I never learned how to be hungry as a child.

In the course of human history, this fact makes me a fortunate rarity. Hunger, when I have known it, has largely been either volitional or circumstantial, never existential. For this, I feel a deep and abiding sense of gratitude.

It has, nonetheless, left me at a certain disadvantage.

Thanks to my inherited build and metabolism, not to mention the circumstances of my birth, I have, throughout my life, mostly been able to eat as much as I wanted to, whenever I wanted to.

(I was always one of whom they said: Well, he has a nice body.)

Life happens. As the male body ages, it thickens around the middle. Chances are, I'll never have my Minoan waistline back again.

So I've had to learn how to let myself be hungry.

Mastery of hunger is a skill basic to the priest, the hunter, and the warrior. It's (ultimately) a matter of redirection. I've had to learn to say to my stomach “Yes, but...” and go on with what I consider to be the overriding priority. I won't say that it's been easy.

Fasting has always been part of the spiritual technology of the ancestors. It's a good technique for an overfed modern paganism to re-embrace. As fasting is to the body, so longing is to the heart and, properly used, one can intensify the other in order to achieve results beyond what either could accomplish alone.

I learned something interesting about myself during a recent 40-hour clear-liquids fast preparatory to a colonoscopy. (“A necessary evil,” said the pharmacist, shaking his head, as he looked at the doctor's prescription.) For a day and a half, I ate/drank nothing but green tea and vegetable broth.

I found that what I missed most about eating was not so much the feeling of satiation as it was the sensation of tasting. For a day and a half, at mealtimes I would sit down and sip my mug of hot vegetable broth. That was enough to keep me from feeling the endless ravine of deprivation that sometimes opens up at my feet during my annual Sundown-to Sundown fast before Samhain.

2022 being a Sabbatical year, I've already begun to prepare myself for this Summer's doings, when I will need to be at a physical and mental peak. (Hunger and longing again, hunger and longing.) A friend undergoing the same regimen recently texted: What is the chant for fasting? For of course there's a chant to strengthen resolve during hunger. Interestingly, it's the song belonging to the Ooser, the carved wooden mask that the Horned wears among His people in immemorial Grand Sabbat. It's a chant, profound in meaning, that asks: What is self?

Well, Steverino, it's time once again to gird up the loins and get to work. Chances are, you'll never see your youthful Minoan waistline again.

But that's no reason not to try.

With these eyes, what are you seeing?

With these ears, what are you hearing?

With this heart, what are you feeling?

Who are you, the mask, or me?

Who are you, the mask, or me?

Lead or follow, whole or hollow,

am I one, or two, or three?

Do you see me, or see through me?

Who are you, the mask, or me?

Who are you, the mask, or me?