Ramadan Week 1: Pleasures
Mixed Company is a collaboration of three friends from very different walks of life who are venturing to do/say/write things with one another that they would normally only do/say/write in the safe space of their particular communities. This month Gulu, a Muslim-American-Desi woman, and lifelong participant in Ramadan invites Natalia and Kalonji as non-Muslim guests to take part in the month-long fast from dawn to sunset. Here they reflect on their experience during the first week of the fast. (Read their pre-Ramadan fears & hopes here).
Natalia–“What’s the Pleasure of This?”
I feel part of a giant imagined community and begin to understand why an allegiance to a particular church, practice, tradition, can feel so good.
It’s 7:40pm on day 3 of my Ramadan fast and I ravenously shop at my favorite supermarket for things I already know I won’t have room for in my stomach: a big juicy melon, a giant box of fresh blackberries, two different kinds of vegan ice cream (turns out I will find room for both), sweet potatoes, nuts. My fridge is already overflowing with leftovers, which normally would have been consumed as lunch meals and snacks; a full fridge makes me feel secure and loved, so I like keeping it stocked, even if I don’t get to open it throughout the day.
Today I feel less thirsty and more alert. My body is getting used to the feeding rhythms, experiencing fewer symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. I got a few good hours of sleep after suhoor, the pre-dawn meal, and feel like maybe I’m getting stronger and more disciplined with each day. I find myself having fewer covetous thoughts about daytime snacks.
I am an atheist. This is my first time fasting for Ramadan. I won’t say I’m loving every minute of the experience, but because the suffering is obvious (no water for 17 hours? why would you do that?), I consciously challenge myself to ask a different question: What’s the pleasure of this undertaking? What feels good about today?
Of course there are basic, sensual pleasures: the sip of water after a long day of thirst, clean and surprisingly full of body — a powerful reminder of the privileged access we have to this pure and life-giving gift; the return of energy after the first bites of food, a reminder that my brain and body are resilient and responsive. But the fast is more than just an artificially-induced cycle between deprivation and reward, a religious marshmallow test. The new pleasures I feel are mental and spiritual. Here are the first few gifts I receive in the early days.
Intention
Above all, I experience Ramadan as an exercise in intention. Every morning after suhoor, you make an intention to fast the day: “I intend to fast for the month of Ramadan.” On the first day, nervous about my ability to make it through without water, I whisper the intention a dozen times. The words, “I intend” are potent and calming. I say them and am impressed by the aim and certainty that follows, the simple, obvious faith of this personal promise.
I intend, therefore I do. I intend, therefore I will. The challenge introduces me to the power of my own mind. Hi mind. I am more than my physical desires, habits, and impulses. I am a focus, an arrow, a force. I think of what else I might be able to do. Maybe one day, I can finish that dissertation? Only if I intend to.
Connection
Eating is no longer a private, carnal act. Think how good it feels to go out with friends for brunch or dinner, to relieve the collective ache, share delicious flavors. Now, my daytime hunger makes me feel connected with people all over the world. I go through the day knowing that a fifth of the Earth’s population are feeling the same headache, weakness, thirst. When Mixed Company meets on a Ramadan morning, our stomachs growl in unison, like women whose periods sync with each other (I’m suddenly curious about this phenomenon and learn that menstrual syncing happens in humans and animals to make females become sexually receptive at the same time, so they won’t become singled out and targeted. Woah, nature’s way of preventing gang rape?). My body is a clock synced up with the empty bellies of all the others fasting along the sun’s path.
Iftar, the evening meal, becomes a celebration shared with 1.6 billion people, even if I’m breaking fast alone. I feel part of an giant imagined community and begin to understand why an allegiance to a particular church, practice, tradition, can feel so good. I feel gratitude for the communities I already belong to. I call my mother.
Expansion
When I reach the point where I temporarily can’t think and write anymore (about 1pm every day), I watch documentaries and read blogs about Ramadan. I watch a film called “Make Me a Muslim,” about white British women who have converted to Islam. I learn about the life of the prophet Muhammad. I read the Qu’ran. My non-Muslim friends, knowing that I’m fasting, send me articles and videos as moral support (thanks friends!). I learn. These acts expand me, chip away at my ignorance and fear, one misconception at a time. I am so grateful to understand and relate to others who previously confused me. It feels good to be open. My heart feels softer and more receptive, newly curious about everything. In the time I’d normally spend filling my body with familiar foods, I nourish my mind with new ideas. Because I have so much baggage and bias about religion (explanations forthcoming in Mixed Company’s culminating articles at the end of the month), at each step I fear and feel resistance to the things I’m learning. But then I remind myself that I don’t have to believe. I can just try to understand, to relate, to expand the realm of possibility. It works: I relax a little; approach the things that have once seemed alien. Something washes over me — a tiny change at the cellular level. The sensation of learning a new beautiful thing. Tingling, opening, surrender.
Kalonji–“Finding My Pleasure Centers”
I ate that meal at the same pace an oil painter adds detail to a masterpiece; slowly, deliberately, passionately. This is eating.
Why are we writing about pleasure? Doesn’t everything about this holiday warn us to be highly suspicious of pleasure? I often feel like religions try to get us to cut pleasures out of our life, restrict our sex life and our diet, or make us pay penance in ways that make us suffer. Which is kind of whack because pleasures are good. In many ways Ramadan is making me suffer. My whole digestive tract is throbbing, wanting, lusting for food. I can’t exercise like I want to. I’m not as productive as I want to be. But I wonder if it’s also helping me understand more fundamentally what pleasure truly is.
The pursuit of pleasure is deeply wired into the circuitry of our brains. Neuroscientists call it the reward system, the pleasure centers, or the hedonic hotspots. When these parts of our brain are activated we feel joy. When you eat a wonderful chocolate sundae, when you are flirting with a lover, these pleasure centers release dopamine and activate psychological processes that give you that sense of euphoria. We are giving up many of these pleasures during daylight hours. First I thought it was because God was hating on our pleasure centers and wanting us to suffer. But I’ve come to realize spiritual practice can teach you how to discern when you are pursuing pleasures mindlessly and superficially instead of mindfully and deeply.
For most of the year I eat my dinner while sitting on the couch. I lean hunched over the coffee table and shovel food into my mouth. While I’m eating I’m simultaneously watching Aziz Ansari’s show on Netflix. In fact, even if the food is delicious, it is impossible for me to eat it without something distracting me from the dullness of chewing and swallowing. Without an engaging conversation or some type of television entertainment, eating is pretty much unbearable. I understand how crazy that sounds. Apparently eating good food is exciting my pleasure centers, but at the same time it is boring the hell out of me.
One of the biggest mysteries about the pleasure systems of our brain is which parts of this circuitry are dedicated to liking and which ones are dedicated to simply wanting. For example, if an electrode is attached to the pleasure center of a rat’s brain and he is given the choice to press a lever that delivers electrical stimulation to his hypothalamus, the rat will press it incessantly. He will become obsessed with it. He will cross mountains and valleys and rivers to press that damn lever just to get a shock to his reward system. When we observe this behavior it is clear to us that Mr. Rat WANTS more stimulation. It is obvious that he has some positive regard for it. But the question of whether he is truly LIKING it is a little more complicated. Desiring to get more of something says very little about the subjective state of joy we feel. Does the rat feel happy to be shocked or is he feeling a nagging anxiety about the fact that he needs more electricity? (By the way, it’s absurd and ironic that these scientists are interested in the subjective emotional state of these rats while simultaneously being willing to shove electrodes into their skulls without their consent).
I wonder, if scientists were to observe me sitting on my couch watching Netflix shoveling food down my gullet, what would they say about my pursuit of pleasure? If they used some type of neuroimaging device they would see clearly that after every bite of delicious casserole I consume, signals are being sent to my reward system. They would see me quickly making the decision to shovel more food into my mouth. And just like the rat that presses the lever over and over they could conclude that because I am continuing to eat more and more and more that I am desiring my food. But am I smiling deeply? As I watch Aziz Ansari gallivant around Italy, am I even consciously aware that the food is pleasurable?
The ecstasy I receive from food during Ramadan is completely different. For the past 7 days, just before 8:30pm I drink a sip of water for the first time in 19 hours. I put that glass of cool refreshing drink to my lips and in that moment I am fully aware of how fulfilling water feels on my tongue. The water is more pleasurable because I have been thirsting for it all day, but also because I have made the intention to dedicate my whole mind to feeling the sensation it provides me. I am thinking of nothing but the way it trickles down my throat like a gurgling stream of love. This is pleasure.
The first day I broke fast for iftar it seemed almost profane for me to do it while sitting on my couch. Binge eating while Netflix binging would be disrespectful to the momentous occasion of having lasted so long without food. The food before me appeared almost divine. As I prepped veggie enchiladas and a grown-man-sized salad the dishes seemed to be emitting an otherworldly glow. I arranged my delicious meal on the table like it was the last supper, in an elaborate geometrically congruent way, for fengshui purposes. I ate that meal at the same pace an oil painter adds detail to a masterpiece; slowly, deliberately, passionately. This is eating.
So many times we indulge in pleasures and are not even present to how pleasant they are. Just because a stimulus excites your pleasure center it does not always activate neural systems connected to conscious awareness. Scientists argue these brain areas are the seat of the soul. Sure, pleasure is great. But mindfulness can be a gateway to even deeper pleasure sensation. When I am mindful I notice that the simple pleasures that I usually ignore can be orgasmic if I allow them to fill up my entire consciousness.
On Day 7 of Ramadan I was in my office late into the evening, responding to emails, when suddenly I hit a wall. I felt weak. After a day of fasting, the last reserves of energy in my body had dissipated. I felt my body reaching for a place to lie down and rest. I slid out of my chair and onto the office floor. As I stretched out there I noticed the way the carpet felt on my palm. I slid my hand back and forth, petting the furry pattern of the tapestry, feeling the tickling sensations flicker on my skin, sending waves of impulse to my pleasure centers. Never has a floor felt so comfortable. And never have I been so mindful to enjoy it. The fatigue that overwhelmed my body left me in an altered state of consciousness where a carpeted floor felt like a king-sized mattress made of clouds. My mind had no space to think of emails or politics or family drama, only of how deeply this floor had saved my life. I dozed off grinning, like I was dreaming of 72 virgins in paradise (by this I clearly mean 72 consenting adult women in paradise). When I woke up I yawned and stared disoriented up at the ceiling. The clock on the wall gave good news. 7:47pm. While stretched out on the floor like a napping dog, a whole 2 hours had past. And now it was almost time to break fast. Blessings on blessings. Pleasures on pleasures.
Gulu — “The Pleasure of a Renewed Purpose”
It’s good for me each year to be divinely agitated into remembering my unprecedented, unaccounted for, undeserved privilege.
A spider lives in my sideview mirror behind the mirror but inside the plastic casing. Her silken trap hovers between her little den and my window; her work is inevitably destroyed when I drive more than 40 miles an hour. I occasionally catch her cleaning up my messes — pulling tangled fibers back behind the mirror and her yellow-black-striped legs gliding as she re-weaves her web — but she’s mostly elusive. I’m a little worried she’ll lay eggs and I’ll open my window while driving and they’ll blow into my hair and nest in my skull and I’ll die. But otherwise, despite my fear of all things creepy-crawly, I let her be.
If we weren’t in Ramadan, I might be tempted to get my car washed to flush her out — but Allah once called on a spider to quickly build a web to protect our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, as he hid in a cave. The assassins pursuing him and his uncle saw a fully intact web and assumed no one had passed through. So I owe the creatures a debt. Now is no time for spider murder.
It is, however, time for spider-contemplation. I grew up with tales of Anansi the trickster, Arachne the master weaver, Charlotte, and an imprisoned king inspired by a methodological spider in the corner of his dark cell. But when I get to my car in the morning, starting to burn my reduced Ramadan energy stories, I don’t remember them or their moral lessons. Instead, I feel giddy childish excitement to find her web, destroyed the previous day, fully redesigned. She did it again! She’s doing it! Look at her go! Except not actually look at her — she’s receded behind the mirror — but look at the fruits of her labor. I take in the intricacy of her work before taking off for my work; while sitting at stop lights on my way; for too long in the parking lot at my destination, if it has survived the trip. An unexpected Ramadan pleasure.
Work becomes so difficult through this month. Not just work-work, but any use of my energy. I make my sister braid my hair so I don’t have to lift my arms. I grade after iftar because my mind literally refuses to bother reading student work on an empty belly. I tell my kids they can’t wear socks (It’s summer! Look how cute your sandals are!) because “they haven’t been washed”; they’ve been washed, just not matched and folded.
My passenger spider does not, of course, fast for Ramadan. But I’ve also never seen a bug caught in her web. I worry I destroy it too often for her to have a steady source of food — and yet, she’s diligent in a way I have never had to be. Perhaps because my survival, unlike hers, isn’t contingent on my work?
Another unexpected pleasure: breaking out of my “I’ve-fasted-forever” routine by fasting with Natalia & Kalonji, Ramadan newbies. I recently mentioned to them all the iftar dinners I was hosting this month for others. Natalia, I think, said, “You’re really going for it.” I realized, later, the incongruity of on one hand being too tired to work, and on the other, adding so much work to my life.
I write this in preparation for my first iftar or dinner or party with kids. Eight of them! And I’m not even sure how many adults! Or when people plan to show up! Needless to say, even with most of the meal being catered, I have a ton of work to do: cleaning, getting my kids glammed up, chopping up fruit, figuring out how to make falooda (pink milk forever), making space for everyone to sit. I’m pretty tired but feel so grown and so honored to feed others who have been fasting all day.
I’ve begun to note the energy-depleting (so not counting watching TV and napping) acts I manage to do (successfully or not) during these 17 hour fasts: filling my home with guests, cooking my favorite meals; going on long beach walks with my kids; writing; chaperoning field trips; reading; parting and twisting my daughter’s hair; chatting too long over late-night ice cream with my husband and sister; of course, praying. Because I have the freedom to slack on folding laundry, and grading, and brushing my own hair — Ramadan becomes a time to luxuriously distribute my limited energy to do things that I actually really want, and I think like, to do.
No matter how many times I destroy my spider-friend’s web, she rebuilds. She is meticulous. She needs it to catch her prey. To eat. To nourish her tiny body and power her spindly legs. To eventually reproduce.
Through most of my year, I mindlessly build a fairly complex web of wants, likes, needs, dislikes, have-to-dos, obligations, and why-did-I-do-thats. Each year, Ramadan, by demanding I cut out my most fundamental needs — food and water — unravels this web and I get to parsimoniously and deliberately reweave.
As a child, I was taught we fast for Ramadan to build empathy for the poor who often go without eating. As an adult, I am angry I was taught that. I find it absurd to think some hours of elected hunger and the certainty of an upcoming meal is remotely comparable to the experience of the food insecure. Or that people who are poor can’t reap the benefits of fasting. Muslims fast for so many reasons, but ultimately because Allah asked us to, just like the little spider so quickly put his talents to use to protect the Prophet. It’s a pleasure knowing I’ve served the Creator, and that He doesn’t command anything that isn’t good for me.
And it’s good for me each year to be divinely agitated into remembering my unprecedented, unaccounted for, undeserved privilege.
This reminder, especially now, is so pivotal for me to understand my purpose, why I’m here, what I’m meant to do, why and how I build my web. Muslims don’t believe that material wealth is just a blessing, exactly. Rather, it’s a trust from God. It’s neither an indicator of your goodness or piety nor a reflection of your work. If I have more than can sustain me, it’s because I’m meant to share it with others.
Ramadan, the fasting, the feasting, the paying of zakat (charity), the offering of prayer, brings me back to my purpose, rebuilding the web I’d previously tangled.
I look to my spider and envy her singularity of purpose, her steadfast ethic, her slow and sustained work. Does she take pleasure in this purpose? Because I take so much in mine.
