We are getting to the end of Lent and the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan.
I have lived through both traditions throughout my life, and in the last decade, Ramadan has been definitely more impactful for me.
Last year I tried to fast and it ended miserably – I have never been a person with the best appetite/highest body fat percentage in the world and, to be frank, I am addicted to caffeine. Around 4 pm on that day, I got the worst headache of my life, and I will spare you other gruesome details of my body rebelling against being starved.
I could have probably perservered but I didn’t feel like I had enough motivation or crave for the spiritual journey that a real dry fast can be. I had other things on my mind and I didn’t value the transformation of my soul that much at that time.
Today, it is more tempting. I am no longer in a relationship with someone who could have been an amazing spiritual guide for me, which makes things more difficult. I have talked with several people recently about the joy of Ramadan and honestly, I am a bit envious.
But probably still not strong enough to do it on my own, unfortunately.
I have discussed in my previous posts (here and here) the hunger that lives in me for feeling like there is something more about this world than just the mundane and explainable. For something that could feed my soul as I still sense that this soul simply exists.
I have been feeding this thirst, this parched land, lately, with poetry.
Almost every day, I have looked for poems on topics that occupied my mind. Forgiveness. Ageing. Desire. Loneliness.
I found some solace in the works of people long gone. The universal feelings and emotions that transcended time and maybe, similarly to religions, helped some to feel more united and understood.
At one difficult moment for me, I found a poem that touched me so deeply that it actually helped me to forgive myself for some stupid things I have done recently.
~
I thought our joy benumbed for ever
by Emile Verhaeren
I thought our joy benumbed for ever, like a sun faded before it was night, on the day that illness with its leaden arms dragged me heavily towards its chair of weariness.
The flowers and the garden were fear or deception to me; my eyes suffered to see the white noons flaming, and my two hands, my hands, seemed, before their time, too tired to hold captive our trembling happiness.
My desires had become no more than evil weeds; they bit at each other like thistles in the wind; I felt my heart to be at once ice and burning coal and of a sudden dried up and stubborn in forgiveness.
But you said the word that gently comforts, seeking it nowhere else than in your immense love; and I lived with the fire of your word, and at night warmed myself at it until the dawn of day.
The diminished man I felt myself to be, both to myself and all others, did not exist for you; you gathered flowers for me from the window-sill, and, with your faith, I believed in health.
And you brought to me, in the folds of your gown, the keen air, the wind of the fields and forests, and the perfumes of evening or the scents of dawn, and, in your fresh and deep-felt kisses, the sun.
~
I am going to keep exploring and looking for ways to find whatever I am actually looking for. Perhaps you could call it fulfilment or inner peace.
Perhaps rebirth, helping my soul flourish and be resurrected with the blooming and enchanting nature.
