Anatomy

Still alive after 5 days without water

‘Practice doing nothing, and everything falls into place.

That's a quote from the incomparable Tao Te Ching. I've spent twenty years or so trying to untangle it. Sometimes, a quote comes careening into my consciousness to save me from a moment of despair.

Fasting is one example. Did you know, fasting can cure 'damn near anything'? And it's been rigorously tested over the last 100 years.

I wrote Edenbound about healing with fruit. It's become somewhat known in fruitarian circles.

However, eating just fruit for years can be a challenge in most circumstances. I live in a suburb now. I need to bring healing to suburbs. That’s not saying it’s not worth it, I’m just constantly on the prowl for the most practical remedies that support the human organism in a holistic, sustainable way.

Another option is fasting. However, I'm going to shuffle a few paradigms here.

Dry fasting is what I'm talking about. No water or food intake.

Water fasting is more perilous, because you lose MORE vital body mass... it takes longer to reach entrenched conditions. Though it can be valuable in certain circumstances, it's not what I recommend generally.

Dry fasting is a lot more intensive, less sufferable, and shorter in duration. An 11 day dry fast is the longest you'll need to do to heal. (Check out the intriguing book Starving in Siberia. The author cured her late stage lyme disease by visiting a fasting master). She's not had a recurring symptom since 2017.

I learned of dry fasting via Robert Morse's channel on Youtube. Here’s the telegram. Someone wrote in and said they were paralyzed after a neck accident, and they did a 8 day dry fast, and they were able to move again.

This is because the body, when deprived of water, breaks down senescent cells and damaged tissue, and replaces it with fresh tissue. You get new organs, essentially. And a cleansing of 'spiritual' and 'chakra' blockages to boot. Parasites and bacteria die without water... what doesn't? The human organism.

I have a complex formulation of how different energetics/attachments interface with bacteria and parasites. That’ll be delivered somewhere else.

So if you've ever tried to 'starve' yeast or something out with various cleanses, it's immensely difficult. Dry fasting is easier.

The Phoenix Protocol, by August Dunning, goes deep into the science, in a brief little book that is quite practical. He recommends a 7 day dry fast once per year, but he says that the first one gets out all of sludge from the body from the previous lifetime. The next ones are sort of for maintenance.

What I Notice on Day 5

What I notice, I'm on day 5 now, is a dry mouth, a burning stomach, some lingering nerve pain that I first noticed during a bout of covid a few years ago. I'm going for the 7 days.

If you have something more life threatening, an 11 day fast might be in order.

Remember, that being underweight puts you at risk for many accidents and diseases that affect longevity. However, the dry fast, though you will lose weight, it is mostly water and fat. You need to eat in a specific way afterwards if your goal is not to pack the fat back on, as outlined in the protocol.

Now, it takes a week or two to come off of a 7 day fast. This is the most important piece, they say. Stem cells are flowing through your body for months, and one study showed that stem cells turned into fat cells in the presence of sugar. You want your stem cells, the virtual panacea of healing and youth, to go toward tissue regeneration instead.

It takes time to build up to a 7 day dry fast, by the way. (I've done many liquid fasts, and a few dry fasts, though I had only made it to day 3.5 prior). It isn't easy. I'm just mentioning that it is easier than many protocols. It's a mystical experience, really.

If you can isolate, and cold or cool baths and brisk walks in the snow help, it will be even simpler because you'll be away from your delicious burritos. I have that challenge as well, in the sense that I cook for my daughters every morning, and need to smell the oh so sweet aroma of simmering butter or blended watermelon. I'm ok though! I swoon and move on.

There is a hard dry and a soft dry fast. Earlier in my dry fasting journey I was attempting the hard, which means you don't come into contact with water at all, even on your skin. And then I read Dry Fasting by Sergey Filonov (the master that the woman visited in Siberia) and he said it is more helpful to bathe and take cold baths or showers, because it creates a reverse lymphatic flow which cleanses more deeply. Which is good to hear, because it is much easier.

I've been on long chats with clients, so I've dried out my mouth somewhat. Ideally you keep the mouth mostly closed. However, the cells begin to replace the hard, dead water in your body (consider it radioactive) with living water. Endogenous water. You'll see urine continue to proliferate even though you're not drinking. There have been measurements to show that it doesn't all come from the tissues.

This idea of replacing the dead water in the system with living water is fascinating. Water is a conduit for information. So when it's taken in, the body needs to assimilate the information. This takes energy. Some of the pollutants in the water nourish pathogens, in known and unknown-ways. (By the way, the Medical Medium is against dry fasting, so take that as you will).

What am I going for?

There's a lump on my rear right shoulder, which formed after a shoulder injury.

I've had head congestion for ever, and I still feel it lingering on the right side.

My eyes get tight and blurry when I eat certain things, which often signifies nerve inflammation.

I still get skin rashes occasionally on large intestine and stomach points, and flaking skin. (unless eating only fruit).

I feel a little tired and non-refreshed in the morning lately, since covid.

When I resolve those, I will be quite thrilled.

What do you need to resolve?

Love and flow,

Steven Budden Jr.

Chapel Hill, NC

We are Stories (a meditation on transcending the stories that keep us stuck)

We are walking constellations of stories. Most of these stories are inaccurate, misunderstood, or the opposite of what is real. They are woven into our cells, our tissues, our organs. They reflect in our voice, our words, our actions, our posture. Our entire life becomes the 'singing of a familiar song.' We sing it in various keys, and in various styles, however it is the same song. 

Over the years, I've learned to see the stories that people carry in their bodies. This is not esoteric knowledge. It just requires tuning into another layer of reality. The collapse that is indicative of the early childhood trauma, the anger toward the father, the sexual betrayal, the broken heart. At a glance these things can be seen. 

Physical Trauma as Emotional Healing. Case study of a 'broken heart' manifesting as a bruised sternum.

One interpretation: The core wound manifested as a physical trauma, because that was what it took to compel him to work on it… physical pain. The true wound was a broken heart. Healing one heals the other, and vice versa.

Losing and Reclaiming the Voice

A client had lost her voice. It is a familiar wound. I recognized it immediately as she spoke through clenched teeth, and her throat was a mass of energetic congestion. Likely a thyroid issue, too, I thought. As we talked closer and closer to the core of the wound, the issue of her father inevitably arose. Often, the masculine does play a role in the loss of voice. Because the masculine that many of us live into now is an epic distortion of an ancient, empowered archetype. 

Seeing the World Through New Eyes

After I witnessed her whole body clench and vibrate (the signs of trauma releasing from the tissues), her face went through every season. It darkened, it clenched, it lightened, there were tears, gasps, a smirk. In the aftermath, the familiar peace descended. The loop had been resolved. 

As she opened her eyes, they were shades lighter. She was gazing out into the backyard, blinking and rubbing her eyes. 

What is it, I asked? What do you notice? 

The leaves on that maple are extraordinarily red, she whispered. I thought I was hallucinating. They almost seem too red.  I think I just wasn’t seeing them before.

Case Study: Healing Feminine Wounds: Reclaiming Trust in the Masculine

As an intellectual practice, forgiveness is a slippery concept. 

The mouth lies constantly. The mind convinces itself of outrageous fictions. It doesn't matter how scandalous or absurd the story is when mind is the judge, jury, and executioner. It's a rigged game.

The body never lies. A skilled practitioner can see and touch issues that the client isn’t even aware of, and guide them into that awareness. It’s like holding up a mirror to the vast, ineffable ‘self.’ 

Our goal isn’t to merely reconnect the leg. Reconnecting the leg awakens the pelvis and all of the digestive and sexual organs. Our goal is awakening; enhancing aliveness. Our goal is expanding intimacy, and deepening love. 

Later that night, she goes home and makes love to her partner in an embodied way, for the first time in her life. As she relays it to me, her eyes are ablaze. She hadn’t known what was possible before. Now she’s opened a whole new frontier… the waning art of rising to the touch with a fullness, and touching in the same way. 

In a world full of vacant stares, empty promises, and detached bodies, the final frontier isn’t the bottom of the ocean or the depths of space… it’s the body, and the consciousness trickling or surging through us all in this and every moment. 

The Spine and The Inevitability of Healing

Like the entire body intelligence, the spine is brilliantly engineered. The perfect balance between mobility and protection; flexibility and durability. With the elegance of form that rivals anything we've seen. 

The spine is modeled in a graceful natural curve. No one vertebrae touches another. They are buffered by fluid mediums. We float and are fluid in our bodies, and our bones float with us. Even the bones are said to be 31% water (though I don’t trust those sorts of numbers, generally). 

Sometimes, an unnatural twist occurs in the spine. A minor twist, or one so extreme that a diagnosis is required. Scoliosis, for instance. This twist can occur as organs and viscera tighten due to congestion and/or deterioration from a corrosive diet, acidic thought patterns, or it can occur in reaction to a mental pattern. I worked with a client once who viewed her sexual fantasies as ‘twisted’, and this manifested as a physical twist. The body is, after all, an embodiment of our beliefs. As I straightened her torso physically, tears flowed. She just couldn't believe that the way I had positioned her was straight. She'd felt 'twisted. I showed her the mirror, and more tears flowed, wetting her cheeks and shoulders. 

Case Study: How An Unconscious Judgement Created a Lifelong Shoulder Pain

As I was working on a client’s shoulder, by simply rotating it slowly, he kept noticing an inner voice chiding him. You’re worthless, it was saying. Pathetic. I saw it in his face so clearly that I could almost hear the voice. 

I narrowed in on the motion, and it seemed something like a throwing motion, the arm over the head, arcing down. Is that familiar? I asked. It seems to me like throwing something. As I said that, he saw a vague image that slowly came into focus… it was the laces of a football, lamely wobbling through the air. This shoulder pain had plagued him since high school. 

And then it came to him; the origin story of the condition. Time stopped. 

How your use of language can keep you from healing, and the transformational anatomy of bones

On the healing journey, be careful about the language you use about your ailment, because that is a clue about how the mind is functioning. 

‘My back is killing me.’ Your back is not killing you. It has been supporting you for a lifetime. It is sending out signals so you change your life path. If you don’t listen, it will send out stronger signals, like small waves before the tidal wave. Let it know that you’re listening. Find out what it needs. 

Can a bone ‘need’? Bones are consciousness. As alive as any other part of you. The plastic skeleton we grow up learning from is not anywhere near reality. Since ancient times, bones have been infused with divine meanings, and many of these have been corroborated by more radical osteopaths. 

Case Study: Finding your Feet Means the World Changes

I had a client who, during our conversations, kept hiding her feet. Especially when we broached difficult topics. As I questioned her, she eventually confessed. 

‘I hate my feet. They are so masculine. They remind me of my father’s.’ 

So she never wore sandals, and took great lengths to hide her feet. So, hiding her feet was a way to hide from me, and the world. Hating her feet was a way to hate her father. 

How Touching into your Essence Fundamentally Shifts Behavior.

Habits can be changed by force, but it is not an effective approach. There is a lot of friction, and therefore a lot of wasted energy. It is easier to change behaviors through a fundamental shift in the nature of being, which shifts the perspective, which shifts the reality. 

How the Budden Process Works (Somatic Breakthrough Delivery); With Esoteric Anatomy of the Skull

While the benefits the Budden Process work are often very clear, the mechanics can be mysterious. 

They are a mystery in part because we are working with consciousness, and consciousness is, almost by definition, a mystery. Many spiritual traditions that are based in mindfulness practices are studies of consciousness. We don't study it much in our culture. Scientists call it 'the hard problem.' For one thing, how does one observe oneself objectively, when even the most minute particles of matter seem influenced by the observer?

Certain principles show up again and again in Budden Process sessions. So we can use these to deepen our understanding. 

Transformational Anatomy - The Abdomen

The body is a conduit for life force. This FLOW is hampered by tightening the abdomen. We learn, in our culture, to tighten our abdomen to fit into some programmed, artificial concepts of beauty. We also learn it through the unnatural postures we engage in regularly (sitting, for instance, and standing in certain footwear). We also may tighten the abdomen so as not to feel our deepest fears; our core wounds. 

Honoring the entire spectrum of sensations, Flow and Non-Flow and the Transformational Anatomy of the Psoas)

Sensations are always arising and passing away... arising and passing away. We put a lot of energy into labeling these sensations.

Sensations don't create our reality; the labels do.  The same sensation never shows up twice. 

Included are the tools for making the most of this fluid state. 

The Psoas: Esoteric Anatomy

The psoas runs from the lower 5 lumbar to the top of the femur or thigh bone. When it is congested, it can affect posture, digestion, circulation, sexuality, and the urinary system, to name a few.

Here are a few critical distinctions and tools for opening.