Fasting

     You know, I never really understood the reason for fasting.  I've had it explained to me and I've tried it several times.   As I recall, it made me hungry and cold.
     When you carve a stringed instrument,  you take away more and more material.  You tap on it and listen to it.  As you use the violin plane you can hear the tone change and the voice begin to take shape.  I remember when I made my first guitar I was carving the inside of the top plate, which no one will ever see.  I was close to being finished when Brad got out the clamp light and turned the lights off.  The shadows from the light show all your imperfections,  but the light also shows how thin you have carved the instrument.  I could see my hand through it!  It kind of scared me.  What if it was too thin and cracked, or I carved all the way through?  But when I put it together, this empty space, these thin walls, this material that couldn't hold light, held sound so beautifully.
       I hope you're not tired of Rumi.  How could you be?

There is a hidden sweetness in the stomachs emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less.

If the sound box is stuffed full of anything, no music.

If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting,

every moment a new song comes out of the fire.

The fog clears, and new energy

makes you run up the steps in front of you.

Be emptier and cry like the reed instruments cry.

Emptier, write secret with the reed pen.

When you are full of food and drink

Satan sits where your spirit should,

an ugly metal statue in place of the Kaaba.

When you fast, good habits gather like friends

who want to help.  Fasting is Solomon's ring.

Do not give it to some illusion and lose your power,

but even if you have, if you have lost all will and control,

they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing

out of the ground, pennants flying above them.

A table descends to your tents, Jesus' table.

Expect to see it when you fast, this table

spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.