QuestionDear Evelyn,
I am a 58 year old woman who has had digestive problems all my life. I am also an anthroposophist. In the last year my digestive problems have gotten much worse, accompanied by anxiety, panic, weight loss and severe food intolerance. I was a vegetarian for almost 30 years, but now can't tolerate any grains, even millet which I used to eat every day, no legumes, no fruit except applesauce, no dairy, no eggs. I eat organic chicken and beef, non-starchy vegetables, butter, olive oil and coconut oil, a little applesauce, lots of herb tea. I have had a colonoscopy/endoscopy, stool sample, bloodwork, IgG food intolerance test which was completely worthless. The diagnosis is irritible bowel syndrome, but nothing I do helps and I don't want to take drugs. I've taken many supplements, herbs, homeopathics. probiotics, acupuncture, methylation protocol. I live a fairly stress free life in the country, exercise regularly, get enough sleep. I am at my wits end as to how to get my body to tolerate food. My symptoms are queasiness, acid stomach in the morning, gurgling gas, foggy, dizzy head, weakness, sometimes loose, copious bowel movements and anxiety. I also take 30 mgs of Armour thyroid a day, and have it checked periodically.
Thank you so much,
Heidi
AnswerDear Heidi,
Your question is very interesting, indeed; but also has my deepest sympathy. You remind us how it is not so easy to experience for oneself how much a riddle man can be!!
You paint a very clear picture of your situation and this raises a couple of points instantly, while I wonder if you have an Anthroposophic GP? Or a clinic with Anthroposophist specialists near by? Although, sometimes they too cannot be of direct help; but have you tried a) Eurhythmy and b) biographic work?
We can first follow the clues at hand and attatch medical (Anthroposophic) fact to your personal picture. It seems first and foremost that you have struggled to incarnate fully. Your metabolic issues paint how your excess etheric is not tamed by your astral. There is not a harmonious and efficient integration. This seems to be something karmic to your situation, since it has been something that you have had to learn to live with all your life.
Possibly, there might have been more 搊verflow?in the mental realms when you were younger and now there is more of a 搇eak?into the physical organism giving direct symptoms on a digestive level (stomach, intestines). After you pass 42, things gradually become more 搒et?on a physical level while attention is turned to more spiritual matters. It then becomes harder to 揾eal?organic issues. At least not in an earthy manner. Normally, modern man responds aggressively to such ailments that worsen with age, refusing to accept age ENABLES (soul development) not disables. (However disabling the physical symptoms may be.)
The good news is that Anthroposophy can readily explain how your complaints have worsened right now. At 56 you move into a new seven-year life-phase. The year that follows can be a very heavy one. You enter a period when you get the opportunity to dedicate yourself to your spirit-soul. If you have been more spiritually attuned all your life, already, then now you have to really live it. This can mean on the most mundane level of all sorts of changes, including physical ones. It is a kind of grace to be able to do this on a physical level, but it will be challenging.
Perhaps, it can be a small comfort to remember that there are guiding angels by your side to help you understand yourself and bear your ailments even as they worsen. Illness is what you are NOT. Be it in the sense 搉ot supposed to be?or 搉ot yet are? Illnesses or disorders make you face what you can (must) and cannot (yet) do. It is probably unrealistic to expect a healing that will allow you to eat whatever you like again. Although 揾ealings?work in mysterious ways. But it is the Mystery of healing that the Anthroposophist needs to respect the most.
In practice, how do we cope? How can we bridge inner and outer worlds? Why do bridges collapse? For this we need to take a look at why we eat at all.
There are two ways of looking at nutrition: it sustains us and binds us in some sort of holy covenant to Earth. We till her, and she provides us with stores. As Earth-dwellers we perfect ourselves, learning in the school of life.
On the other hand, we have the human duty to act out of love. These deeds are selfless and transformative, helping to make the world go round. They cannot have any karmic consequence, and therefore do not contribute to ennobling our Spirit. Love makes wisdom possible. I refer to lecture GA 143. In this light, we partake of the world in a continuous Last Supper.
We work on our soul and our spirit with loving dedication, honoring nature, our own biology, the brotherhood of man that spreads our table before us. To eat is also a communal affair. This is why a conscious diet is so ennobling and both eating 搄unk?or starvation (be in Biafra or as an Anorexic) is dehumanising. It shows empoverishment of the (world) soul.
It is not unusual that those who have not incarnated as fully as they ought to have precisely become 揼luten intolerant?or develop 揻ood allergies?or even 搃rritable bowel disease? It is sad to see that this is not only at times of excarnation (death, trauma) but in newborns, already. To think in sets of allegies, is the way in which modern medicine can best define a complex set of abberrations within our metabolic-energetic system. We need to know that it takes an amazing feat of the human creative potential to transform minerals and alien matter or foreign substance (food) into our human self. None of that which belongs to the outer world is at all naturally compatible with our inner world. It takes the transformative force of our Ego- organisation to work catabolically and then anabolically into creating a vessle for our soul.
Where this Ego-force is weak and the I and astral bodies still too young (not fully incarnated) as in the baby, or too infirm (as in the elderly or sick) we can only offer 揺therically warm?foods that are, also, easy to deconstruct into proteins we can absorb easily (without too great a transformative process): the number one food suited for this purpose is (outside breastfeed) specifically cow's milk. Later in infants we proceed to warm grains, like oats and barley for porridge, and sunny coloured carrots and apples.
It is a sad phenomenon that cow-milk allergy allergies are rife in our youth. Such an intolerance to the maternal, nurturing properties food has to offer manifests a premature withdrawal, coolness, or rigidity of the soul (a karmic debt or a fear of our inhospitable world makes incarnation difficult).
Your own processing difficulties may seem rather diverse to a classic nutritionalist. But nowadays, more and more children, also, have many different intolerances, both involving glutens and proteins. In addition there may be allergies to wool, dust, pollen, pets, latex: in short the whole world seems invasive to the system! The soul does not much fancy tackling life hands-on, and internalising the externalities. This indolence or neglect of the soul is, of course, a most troubling phenomenon; and its actual root cause could be of enormous, spiritual, proportions with cosmic ramifications.
You could be tuning into these worrying sign of the times, which has aggravated your own tendency to tread the earth lightly. You could, otherwise, now find yourself being asked to detach yourself more from your own path and tread as lightly as you know how. Then it will be less a case of fortifying your metabolic system, but rather exempting it from unnecessary exertions. The most complicated metabolic disturbance could be at the subtle kidney-radiation level. Here astrality could be so weak as to impair efficient anabolic action. As our astrality declines in our lower-man, for women markedly after menopause already, we tend to cool there, or become overly mineralised. It is important therefore to keep this kidney region very warm, including our lower limbs (underwear, woolly tights, extra socks, sitz-baths, hot water bottles at night etc).
We can also do this on a psychological level, by creating new interests, finding new occupations, entering new social circles ?often we become grandparents at this age, helping us to do precisely that. Another classic Anthroposophic curative measure is a teaspoon of honey a day (not heated, so not in tea) This encourages the Ego/I-organisation to take hold of some body work. Perhaps, you can manage mineral-foods best? Those most divest of etheric life-force? (Of which there are not many ?but processed food gets you there half way!!). Steiner did forsee our diets would have to become ever more mineralised in the future: which foods he meant is not clear to me, but honey is one of them.
Classically, where life force is not taken hold of by the astral-Ego you get all the symptoms you describe. We then aim to reduce life-force and strengthen the head-pole forces IN the lower-pole. But we do this with grains and root vegetables, which is not an option for you. Fats are understandably better tolerated (by all who have intolerances, unless you have a weak pancreas and gall).
Carbohydrates can be considered as structural blocks that draw our form. The fats fill in that form. They create substance or matter. They give you body. It may be necessary to look at how you process fats. If you are losing weight but eat relatively much fats compared to carbs, you are not actually absorbing this fat ?this could cause loose stools. You are possibly attracted to eating them, more for their 搘armth ether? since your warmth ether is not fully functioning. Again it is the etheric body which deposits the fat, so with this etheric clearly compromised in you, the fats are not filling you in much, and the rancid effects of poor processing leave you feeling unwell. In that sense, you might actually need to cut back on fats to diminish the gurgling and dizziness. Such head-fog is always a sign of poor digestion, which in turn is linked to a sleepy astrality at the metabolic pole.
Have you tried berries, strawberries, blueberries, etc? Strawberries especially are astralising.
Flower teas and warming leaf teas (chamomile, limeblossom, lavender, melissa, oatstraw) are kind to the metabolic pole. If you add cocoa to (a tiny quantity of) milk would that help any? Cocoa is full of earth energy. Can you manage small pieces of 72-85% chocolate, perhaps? With a minimum sugar content (raw cane sugar) you could experiment how that feels. Salt stimulates the astral, so seveal savory snacks a day might be better than three meals. Have you tried chestnut crackers with tahini? Buckwheat crackers with seaweed spread? Mind, though, as we grow older we should limit the intake of salt drastically, since it mineralises us too much (taxing kidney system and causing all sorts of 搒tones?. So think specifically in terms of savoriness, or 搖mame?as this new taste is described.
Meditation works because it mediates between head and lower pole, especially music meditation, or breath work. Singing has the same effect. The middle-man is encouraged to expand and receive new building force, while it also releases stale air (also consolidated as negative pockets of energy). Through this middle man runs a subtle (extra) current of astral-Ego force directly from the Spirit self. It is not often outlined by Anthroposophical medicine, it is that subtle and intangible; and hard to compare with any activity from conventional medicine. (This current Steiner called Weak Current 2, I refer to GA 221)
For something entirely different, the following. Depending on your own spiritual interests, it might offer an angle to look into the unusual stories of some breatharians, or people on the so-called Light Diet. Judith von Halle became a breatharian after she got the stigmata, and was able to witness the Mystery of Golgotha in exact details (she wrote many, sober, books about what was revealed to her, published by Steiner Books). Michael Werner, another Anthroposophist, found himself needing less food until he lived almost entirely off light (for the past 15 years). His biography makes for balanced reading, too. His motivation to follow this 揺xtreme?diet are different to Judith's. He was overweight and had suffered from many debilitating health problems, so he went on a long fast. This brought him new strength and health. Enthused he took this a step further following in the footsteps of Jasmuheen (who I find, personally, a lot less balanced and inspite her own soulful dedication far less spiritually inclined).
Let me underscore that I in no way advocate or recommend this diet for you!! But the phenomenon (that it is even possible) raises some interesting points with regard to your case, perhaps.
Judith now lives off 損rana?for nutrition because she found herself violently poisoned by food (and many other substances, like toothpaste, alcohol in medications etc). Her health is not vastly improved by this diet, but she has no choice, by her own claims. She gave a lecture at an Anthroposophical society near to me, recently, and those who saw her both marvelled at the wisdom she radiated but felt sorry for her personal suffering. Anthroposophists remain sceptical about the benefits of a so called Light- or Breath-diet (not the truth of it), and research is ongoing at the Goetheanum, largely inspired by Michael who is a scientist himself and still a 搉ormal?Waldorf teacher. Another fascinating case I would cite here is of an entirely different callibre (which makes for interesting comparison): Jericho Sunfire who appears on You Tube in a few interviews. It helps to hear him if you want to form a larger opinion on what motivates man across the board to choose a particular kind of diet, and does summon the intriguing question why does man eat at all? (Preceding the Apple of Eden, man did not! Give or take the transitional phase of etheric nutrition: the other fruits in the Garden.)
I only mention these exceptional cases because they may help you review your own situation in a new light. Learning about inedia might help you accept a new take on nutrition. That is you own personal one, you may have to invent as you go along, by trial and error. Their stories might inspire you to either let go of your nutritional concerns, or worries that you may not be eating healthily anymore; or they might make you all the more wilful to enjoy the simple pleasures in life; or they could trigger off any other subconscious message to yourself that could emerge in reaction. That would be the purpose of looking into such a radical change of diet ?not the actual attempt! (Less successful, and tragic stories DO exist, too!)
In any case, perhaps, a different kind of people can give you some food for thought. And such thought can be spiritual nutrition in itself, which in turn can help relieve the metabolic system. Sometimes you need a 揷hange of scene?or 搒etting?to sweep clean the system. A short (two-seven day fast max.) might be a curative measure: but I think you have already experimented with fasting to some degree (for the colonic tests, I assume). As I said before, it is unlikely that you have a clearly outlined physical issue, and then it is also hard to reset energy systems through physical jolts or clean-ups. You could be going through a very demanding transitional phase. Possibly, feeling all the better for it, after ?but it could take up to age 63, alas).
Longer curative measures would then, rather, deal with the whole soul of you; and results may remain physically disappointing on any short term. Eurythmy or veil-painting therapy can sometimes help bear and alleviate symptoms, though. They support the overall etheric system, which is always a help in these situations.
Where you rather feel you need to reanchor yourself back into the thick of life, your curative-therapeutic approach would have to be more rigorous; but this is not a common solution in the latter part of our life. It all depends on your personal circumstances. Perhaps, you now have come at the right crossroads, or the train you need to hop onto has stopped at your station. Well, then you have to jump on board, and give yourself one final shake. Then you should try fortifying exercise schedules, woodchopping, digging, and look more towards the plastic art of sculpture: this personal shaping out of given mass reflects the absorption of digested matter by the bloodstream to form building blocks for your being.
Woodwork and weaving combine well with biography work if you feel there is some sort of trauma or karmic block you need to face, yet. A simple bit of knitting or crocheting every evening after dinner could be helpful, too. It introduces anbolic activity subconsciously through the limbs into the metabolic system.
There is a soul-exercise which works specifically on disciplining the ether, which is bubbling up too high in the system, right now and it may help the weaker astral-Ego approach it more bravely. It is an exercise which forces you to change a habit. Conforming to cosmic patterns, it is an exercise best started on SUNday (a really etheric day). Try to do things differently on that day. For example, change your handwriting (do a new 揼? write in capitals, try making your letters smaller/bigger, add a swirl, change the slant, etc). Remember to do this throughout the day, plus setting yourself three slots of practice (copy a poem, a verse). If you get out of bed with one foot, try the other. If you eat soup with one hand, try the other. Put your clothes on in a different order, open the curtains in a different routine. This makes you more conscious of your actions. You Eurythmatise your day as it were. It makes your etheric more elastic and flexible. If your etheric shoots up like a fountain, splashing about in your upper-pole, you need to make it more a bubbling fount a wading bird can also stand in.
Modern physiotherapists might say: tighten up your core. This is a more physical way of looking at the situation. The miniscule muscles become ever more slack with age (we sag, and compress the spine). Here the astral tension then becomes reduced at a core level, we lose the 揾air roots? of our astral body, which then struggles to enter fully at each awakening. Once the 搕ap root?becomes too shrivelled we start to lose health seriously. It can be helpful to make sure your back is in good shape (sort out any niggling issues with a phsyiotherapist), and to try some very modest pilates-type fitness training, especially concentrating on balancing exercises (they require core muscles). This is contrary to an Anthroposophic approach, but therefore possibly a good little nudge to 揼et a new grip?
Finally, an off-the cuff tip: have you tried a more Japanese cuisine? Omitting the soy (unless fermented in sauce), would seaweed and rice (noodles) also not fare well at all with you? The umeboshi, mirin and sesame, wasabe and buckwheat noodles (not a grain, but a seed...) tend to have a rather mild, adstringently, astralising effect on the system. From within traditional Anthroposophy, for particularly phlegmatic days, a lemon bath and lemon drinks would be recommended to the same effect.
All in all, there is very little I can offer by way of revealing insights into the cause, or let alone, cure of your situation. I think you have come to a level of Anthroposophy where there is far too little clarity. Work must be stepped up here! The digestive system of modern man is undergoing many changes on a subtle level, as is the whole natural world (food production, climate change etc). I shall bear your situation in mind, since I happen to be restudying in greater depth than ever before the lectures on nutrition (in a new translation) given by Steiner. If anything crops up that seems relevant to your Question, I will let it come your way if you so wish.
For now I exend my warmest wishes to you,
Love,
Evelyn.
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