Spirit of the Winter Cleanse

to cleanse in summer is one thing.
to cleanse in winter is another.

to cleanse is to cleanse your mind and body and spirit of resistance.

and oh how much resistance surrounded me for this winter time cleanse. i did not want to do it.  sammy heard me when i told her i wanted coffee. when i said, "oh i'm not really cleansing." the group began on saturday, and i pushed against it. i didn't speak with my ancestors. i didn't set intentions. and yet, spirit was there all along. my body and mind and spirit were cleansing just that: my running away-ness, my don't tell me what to do ness. releasing my pretense that "this isn't really happening."

it is happening, and i'm committed to it.
i've not bent to my caffeine addiction.
i've allowed the juices and the plants to work through me, medicine that they are.
ive swished the oil of sunflowers through my boca in the mornings, listening to them do their thing.

i giggle beside my colleagues, as they think it's a funny thing - and an almost impossible quest - to juice for a couple days. the words "you are so skinny" falling off the tongues of so many, as if it were a prideful thing, a shameful thing, a cool and weird something, a los angeles hollywood movie star thing. but it isn't, it's merely what happens when our bodies let go of what they don't need. my skin clears up. my scalp sheds. my own snake tongue spits out my blood's toxicity.

the physicality of the cleanse is never the most difficult part for me, though. aside from coffee, i don't crave. it's my inner life, my emotions, and my spirit that struggle and effort the most.

last night, release came big in tears and sobs, that just needed to move through me, water.
wretchedness flowing out of us, through mouths and eyes and holes of us, leaves us, and we are whole again, in the way we were before. spirit was with me on this cleanse every minute. holding me, moving through me, letting me rest and rise.

so i can wake up beside my partner, warm in bed, and she can slip her hands to my belly and whisper to me, and i will smile. and she will tell me she loves me, and we'll apologize for just not seeing each other clearly right now.

this is the cleanse.

juicing and all.

The animals are with me, the four directions are guiding me, and all teachers, and all my relations, sit in a circle with me, ever-connected.