July 15, 2006    The 21 Day Fast

GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS from Arnold's Way!

It is the fourth day past of the beginning of the 11th hour. It was a day known as the Fourth of July. What I wanted to write about is what I didn't mention and what I wanted to say came out exactly as it should have. I, Arnold had just completed a 21-day water fast along with a six-day regimen of re-feeding my body. It was one of those strange circumstances on what I thought would truly happen didn't and what I never would have dreamt of became a reality. It is under these thoughts and figures and mild configurations that I begin July's Newsletter.

I began my preparation for my extended fast almost by accident. It was almost by a miraculous spontaneous combustion happenstance. I, for whatever reason, had decided to renew my childhood fantasy of becoming an amateur boxer for at least one fight before my 60th birthday. I was either that serious or that nuts or a little bit of both. I was training hard, day after day and hour after hour. I literally was becoming obsessed. I have that very addictive personality. In any case, my days were filled with working at the health food store, which were quiet, serene and very gentle to the spirit. While in my other life, I wanted a chance to recapture the dream of so long ago, punching the bag, jumping rope and hitting the bags whenever and wherever I could. I would sneak out to the gym at night when no one was around just to punch, hit or strike at anything that resembled a bag. My own sweat was constantly drenching me. I was in my ecstasy of fulfilling a dream. It would have been the best of times except for one minor detail. I began having a slight eye problem. What happened next becomes like a story from the Wild West twilight Zone era. I was just two months in my comeback stage when I was viciously attacked by my own ego, saying my eye was in pain, like all the time. I never got hit. I never stepped in the ring and my sight was robbed in mid career.

I was being asked all these questions about why I could not see. I was never able to give a clear answer to all that was asked of me in the emergency room at Wills Eye hospital in the winter of 2005. What had happened I did not know. The answer was that somehow I was blinded for some time by something, which vaguely I remember as a poke in the eye. I never realized the outcome until that one moment when I was asked to cover my good eye and see out the other.

I could have written about the three water fasts that I took in the past year and half. All tried and all failed and all did not heal even one iota the return in my vision. I could have spoken about my three juice feasts. A juice feast is strictly juice. Everyday for thirty days I drank 140 ounces per day. It is the equivalent of 5000 calories and about 50 to70 pieces of fruit and veggies per day. This is not as harsh as going on a 21 day water fast of nothing but water.

In other words for about 16 months I did whatever I could to regain my eyesight. There was no stone left unturned or none that I thought would work other than the ones that I was doing. I did the eyes of the potato theory by Edgar Casey which didn't work. I did an eye supplement theory and half day juice theory which didn't work. I did deep breathing sessions which would help oxygenate the eye and accelerate the healing process. This is in addition to the Kundalini yoga I have been doing almost a year half. That too, didn't work. What was I thinking? It would have been easier, more cost effective and plain smart just to do the operation. That would have been the easy way. All these modalities began to take a toll on my physical well-being. The tiniest of colds became a full bout of pneumonia. A simple cold that normally would have lasted 3 days if that, lasted longer. In my case, at that point in time, it just lingered and lingered and got worse and worse and worse. In other words my three-day cold lasted for 70 days. My typical cold, which I rarely get, all of a sudden became a low-grade fever lasting 30 days, a lost voice and a huge drop in weight with a continual cough for weeks. At times, I felt doomed with no end in sight

All these things I could have mentioned on how not to heal your eye. They all failed but I was still determined. It would take a hark knock on the head to stop me from trying to heal my eye myself. Did I mention my rock jumping experience in which I missed a step and went head first into a big boulder because I couldn't see? I paid my dues. I did everything humanly possible that I knew and felt comfortable doing into healing my traumatic cataract as so labeled by the medical field. It is with this great desire to heal myself that led me to try at least one more thing before being treated medically which by all accounts is no big deal.

I wanted to give myself one last chance to heal my eye myself. I chose to do a 21 day water fast. Somewhere in my wild imagination I thought this would heal my eye. When you don't eat for 21 days the body begins to use the tissue that is no longer fully functional as fuel to feed itself. This was my reasoning for doing the fast. This was, in my opinion, my last hope. Beginning April 5th all my thoughts and actions were trying to create a water fast. It became a reality about three days later. It is on the day of April 8th where I met Marcia. I really didn't meet her since I already knew her. She was at my store shopping. I was talking. She shopped and I talked. It was that type of conversation. When I saw her I was thinking of finding a place and partner for my one last hurrah of a 21 day water fast. I was not thinking of Marcia as a fasting partner and I was not thinking of fasting at her place. I was just thinking I have to do a fast someplace close to home under some type of supervision. In any case, our conversation hit that point of lets do a fast together. I could hardly believe my ears. I could hardly believe the conversation. I could hardly believe that she would even think of the feasibility of all this, let alone, agree to it. I, at the time, was just waiting to be called for my surgery. l had given up of ever healing myself. I had this somehow crazy notion if I could do just one more fast for 21 days my eye would heal itself. On April 8th my worlds came clashing together. The real world of surgery, versus, my infinite dreamland possibilities of self-healing was at stake. I weighed my options. I thought of doing a 10-day fast with Marcia or doing the surgery. I asked which would you have chosen? What are the odds on a Wednesday afternoon with nothing but sun on our backs and blue sky above and wanting something so bad that an angel from somewhere deep in the clouds comes strolling in my store and says she would do a fast with me? We hardly knew each other. We would have to live with each other for 14 days, 24 hours a day, just drinking water. She had a little cottage in the woods with lots of green. I had a roll up bed, a pillow and plenty of water. It was one of those matches made in heaven. Needless to say, we fasted together.

Our time together was spent doing nothing, absolutely doing nothing. It was almost like a 24-hour day Transmedical meditation that would not take us to a higher mental and spiritual level. It was minor to the places we have been. We reached a level so infinitestestimly (no such word) high just being present where we were. It was nothing fancy. It was nothing extravagant. It was just being ourselves and enjoying each other's company. I did this lifestyle for 21 days. I did this water fast for 21 days with a white band over my eye so I wouldn't know if and when my vision would return. I did this with all my hope, all my glory and all my days glorified in my healing ability in restoring my vision. I did all this and failed. I did not lose, I did not win. I was honored by being in my presence and accepting with grace and dignity the wellness, the charm of my body and being in the presence of my fasting partner, Marcia, whose true beauty and presence became my guardian angel during our stay together.

When I met Marcia on April 8th , little did I realize she was dealing with her own serious health issues. Although the reality was she never spoke about her health issues. I knew. I knew by her facial appearance. I knew by the color of her skin. I knew by the darkness underneath her eyes. I knew instinctively that she was dealing with some major health issues that had shook her peaceful world upside down and inside out.

Marcia, the previous year, had been given an accidental over dose of steroids for a poison sumac reaction, which caused her body to have multiple side effects that robbed the very life-force out of her body.

It was one of those medical fiascos. Everything that could go wrong with Marcia did while everything that should have worked with medical treatment didn't. The long story in a short version is that Marcia became very sick with almost no relief in sight. It was a year of medical visits, bladder problems, skin problems and a cloud of darkness that became transfixed in her everyday daily chores. April 8th became the magical day for both Marcia and I when we took absolute charge of our healing system and began eliminating all the junk from our diet and eliminating the foods that did not meet the standards of raw and easy to digest. This meant drinking a lot of green smoothies and raw soups while abstaining from eating too many nuts and dehydrated food. It also meant doing more exercise (rebounding, yoga and more rest). Marcia stuck to the program. I stuck to the program. After two months time, we were both ready for the fast. Marcia's transformation in just two months could only be called a miraculous upheaval. All her pain went away and all the lingering of steroid load up came pouring out of her system. On day 7 her tongue turned green. I was a little stunned and a whole lot nervous fearing that her liver was in shutdown because of the color green. It was as all things that Marcia acquired from the medication being excreted from her body. Her aches and pains and her menstrual cramping were gone and she had her new zest for life after the fast. In the end I thank you, Marcia, for being who you are.

Thank you for your time,

Arnold