Fasting

It's a long day when you're not eating or drinking and praying a little extra. We start our fast here about about 3.20am and we break it at about 9.20pm. I'll leave you with all your fingers and toes to count how many hours that is.

The boys are trying their hardest to fast in the afternoon. I'm very impressed with them both.

Then about forty minutes before iftar we gather together to do dhikr. Without fail the midget will announce 'this is my favourite time of the day'. Just like last year.

Gone are the years of silliness and house-wrecking that sent me into a tail-spin at this time; now we have two boys who will sit with their prayer beads and pray, waiting for sunset prayer and iftar, quietly, with concerted effort.

And just like that, hardship turns to ease.

Iftar *

*{Iftar the time we break our fast}

There is a growing ease to fasting in our home, ironically, given that we are fasting in the summer months when fasting is at its very hardest. It is due, I think, to having children of an age where they can understand, join in, be less demanding than infants.

They understand that we can't take them out as much, do as much, be on the ball as much. They forgive our crabby pre-iftar sloth. They make allowances for us in so many ways. But more than that is their keenness to join in, be part of it, enjoy the fast so that they can celebrate in the meal of iftar. For they love iftar, these two boys of mine. They love it with a love that is infectious. They love the food after an afternoon of fasting, and the juice of course, but as they fill their tummies, and their brains and stomachs finally feel sweet relief, they chatter - none stop - about what they LOVE about this time most of all.

It turns out they love waiting for iftar doing dhikr with mama in the sitting room, breaking the fast and praying maghrib together. They love everyone sitting around the same table eating the same food. They love that best of all. I think they must feel the blessing in the meal. And it's true in hectic days when so many families miss out on an evening meal together, that this has a deep impact on family relations. For a meal eaten together binds like nothing else. Rifts can be mended, hurts can be soothed, bridges rebuilt. There is something so very powerful about eating around one table. It's one of the very few times that something subtle and nuanced, referred to as 'blessing' or 'barakah', can be almost touched on a tangible level. A meal with barakah has the same level of connection that you find in a place of prayer, because it becomes elevated from something quite mundane and animalistic into a channel for true goodness, beauty, healing and grace to enter the world.

Food, we are told, is an equivalent of Qur'an - it has the same status because both are ni'mah from Allah. To have that withheld for so long in the fasting day, and then to feel the blessings of the food magnified by the blessing of eating it in company, well, is it any wonder my children have come to love this time so very much? Unfettered by adult cynicism and rationalism they tell it the way they see it. This time, by their own admission, is a good time, special, the best time of all. And it is a time I treasure too; the iftar is the reward of a hard days' fast. Not just because we get to fill our stomachs, but because we get to sit around one table, together, as a family.

Whoever you are, whatever you believe, may blessings be on your meals too!

Ramadan 2012

Here we are again. Another year, another Ramadan. Another month-long fast. I have written about it here last year. The iftar calendar we all made together last year has been dusted off and hung back up. The boys are excitedly dancing around, counting down the days to Eid.

I don't know how the fast will affect my blogging consistency. It's a long one this year, falling in the summer months - twenty hours. Twenty! I know! It's enough to make you want to emigrate to Australia!

So, anyway, bear with me as I try to stay upright!

And those you fasting, Ramadan Mubarak. May Allah accept your fast. Amin.

Gearing up for Eid

Warning :: this post contains gratuitous use of tinsel and glitter. People with aversion to shiny things are advised to look away now.


















Can you feel the babes' excitement? Does the blurry natures of their images give anything away? They have become just blips on my radar as they dance and run and zip and zoom from one end of the house to the other, counting down the days to Eid.

Decorating the house for the last ten days of Ramadan I listen to their chatter - what they love about Eid, what is their favourite part, how they CAN'T. WAIT. and I feel priveleged to be able to be the one to bring so much magic and excitement into their lives.

I hope they do the same for their babes too.


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I am taking a break from this space for the next few days to celebrate with my family. Hopefully back in this space on Friday for {this moment}, or next week with a bit of news on a new project I have been working on - hopefully!!

Have a peaceful week!


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Apples for Crumble...

Days are beginning to merge into one as Ramadan rolls on; we live for iftar with as much mindful living as we can.

We fill our weekend with games, reading, playing and, for 'tis the season for it, apple crumble with whipped cream!

Our apples are still reddening up on the tree, and soon, insha'allah, they too will be made into pies and crumbles. And as much as I look forward to the coming season, I do so want to hold onto this one as much as possible!

What was your weekend like?


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Ramadan Crafting

I can't tell you how excited my children get when it's Ramadan. It's humbling to watch. They count down the days TO Ramadan, then count down the days IN Ramadan. Because at the end of Ramadan? Eid. Of course. That day of celebration covered in glitter and tinsel with copious amounts of chocolate and cake and presents.

They try to fast from about 3pm onwards. No one is making the midget do it, he just wants to, although we do request he drink a glass of water or two in the warm days. The eldest is getting to the age when it will be expected of him, but with such long days which even an adult finds hard I can't expect him to do a full day, but he happily, and willingly, does an afternoon.

To jolly things along, and to keep the excitement up, we have been crafting some homemade decorations, Ramadan style. And as with everything we do, the boys have been firmly at the centre of this making, with cutting, gluing, stamping and sticking.

The first make :: a simple garland banner made out of felt which the boys did entirely themselves. The second - an iftar calendar - much like an advent calendar with two notable differences :: there are thirty days instead of twenty four/five, and instead of chocolate the pockets are stuffed with dates, which is the traditional way of breaking the fast.

I will tell you right now that the idea for this calendar is entirely Manda's, over at Treefall Design. I have been wanting to make one of these since I saw hers. But it took til this year for the mojo to have worked it's magic in this direction.

I love this calendar - a result of boy and mama crafting - the babes stamped the words, and wrote the numbers and I, well, I did everything else. But that time at iftar when they gather the dates and button back the pocket to show another day nearer to Eid?

Immeasurable.




What things are you doing to get the kids into Ramadan this year?



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I'll be Right Here

If anyone wants me on these long days of fasting, you might find me here, sewing, crocheting, knitting or praying. I'll be right here.


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Ramadan Twenty Eleven

So it begins. The month long fast. The month which Muslims look forward to and worry about in equal measure.

Today starts a month whereby Muslims will refrain from eating and drinking, and generally all round sinning or satisfying the appetites, from dawn til sunset. Each day about an hour before dawn begins we will wake and eat our morning meal, imbibe as much caffeine as we possibly can before making the verbal intention to fast for the sake of the pleasure of the One God. After that is said, no thing shall pass our lips, neither inwards nor outwards, that would consistute as 'forbidden'; no nourishment for the body, no sin from the depths of our soul, and we stand guard, vigilant over ourselves, like soldiers ready to puncture any wrong doing before it takes hold of our body and soul. And we pray. More than usual. In fact, we put ourselves through spiritual rehab - reforming, training, breaking bad habits and getting our souls into shape, to behave the way we ought to be behaving all the time.

To those outside the believing fraternity this all sounds like a month of sheer obscure hell, the result of an extremism of fervour, misguided blind faith or some subconscious desire to punish ourselves. In truth, for those who practise fasting in the prescribed manner, it is actually the exact opposite, like being washed from the inside-out, like a stone, previously unperceived, has been lifted from our hearts and backs and something altogether more subtle and precious is allowed to breathe.

For most (all) of the time we satisfy our animal appetites without question; we eat when we are hungry, drink when we are thirsty and spend our life chasing one desire after another, like monkies swinging from tree to tree following the fruit, without any time to stop, reflect, refrain, and become master of our own selves. We are led like cattle by the nose by our own animal appetites, and insofar as we are led by them we remain defined by them :: we are no more than the animal we succomb to.

But there is something else; that small quiet voice that is all but drowned out by our wordly affairs, that yearns and belongs to another realm altogether. The spirit. The soul. The true self. That spark of intuitive knowledge, the Knowing Self which recognises truth, that glimmer of light that pulls us out of the dumb world of beasts and into the divine world of knowledge and creation. That precious element of our being gets a chance to shine and breathe and grow in this month, for it is said that when the body is weak the soul is strong; when the animal appetites have been brought under a reign the true self, unshackled at last, can soar.

I remember my first ever Ramadan. I wasn't a Muslim, I was very much a Christian, and I have no idea why I fasted, but I did. It was then that I realised that religion is not a set of beliefs, not a dogma to agree to and sign up to, but it was a tool to purify the self, to raise oneself in dignified living so that we could approach the One God as purified and dignified as we could - to somehow polish the dirty mirror that we usually are so that we reflect the Divine Light into the world. Whatever polemic existed then for me, fasting made it all irrelevant, as irrelevant as trying to find the sun using a lamp. Truth stands clear from error.

It was an intensely spiritual time for me, being at university and having no more to do than whatever it is that took my fancy. I fasted the whole month of Ramadan and, not wanting it to end, fasted Lent too (which fell a week later) - the whole forty days. In fact, that whole year I spent fasting one and off. You would think that I would be glad to shake off the restrictions and spend the rest of the year making up for lost time, but far from it.

This is a month that cannot be replaced, so for those of you who are fasting, don't waste a second of it. Feed the soul and purify yourself. As we know, this world is no more than a test, a fleeting illusion, a bridge from one realm to the next. Pass over it quickly and remember your true destination.

From God we come, and to God we return, and we take nothing with us except our deeds.

Set the soul free.

Xx



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