My name is Podergo Tuma and the days of the week in Irish for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are Kea Dian, Derdine and Inla.

And EIN there that you hear at the end of Kea Dian, Dherdine and Ina are, it's the word for fasting. So Kedine for Wednesday means first fast.

Dherdine for Thursday means second fast. And Ena for Friday just means fast. Because in a kind

of a religiously infused naming of the days of the week, there were three fast days in the week.

So many of the world's traditions infused by religion have fasting as part of

the week or part of a month or part of the yearly or seasonal cycle. And it's an intriguing thing

to think about how it is all across millennia and centuries. People have employed fasting for all kinds of purposes

to focus the mind, to focus the heart, to turn in some kind of marking of solidarity

and to attune oneself to a deeper hunger.

Ramadan's greeting by Sana Asan.

We pluck the new moon out of Mecca's sky, a lottery bowl, make a guessing of God's plan.

First fast will be Thursday, just me.

Now if I'm Friday, you'll see.

It comes when it comes.

The day, tall and endless,

we empty our stomachs, our senses, restless, sexless, whizzing ablutions. Can we wash ourselves of ourselves?

Want and no longer want what we don't get?

Wait, witness the greed, growl, grumble, gratitude in the vacant gut.

We greet the God that is more God than the God we greet.

The wanting never wanes, eidacious desire for the sun to sleep, mosques sealed,

so we meet in open mouths at the dates wrinkled skin, bursting under bite, sweetness

floods into us like the quiet dark of dusk, shadowless, hungry eater of light....he is a celebration of we.

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