Dear Reader,

What is it that we hunger for? The modern world would have us look no further than our smartphone…TikTok, Amazon, YouTube, Google…to find that elusive object of our desire. Yet, many are realizing that what we need most, is already within us – if we are willing to ‘let go’. Let go of what? The illusion at the heart of every crisis we face in the world today, every system of oppression. The illusion of separation, that ‘my’ cravings, grievances, conveniences are of paramount importance. But how do we let go of such a fundamental error in thinking?

We usually think of fasting as refraining from the consumption of food. I like the verb ‘refrain’ and its original Latin meaning, “to bridle, or hold a horse in check.” In this case, the horse is the ego. Untamed, the horse runs rampant and does exactly as it pleases. That’s well and good for a wild horse, but one that’s fit to purpose must first be tamed. A different kind of fasting is taming the impulse to feed the ego, to refrain from self-serving habits of consumption and behavior that are toxic to my mind/body and thus, the collective mind/body.

And just as fasting from food frees up space in our bodies, fasting from ‘ego-food’ frees up space in our consciousness – to experience life directly, and act in humility and service. Maybe this is the true meaning of, “the meek shall inherit the Earth”. To be meek does not mean ‘weak’. It’s a willingness to be bridled or ‘fit to purpose’ by the very hand of Creation. And so, letting go is really a letting in, opening our hearts to the reality that we are not separate and that a reclaimed sacred togetherness is possible. And isn’t that what we hunger for, after all?

Loving peace,

Kosmos

Kosmos Poetry | The Art of Letting Go

Read all the poems by Madronna Holden, Yahia Lababidi, Willow Annan Rose, and Iljas Baker

Madronna Holden

Indwelling 

Come closer.

This fire will all too soon
be ash.

I would tell you the story the moth knows
for making peace with the night.

The story tears have for making medicine
out of grief.

The story for eliciting the purr
in the belly of the tiger.

If you listen to your blood
you can hear the story of the sea
pulled by the moon
in the open sky
pouring the water of rivers
into your heart.
You can hear the aria
of the wind that the birds
know by heart

singing the story of your body
a hundred generations
in the making.

Come closer:

This is the story that will be yours
long after I have left this place.
 

Madronna Holden is using her recent retirement from university teaching to concentrate on her poetry, which won the 2022 Kay Snow Poetry Award and has appeared in over three dozen literary journals and anthologies including Cold Mountain Review, Verse Daily, The Bitter Oleander, Leaping Clear, Equinox Poetry and Prose, and the Plumwood Mountain Journal. Her chapbook, Goddess of Glass Mountains, was published by Finishing Line in 2021.

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Yahia Lababidi

White

Snow of old age falls, steadily

while I stand before the mirror

using my razor as a shovel

to clear the walkway

to a face I remember.

Yahia Lababidi is the author of eleven books of poetry and prose. Lababidi’s most recent works are a collection of his meditative aphorisms, Quarantine Notes (2023); a love letter to the deserts of Egypt, Desert Songs (2022); and spiritual reflections, Learning to Pray(2021). He, regularly, posts short inspirational videos on his YouTube channel.

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“Fasting from foods is only one kind of fast. There are many other kinds too. We can fast from acquiring more “things,” and excessive consumption, as the physical and material realm, as the materiality of food, and how we understand it, limit it, or explore it differently, becomes a portal to the spiritual. We may find that cleaning the house and preparing a beautiful meal lend themselves to celebratory occasions – different kinds of fasting – and help to lift us from the mundane moments to open us to a deeper connection with God.

In a world where the sacred is infused into the material world, what we release on the physical realm can also impact our interior life. Fasting is preparation, which means clearing out a space for something new to enter.

Fasting isn’t only connected to a physical level. We can also fast from thoughts and patterns in our lives that are life-denying. Fasting creates space in our lives for other- life-giving – thoughts to emerge. Rather than feeling jostled about by so many conflicting internal thoughts or tasks, when we fast, we make room internally for something else, and we are able to breathe more deeply.

My hope is that this will be an invitation for you to expand your concept of what fasting might mean for you and the gifts it has to offer, a way to witness those things hidden and unknown. Not just to stop eating chocolate, but to fast from things like “ego-grasping” or control, so that, in yielding yourself, a greater wisdom than your own is revealed.

We become aware of and fast from destructive patterns in our lives and direct our attention and energy toward what is life-giving, toward our true hunger and the feast. We let go of something depleting so we have more space to embrace what is life-giving and to nourish our true hunger.”

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Reprinted with permission from A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent by Christine Valters Paintner copyright © 2024 Broadleaf Books.