We're well into day 8 of our 12 day fast and so far things are good. We take advantage of the enormous amount of free time to read, paint, chat, watch movies, listen to the radio or just meditate. It's lovely but at times difficult to fill all the hours. But we do our best and feel fortunate to have, each of us, our best friend to share this experience with.
Food is a type of distant consideration. To think of all the recipes and meals we love and await in our near future is at times consoling at other times torture. More than anything, we're reminded of the highly ritualistic nature of food in our lives. The simple pleasure of planning a new recipe, of going to the market, seeing again all those people who occupy the periphery of our lives. The cashier, the corner store attendant, the farmer at his open-air stall carefully selecting our spinach with his half-frozen fingers. All of the simple but essential elements that make up a life. Then returning home to pass the evening in pursuit of that magic alchemy that any true chef knows.
It's these things, as much as the final act, that rich pleasure of the palette, which we miss most during this period of self-imposed abstinence. It is a most spiritual experience, in so many ways. Living prior in a Muslim country I was always fascinated by the period of Ramadan, that month-long period of fasting during the day, and the implications it had for a society at large. I couldn't help but think how our own Western societies, which seem to totter ever on the edge of excess and gluttony, would react to such a practice of sustained fasting.
Would we finally realize how to live in more dynamic harmony with our planet and its resources? Would the experience of hunger and discipline help us to avoid the modern day tragedies of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers? Would we at last find the compassion to make poverty and famine the focus of our multi-trillion dollar combats instead of the so-called war on terrorism?
No one can say for sure but I can't help but wonder if some of our current social ills, obesity, massive debt, climate destruction, wouldn't be less rampant had we some periodic, daily practice of discipline in our lives. One thing I have learned from this little experience of fasting is that abundance has little to do with the material items we have in our lives. Be it food, money or our own physical bodies, the way in which I experience each morsel, each dollar and each moment is far more important than their sum worth.
If this sounds esoteric, just go a couple days without eating or spending any money and I assure you it will become a lot more concrete. And trust me, there's nothing self-righteous about a claim like this. This experience has been rewarding in ways we could've never imagined but we would have never done it had it been simply about self-denial and iron-will. We're no martyrs by any means. Just two people moving ever more deeply into all the beauty and pleasure this human experience affords.
So until next time, be well little cell.
