Quietly Celebrating

Eid al Adha 1437

We're just back from the most strenuous stretch of the Hajj, and I'm no longer wearing ihram, the two pieces of unsown cloth worn by the male pilgrims, so technically our Hajj is done, though plenty remains ahead of us in terms of post-Hajj activities. I'm also happily shorn of any kind of hair upon my head - a sort of low maintenance rebirth. 

I won't try and describe the couple of days in any detail since doing so would take forever. (I'm reminded of Sondheim's frequent assertions in his writing about his musicals that God is in the details.) Suffice to say, I've never experienced anything remotely like this before and, given the length of the waiting list for visas for the Hajj, I'm not likely to live long enough to do it again.

There's something that pretty much every culture discovers: the need to journey far to find what's inside. Strange that in modernity we're losing that wisdom with, possibly, the Hajj as the final monumental bastion of that insight.

Selamat Hari Raya Haji to all of life's pilgrims. May you one day arrive at that place for which we are all seekers.

18.24

I'm learning all the time. The first sentence of the above post is massively incorrect. Technically or non-technically our Hajj is far from done so there's plenty to look forward to in the days ahead. Tonight we're off to Mina.