Starvation is a privilege. Starvation is a joy. When is it time to fast? You'll know it's time to fast when any food starts to seem unpalatable - even your favorite foods. It's your body giving you a sign that it's time to starve. I have fasted on water many times from one day to twenty-one. Sometimes I would fast on juices for a few days. We like to fast as a family at the same time. It is very common for us to go hungry for a day or two when we go to teach our classes. It makes it easier to endure long trips - we don't get tired at all. As a whole family, we fasted several times for seven days on juices and many times one or two days on water.
This past February, my family was on the water for fourteen days. It brought us very close! Every day we discussed everything that happened to our bodies. We all go through the same stages and similar feelings. We asked each other, "Do you feel this? How about this? Can you feel this? Great!" On the third day, we all felt physically weak. On this day I was gone for two hours, and Valya answered the phone instead of me. My phone's been ringing nonstop. Vala had to hold the phone receiver near her ear for the entire two hours. And her hand that held the phone hurt for the rest of the day. Seryozha had gone snowboarding on the mountain that day. An hour after he got there, he called home, "Come get me, I can't even lift my board."
We decided that the weakness came because our bodies were readjusting from energy derived from nutrition to energy produced by the body's internal resources. On the fourth day came a burst of energy. Sergei has been boarding all day. Sergei couldn't wait to share with his friends that he was already fasting on water for the fourth day. His friends didn't believe him. One boy said that Sergei made it all up, that he didn't look like he was starving. On the evening of the fifth day, we all hugged each other: "Guys, this is our fifth day! Will we continue fasting for another week and a half as agreed?" Then we noticed how much free time we had. It freed up a lot of time we would normally spend grocery shopping, cooking and eating.
Every day instead of lunch for those two weeks, we went to the sauna as a family. Since we missed the delicious smells of food, we bought therapeutic lemon oil, dripped it into the water in the sauna and inhaled the lemon smell. We had a lot of energy. We woke up with the sunrise and went to bed at midnight. We loved watching our bodies change and how we lost weight. Every day we swam. It was a wonderful time! Sergei said: "I never suspected that I was so dependent on the ritual of eating".
Towards the end of the hunger strike, Sergei called a friend and said: "If you want my roller board, come and get it! I decided that I would not skate anymore, it was a waste of time. I want to start reading more. After the hunger strike ended, Sergei took twice as many college classes and twice as many music classes. Wrote a magazine article. He's matured a lot during his hunger strike. He is now teaching a raw food class in our town. It was interesting to see how Sergei turned into a sage over the course of his hunger strike. And Valya became more confident and was always in a happy and joyful mood.
There were days at the end of the hunger strike when we experienced weakness at various times. This happened when the body didn't have enough energy for some internal healing. Then we lay down and rested. When the energy returned, we knew that something in us had been healed. We had a lot of energy. Great energy!
On the thirteenth night of my fast, I had a dream. In the dream, I was sitting on a tricycle. I was three years old and my father pollinated our garden with DDT. I got off my bike, walked behind my father to the box of poison and dipped my hands in the white powder. She smelled disgusting... I woke up with the taste of DDT in my mouth. I went to the bathroom and started rinsing my mouth out, but that chemical flavor wouldn't wash out. It came with a memory from my childhood of real events when my father pollinated the DDT garden and I sat on my bike and watched. I also remember that our street was not yet paved and I rode my bike on planks. It was very interesting to me that I remembered this DDT episode so vividly. I know that my body was cleansing itself of the poison that had been sitting in my body since I was three years old.
When the hunger strike came to an end, we began to decide how to get out of it. We had several books on starvation cleansing and they all advised different things. One said to go out with juices, one said to go out with oranges, and one said to go out with peeled tomatoes. We decided to meditate as a family, and listen to our bodies for what they wanted. And we heard a very clear answer. We will be coming out of our hunger strike on grated organic apples, organic pineapple and soaked prunes. After that, we'll be juicing for three days.
On this day after college, the kids took the 5:20 PM bus home. By this time Igor and I had set the table beautifully: we each had a plate with grated apples, pieces of pineapple and soaked prunes, and prune water; we put flowers in the middle of the table. I made a poster: "Congratulations to the Butenko family on the successful completion of their 14-day water hunger strike!" When the children entered the house, and they hadn't eaten anything for two weeks, their eyes widened and drooled at the sight of the decorated table. We sat down as a family around the table and held hands. Sergei said: "Do we need to start eating?" Valya added: "It was good to wait one more day!" After that, we proceeded to eat. Oh, it was all so delicious. None of us could manage even half a plate. We were all full at once. Our stomachs shrank. I would have liked to eat more, but alas! We left it for later. After a few hours we finished everything, and stood hugging each other for a long time, glad we had gotten through it. We felt a deep sense of gratitude for each other, and intimacy, and joy.
During her hunger strike, Valya went to modern dance classes, where she had to work out physically. After two lessons, Valya said: "You know, Mom, I don't think that if I go to the third lesson, I can do everything the teacher requires. I can't stand with my hands up for long. I feel like sitting down and resting. When the teacher's back was turned, Valya would put her hands down, and when he turned his face, she would raise them again.
I mixed a special drink for Vali. Half a cup of young coconut juice with half a cup of distilled water. There was enough glucose in it to give Vala more energy. So, in the last days of the hunger strike, if the kids needed to go to classes that required physical activity, I mixed this drink of distilled water and young coconut juice for them. Igor and I didn't drink it, only Valya and Sergei. We all took a lot of great feelings out of this family hunger strike. I advised the kids to keep diaries during the hunger strike, which they did. Now Sergei says he would like to fast as a family once or twice a year and then write a book, Family Fasting. Seryozha and Valya lost almost 10 pounds each (4.5 kg.), but gained 6 pounds in the first three days after coming out of starvation, being on juices only. We all enjoyed starving as a family and can't wait to do it again..
