Crafting a Spring Cleanse

Today is Beltane, or May Day, which I think is a rather auspicious day to begin a spring cleanse. What cleanse am I doing? Well, one that BlackLion and I are making up as we go along, of course (we invited Quester to join us too, but he politely declined).

When we went to the Life Rocks! conference, we encountered a whole lot of folks who are interested in healthy eating, with a focus on raw foods in particular. We'd experimented a bit with raw foods a few years ago, but not for long, and not in any big way. At the time, it had felt like a huge commitment, with lots of rules and judgement, extra work, and hefty financial costs. I just wasn't up for that. But now I'm realizing that, like anything, we can take on raw foods and cleansing on our own terms, in our own way. So we're going to do just that.

We're starting with a cleanse of ten days. We'll eat raw foods - veggies, fruits, nuts - with a particular focus on liquids - smoothies, fresh juices, water, perhaps some raw soups (warmed to 105 degrees in the dehydrator - which will be an experiment). We don't have a high-speed blender, but we do have some other cool stuff, like a nice dehydrator (purchased used during our first raw food foray), a veggie spiralizer, and a good food processor. I also plan to drink a bunch of water. One person recommends 100 ounces of water per day, but that seems like a bit more than I can manage with my tiny bladder. We'll see.

My goal is to bring my physical energy into better alignment with my whole being. I gained quite a lot of weight over the past three years or so, and much of it was due to emotional crisis. I've moved beyond that set of feelings (which centered around the transformation into following my calling, and releasing related doubts and fears) and my life is a lot of fun, full of creativity and joy. So I want to release those old toxins, patterns, and pounds. I figure a cleanse will help jump-start the process, and then I can move forward with healthier eating habits from there.

I believe that the physical realm is one aspect of the wholeness of my spirituality, so there are other things I'm doing to support myself during the cleanse: yoga, continued meditation practice, reading inspiring books, listening to my affirmations, speaking kindly to myself and others (the being kind to *me* is the hard part, sometimes), and getting plenty of rest. Wish me luck!

Oh yeah, and here are a couple of links to blogs that I'm using as inspiration:

The Macro-Raw Foodist
Raw Envy with Dayna Martin

I'll be posting updates on how it's going, so if you have particular questions, please leave a comment! Blessings!