The third of the three daily prayers of Islam is Asr, or “afternoon”.

Fast update: Thirsty with a slight headache. Still not very hungry,

I like the fact that Islamic times seem to be tied to nature. The prayers are tied to the motion of the Sun and the Islamic calendar is lunar. This means is it about 10 to 11 days shorter than the solar year and thus the months move around. The cycle repeats itself every 33 years, which means that in about 16 years Ramadan will coincide with the winter solstice, which will make the whole fasting thing a piece of cake in the northern hemisphere.

It must be difficult to fast properly in the far north. I looked up Bergen, Norway, which is where my friend Alex lives, and Fajr occurs 85 minutes earlier than Pittsboro and Maghrib over two hours later, so add about 3.5 hours to your fast. Then I looked up Punta Arenas, Chile, and Fajr happens over three hours later than here and Maghrib five hours before, so that must make fasting a breeze.

Some places allow using the times for Mecca in place of local time when they are extreme, but I think I would be willing to suffer a bit now for an easy time of it in a decade or so.

I plan ahead.

I miss the seasons. I could be sitting in my office (which doesn’t really have a window) and whether it is high summer or the dead of winter I’m going to experience about the same amount of light and the same temperature. I’m not sure if that is healthy, as I think it is healthier for us to change with the seasons.

When I was a child there were four seasons. When it got cold there was turkey for Thanksgiving and Santa came from Christmas. In late Spring we waited for permission to go outside barefoot. Summers were lazy and hot. When I started to attend school, there were three seasons: Fall semestre, Spring semestre and Summer. I looked forward to each and marked the years by their passing.

Now it is just one long season with a slight change in wardrobe depending on the weather. Sure, there are holidays but they don’t represent the seasonal change that I used to experience. When we as a society were mainly agrarian, the seasons still existed as work followed the cycle of planting. Now it just seems we are driven to do more, faster. There is little time to reflect and recharge. I like to close the office the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day for mandatory “brain regrooving” but even that isn’t quite enough.

Again, no answers, just thinking about the questions.