25 degrees with a brittle stamp collection of snow on the frozen postcard ground. My family sleeps, but I am the raccoon, the opossum, the nocturnal creature rustling through the house tonite. With respect to their slumbers, I rustle myself out the front door and into the frigid air. There is really no choice. I am being called.

Such a ring around December’s moon – ice reflects its light, reflecting the sun’s light, making 1 a.m. as bright as white itself. Awareness permeates and each gesture I make takes on spiritual importance because the world is paying attention, perking its ears, leaning in. Air smells like frozen forest and I find myself leaning back into the unconditional embrace of my favorite childhood climbing tree, both of us shivering so hard we've become still. Looking up through bare branches, I see the full moon has her eye on me. Such an honor to be so interesting tonite.

In the past, I would have timed my cleanse’s finale to the dark moon, not the full. Waning moon dissolves, darkness purifies – the ideal time for banishing toxins and other unneeded things.

Lessons on elimination however, when originally hypothesized to be the focus of this cleanse, turned out only to be scribbles in the margins of a far more encompassing text. For example, I learned what true hunger is. I often say I am insatiable for all things - food, growth, love, life – I cannot get enough and I feed myself accordingly. And for this reason, I imagined 7 days without food would be a monumental challenge. So when the stomach gave me stimulus (isn’t that all “pain” is?), I imagined eating the most decadent dessert and guess what? I always wanted more. It occurred to me that that is not true hunger. True hunger can be satisfied by the blandest of sustenance. It is appetite that is insatiable. I now have a choice: I can rejoice through feeding a perpetual appetite, or I can be satisfied through feeding hunger. This option will come in handy.

I also learned that the secret to good digestion begins with chewing. The slippery spittle that saturates your pillowcase at nite and lubricates sensitive objects at the most important times, is also the enzymatic fluid that gaurds against indigestion and bloating. It is our duty to combine our food so completely with saliva that basically nothing but liquid enters our stomachs. Many of our digestive discomforts can be remidied by thourough mastication. :-)

And in only one week I have shifted to my natural 9 hour sleeping pattern, let go of an unneeded 8 lbs of debris, and through constant loopiness, discovered that rest is far more than a physical phenomenon – it is equally important to slow the mind and emotions by avoiding "muti-tasking" and conflict in general.

The full moon is a time of fulfilled potential - the bulging surface atop the wine glass one drop before spilling over. In this way, it is appropriate that my cleanse culminate tonite instead of on the banishing dark moon. As educational as these elimination lessons have been, they are nothing compared to a climactic purification.

How sensitive I have become through fasting. How easy it is to hear my voice. How exhausting it would seem to try to ignore it. And how natural it feels to not react – not create some imaginary world, imaginary lover, or ambitious dream. Just lean my back on this tree, raise my arms and say…

Thank you.

Be thanked.

Be Thanks.

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