Beer Fast ~ Day 10
I’m achieved double digits! One video blog at a time… [Fasts have long been a part of contemplative tradition. Monastics abstain from food to achieve greater clarity, embodiment, and spiritual vision. They change your physical reality, which in turn affects your emotional and spiritual realities. Indeed, the whole reason we do them is to bring ...
“The Rabbi’s Gift” and a Mother’s Day Dharma Talk
A Mother’s Day gift from one Art Monastery to another, as performed by participants of Art Monastery SF’s first Daylong Artmonk Retreat, May 13th 2012 (Mother’s Day), led by Joel and Michelle Levey.
Beer Fast ~ Day 9
Some observations about my fast: • Guiness is the easiest to drink of all the beers. Beers that I adore, like Chimay and La Rossa, have come to gross me out…
Beer Fast ~ Day 8
A new video blog from Betsy, and some words from Liz on her Non-Beer Fast: “Well, with all this reflective energy in the air, I think it’s time for me to chime in to the beer-fast blogging as well!”
Beer Fast ~ Day 7
Wow. I’ve gone a week without ingesting any food. I told that to my friend Francesca’s goddaughter. She blinked and said, “How come you’re not dead?” And there we are, back at the point. There is a lot about this fast that is about death. About showing me and my body that I can face things like hunger, discipline, and letting go.
Last night during my Vigils midnight sit, I tried out a death meditation. After a moment of settling in, I started with a vipassana-style body scan, paying attention only to my skin and the specific sensations that I could notice on each square inch of my body.
Beer Fast ~ Day 5, part 2
I’ve emerged enough to be able to type again. In the middle of the dark moment there, I muttered aloud, why am i doing this? Speaking aloud to yourself really helps. Or at least it helps me: I heard the question as though some else was asking. Why AM I doing this? Let’s check in with the intentions.
Beer Fast ~ Day 5, part 1
10 AM – When I was meditating yesterday day I felt this bubble of fury build up in me. A sphere of fiery red energy ballooned up and I was surrounded by anger, defensiveness, and fear. Could it be that as the fast proceeds and my body consumes the as-of-yet undigested burritos still stored in my intestines for God knows how long, that I would, on a parallel track, work through as-of-yet undigested emotions?
Beer Fast ~ Day 4
Today Liz and I took the train to Florence for a meeting with an excellent new friend of the Project, Doug Platt. He just happens to live in a former convent. It is a beautiful home with stunning grounds. It might have been the biggest challenge to the fast yet: sitting at the dinner table with Doug, Liz, and his three kids, while they ate what smelled like delicious arancini (traditional Roman fried rice balls stuffed with a variety of different things), ribs, green beans, porky somethingerothers, and salad. Luckily, I had a really good beer.
