Wind, ramblings & a 2nd day of fasting

It is late Saturday night. I am sitting on the single bed in the apartment that I just moved into a couple of days ago. It is exceptionally quiet. Walking back into my bedroom tonight I feel a sense of relief to be entering a space that will probably remain the same for at least a couple of months. Since arriving on Prince Edward Island two months ago I have been moving back and forth between the homes of various friends -- trying to not overstay my welcome in any one place, just staying long enough to start remembering whether I should leave the toilet seat up or down, which burner on the stove I should not use, or which direction the cutlery should go into the dishwasher before I would move again and have to adjust my patterns to a new household. Don't get me wrong -- living with my friends has been awesome. Truly. Not only have a been staying in homes that are comfortable and cozy, filled with beautiful artwork, but I have gotten to come home at the end of every day and enjoy the company of people I love. But despite all of this, I have to say that it is nice to have my own space for a change -- even if it is almost completely empty.

The room that is currently home is bigger than any bedroom I have ever had before. One of my best friends loaned me a single bed, a table and a chair. I took a plastic box that I found in the cupboard and put it next to my bed as my bedside table, and another friend loaned me a little lamp. One end of the room is an enormous closet -- so big that I can literally get dressed inside of it (yes, I have tried). I arrived two days ago with one suitcase, a backpack, and a bag of food. It took me an hour to unpack my two pairs of jeans, one skirt, two dresses, four pairs of shoes, two sweaters, and ten shirts. Sitting on my bed looking around the room I feel a mixture of emotions: profound gratitude to the friend who asked her aunt if I could live in her spare bedroom for free for a couple of months while I continue to search for full-time work, and to her aunt who actually agreed; amazement that I am still here despite the reality that I have less money than I have ever had my entire life; disoriented in this large room with four white walls and almost no furniture; uncertainty about how I got here when only two months ago I was sitting in an overly-furnished room in my parents' home in northern California; and an equal amount of terror over my current reality and vulnerability, and deep-rooted certainty and faith that things are going exactly as they should be, and that I just need to put my trust in God and keep trying my hardest.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. I have stayed at five different houses; trekked through deep snow; been blown along the sidewalk by freezing wind; eaten meals in restaurants, homes, bars, and coffee houses; seen foxes running across a frozen river at dusk; woken to the sound of frozen rain against the glass of my windows; met with at least fifty different people and given them my resume; reverted to my legs as my primary mode of transportation; started helping with a youth group; contacted complete strangers about pet-sitting, babysitting, cleaning, and any other cash-making venture that I could come up with; watched every single one of my recently-arrived-on-the-island friends get interviews and job offers; started doing social media for Timothy's coffee house and Lobster on the Wharf for free; continued doing social media work for two other companies; created my own social media business website; studied books about social media marketing; been given so many people's house keys that I have to wade through fist-fulls of them to find the ones to my current apartment; gotten locked out of my current apartment because my new set of keys would not open my door and my friend's aunt was asleep in bed; developed a crush on a man who slept through what I had thought was going to be our first date; hosted my first musical devotional gathering; cooked supper for friends in many different houses; enjoyed many, many excellent cups of tea at the farmer's market in the company of awesome friends on Saturday morning after Saturday morning; learned to walk my friends' dogs and pick up (and discard) dog shit (an activity I had assured my friends years ago that I would NEVER engage in); made a snow angel; enjoyed many, many meals/coffee dates with people I love; had my bank balance fall below 30 dollars for the first time in my entire life; learned to love almond butter on toast; taken a bus from downtown out to the farm I used to work before dawn, on and spent the day baking gluten-free muffins with my former employer's mother in the farmhouse kitchen; destroyed almost every pair of shoes I brought here with me in the salty slush on the roads; read the book The Help. Read the book The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Lay in bed listening to the wind howling around the building (as I am tonight); wondered how I got back here and whether the universe is going to allow me to stay, or if every effort I make to find work here will end in another dead-end; wondered where I will go if I have to leave here at the end of April...and these are only SOME of the things that have happened in the past few weeks.

Today was the second day of the Baha'i Fast. I woke before dawn, ate almond butter toast and sat in the silence of the half-light before sunrise praying and reading from the Baha'i writings before deciding to go back to bed for a couple more hours. I am trying to remain present and conscious of the preciousness of these days i am immersed in. Spiritually the fast is, according to the Baha'i writings, generating power that will be reverberating through my life for the entire rest of the year. It is hard to remember that every hour has a special significance, but when I do it helps me to slow down and be aware of how precious every moment of these 19 days of fasting is. I have always thought of the Fast as being from sunrise til sunset, but this Fast I am realising that even the hours when I am eating during this period count as part of the Fast. Even sitting here now typing with the wind howling outside I am trying to be aware of the significance of this night, this hour, and that I will be up again in six hours preparing for another day of Fasting. 

It is almost midnight, and time to get some rest before the third dawn of the Fast. Outside wind pressing around the building. In here the sound of my fingers moving across the keys, my own breathing, the creak of floor boards as someone walks across the floor above.

At 6.37am

the sun rises. Tomorrow morning I will rise before it, in darkness. I will have my breakfast in half light. Sip my tea bundled up warm in the kitchen, drawing my body gently out of its cocoon of sleep. I will sit and pray, and read from the Baha'i writings as the fiery red ball of the sun rises up over the city. In the Koran, dawn is defined as the moment that a white thread can be distinguished from a black thread with the naked eye. I will feel the warmth of first-light against my closed eye-lids and cheeks. I will hear birdcall. I will write in my journal by those delicate first rays of sun. Maybe I will practice yoga as I did this morning. Later the rain will come. I will have many hours to work on my writing and listen to the showers drumming on our rooftop. I will not be planting sunflowers with pre-schoolers tomorrow. The earth will be too heavy with water for tiny hands to be digging in it. That will have to wait 'til next week. I will have a quiet first day of fasting, with plenty of time to reflect on the question burning in my heart right now: should I move back to PEI for a year this April?

I love the Baha'i nineteen day fast. It is a time of re-gathering for me before I burst into springtime and then beyond that into my season -- summer. The last six years in Canada I loved waking at dawn to watch the sun rise over the snowy landscape. It would rise from the horizon and get caught in the shattered lattice of bare branches that were dipped in ice, clattering against each other in the wind. There is something pure about the sunrise anywhere on the planet, but a sun rising over a white, snowy landscape is truly magnificent. Every tiny ice crystal reflects the light, and it is dazzling.

Here there is no snow. The branches are blossoming. Hummingbirds buzz outside our kitchen window, feeding on nectar from the flowering bush outside.

For me the fast is a time for spiritual rejuvenation. I find that I spend more time praying. More time writing. More time taking long walks and listening to the sounds of nature. More time nestled into the hammock of silence. It is not a sad time. Much of it is actually very joyful. But I find myself feeling deeply pensive and reflective, and often wanting more time alone. I am really looking forward to this fast because it gives me a set period of time in which to concentrate on the questions in my heart and the yearnings of my soul.

Tomorrow evening we have a devotional gathering here at our home right after sunset. The topic of the devotional tomorrow night will be sacrifice. Our devotional gatherings always have themes, but this theme was chosen by one of the other women in the group. She chose it because for her this time of fasting symbolizes sacrifice of physical comfort. It is true that during the fast I become extremely aware of how much of my day normally revolves around eating and drinking. Living in an affluent society as I do, I do not go more than an hour or two without eating or drinking something, and much of my social life revolves around eating or drinking with friends, so I find myself withdrawing from many social activities during the fast because I am not eating, and it is rather challenging to be surrounded by the aromas of delicious food when I am not eating.

But not eating or drinking between the hours of sunrise and sunset is also a blessing because I am reminded, every time I feel hunger pangs, of my spiritual reality, and of the great blessing that this time of the year is providing me: time to immerse my soul in spiritually uplifting activities. I also find that I suddenly have SO MUCH FREE TIME on my hands without all that meal and snack preparation time! And there can be no tea-making procrastination sagas, so I suddenly become far more productive, although I do have to get my most concentrated work done in the first half of the day because my mind tends to get rather fuzzy by late afternoon!

It is getting late, and time to give my body rest before it has to be up again to eat. I hope that all of you who are fasting have a beautiful fast this year. And for those of you who are not, perhaps you could join me in paying more attention to your spiritual self over the next 19 days. The Baha'i new year is on the spring equinox (March 21st), which is a time of opening up to the world. Using these next 19 days as time to reflect on how you want to grow this spring might help to bring more attention to the quality of the life you are living, and the spiritual energy that you are putting into that growth. Here are a couple of quotes about fasting from the Baha'i writings:

"All praise be unto God, Who hath...enjoined on them the Fast that those possessed of means may become apprised of the woes and sufferings of the destitute." -Baha'u'llah

"Cling firmly to obligatory prayer and fasting. Verily, the religion of God is like unto heaven; fasting is its sun, and obligatory prayer is its moon. In truth, they are the pillars of religion..." -Baha'u'llah