Recently I completed a whole year without eating. Now let me explain. I haven’t become a breatharian. But I do fast one day every week, and, I have now done this for over 7 years. That’s 365 fast days. A year without eating.
What inspired me was my teacher from the International School of Story Telling, Sue Hollingsworth, who was doing a one-day-a-week fast when I trained with her. And a poem by the Sufi poet, Rumi, simply titled Fasting.
I chose to fast on Sundays, the day governed by the warmth and illuminating power of the Sun. Since ancient times, and across cultures, each day is considered ruled by one of the 7 visible planets. In fact, our words for the days of the week reveal this, particularly well-reflected in some languages:
Day rulerships have formed a significant role in astrological practice for millennia and across different traditions. Planet connections with time arise in an even more specific way through hour rulerships, whereby every day is broken into 24 distinct planetary periods.
To calculate these, the daylight period from daybreak to sunset is divided into 12 equal ‘hours’ (which, of course, may be more or less than 60 minutes, depending on the season and latitude), each ruled by a different planet. The same is done for the period of night. The first ‘hour’ of day after sunrise is ruled by the planet of the day: thus the first hour of Thursday is ruled by Jupiter; the first hour of Friday by Venus, etc. The second hour of the day is ruled by the next swifter planet (so Mars for Thursday, Mercury for Friday), and so on through subsequent ‘hours’, in this specific order based on the planet’s average motion.
The order of the planets from their average daily motion is, from slowest to fastest:
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon,
sometimes referred to as the Chaldean order of the planets, a tribute to the Babylonian origin of our astrology. There’s a bit more on these planetary hours here.
These planetary hours formed an integral part of an earthly life lived in close accord with the cosmos. They were used, for example, in dictating the best times to sow or plant, to harvest, to gather, prepare and administer a medicine, to launch a significant initiative etc. Fundamental to this is the sense that everything on earth, concrete or abstract, has a cosmic or planetary connection: cats with the Sun, romance with Venus, mirrors with Moon, books with Mercury, surgery with Mars, depression with Saturn etc. etc. etc. A relationship charm, therefore, would logically be made during the hour of Venus. Sadly, the use of planetary days and hours has fallen somewhat out of favour in modern astrological practice.
In more recent times the mystic and polymath Rudolf Steiner brought awareness to these planetary days, most notably through connecting a particular grain with each planet and therefore day. Often informing Steiner kindergarten menus, each grain could form a part of the diet on its particular day. These associations are:
Monday - Moon - Rice
Tuesday - Mars - Barley
Wednesday - Mercury - Millet
Thursday - Jupiter - Rye
Friday - Venus - Oats
Saturday - Saturn - Corn
Sunday - Sun - Wheat
I find it interesting to note the significant increase in the consumption of wheat over the last 200 years, as our current epoch wrestles with the development of individuality and self-consciousness, a strongly Sun-orientated phenomenon.
Increasingly I am enjoying daily, often earthy, habits that connect me with the larger, the cosmic, the mystery. As our world becomes more and more divorced from the heaven, as even our astrology, carried out with scant regard for the night sky, comes crashing down to earth, these small ways in which we can mindfully connect with the transcendent have, I believe, become all the more important.
When I fast on Sunday, the absence of eating directs my attention to finding the Sun in other ways, inner and outer. When I enter the ocean on sunrise for a swim on Tuesday, I can choose to acknowledge Mars, the ruler of that hour. When I mix rye into the dough on Thursday I know that I am honouring and incorporating Jupiter into my bread. When I send an important email timed for Mercury’s hour it goes with a prayer to the swift, winged messenger, and I feel, in a way, that we are working together, Mercury and I. The cosmos and I. And the universe I inhabit gets bigger. And I a more active participant in the great wonder of it.