Beam. read some or watch motivational videos or an occasional movie. Type out ideas that were coming through about my dreams and work on my website if I had the energy. Journal anything that came through. Take care of a client if I had one. Lie down again. Drink some water though most of the time I wasn't thirsty. Occasionally I would do an enema to help my system clear out anything that was being eaten away. It was amazing what came out. Things that more closely resembled an organ then fecal matter. Then, lay in bed, the hammock, or under a tree for as much as a few more hours. I'd take a shower once or twice a day. Showers were precious. Under the warm water, they gave me a sense of nourishment and being held at a time when I was feeling most vulnerable. It was a beautiful process with endless amounts of gratitude. I would slowly take my clothes off, enter the shower stall, sit on the floor in a ball and just let the hot water pour over me. It was interesting that I would often consistently find three tiny scorpions in there. I would then take the soap pumps and slowly wash my body over the course of 20 or 30 minutes often while I cried apologizing to my body for how hard I had been on it, abused it, ignored it, forgotten it, used it to help me prove myself, fight or defend. How much I punished it for how I felt about myself. My frustration and anger reflected back to me in how many times I had hit myself in disgust at my performance when I was younger often leaving a bruise, in the shape of a perfect hand print, on my leg. It reminded me of how, like a jockey, I was trying to bring myself to life. To turn on. While at the same time hating myself for who I had become. Not giving myself permission to be who I truly was. And I knew it.
To take so much time and presence to wash myself felt so honorary, nourishing and loving. To slowly hold and wash every inch of myself as I sat there on the floor as the water levels slowly rose up over the level of my feet as a consequence of me sitting on the drain. It became ceremonial. A dance and I loved it. Under the warm water I was reminded most easily that I was being held by life, the elements and the universe giving me space to allow even more of my heart to fall out of me as it broke open.
By the fourth week things had gotten even more intense. My weight was around 120 if not less. The last weight I was able to measure was 126 lbs. That was during week three. (I'm usually 166 lbs). I learned through experience that my blood pressure had dropped considerably helping me slow down d feel even more. if I got up to fast I would end up passing out and suddenly bang my head on the floor not knowing what happened. By the end of the week I had three solid bumps on my head. It was intense and beautiful.
Amazing to think that my body could go from being able to do a half iron man to barely being able to walk, talk or breath. I had total trust in the process and was in awe of the results as well as the fact that I still, through all of it, had endless amounts of energy between midnight and 5-6am. Knowing that my physical and emotional state and all the emotion that was coming up were all unexpressed stories that wanted to come out of my system made the process easier that, progressively, developed a great sense of wonder. Each day would reveal slightly different treasures in the form of channeled writings, unique LifeShift sessions, stories, emotions and deeper revelations about who I was, what excited me, and what I was buried underneath all of it that I wasn't able, willing or ready to allow, feel or see. The exciting thing now is that I know there is even more. Always more.
A lot of things came through. A I look over it I am still in awe. To think that was inside of me. I'll share my journal entries at a later date. One thing that did come through was that in choosing this I was navigating around developing an illness. The process was replicating it. Something for the past and also, what could have been a possible future as it was still in my system. By choosing it, allowing the experience and listening to the entire process I was able to get what the illness would have been teaching me. I learned a long time ago that disease and illness are not there to kill us. They are there to remind us to live again. To fight them is to miss the gift that they are trying to share with us. Choosing to go into this helped make that easier since I wasn't having to deal with any additional fear stories or stressors. It was practically free, I was in a state of presence and curiosity, I was choosing it consciously and I had the space and time to do it. I also had a small team of friends that were there that were amazing and really helped me out when I needed it. For that I want to thank Lorenzo, Crystallin, Violet, Brina and Luke. It was such a blessing to have you there.
In between and under the new moon, I felt the call to go to the ocean simply to cleanse and be held in the magnanimous energy of the ocean. So much had happened up to that point with every day feeling like lifetimes of ancient stored energy as shifting in my system. . Part of me wanted to get it over with. Part of me didn't want to go and the other part of me knew what was best. A seven minute walk has never felt so challenging or long. My channel guided me there while my body complied on automatic. My mind at this point had shut off. Each step felt like the walking dead as my body turned on automatic until I got to the water. Then I sat there waiting for the beach to clear before I took off my clothes under the moon lit water and floated for 15 minutes while the water held, cleansed and moved me.
The big question that was coming up towards the end of the forth week was 'how do I end the fast?' It was set to end on Sunday at midnight. Instead of eating I chose to do a ceremony that night at midnight, ingest two pipas (coconut water) with some lime juice and wait until the noon of the next day to eat. So I researched the web to see what came up for ending a fast of this type and got a variety of answers. Nothing consistent, which was great because it reminded me to go inside and see what my channel and body were wanting. What came through surprised me. I questioned it heavily though when I got the reasons why it made a lot of sense and resonated with my system beautifully as it tethered into man's relationship with the earth. It also reminded me again to always go in first. All the answers are inside.
So I started with Salmon, potatoes (root/inside the earth), Turmeric Humus , Kimchi , scrambled eggs, avocado, sautéed spinach and onions. I was surprised at all of it especially that some sort of smoothie or fruit juice was off the list until at least day three. I was hearing that it wasn't so much about digestion as it was about the relationship I had with the various types of food and how I ate it. They broke down dairy, fruit, sugar, even coconut water and why those were a no with the exception of the two pipas the night before. I'll explain in a later blog post why these were chosen, dive more into the recipes, and share some of the channeled journal entries.
Regarding the recipes, I will say that once I had the space, the opportunity and energy to make one of them (the following Thursday which I officially deemed every Thursday pancake day), I would begin to discover how these recipes work and why they came through. process that looks like this: I show up with my kid energy (Issai), the ingredients and then just let that part of me play. It was like my channeling. It felt amazing to allow that energy to move through me so freely while I just observed that part of me play. Of the four or five times that my kid energy has gotten to cook I can say that what was created was always profound, heart felt, beautiful, fun, inspiring, surprising (the recipe and more then what I ever imagined), incredibly delicious, and complete utter love
always with plenty to share.
More on that later.
