One's perception of time is always curiously subjective, but the intensity of fasting slows it to an unusual degree. This is by no means simply a matter of waiting impatiently to be able to eat and drink. There a strong element of positive enjoyment in the curiously suspended state one enters into during daylight hours and almost something of fleeting regret when the time comes to step back into the ordinary stream of things.
There's also an odd sense of having much more time than usual on one's hands, and of this being a kind of slow time This is due, in part, to waking early for sahur, giving time for reading & meditation before the day even begins, but it's also a result of simply not having any involvement in the displacement activities that surround our sustenance. A kind of freedom is the result.
The month teaches you to be slow, and in slowness lies grace.
2 comments:
Have you ever read Neil Gaiman's story 'Ramadan'?
It was the first graphic story ever to win the World Fantasy Award - and it will probably be the last because they changed the rules to prohibit comics.
The beautiful illustrations were done by P Craig Russell. I think it can be found in Gaiman's 'Preludes and Nocturnes', part of the Sandman epic.
I have indeed read, and thoroughly enjoyed, 'Ramadan', which is one of my favourite individual stories in the whole epic (and is to be found in 'Fables and Reflections', which is one of my favourite books. Although, I must say that the series is so good that I tend to think of most of the stories as favorites when I suddenly remember how good they are.)
P Craig Russell's work on this one is fabulous. I don't think he was used much on the series, but I seem to recall him doing another one in the book that came later, when the main series was done -'Endless Nights' is it?
By the way, I bought 'Stardust' today. Thanks for the tip on that one.
Post a Comment