Into the gap with Essie

Alone this time, I went to visit Mrs Honiball, to show her my apron and offer her some spaghettied apple/cinnamon/coconut & raisins, from my day at the market. It was last Friday, and I found her in her new rooms on the third floor.

"You are doing the right thing, you are on the right path!" she said to me as I came through the door. There is this gap, between the braai (flame roasted flesh, caveman style) and Eden food, and she now thinks that going to Eden too quickly destabilises the project, that "recipes" and the eating of vegetables are essential to bridge that gap.

How wonderful to have recourse to this very powerful woman who looks like nothing but a little bird, shrunken and vulnerable with age. A giant in life experience, I have sat in the market solitary and alone with my fruit on the table and her book in my hands, reading and re-reading every Spirit filled word, making sure I don't waste her time by not knowing who she is or appreciating what she went through.

We had the sweetest visit, I could feel a very special vibration in the room, like when heat rises and distorts the air above a hot road. Something like that. A nurse came by and gave her a slice of milk tart, of which she ate three spoons. "I wouldn't have touched this, ten years ago", she told me. She would have been quite happy to relax into the ways of the world, knowing that she had done her work - and done it well, before passing into the Great Sleep.

But now her daily walks are jeopardised as she gets dizzy spells, and a still, quiet voice within has told her to go back to her origins. She has done this with her religion, Christianity, discarding all the studies she did over the years and returning to the presence of the Divine, Jesus Christ. Now with the dizzy spells she is feeling that she needs to return to the Eden lifestyle before she passes from this world altogether.

"I had Cosmo, then" and she told me how she needs someone to walk the path with her, passing first through "the gap" of recipes and vegetables before just taking fruit, only in season and one at a time. We agreed to walk together.

First things first, more fruit in the diet, and ceasing the heavier items. To her mind this is the fowl and fish, but in my opinion would definitely and decidedly be her innocent slice of daily bread. While flesh may putrefy within - and comes with ethical considerations, bread will ferment and is far more likely to cause her dizzy spells. She eats very little flesh foods and weekly whereas her bread intake is regular. I have also struggled with bread. All the world are alcoholics, brewing away mind altering substances within. Something needs to replace it though, and the struggle she went through decades ago has left her resistant to fruit. Salads and veg it is, then.

People all around are insisting Mrs Honiball eats more - of every and anything. I am worried as I consider Luigi Cornaro whose experience was that eating more than the amount to which the body is accustomed can make one ill, especially if in real old age.

So one step at a time, through the gap, to the other side, with Essie - a year away from her 90th birthday.

Essie's new apartment, towards the end on the top floor

Moon rising as I left, after a 3 hour visit. Had only intended popping in.