Having now done the recommended 12 days on nothing but water, maple syrup, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and laxative teas i should technically be ready to start easing back to solid food again with fruit juices for the next few days but i am in fact feeling good and keen to continue further with the cleanse. The main reason for this is my poop which for some reason seems more abundant now than it was at the start of the cleanse and as the departure of this mucus-like stuff (can barely call it poop) is the main goal here i feel as if i should keep going. Back in the day a close examination of our poop was standard practice for medical practitioners because it gives a great many clues about what's going on in the body so with this in mind i have been digging around in mine and over the last few days have found two things which resembled sizeable worms around 15cm long. Plus, this morning i found what appeared to be a large lump of fat from something like a beef steak, likely eaten years ago. So while things like this are still making their way out of my intestines it seems to me that i should continue.I still have plenty of energy and as i mentioned, am still feeling good, so despite Sabrina's parents freaking out because i am "way too skinny now" i look forward to a few final days on my 'lemonade' before my mother and her partner arrive on Thursday, at which point i will be expected to eat at restaurants with them. I considered responding to Sabrina's parents with the fact that in a few weeks i will be back to a healthy weight again while they will still be unhealthily fat but i let it go, knowing such a truthful response would only aggravate them. I also wanted to mention that i no longer have a desire for cannabis and have not smoked for the last three days. Doesn't sound like long i know but trust me, this is the longest break i've had from it for around five years. And it wasn't even difficult! The desire for it has just gone, as described by Burroughs in his great book [The Master Cleanser](

Sabrina & i are currently on day six of The Master Cleanse, drinking a mixture of pure water, maple syrup, lemons & cayenne pepper. No food permitted, just this drink. Around 8 glasses a day for a total of 12 days. Didn't think i would have much energy but in fact i do, so i will endeavour now to tell you the key points behind this cleanse, created by Stanley Burroughs in the 1940s.Why bother with a cleanse?I live a relatively healthy lifestyle now that so much of my diet comes from the fruits of my labour in our South of France garden but i also drink beer most nights and i smoke weed with tobacco throughout the day. Plus i love coffee! And i love a good party ;) Worth noting too that i live in a very windy agricultural region which uses chemical sprays on their fruit trees and that shit gets on everything, including my own plants, so no matter how hard i might try to avoid toxins they are building up inside my intestines over time. Even just breathing the air these days is likely doing the same thing. Sounds ridiculous i know but they were spraying us intensely last week. I shot this image from our home at a time when the flight scanner showed only three planes in our region. Coz yeah, the geo-engineering flights you can see here are not official, but they are very real.In addition i still have amalgam fillings and metal teeth in my mouth which need removing so these will also be building up toxins within me.On top of that i've been drinking more and more coffee recently to the point where i was making four or five strong cups a day and as a certified addict (4 months in rehab) i know that all these bad habits need to be kept in check by sustaining a period of abstinence after which the desire to have these things on such a regular basis fades away.For the last five years i have been fasting more and more as a way to reset this balance, two or three times a year, up to ten days at a time. Sometimes with water, sometimes without. And while the effects are always very levelling, it's a real

Our recently discovered bamboo forest at the bottom of the 'Spiral Garden' has yielded many joys over the last month, inspiring me amongst other things to build a platform overlooking it. From here one can relax in a suspended seat and enjoy the view or simply close their eyes and appreciate the sound of the river below, accompanied at all times by a chorus of birds unlike any other i have found here in the South of France. It was suggested to me by @kaminchan in my last post that we could eat the bamboo so Esteban & i went to the forest and had a look for the desirable young shoots. Almost immediately we started to discover them. Deeper and deeper we went into the forest, searching for our lunch. They were surprisingly hard to see against the dark earth. Amazing patterns on some of them. At the end we took around 12 shoots, leaving many more in the forest for next time. We watched some youtube videos for guidance on how to cut them. ![IMG_2885.jpeg](

I tried in my last post to describe the incredible beauty of the bamboo forest we recently found at the bottom of our garden and why this place feels so special but only today did i manage to actually finish the platform and snap a few images worthy of your time.Here is a shot of the recently created stone circle seating area at the edge of the forest, the platform just about visible in the background. The finished platform seen in all its multicoloured glory here. Complete with acorn art my family & i created last night. Should be dry in a few days. This afternoon we had our 'tea time' here and it all felt so very perfect. We are getting into mosquito season now so the net will be useful, hanging over the suspended seat which will go here.The seat should arrive in a few days and i am very excited to sit here in the evenings and meditate under this net with the setting sun on my face. The children were keen to go down into the forest with me, so off we went. Evenings are always best for bamboo forest walks due to this inc

When i took on the latest piece of land one year ago, basically as a favour to a friend who doesn't have time to look after it herself, i had no idea it would lead me to a small area at the back which overlooks a lush valley filled with bamboo and a huge variety of birds, at the bottom of which there is a rushing river and a realisation that no one ever comes here, except myself and the pigs. It calls me day and night in a way that cannot be explained with words and i feel compelled not only to look after it (despite having no idea to whom it belongs) but also to create a meditation space at the edge of this special valley from which i can birth the next generation of thoughts to elevate my family & i.In the afternoons when the sun moves to the other side of the valley there is a light here which is incomparable to any other type of lighting i have had the pleasure of sitting under and i wonder now if this is might be one of the reasons why bamboo is associated spirituality? Back when i was just a teenager i learned about 'The Dream Machine' of William Burrows, a rotating card cylinder with cut out shapes around a light bulb which emulates a hypnotic state Burrows experienced while in a moving car with closed eyes and the light of the setting sun on his face was obstructed by equidistant trees along the edge of the road. Here you can see Brian Bysin & William Burrows using the machine in 1972. I reproduced the machine when i was at University in 1998, interested to experience the results from a Technics turntable in my bedroom and indeed there was some kind of strange sub-reality hypnotic state to be achieved after spending a relative amou

I wasn't going to write a post about this but a great story has grown from the appearance of rabbits in our new enclosure and i feel now as if i must tell it because this story demonstrates the importance of maintaining a balance when exchanging with someone in a non financial manner.Firstly, here are some pics of our two new fluffy friends. Current names are Tummy & Marshmallow, though i'm not sure those are going to stick! They are a bit bigger than i expected but the children don't seem to mind. I love the way rabbits will become calm when they are in our arms. Helps one instantly feel the bond between animal & human. Last week we made this rabbit house in preparation. Luna painted one side. I painted the other. Here's the inside filled with dried grass we picked from a local field. Plus a few yummy hazelnut branches and one of Luna's toy cups attached to the side with a little water. It was quickly established that these two rabbits are very fast and not at all like the kittens. They are likely just happy to