Diary of a renaissance negresse - 03 Oct 2011

Monday, October 3, 2011

I am feeling very good today. Getting lots done. Really healing and connecting with and understanding and being patient with myself and others.

Today is day 5 of a water fast I'm doing to spiritually heal from unhealthy eating habits. I drink water, and I allow myself to drink coffee (highly diluted decaf mostly during the day and evening, regular coffee in the morning to help me not sleep all day due to this highly drowsy-making allergy over the counter drug I'm on temporarily. I also allow myself to put lime or lemon juice in the water I drink all day (usually fresh-squeezed). I also allow myself to chew sugarless gum now and then. I allow myself to do whatever I want. I'm just choosing based on the consequences.

For instance, it is far from ideal to consume the chemicals that make up the artificial sweeteners in the gum I eat. And caffeine is also not good for me.

However, the benefits are:

1) It helps me greatly in avoiding eating anything right now, during my fast.

2) Neither coffee nor artificial sweeteners have any significant nutrients, which is the basic idea behind water fasting. Your body must rely on itself to fuel it. So it starts using your cells, starting with the sick, dying, or excess fat ones. So, I'm losing weight and detoxing as I ought to on a water fast.

3) Coffee and sugarless gum are toxic, so my detox is more gradual, as are the unpleasant detox symptoms. Once I accepted I wasn't "perfectly" doing my water fast - I realized the benefits - including that soon after detoxing, I wouldn't get the painful, and lipline-altering cold sore I always get when I've been 100% raw for a couple of weeks.

So, today and the previous 4 days, I am consuming no, or very low caloric, non-nutritive substances in liquid form only. (Gum is chewed but doesn't go down solid like candy does, so I allow myself gum but not candy, not even sugarless/low or no calorie or nutrition candy.) There are many benefits to this fast, and I just remind myself that even though numbers-wise I want to eventually see 140 or less on the scale, the idea is to: Get Healthy, Get Spiritual, Love and Accept Myself and Others, Be Serene with my Eating, and Live a Joyful, Powerful, Positive, FEARLESS Life!

My plan is to do the water fast for as long as I feel comfortable (people can live up to 60 days or more on water alone), then go to a juice "feast" as us rawheads call it, and then go to a lifelong, and easily maintained habit of eating only raw vegan foods and drinking a large amount of my other nutritive intake. My plan is to learn how to eat right and to get all the support I need to do it. Support group meetings, potlucks, and dining with friends very often will be a large part of my life in the next few months. And writing every day as well as prayer, meditation, reading the books and listening to a lot of very encouraging and healing recordings of my teachers, mentors, and peers is a large part of my healing journey now.

I am writing and keeping my day to day schedule of activities. Making progress in all areas of my life and getting stronger every day. More accepting of others. Praying to God and calling on the constantly available assistance of God's angels.

So grateful to be alive and able to share my journey!

May you be blessed and know it.

Cassendre


Cassendre Xavier is a Haitian-Chinese-American artist, musician, author, actress, and award-winning community cultural arts organizer whose mission in life is to share joy, inspiration, and sensuality through the creative and healing arts. Coining the term *"renaissance negresse" in 2002, and also working under the names "Amethyste Rah" (spirituality and guided meditations http://stores.lulu.com/cassEndrE) and "Amrita Waterfalls" (sexuality and erotica) Xavier is the founder and director of Philadelphia's Annual Black Women’s Arts Festival (Est. 2003 www.BWAFphilly.org) and the Women's Writing & Spoken Word Series (Est. 2002 www.WomensWritingSeries.org). Xavier has been an imperfectly practicing raw vegan since 2005 and is author of the print & ebook Expanding Your Capacity for Joy: a Raw Vegan Comfort Book, Sourcebook & Journal (ARtivist Publications 2009). On September 19, 2011, she celebrated her first year as an ordained interfaith minister. Visit http://cassEndrExavier.com.


*"Negresse, Negre: In the French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean Islands, these words often have a connotation of affection, entirely non-racial in meaning. `Ma petite negresse, mon negre, are equivalent to `My dear, my darling, my sweet.'" (From Masters of the Dew, a contemporary classic novel by the Haitian author Jacques Roumain, translated by Langston Hughes and Mercer Cook.)


Copyright © 2011 by Cassendre Xavier. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reprint this article, in part, or in whole, only with the inclusion of the author bio, copyright credit, and contact URL http://cassEndrExavier.com.