I’m in the middle of a 30-day juice fast — my second extended fast in two years. Despite the deep healing I’ve been able to do while fasting, I still haven’t found a way to make it click for others. The society we live in has created this fear narrative that we must eat huge meals three times a day in order to be ‘healthy.’ So many people are afraid of taking a solid food vacation, despite its many physical, mental, emotional and spiritual benefits, because of this deliberate misinformation.

As we enter the Age of Aquarius, divine knowledge is going to come more and more from people who are really about that life — people who have lived and studied and experienced the benefits of healing ideas that go against the grain of modern society.

Khepra Anu is one of those people. He went plant-based in the 1990s and committed to raw veganism (meaning he only eats uncooked fruits and vegetables and sprouted grains) shortly after. He then got into fasting with intention a few years later. Imagine the charge his friends and family gave him then, at a time when you were considered crazy for NOT wanting to eat disease-causing soul food. (I still deal with that now in 2020!) But when you know, you know, and Khepra knew how plant-based eating could change the world. He now operates Khepra’s Raw Food Juice Bar, one of my favorite plant-based restaurants, based in Washington, D.C. Khepra has been in the vegan game for 30 years, using his intuition and his connection to the Creator as a guide in service to others.

My favorite part of this interview was in talking about the sensitivity we develop to divine information and to our own intuition when we fast. “Sensitivity is the measure of good health,” Khepra told me. That part of the conversation did not come up in the first phone conversation we had, but because the recording got deleted — this was during Mercury Retrograde last month!! — I had to follow up with him for a second chat, below. And that’s how divine intervention works, folks. Y’all better get into it!

AMIRAH MERCER: You’re also an astrologer, in addition to a chef, so tell me, how do astrology and fasting work together?

KHEPRA ANU: It’s something that can be used as a practice and as a remedy, if someone’s having trouble or someone wants to strengthen a particular energy that may be lacking in their life. We can look at the seasons or the moon cycle — which becomes more pertinent for women. Women have a natural moon cycle that they’re connected to, so fasting while that’s occurring can also be very powerful.

AMIRAH: Can someone look at their birth chart, or their moon sign, and determine when would be a good time to fast?

KHEPRA: There are many factors — you have to look at the whole chart. Yes, the moon sign is probably the most important sign in someone’s chart, but we’re also looking at where it’s placed. Typically if we’re looking at someone’s houses, we’re looking at the first house, which is the physical body, but then we’re also looking at the sixth house, which represents the digestive system, so that’s also going to be a key house to look at when trying to make an analysis of someone’s health. But you really have to look at the whole chart because all of the planets are talking to each other and influencing each other. And then, of course, you want to look at the present cycles that they’re in. I would consult somebody who had experience looking at charts, and I recommend sidereal astrology versus the Western tropical astrology that’s big on the seasons.

AMIRAH: You talk about ‘rhythmic fasting’ a lot. Can you explain what that is?

KHEPRA: A cycle we’re already connected to is a typical work schedule. Most people work five, six days a week — that’s an indication that we should only eat five, six days a week. That day off could be judged by looking at someone’s astrological chart, but it could also be a day that’s actually convenient in terms of their work schedule. Both are equally important to look at. Most people work 8 hours within a 24-hour day, so we shouldn’t eat outside of that 8-hour period. Within that 8-hour period we should be ingesting everything we need.

Within a month, some people may not take any additional time off — but again that’s a signal. Generally speaking, we may take a vacation maybe once or twice a year, for a week or two weeks, but these are the types of vacations we need to take from food as well. For somebody who works all the time, we know how rewarding it is and spiritually uplifting and rejuvenating it is to take that time off from work. We feel refreshed, renewed. Think about how your digestive system would feel if you gave it a nice week or two off.

So when we look at the work schedule, it really gives us a good off-and-on in terms of saying, ‘Okay, I can model my fast schedule for the year off of my work schedule. I’m fasting one to two days a week, every week.’ For women, I recommend they tune into their moon cycle, and for men, I would say tune into the sun cycle — that’s the seasonal cycle where the sun makes those quarterly shifts. From my experience working with thousands of women, it’s just a natural occurrence for them to not eat when they’re menstruating, or to eat less or to be juicing, because [menstruation] is looked at as somewhat of a detoxification. By allowing the body to go through that process and not having to digest food is basically being in rhythm with your natural moon cycle. And then once a year, to take at least a week or two vacation from food entirely. That’s the way to really create a nice rhythm.

Doing it this way, we realize food definitely isn’t something you should be eating every day, no matter what you eat. Really aligning the body, whether it’s spiritually, with our planets and stars, or with the seasons, or with your own personal rhythm, all of these are good to look at, and it wouldn’t be right or wrong to do one or all of them.

AMIRAH: How did you come into this information about fasting and plant-based eating?

KHEPRA: Just from living it, and from that Higher Source. This has been a 30-year journey [for me]. Anything that anybody does for 30 years consistently is going to have some special insight, whether it be from books or other people — mentors, teachers — or experience. It’s not unlike any other scientific process. Science is really the art of observation. The work that I’ve put in, really allowing myself to be in tune, to be receptive to information and knowledge and trusting it, regardless of where it comes from — because a lot of it comes from my own insight and my own intuition. We’ve been taught to not trust that in our society. Everything has to be validated by institutions and scientific arenas, which is cool, but that’s not the only way that we have access to divine information, especially. With the right diet and right practice, we can access these things and be in tune — you’re bound to gain insight and information that most people may not because they haven’t done the work.

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AMIRAH: I recently did a workshop on the basics of how to use crystals — Crystals 101 — and I try and tell people that with any tool that’s presented, it always works better when your vessel is pure, so you’re able to receive whatever insight or healing you need. It always works better, I think, on a plant-based diet. You have people who are working with crystals or tarot and it’s like, that’s great, but you have to have a foundation with your vessel.

KHEPRA: Absolutely. I talk about this in my book — the whole art of fasting is to create that sensitivity.

Sensitivity is the measure of good health. For someone who’s really healthy and really sensitive, if you walk into a smoke-filled room, you should not be able to breathe, you should be coughing uncontrollably, because you’re so sensitive to the smoke; whereas the people who can walk in and feel unfazed, those people are not healthy. Their senses have been compromised because they’ve been desensitized, and it works the same way with food. For people who say, ‘I never get sick,’ I have to raise an eyebrow, and especially if I know the way that they eat, and they eat a less than ideal diet, that’s not a measure of good health. Someone who can eat that same thing and maybe potentially die, that’s a person that is more healthy because they’re so sensitive. So I talk about raising our sensitivity. When we raise our sensitivity, we’re raising our health, and that’s an important concept because we tend to think in the opposite way.

AMIRAH: Yeah, people who are like, ‘I have a strong immune system,’ and it’s like no, you’re just clogged up.

KHEPRA: Yes, exactly, so we want to really be sensitive, and when we are sensitive, your intuition becomes sensitive, your digestion, everything becomes awake. We can put ourselves in situations, whether it’s the diet or using crystals or just through our prayer and meditation — you know, when we’re able to still ourselves and do our deep breathing — and we really allow ourselves to be receptive and be open to the channels that are looking to communicate with us.

AMIRAH: You had mentioned before that you saw Dick Gregory speak and that kind of introduced you to plant-based eating and then you started your journey. Can you elaborate more on that?

KHEPRA: I believe it was 1991 at a lecture for Black History Month at the school I was attending at the time. That was one of the signature moments, especially with the raw [cuisine], because I was pretty much on the plant-based path even as a young adult, but when he opened the Bible to Genesis 1:29 and mentioned man eating fruit and herbs as his meat, that changed everything for me right then and there. It’s funny because having been brought up in church as Christian and my family being very religious, very much into the Bible, they never once even considered that verse or that idea. So it was really a signature moment — so much so that actually next week I ate nothing but fruit.

AMIRAH: And then later you got to build with the OG Aris Latham. Can you talk to me about how significant it was to work and learn from him?

Chef Aris Latham (middle) and Khepra (right)

KHEPRA: I was a few years into the raw food, and I kept hearing this brother’s name and everyone was like, ‘You gotta connect with Aris.’ Eventually it came to pass where we would get an opportunity to work together. Up until that point, all of my guidance and mentorship had come from books — which is not a bad thing, but it’s a difference when it’s an actual person who has been where you’ve been and can really point you and guide you with 20-plus years in the game. It’s only right to listen. We’ve had so many talks — well, I say talks but basically just me listening, me soaking in his stories of what was happening in the 70s or 80s. You know, everything repeats itself. So by me just being a witness to the present and his past, it was beneficial all the way around.

It validated me in terms of the work that I’m doing because he is the signature person that is the creator of raw food modern cuisine, and then on top of that, he is a food scientist, understanding the nutrition scientifically of different food groups, how they should be combined, just energetically what they represent. When you have that knowledge, it gives you an edge on any traditional chef, no matter what kind of food they’re making. It’s an interesting duality that he has, because even now, you have nutritionists on the left side and chefs on the right side, but very rare do you have a chef who’s also a nutritionist. Aris is like that for the raw food game. He’s a master nutritionist and one of the grand master raw food chefs.

AMIRAH: That’s beautiful. I remember you said that you didn’t intend to become a chef or create a restaurant, but it sounds like as you attained knowledge you felt a duty to share that.

KHEPRA: Well, yeah, since we opened it with astrology, when I look at my astrological chart, there’s a term in astrology that we call ‘dharma.’ Dharma is like ‘karma,’ but dharma is your karmic work that you’re here to do. So when I look at my chart, I see my dharma is connected with service, health and food. Now put those three together and what do you get?

AMIRAH: You get Khepra’s Raw Food Juice Bar.

KHEPRA: [Laughs] Right.

AMIRAH: Do you think it’s important for Black people to be plant-based?

KHEPRA: It’s important for anyone, outside of race, to be plant-based, and really that’s a challenging question, because a lot of traditions have thrived on a non-plant-based diet. With that being said, a plant-based diet offers some benefits regardless of your race. If we look at the Black race specifically, I would have to say yes, partly because being Black is also being melanated — meaning that we should be more in the sun than not in the sun. If you look at the areas of the world where the sun is dominate — start from the equator and move toward the poles — then looking at the types of food that are grown in these regions, we can see that being plant-based is more than likely the ideal diet in these areas of the world. So we can take a holistic view of it, not just saying, ‘Okay, you’re a Black person, you should be plant-based,’ but the area of the world you live in or the area of the world you should live in that’s native to your ancestors, and then the types of food that grow in that particular area of the world…

And then looking at it from slavery and the creation of soul food, as a people we were able to take what we were given and create tradition and culture from nothing. In 2020, we have the consciousness of plant-based food where we can take that creativity and really create a true soul food. The word ‘soul’ is very close to ‘sol,’ another word for the sun, and our fruits and vegetables are really the true soul food, or sun food. So yes, Black people should definitely consider either 100% plant-based or a largely plant-based diet, a raw plant-based diet. We have a different sensitivity where we’re not able to tolerate dairy and other foods that races of other people have a tolerance for..

AMIRAH: My last question, which I like to ask everyone I interview, is when was the last time you defined freedom for yourself?

KHEPRA: On some level I feel like I’ve always been free. But if I had to expound on any signature moment of freedom, I would have to say it was when I started living this way, in 1999, 2000, because there was a definite shift 20 years ago. I had already been doing my vegan thing off and on, but when I went raw, it was a definite shift. I was doing a lot of fasting, I was doing a lot of meditation, I was doing a lot of studying — and what I was really doing was setting the stage for the next 20 years of my life, up til present day. Being able to go within myself. I was essentially alone for at least a year, where I had very little interaction with anyone, but it was something I felt like I needed to do, and there was a definite freedom with that. I didn’t have any of the responsibilities I have now with family and business and employees and customers and bills. That was huge for me.

An Interview with Khepra Anu on Rhythmic Fasting, Astrology and Black Vegans