This week we went through
the Autumn Fast. The idea came to me not through some ancient tradition, but by
watching the show the Path where they have a day of atonement in the autumn and,
of course, their day of atonement is based in the actual day of atonement, Yom
Kippur. When my day of Fasting would occur, I couldn’t say. Fascinated by
Judaism again, I thought I might do my fast on Yom Kippur, definitely use some
of the Jewish songs and rituals I used during my time in that faith. In the
end, I did, but it wasn’t on Yom Kippur. I had decided this day must happen on
its own and actually on the time when it could best happen. A fast that last
longer than a day is something that is discombobulating to say the least, and
so spring break was the best time, and now to find the best day and prepare.
But I would never thought of this day if I had not listened
to the Alexandrian witch Maxine Sanders talking about her preparation for her degrees
back in the 1960’s and her preparation for magic now and how she and her
witches would fast. “Not a complete fast, but you’ll be eating nuts, and
berries, wild honey…” This idea completely excited me, and I hadn’t undergone
such a fast since the day before I took my first and second degrees almost
three years ago.
So, as I entered into the Autumn Fast, my first feelings,
and my dominate feels were joy and excitement. Let’s just state that. And I was
grateful for the Jewish songs and prayers because one thing they made me
conscious of, as using Christian hymns and services have too, is what my
purpose was NOT and what my religion was NOT. I was here to start again, to get
to some ground zero, to clean out unwanted and useless things and get ready to
the change of a new year. I was even here to change my life. Eating very little
does focus someone who loves junk food on what can be let go of. But I was NOT
really here to be sorry, or to apologize to a father God. I was here to grow
closer to my God and closer to my magic, to refine it with the sacrifice of
hunger and time the same way the housle refines one by the sacrifice of bread
and wine. Like Maxine Sanders, I was here to be cleansed for the new magic and
new revelations, and here to deal with the discomforts which might occur within
the twenty-five hours of fasting, here to meet the things I’d rather not meet
which were sure to appear to me, as well as to be surprised by the joys I could
not imagine.
The end of a fast is a strange feeling because you have
not really understood what you are doing or what you are… achieving. At the end
of it, you are just coming into something, just beginning to almost understand,
and now you are coming back into the real world. And, of course, just because
you have taken food again, and formally closed out one day, does not mean what
you undertook in your fast is over. The Fast is not on Yom Kippur or Good
Friday at the end of a season. It is Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of
things.
Now the Autumn Fast is done ,and next year it will
probably take place earlier, but we are only a few days, less than two weeks, from All Hallows and the entry into the Castle of the Utter West. What this Castle
is I do not know, and what the journey will be like, I cannot say.
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