Once upon a time, there was a king whose realm bordered on that of an evil sorcerer.
The king was very afraid of the magician and avoided talking about him.
It so happened, that when the princess was 16 years old, she knew nothing about the great sorcerer.
One day, while roaming the countryside, she came to a black, open gate. She entered. “All of a sudden everything is so different here,” she thought.
The meadows were made of sweet porridge, flowers were made of bright pastries with the finest colored sugar decorations, the wind played a harmonious melody and a gentle breeze guided her. She came to a tree that caught her interest. It reached high into the sky and its fruits were small brown balls with fine white lines. She couldn’t resist and put a fruit in her mouth. The little ball melted on her tongue and developed a sweet, mild taste. She had never eaten anything like this before.
Suddenly a gaunt, tall figure stepped out of the shadow of the tree.
„Look, who’s here.The princess. You know what’s going to happen now?!” the man said with a raspy voice.
“No, I don’t know. Who are you?” replied the princess.
“Your father really didn’t teach you anything about me.”, said the old man, „I’m the great wizard. I own this realm and everyone who comes and tastes my delicacies forms a connection with me.”
The princess was startled. What connection should that be?
The wizard explained, “From now on, you will be served three crystal glasses each evening. You must drink them all together. If you don’t, you’ll die.”
“Will it taste awful?” the princess asked.
“No, dear princess, you’ll like them.“
That won’t be so bad, thought the princess. She felt very uncomfortable and made her way back to the castle as quickly as possible.
In the evening, the three crystal glasses actually appeared. Two of the glasses were filled with a red liquid in which the fire was dancing. In the third crystal glass was a green liquid in which pearls danced through a tangle of roots, leaves and dirt. The princess drank all three glasses and she truly enjoyed them. The crystal glasses disappeared as unobtrusively as they had appeared.
The days and weeks passed like this and the princess quickly got used to her bedtime drinks.
But the princess changed. The more time passed the more uncomfortable she felt in her body. Suddenly her body was like a dress that she didn’t like but couldn’t take off. She lost her desire to dance because she got out of breath too easily and her feet hurt too quickly.
When she could no longer stand her frustration, she decided to tell her father about her suffering.
“Father, something is happening to me. Do you see how I’m changing?” the princess lamented.
“Yes my child, I see it. Were you with the sorcerer?” the king wanted to know.
“Yes,” replied the princess, “and I’m drinking the three crystal glasses, ever since.” She added, full of shame.
„Oh, my poor child!“ the king wailed, „you see now, the magician is evil. I wanted to protect you from him, but he’s insidious and knows the desires of each of us.”
“Is it the liquids that change me?” asked the princess.
“Yes, yes, it’s that connection to the wizard. But don’t be afraid. As long as you feel good in your body, the magician can’t harm you. Your body has changed, but you haven’t lost any of your beauty. We’ll get you some nice new dresses and you’ll be fine.”
The king also hired more maids to look after the princess day and night. The princess received dresses made of the purest silk with the finest decorations, diadems, necklaces and rings set with innumerable diamonds and precious stones. But she still loathed the dress she couldn’t take off.
One day, as she sat crying in front of her dressing table, one of her new maids came up to her: “In the forest lives a wise woman. She can help you.”
“Really?” the princess asked incredulously.
“Yes,” replied the maid, “I can take you to her.”
The chambermaid accompanied the princess to the wise woman. After the princess confided in her, the wise woman spoke: “Dear princess, I’m very sorry that you fell into the clutches of the sorcerer. I can help you, but I want to be honest with you. It’s a big challenge and demands a lot from you. There have been many with me, many have been able to successfully cut the connection, but many have not. I want you to know that it’s going to be very difficult. But once you’re disconnected, you’re freed from the sorcerer.“
“Thank you for your sincerity, dear wise woman,” the princess replied. “I’m ready to take on the challenge. I can’t live with this frustration anymore,” she added.
“You can only free yourself from the magician if you fill your own crystal glasses.”, the wise woman began. “The red juice is called the “juice of the sun”. It gives you the energy to live. The green juice is the “juice of the earth”, it gives you the building blocks and tools for your body. You should only drink one crystal glass of the two. But the magician gives you two crystal glasses of “Juice of the Sun”. I suppose the life energy that your body generates from the second glass of “Juice of the Sun” passes to the magician and he can then live. If you make your own juices, you have enough power for yourself, but no more life force passes to the sorcerer. So the connection between the two of you gets weaker and weaker until it eventually disappears.”
“But then, why can’t I just drink one glass of the magician’s ‘juice of the sun’?” asked the princess.
“We tried that at the beginning,” explained the wise woman. “It caused people to have an incredible craving for the third crystal glass. They couldn’t think of anything else. Crystal glasses made together must be drunk together.”
The wise woman showed the princess how to cook the two juices from fruits, blossoms, roots and bones. If the production was successful, the crystal glasses appeared by themselves.
However, the glasses appeared very rarely at the beginning. The princess made so many mistakes that she often failed to make the juices properly. When the glasses then appeared regularly, the taste of them was terrible.
“I wish I didn’t have to cook my juices today!” the princess complained on some days. Then she drank the wizard’s juices and simply gave in to the frustration. But she kept remembering the words of the wise woman that many people have never managed to break away from the magician but some just did. Then she drew new courage from her ambition to do it herself and cooked her own juices again the next day.
It took a long time for the princess to like her own juices as much as she liked the magician’s. Then, after a certain time, the princess changed again. She liked the dress she couldn’t take off more and more every day. Soon she was liking herself the way she had before she fell into the wizard’s trap. And then the sorcerer’s crystal glasses didn’t appear at all. The princess had severed the connection between herself and the wizard. She lived a long and happy life.
the EndThe crystal glasses are the vessels for the juices of life. The juices of life have been served in them since the beginning of time. Once the juices are successfully cooked, the glasses will appear and hold the juices. The „juice of the sun“ is red and the „juice of the earth“ is green.
The flames dance in the „juice of the sun“. It is the energy of life. The juice represents the calories in the food. Energy in food comes from carbohydrates. They are made by plants during photosynthesis. Plants convert the sun’s energy into chemical compounds on earth. That’s why the juice is called the „juice of the sun“.
Pearls dance in the „juice of the earth“ in a tangle of roots, leaves and dirt. Figuratively, it is the humus in which insects, bacteria and fungi live in symbiosis. The pearls are the creatures that scurry around in the dirt. But since insects and bacteria have something unaesthetic about them, I chose pearls as embodiment. Pearls are precious just like the creatures in humus are precious because they enable us to live. This juice is the nutrients in the food. Nutrients are elements that exist on earth. That’s why it’s called the „juice of the earth“. In addition, nutrients such as essential fatty acids are compounds that the human body cannot produce. They serve as building blocks for the body. That is why one sees roots and leaves in the sap, which are said to represent the building blocks of life.
The juices of life are made from food. The wise woman can make the juices from fruits, flowers, roots and bones. Fruits are all the fruits of plants that we can eat, including fruits from vegetables and grains, flowers are e.g. cabbages, herbs. Roots are e.g. carrots and bones represent all animal foods.
The Princess is a young, kind, innocent, inquisitive woman. She enters and explores the land of the wizard without hesitation. She lets herself be guided by the breeze, which is supposed to carry her deeper and deeper into the land. Since she is a princess, she’s not impressed by the sweet porridge and pastries. Her attention will be drawn to the tree with the chocolate balls.
She knows that she has fallen into a trap set by the magician, because when she tells the king about it, she is ashamed.
She has an intimate, trusting relationship with the king, because he’s the first to confide in him.
She tries really hard to create her own crystal glasses and fails often in the beginning. It takes a lot of time until she like the taste of her glasses as much as the wizards. What she is literally doing is changing her diet. To learn how to do that takes a teacher in this story the wise woman and time and commitment to make it happen.
The king is very afraid of the magician because he doesn’t understand him. He knows of the bonds people had to form with the sorcerer as soon as they ate his delicacies. The king also knows that people will die, if they don’t drink the liquids. But everyone who was connected to the wizard changed. They all felt uncomfortable in their bodies. Some of them died at a very young age, others just didn’t live quite as long. This frightened the king, because people weren’t supposed to die as long as they drank the liquids. Paralyzed by fear, he made no effort to learn more about the wizard. The king could not help his people when they came to him and bewailed their sorrows. He tried to offer comfort by saying that people had lost none of their beauty and goodness. They should embrace the change. The king believed that, if people could only feel happy in their bodies, then they would no longer suffer. Now he’s very afraid for his daughter because it’s possible that she too will die at a young age. He’s helpless because he doesn’t know how to continue now. But he doesn’t ask any questions and just keeps looking away. Just so the problem is not this big for him. He’s been doing it this way for years and the situation of his daughter hasn’t changed it either.
The King embodies those who claim that being overweight is not dangerous, but who in fact know that it is.
The sorcerer was once a greedy merchant. He could never get enough and was always jealous of the kings and nobles because they had more than he did. He wanted to have the fine things he traded for himself.
The devil takes great delight in such fools and jested with the merchant. The devil promised the merchant all the riches in the world and in return he had to draw his life force from other people. The merchant was so intoxicated by the offer that he hardly heard the counter-condition but immediately agreed.
The devil said, “You will prepare three crystal glasses for the people. Two red and one green. One red and one green are for the people themselves to live on. However, the third red one is for you from now on. When people drink this, the life force that is generated from it will transfer to you. You’ll get some magic power from me, too.” The devil knew that if this was going to last, the merchant would need more than his human abilities. The merchant sold his body and soul with it. From then on he was no longer a whole person.
Since this trade, however, the merchant has not been able to enjoy his riches. All of his attention and time is devoted to finding out what people want to eat. Because in order to make the connection, people must first eat off the delicacies in his land.
The magician himself does not prepare the juices himself. It all happens through the magic power given to him by the devil. So for the sorcerer, making the juices is not a challenge. In real life, this is reflected in the fact that getting food is not a challenge for overweight people. Because of the food industry, personified by the devil, food is just always available and affordable. The magician embodies the overweight.
The devil also knew that people would suffer from this connection. And so it was a particularly fine joke for him, because he not only brought the merchant to ruin. The devil knows the secret of the crystal glasses and can manipulate the juices in such a way that people have to drink two red ones and one green one.
The wise woman belongs to an order of wise women who know the secret of crystal glasses. She learned that one glass of each is enough for one person to live for one day. She also learned how to make the juices herself. Ever since she was a little girl, she has been fascinated by the stories of the people who connected with the wizard. She knew the glasses but wondered why people had to drink three instead of the usual two.
To find out more, she looked at many people’s juices and found that the juices looked exactly like the ones she made herself.
When she asked people to drink just a glass of red juice, she learned that people are unable to do that. People develop an incredibly strong craving for the third glass and they feel even worse because of it. All they can think about is that the glasses are finally appearing again.
The conclusions of the wise woman are as follows:
“If I use my ingredients and recipes, I get a glass of the „juice of the sun“ and a glass of the „juice of the earth.“ So what ingredients and recipes does the sorcerer use to come up with two glasses of the „juice of the sun“ and one glass of the „juice of the earth“?” When she then tries to replicate the sorcerer’s juices, she makes the following observation: For two glasses of the „juice of the sun“ and one glass of the „juice of the earth“, she must use very many fruits and bones and very few roots and blossoms. In a figurative sense, it shows that the diet of overweight people consists of a lot of grain (fruit) and a lot of animal protein (bones).
In the next step, she prepares her juices for the people who come to her for help. For a very long time, the sorcerer’s juices continue to appear, but people don’t have to drink them as long as they drink their own juices. At some point, however, the magician’s crystal glasses no longer appear. This breaks the connection to the magician. In this way, the wise woman found the way to sever the connection with the magician. After a successful change in diet, people are be able to live freely again. The magician does not notice the disconnection. That is beyond his power and beyond the power of the devil.
However, many people do not make the separation. They don’t manage to prepare the juices themselves every day. So they have to drink the sorcerer’s juices if they want to survive.
The glasses of the sorcerer and of the wise woman represent two different diets. The glasses of the sorcerer with their one too much red glass are an unbalanced diet and the ones of the wise woman stand for a balanced diet. The unbalanced diet causes overweight. It’s never explicitly said that the glasses of the wizard cause overweight but the princess changes in a way she doesn’t like and her body feels like a dress she cannot take of. The princess wants to change back and after hearing the wise woman explain to her the glasses she concludes that she should only drink one red glass. That is comparable when people try to count calories and want to reduce the calories they‘re eating. It‘s simply not possible to just reduce the calories but keep eating the food that caused the overweight. It results in cravings for sweets and food in general. In order to change her body back meaning to lose weight the princess must drink completely different glasses just like one has to eat a completely different diet if one wants to lose weight.
The glasses of the sorcerer and the wise woman are made of the exact same ingredients just in different recipes. This illustrates that not one food caused the transition of the princess and others but how the ingredients were put together. Literally speaking, not the pizza caused the overweight but the fact that one didn’t have vegetables and enough protein with it.
It’s also notable that the princess has to make her glasses every day. Just like everyday one has to cook a balanced diet. One can’t just try it once in while and hope for changes.
The wise woman is a very sensitive person and helps people sever ties with the sorcerer. She embodies all nutritionists and scientists.
The chambermaid comes to the court and knows the wise woman because her mother, with the help of the wise woman, renounced the magician. The maid has not only heard of the wise woman, she must have visited her herself so that she can show the princess the way. She embodies that you have to get to know new people in order to move forward.