I noticed some improvement in my skin after eating figs. I looked them up at the library. Figs were
great for improving skin problems, especially eczema, and boils. Women had used them for centuries
to improve their beauty. We all wanted to be beautiful. My life had been trapped by eczema, and figs
offered a window out. I became more open to alternative methods of healing after seeing those initial
results.
I traveled to London. There was a National Eczema Society in London. I joined and was given
a packet that contained stories of others like me. I cried as I read about our similarities. I had been
treated by the American medical community as an oddity – a freak that couldn’t be cured, an ugly fruit
in the basket of beauties. In London I found that figs were only the beginning. If I learned to change
my diet, I could have the cure I’d been searching for.
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I stopped eating some of the extreme acid forming foods that were recommended in the packet
from London. No more milk products, no more meat (for the time being), eventually it would be so
long cane sugar, and hello whole grains. When I came back from London, my skin was it’s usual mess.
I was so used to covering my skin to avoid the horror I saw in people’s eyes. It made me shrink inside,
but unlike fruit, I didn’t get sweeter. Two weeks after I was back in L.A. with the new diet – my skin
was completely clear for the first time that I could remember.
When you look inside of a fig there are loads of tiny seedy strands creating a pinkish flesh. Figs
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are inverted flowers. Flowers are symbols of love, and beauty, and joy. Figs became my initiation into a
world where I could be beautiful. They truly are the food of the Gods.
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Photo by Susan Marque
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THE CONE - ISSUE #7 - FALL 2015