like a fish needs a bicycle...

happy ayyam-i-ha!

so today is the last day of ayyam-i-ha, the 4 days (or 5 days if its leap year) of celebration before we begin the season of fasting. feast tonight was fabulous. we watched the bahai newsreel, and there was a special segment on the response of the bahais to hurricane katrina. the way the entire community came together to help each other --to render each other material and spiritual support -- and also to render services to the displaced population, even in the face of their own upheaval, was so moving. they were interviewing bahais of all racial and socio-economic backgrounds. people from new orleans and the rest of the gulf coast talked about how they had lost their homes and their lives, about the injustice they experienced in the racially charged disparity of hurricane relief, and about how the spiritual vitality and unity of the bahai community had sustained them as they tried to recover from the disaster. i literally cried through the whole thing.

and now, after getting my regular dose of community worship tonight -- plus some extra upliftment from the newsreel -- i am ready to begin my fast. this is always one of my favorite times of year. people are sometimes shocked to hear that, since i don't eat or drink from sunrise to sunset for 19 days, and that usually sounds torturous to most people who have never experienced it. but i love it so much. it's a time of cleansing, prayer, spiritual sustenance, and self-improvement, and i always feel so much and unity within the community. i can't help but love it.

so i thought i'd share a part of a poem from rumi about fasting. enjoy. and happy fasting everyone!

There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.

Posted by naseem at March 1, 2006 10:26 PM