Fasting, feeling: Restraint as a practice of love and interconnection
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedSun sets Orange flesh First taste lasts
I've been playing with writing Haiku every day of Ramadan so far this year, the first in a long time that I've observed the daily fast, incorporating the spiritual practices of my upbringing into the ones of the path I've been exploring since I moved away.
Opening my fast on the fourth day, as the flesh of an orange awakened my senses after 14 hours without food or water, I watched the fading orange glow of the sun just set and expressed my thanks for the energy of one that sustained the other, which in turn revived me, thanks to the golden thread of life tended to across the chain of environmental and universal interconnectedness.
Why, why now? There are many reasons. It's about so much more than food, and it’s largely about the food as a life sustaining symbol of the sustenance we should, could but don't all share. Therein lies part of the practice, to humble oneself to the reality of suffering that disproportionately and unjustly abides in a world of ample resource blocked by too much conflict, corruption and destruction. Therein lies part of the why, of Ramadan, of the Dharma, of my earnest efforts - a visceral realisation of cause and consequence, a response to the disconnection between lack and want, a rebalancing of the unjust divide.
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