A 6 day fasting for lent and for good health.

A 6 day fasting for spring, lent, and good health

Friday. 

I am on day one of my fasting and 16 hours into no food. I am feeling fine except it is now lunch time and I have the habitual craving for food.  I will make some Ginger tea and stay hydrated. 

20 hours into the fast: I am in good spirit and not tired. I got through the noon time hunger and don’t feel hungry at all right now. Only unusual observation is that I seem to get cold more easily because the body is not burning food. I have had a small glass of chicken broth, some water and a glass of tomato juice. It is my hope that the fast will take away the inflammation in my hands as well as my shoulder. I am also hoping on better overall feeling if I manage to hold the fast for 10 days. 

Saturday: 2nd day of fasting

I want to eat everything in sight. I know that the 2nd day is the hardest. I know that I can do this on water and juice and I will be victorious. I noticed that my sense of smell was slightly up and the pain in my hand from arthritis seems less. 

Sunday 3 day of fasting

Woke up in a depressed mood focusing on how old I am and how many aches and pains in my body. Left index finger clicking!!!! What's up with that? As the day went by my mood improved. Even watched cooking shows with my wife at night. 

Monday: day 4 of fasting

I wake up with a lot of energy and in a great mood. No hunger and a great appetite for life. My body feels great and smelling sense improved. Cold fingers though. 

Wednesday: Day 5 of fasting

I feel a bit tired today and I have noticed that it is hard to keep my hands warm when not eating. I gave yoga a rest today. Getting tired of eating soup broth for lunch and dinner and longing for real food again. My body feels great though and I have lost 4 pounds since I started. 

Thursday: Day 6 of fasting

Today I gave up fasting as my hands began to tremble in the morning and I felt dizzy. My body was telling me that it was time to stop. I could have gone longer if I had rested more I think but fasting has like everything else a learning curb. I stopped my fast and felt a lot better. I have to say that all through my fasting days I felt more energized than I have felt for a long time. The beginning was hard, but after day 3 it was just amazing how I had energy and positive spirit for everything. This is something I will come back to soon. Overall, a great experience. 

Saint Francis and the Sow

Saint Francis and the Sow
BY GALWAY KINNELL
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; 
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing; 
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch 
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow 
began remembering all down her thick length, 
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, 
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine 
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering 
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Tekst og musik: Flemming Oppenhagen Behrend

How gender is created

It is a common belief that gender is a given. I do not believe this is the case at all.  I just received the latest "American Girl" which is owned by the Mattel Co. since 1998. Mattel must somehow know that I have 4 granddaughters in the right consumer age for their product. I smell facebook here. Mattel which is behind the policies of American Girl have great interest in promoting a streamlined gender type who will buy their products and in doing so they are supporting an outdated gender model which runs contrary to the understanding of gender fluidity. In the new catalogue all the dolls have long shiny hair and the color pink is all over each page:

The all American Girl is not supposed to do anything meaningful other than house chores or tending to the babies:

And when they go camping it is not to hike Mount Baker but to stand by the portable kitchen camper

and cook for guess who!

After the all American Girl comes back from camping she has house chores to do so obviously she has to get back into the kitchen:

 and do the laundry!

Not so for the NEW doll in the all American Girl line up. The boy doll Logan does not have to do any chores or anything actually, but he is pictured playing the drums!!!!!!

That is how Mattel creates gender and how gender is sold to the public and it sells like crazy. No wonder equality is only to be found somewhere in a future world.

The well maidens.

Maybe it would have been better if we had kept our projections on the medieval understanding of the gods because we would have recognized the demons much easier. Back then our projections were attached to external powers and they could not hide from us, they were seen, named and feared. Today, however,  the gods and goddesses, the demons and the trolls have moved inside our psyche and we are not so quick to point them out. For example, the president was (is) a womanizer but his supporters don’t care because they know that they can also be perpetrators.  After all, it is in all of us right, so it’s not so bad.  Thus a perpetrator is voted into the White House.  That is one part of the story: Psyche works in amazing ways. All of a sudden,  women began to wake up and walk into the open saying “No more.” One by one,  the sexual predators were outed and exposed by their former victims. Most of those accused of crimes against women, call it a witch hunt. But history will witness better. This is exactly what the collective unconscious does and how it works. The truth of these men who preyed on women will be obvious and in the light of day because women are fed up with male misbehavior. It is symbolically the archetypal image of the well maidens from Camelot who are stepping into the light of this century to say “No more rape of the feminine.” This is the new hope for our times, a new era of consciousness coming into being in the light of day.   The restoration of the feminine can signal  the abandonment of the sick patriarchal system which has now run its course. 

Noget om kraft. Flemming Oppenhagen Behrend synger Halfdan Rasmussen viser

https://youtu.be/cpAsKfCEZAg

RadCo performing: at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts