9:14am So far so good today. Remembered to ask Spirit’s help. Funny how I forget to do that! Encountered my deep, crippling fear that I CAN’T function without food. Praying to have that fear lifted today. I’ll be mostly offline today, lots of interesting things — a divination with DeShannon, a get-together with my writing group, and time with my kids! La illaha, Il Allahu!!

12:27am It’s Saturday, but I haven’t ended my Friday yet so I’m putting this entry in Day 5.

Today was transcendant! I broke my Ramadan fast (a meal at sundown called ftour in arabic) with Grace, her husband Taoufik, and Tzivia. We all had been fasting and, Grace, Taoufik, and Tzivia broke there fasts with traditional Moroccan foods and I broke mine with Kitchari. We sat at the table and talked about the meaning of Ramadan, the close relationship between Jews and Muslims, the insanity of the blood feud. The talk was deep, free ranging, moving from religion to politics to customs & culture, neurolinguistics, recipes…. it was completely satisfying and it was as though we left the normal continuum of time and suddenly it was two hours later. I think Taoufik was glad to have support for a Ramadan practice. No doubt that to attempt a practice like this and not be in community is intensely difficult. My three day visit into the monthlong practice was profoundly transforming, from the encounter with my own fear to the pride I feel at having set out to do something difficult and outside the norms of the culture I typically inhabit and actually accomplishing it (albeit imperfectly). As I move back into the the 40 day Kitchari fast I feel better equipped to deal with things as they come. Meanwhile, my eyes SO want to close and I think I’m going to let them!