Description

By (author) Buhner Stephen Harrod

Short /annotation:
Fasting practices to reconnect with the sacred, regain a sense of your life’s purpose, and heal physically and emotionally.

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. Details what to expect during your fast physically, emotionally andspiritually. Provides step-by-step guidelines on preparing for the fast, how longyou should fast, what you can and can”t do during the fast and howto end your fast. Explains how fasting can help or heal many chronic conditions, suchas type II diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, arthritis,psoriasis and insomniaFor millennia, humans have fasted for spiritual, emotional and physical reasons – as a way to heal their bodies, reconnect to the sacred, regain a sense of life”s purpose and allow their souls to detoxify. We are evolutionarily designed to fast and the body knows how to do it very well. Fasting allows the body and all its systems to rest, purify and heal. During a fast, the body enters the same cleansing and healing cycle it normally enters during sleep. As a fast progresses, the body consumes everything that is not essential to bodily functioning – including bacteria, viruses, fibroid tumours, waste products in the blood, buildup around the joints and stored fat – and the mind and heart release their toxic buildup as well. As Stephen Harrod Buhner reveals, in order to be truly transformed, you must first empty yourself.He, also, explains how to plan the length of your fast and how to choose between a water fast, a juice fast or a mono-diet fast. Revealing how fasting can help or heal many chronic conditions, Buhner shows fasting as a way to truly inhabit the body, to experience its sacredness and to activate its deep capabilities for self-healing.

Table of contents:

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface

A Note to the Reader about Water and Juice Fasting

1 On Fasting and the Spiritual Life

2 Spiritual Fasting and Detoxification

3 Emotional Fasting and Detoxification

4 Physical Fasting and Detoxification

5 Preparing for the Fast, Fasting, Breaking the Fast

6 Deepening the Fast

Appendix 1 A 10-Week, Low-Fat Cleansing Diet

Appendix 2 Juices for Fasting

Resources

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

Biographical note:
Stephen Harrod Buhner (1952–2022) lectured throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, and the intelligence of nature. His other books include Ensouling Language, The Secret Teachings of Plants, and Sacred Plant Medicine.

Excerpt:

Chapter 5
Preparing for the Fast, Fasting, Breaking the Fast

Fasting is more than anything an engagement with personal mortality and the rebirth that follows such an engagement. When we decide to fast we decide to examine our own relationship with survival, and this means directly encountering death. These are heady topics, and one reason that fasting should be undertaken with consciousness and deep thought. In any engagement with our own death we have the opportunity to deeply examine our lives, to explore what we have done and not done, and to decide what we wish to do in the future. We have the opportunity to revise or alter the path we have taken, to make new choices, to begin anew.

DETERMINE IF YOU ARE READY FOR A FAST

Initially, the most important thing to consider is why you want to fast. You should fast because you want to, not because a voice in your head is telling you that you will be better for it, more whole, cleaner, purer, or more spiritual. Fasting should be done because some deep part of your self lets you know tha