Ramadan/Equinox (Mabon)

Timing my meals to sun-up and sundown these past few weeks, I had been especially mindful that we were heading toward the Fall Equinox, as both suhoor in the morning and iftar in the evening have been creeping toward 7 o'clock.

I understand that Equinox goes by the name Mabon for many Wiccans who celebrate eight sabbats (or solar holidays) per year, but I did not manage to find a Wiccan celebration in my area. I will, however, put some energy into finding one for Samhain, the sabbat holiday that falls on Halloween/All Souls' Day, in between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice.

Even without a Wiccan or other religious connection, I have been interested for some time in celebrating the turning of the seasons. My interest began with the Winter Solstice, which I have celebrated for the past six years by hosting a brunch at my house.

At first, it just seemed a pleasant way to strip away the in-your-face cultural trappings of Christmas (and respect the religious traditions of my non-Christian friends) while opening my home for a gathering around the "holidays." I have tended to prepare a large bowl of eggnog, and occasionally to hang mistletoe, but otherwise to avoid seasonal references at the Solstice brunch. It's nice simply to celebrate the lengthening of the light in a secular way before boarding a plane to go back home and celebrate Christmas with my family.

Once I had started with the Solstice brunch, I had always thought I should stretch the tradition throughout the year, and this past spring I discovered a very good reason to do so. At the Spring Equinox, it turned out we were facing a truly amazing religious pile-up, so I convinced one of my housemates that a pan-religious springfest would be in order.

Six months ago, Friday, March 21, 2008 represented the convergence of six different religious occurrences. It was: a full moon, the Equinox (Ostara for Wiccans), the Jewish holiday of Purim, the Hindu festival of Holi, the Zoroastrian New Year (Norouz), and Good Friday. I was observing Lent at the time by not drinking, so I decided to break my Lent with the Equinox party – specifically with the Purim part of that party, since Purim actually requires celebrants to drink.

I was out of town during the Summer Solstice this year, but my housemates were on board when I suggested an Equinox/Ramadan occasion in our house this fall to continue marking the seasons with a display of hospitality and conviviality.

Guests were invited to arrive at sundown for iftar, and invited to stay as late as they liked to celebrate Equinox.

We prepared and served a mix of mostly traditional Middle Eastern food (tabouli, dolmas, falafel, baba ganouj, and so on), and I purchased some organic dates from the market, because I had read that dates are a traditional break-the-fast food for Ramadan.

Because I find the Equinox parties to be a good excuse for some sort of festive dress or change in appearance, I found myself thinking of what to wear as the sun was going down. At the Spring party, I had strung together a couple dozen tiny roses on a thread and tied it around my neck as a festive spring garland. For the Fall party, I selected an orange shirt from my closet to represent the changing colors of the leaves, and I wore it with jeans. I was lacing my sneakers when I was inspired by a memory of the cherry red toenail polish I saw one of my housemates wearing a day or two earlier.

I wandered down the hall to check what other colors my housemate might have, hoping I could match my toes to my bright orange shirt. She handed over a couple of colors that she thought might blend well together to become orange, and in fact they did. I ditched the sneakers for flip flops, and my toes were a shiny orange by the time our first guests arrived.

We had a gathering of eight for iftar, with most guests arriving much later; none of the other early guests had fasted. An Iranian friend (who is not Muslim, and who is more interested in pagan spirituality) arrived late for the iftar, having chosen to fast for one day in honor of the party. Mohammed arrived even later in the evening, having broken his fast at an iftar in the suburbs.

By midnight the apartment was full, and dancing had broken out in the living room. Mohammed had brought a bottle of fine scotch, which was shared amongst many guests who had already imbibed two bowls my housemate's rum punch -- as well as the various varieties of wine and beer on offer.

We closed up shop around 4:30 in the morning, less than an hour before devout Muslims would be showing up at the mosque for Fajr. One housemate had gone to bed hours before, and after cleaning up the house a bit with my other awake housemate, I stumbled intoxicated to my bedroom and slept until noon.

The next day was the first time I'd missed my early meal since Ramadan began, and the first time I'd missed my Fajr yoga session since I started it a few weeks ago. Though I had resolved to myself to wash at each prayer time on Saturday, after accepting the challenge from my friend, the former Muslim wife, I realized that I had missed both Maghrib and Isha on Saturday, as well as the Sunday Fajr.

I got out of bed at midday and did some more cleaning, feeling a slight hangover, and wishing I had remembered to eat a fortifying helping of leftover party food while I was putting it away in the wee hours. I wouldn't be eating again until iftar (at which point I planned to meet up with a group of progressive Muslims I met through Facebook).

An hour later I went into my bathroom to wash for Dhuhur. I soaped up my face and hands while standing before my sink and mirror, focusing on making myself come back to life after somewhat overdoing it the night before.

Then I stepped into my shower to wash my feet and surprised myself when I looked down and remembered my orange-painted toes. There are Muslim men the world over performing this exact same ritual today, I thought to myself. Are there any others who are chipping colored paint off their nails as they wash?

Ramadan, part one (my first post)

Welcome to my blog.

I intended to start this blog one week ago, on my 34th birthday, but it was not to be. I went to the beach for my birthday instead, and delayed the launch of the blog until I got back.

I'll keep this project going for at least one year, and if I don't get lazy on my intentions for the blog, I'll be updating it semi-regularly with thoughts and reflections about religion, and short narratives about experiences with religious communities. Over the next year, I will seek to:


1. accompany friends, acquaintances, and others to their various houses of worship,
2. visit various houses of worship alone, when no companion can be found,
3. read more about the religions of the world,
4. observe as many religious holidays as I can over the course of the calendar year, birthday to birthday.

It's Ramadan right now.

Observance of Ramadan began during the most recent new moon, at sundown last Monday, September 1. Leading up to the beginning of the holiday, I knew only one primary fact about Ramadan: that the observance centers around a daylong fast, broken at sunset by a meal called iftar.

So, on Tuesday, September 2, I rose early to beat the sunrise, and to eat a somewhat larger breakfast than normal in preparation for the fast. I toasted a bagel, scrambled some eggs with cheese and tomato, and cooked some veggie sausage patties. I brewed what I realized would be my only coffee of the day, and read the newspaper over breakfast while the neighborhood outside my dining room window began its day in the dark.

It was around 6AM, and I'm rarely awake at that hour. I listened to even more NPR than normal that day as I prepared (unrushed!) for work, and eventually strolled leisurely to my downtown office, arriving by 8AM, the first one there. I normally arrive between 9 and 9:30, and yet I realized how much I really like the the slower-paced early-morning hour alone to organize my day, and to accomplish several tasks uninterrupted.

Already, on Day One, I found myself crediting Ramadan with the positives that came from forcing me to experiment with a new perspective, which seemed valid, if a bit premature or excessive.

At some point during the day, I began to wonder about the big breakfast I had eaten.

I knew a daylong fast is required for Ramadan, but I suddenly wondered if scrambling out of bed to beat the dawn was cheating. I wondered if, like a Yom Kippur fast, the abstinence is meant to extend from sundown to sundown.

The concern emerged sometime after midday, at a point when I was feeling good about the fast, but it troubled me because I know what a sundown to sundown fast feels like, and I was feeling nervous about sustaining that challenge for an entire month. So, I took a break in my day to look up the answer, and was relieved to learn that the early meal in Ramadan is absolutely permitted, and even has its own name -- the suhoor.

As I write, I am four days into Ramadan, and I see that I can definitely do this. Abstaining from food from sun-up to sun-down is entirely doable, and actually feels kind of good.

I have read that part of Ramadan is to practice patience and humility, and to identify with the poor, who may not have enough to eat.

This resonates with my four-day experience, in fact. "I'm a little hungry," I will think, "but I can wait." Hence the patience.

The humility bit feels as much like a recognition of mortality as anything -- not a morbid fascination or death-obsession, but simply a different kind of presence in the body, a presence that is a bit more constantly aware of the body's external needs, and therefore its frailty and limitations. Hence the humility.

And finally, yes, it's true (though it may seem hokey to some, including me) that only four days in to the observance I do feel a kind of newly and differently realized gratitude that I have always had enough to eat. I have never -- not as a child, and not ever as an adult -- had to know hunger, or to worry about the source of my next meal, or to figure out how to stretch a small amount of food to cover an entire day.

There again, I credit Ramadan with forcing a new experience upon me. During this month, I have been and will be thinking about how get maximum advantage out of a minimum amount of food, consumed at times not exactly of my choosing.

So, that's my experience of Ramadan so far. I am also attempting to read the Koran this month (but I'll save that for another post), and I have not yet connected the five daily Muslim prayers to the experience (though I understand that suhoor and iftar should cooincide with the first and fourth prayers of the day). The most glaring missing piece so far, however, is that I have not yet connected with a Muslim community, or community of other celebrants.

I hope to share iftar with other celebrants before the end of the month, and I've posted a message to a local Facebook group of progressive Muslims, so we'll see what comes of that, if anything. I would also like to share iftar with conservative Muslims or in-between Muslims or non-Muslims like myself who are experimenting with Ramadan, and I'm not sure how to do that.

If the Facebook group doesn't work out, perhaps I'll resort to Craig's List, or possibly, without community, perhaps I'll just have to make plans to go visit a mosque (or two) this month by myself.

In the meantime, I have been invited to Quaker meeting by a friend this coming Sunday, and I'm looking forward to adding an austere, silent, early-morning Friends meeting to the asceticism of the fast.