The Dormition Fast begins August 1st, and lasts through to the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God. The BadgerDad wrote an excellent article on the details of the Dormition Fast, which you can read here. In it there are various prayers poignant to this period, as well as a bit about the fast in general. This article seeks to expand on ways to fast this season, especially for people who find themselves unable to do a meat and dairy free diet (due to age, pregnancy, or whatever).
Food Fasting
One thing that that can happen when we try to follow the various ideals of the Byzantine Fast is we can end up making meal planning quite complex. Spending more time cooking and looking up recipes can end up taking away time otherwise spent praying or with the family. And this goes against the entire idea of the fast! My suggestion works regardless of whether you are going meat and dairy+ free or not. Make your meals simple for fasting seasons. One way to make meals simple that suits the nature of the fast is to stop seasoning the meals. First, this cuts down on ingredients, so that simplifies meals quite a bit. Second, this makes your meals less flavourful. That is, it becomes a sort of fast from flavour. So if you are abstaining from meat, this prevents whatever meal you make from becoming a gourmet vegetarian meal. And, if you still need to be including dairy and meat in your meals for dietary reasons, by removing seasonings from the meal you can still feel the effect of the fasting season.
Further Fasting
Aside from feeling the fast with the food we eat, we can expand our fasting to be visible in various areas of our life.
Fast From Things
One, we can fast from materialism. It is very easy to accumulate in today’s society. Our gifts, hand-me-downs, and general shopping habits quickly fill our homes. Things enter our home faster then items leave it. So one thing we can do during the pasting periods is to be intentionally about removing more than we are accumulating. And not only that, but slowing down the speed at which we are filling our homes. So during the fast, declutter spaces and stop spending on non-essentials.
Fast From Speech
Two, we can fast from speech. Fasting from food focuses on what goes into the body. Fasting from speech focuses on what comes out of our hearts. There are many ways to work on taming our tongues during the fasting seasons. We can be more mindful of our tone of voice. And, we can practice speaking more positively. We can also try to be more thoughtful about what we say. Other ideas to consider including are avoiding whining/complaining, flattery, boasting, gossip, talking back, dishonesty, interfering in the affairs of others, and, of course, swearing and other harsh language. If none of these are a specific problem, just focus especially on listening rather than speaking during the fast Another thing you can consider is adding specific periods of silence to your day. Fast Three
Cutting Time Commitments
Three, we can fast from ways we use our time. This could mean spending less time on our phone, or less time on social media. But this could also mean cutting extra errands or activities we do outside the home. Fasting from time commitments can be a great way to add extra time for family and prayers.
If you really want to be comprehensive about finding where you can cut time commitments, log one of your days. Set an alarm on your phone for every 15 minutes or half hour, then jot down what you did during that time. After a full day of this, you can see where you are spending your time. Decide which areas you can fast from spending your time. And then which areas you want to “feast” in. You can’t change the number of hours in the day, but you can change how you spend that time.
The Byzantine Life
Thank you for checking out this week’s article. If you haven’t already, you can read our article on the Dormition fast, and our article on the Feast of the Dormition. Also check out our article on what to do with flowers blessed on the Dormition!
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