Did you know that it's possible, in the
magical world of yoga, to pass a chair? You know, as in going to the toilet. As
in number two. I bet you didn't. I'll let you ponder that for a while,
breathing deep into your bowel as you do so, and come back to it.
I decided to do a juice detox. I decided
this on Friday night, in the midst of a feast to celebrate Katerina's nameday,
and that said detox would take place on the next day, the Saturday. Polyna
happened to mention (while we all happily munched on patsitsio, the Greek
version of lasagne) a concoction consisting of beetroot, celeriac, lemon juice
and honey that's apparently good for cleansing the bowel, and I latched on to
this, and decided to incorporate it. I picked up the ingredients on my way back
home that evening, and thus began my haphazardly conceived bowel cleanse juice
detox.
Day one was OK. I did my work in the
morning, dutifully gave myself a glass of juice (which had to be chewed, on
account of my blender being a bit of a bargain buy) and set off on a lovely,
meditative walk to the port of Kamares, feeling all kinds of virtuous. I
arrived at Syrma, Katerina's cafe on the beach, just over an hour later, serene
and glistening with sweat, to be assaulted by the smell of food.
'What
is this?' I demanded to know, in lieu
of good afternoon.
'Polyna's
lunch,' Dimitra supplied. 'What's the matter with you?'
'I'm
doing a detox,' I confessed.
'What
are you detoxing from?'
'Everything!
Except coffee and cigarettes.'
Dimitra
smirked. 'Coffee?' she suggested.
'No.
I've had one already. I'll have a green tea.'
Dimitra
gave me a look of utter disdain. 'A green tea,' she repeated, as if I'd asked
for dry twigs to chew on.
'Please.'
From
the kitchen, Katerina sniggered. But kindly.
I took my (unsweetened) green tea outside,
where Polyna, her husband and two friends were enjoying a spread of last
night's nameday dinner leftovers.
'Join
us,' they said, but I shook my head bravely and explained my predicament.
'I
hate you all,' I added. 'You're bad people.' I took a sip of my green tea, and
was overcome with remorse. 'I love you, really. Enjoy your lunch. I'm going for
a swim.'
And
with that I disrobed, and threw myself into the cold November sea. Resolutely not
hungry. Which, actually, was true: this being 2pm, I hadn't had a chance to get
hungry yet. I often skip breakfast and go straight for lunch: my detox, at this
stage, was entirely theoretical. Words, and a sour, chewy juice.
Katerina came over in the evening. We were
going to do yoga, but she'd had a fall and bruised her shoulder and knee, so we
had tea instead. A Fortnum & Mason blend that someone once brought for my
grandma, scented with orange blossom and served in my mum's best, daintiest
chipped china. We talked, indirectly, of food; of how it's a pleasure and a
comfort, much less of a need than we imagine, and of the times - the exceptions
- when thoughts of eating fall right out of our heads. Acute love, we agreed,
and acute sadness. Being subject to neither, I confessed to dreaming of pasta. I
showed Katerina the glass of juice that was to be my dinner, instead. We both
sighed. 'Be strong,' she said.
Day two and I still wasn't hungry, but I
was pretty miserable. The detox headache had arrived, and I was possessed by a
strange, manic, desperate energy that did not translate into the desire to do
anything. It was pure momentum, with nowhere to go. I decided, nonetheless, to martyr
myself to my cause and stretch the cleanse to another day. I distracted myself
with making things: I made smudge sticks out of herbs I'd picked the day
before; I made jam out of bitter oranges; I made bangles with scraps of vintage
fabric. I made promises: to be better, to eat better, to look after my
digestive health so I would never again have to resort to such extreme measures
for giving my bowel a break. To eat fewer crisps. I made tea from peppermint
and lemon verbena leaves and drank it, unceremoniously, out of a mug. The will
to juice had gone out of me completely. I made an infusion from wild sage, hoping
for wisdom. I went nowhere and spoke to no one; I barely even spoke to the cats
but resented them, silently, for the meal of Friskies croquettes that they
crunched on. I thought about doing yoga.
In
the evening, I was suddenly taken over by the absolute certainty that I should
have a steak. A steak, yes, and a salad, from my favourite restaurant in town,
which, gloriously, stays open throughout the winter. I could call them up right
now, and ask them to prepare this salvation for me, and I could walk down and
pick it up and bring it home and put an end to this madness. A battle of wills
ensued, between my virtuous, martyred self who shook her head sadly, so
disappointed, as the glutton screamed her petulant argument But I want! The martyr won, assisted by
the fact that I had exactly 1.55€ to my name. She settled down, smug and free of desire, with her
cup of wisdom tea, and decreed that, in addition to not having steak, I would
stretch the detox into the next morning, whereupon I would perform Shanka Prakshalana, the yogic bowel-cleansing ritual. Yes, I
thought. What an excellent idea. I was clearly tripping.
I
did not sleep well that night. My head thumped and my stomach churned; I
dreamed of crisps.
Monday morning, and as
I prepared the mixture of warm water and salt that I was to consume and
eliminate in aid of purifying my colon, I thought I might refresh my memory on
the particulars of Shanka Prakshalana. I chose one of the
many articles on Google, and was reminded how the process involved drinking up
to 16 glasses of the saline solution and performing, after every two, a set of
five asanas designed to move the
liquid through the intestinal tract. After the fifth set, practitioners are
encouraged to go to the bathroom and perform the Ashvini Mudra (a.k.a. clenching and unclenching of arse muscles) to
stimulate peristalsis of the intestines.
At
which point the writer of the article imparted the following extraordinary
piece of wisdom: "If the chair starts," he wrote, "great. If
not, no problem." You just carry on with the salt water and the exercises,
he reassured, until the chair comes. He went on to explain that "the chair
will be solid at first, but as time goes on it will be cleaner and more
watery".
The
chair? So frazzled was my brain that
I accepted this as some sort of yogic lore, some super-technical/spiritual term
that surely must be valid. Nevermind that in thirty years of actively studying
the English language I had made my peace my shit being referred to as stool but
had never, not once, heard of passing chairs. Solid or not. But it must be
true, I reasoned, because the wise yoga man on the internet said so. Chairs
would be passed and the bowel would be cleansed. Shanti om, brother.
I passed no chairs, but not for lack of
trying. There came a time where I would have been happy to pass anything, any
type of furniture at all, for the relief of emptying my bowel of all that salt
water. I was drenched in sweat and bloated to fuck and even threw up a little
bit (which was cheating, because throwing up salt water is actually Kunjal Kriya, the yogic
stomach-cleansing technique). I did my asanas
and my Ashvini Mudra and breathed and
tried to relax, as advised, but no chair came. The stool did eventually,
triumphantly, mercifully - and, on account of the two-day martyrdom that had
preceded this exercise, it was as watery as advertised. It came several times
over the next two hours. The rest of the day passed in a daze. There was food, which
I ate, and there was furniture upon which I reclined. It was all very
spiritual, I'm sure.
It is now Tuesday morning. I sit here, at
my desk chair, with coffee and cigarettes and the bowel thoroughly at peace, and
of clear mind once again, and ponder the lessons I learned during this weekend
that, thankfully, passed.
- A chair is an item of furniture that you
sit on, and is not to be confused with a stool whose meaning can be dual.
- Passing chairs must be avoided at all
costs, especially in solid form.
- The internet is a strange place, its
strangeness matched only by the world of yoga. Venturing into either must be
undertaken with extreme caution.
- Decisions must never be made on an empty
stomach.
- When in doubt, eat a steak.
- If you're gonna stop eating, do it for
acute love. It's the best reason for everything.
Shanti om.
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