The End of the Fast and A Hindu Goddess I Could Love

The cleanse is nearly over. And it was good. I just finished my last fast supper - brown rice, steamed broccoli, fresh cherry tomatoes, all mixed together with garlic and crushed red pepper. Colorful and delicious. Although next time, I think I'd probably add some tofu.

It's funny what I've come to crave over the last five days. I thought I'd most miss cheese, bread and wine. I did miss cheese. There is a hunk of raw goats' milk gouda in my refrigerator calling out my name. It's been whispering to me with increasing volume and intensity all week long. I also developed a longing for tofu, which, frankly, I haven't bought for years. It even sounds good plain. The last five days I've begun to become somewhat pleasantly accustomed to utter simplicity. Somewhat.

What has been most interesting has been watching how my perspective on the fast itself has changed through the course of the week. For instance, I started calling it a "fast" rather than a "cleanse." It began to take on more and more spiritual significance and less and less physical importance.

In the beginning, rice, veggies and fruit seemed like such a terrible deprivation. By day three, rice seemed almost like a gift from the gods for which I could hardly wait. I was tiring of vegetables. Day four - broth day - had me appreciating vegetables again. This morning, day five, I was unbelievably grateful for my odd little breakfast, which consisted of mashed banana and brown rice. I could literally think of nothing more delicious. I could imagine eating it every morning of my life with utter joy and exuberant gratitude.

I never felt hungry. I always felt sated. But I did spend a great deal of time thinking about food - even more than usual, I would say. In part I've been thinking very carefully about the foods I most want to eat in breaking the fast. I want to be deliberate about it. I want to choose wisely - not necessarily always healthily, but wisely - sometimes decadently. I mean, are donuts really worth the cost of 5 days of fasting? No. But goat gouda is.

I read a few books on faith this week - Anne Lamott's Plan B and Sharon Salzberg's Faith. I'm sure that added to the spiritual focus of the week - that and my deepening awareness of Advent. Anyway, to get to the Hindu goddess part...

Sharon Salzberg wrote about the ishta dev - the personal deity to which one offers one's heart. You choose a god or goddess based on the qualities you most want to emulate. She says for her, if she were to choose an ishta dev, it would be Lady Liberty, as in the Statue of. I might have said Jesus or the Buddha. But that's another story.

It caught my attention for some reason. Perhaps because all the fasting was making me think of Gandhi whose autobiography kept catching my eye from my office bookshelf. And so, to indulge my curiosity, I started searching the web for Hindu deities. Surely, surely, there must be one for me...

And eureka! I found her! Annapurna, pictured above, is the Hindu goddess of food and cooking. She is the goddess of abundance and nourishment. She is said to have the power to supply food to an unlimited number of people - to everyone who hungers. An incarnation of Parvati, the wife of Shiva, she is pictured above giving food to Shiva that he might have the energy to attain enlightenment. She "symbolizes the divine aspect of nourishing care. The cook provides his guests with the energy to best follow their destiny. When food is cooked with a spirit of holiness, it becomes alchemy." (Compliments of Christine Gruenwald and Peter Marchand at www.sanatansociety.org)

And that for me, my friends, sums up pretty nicely what it's all about.