Gena Christmas Lent (Fast of the Prophets): The Birth of Christ
Ever since I was a child, starting at 7 years old, I enjoyed fasting, lenting, and eating vegan, despite coming from a religious carnivorous family. I felt light and healthy, my body and mind brimming with energy. Lent felt like a superpower, granting me self-control over my mind and body. As I grew older, I loved eating mostly vegetables and fruits, to the point where my family would make fun of me, calling it "food for the poor." When asked to label my eating habits, I am reluctant because my palate changes over time, and food is not something I am attached to. Throughout high school, university, my career, global travels, intimate partnerships, creating my business, and serving God's universe, I used lent, fasting, prayer, body discipline, meditation, and learning emotional and social intelligence to focus, envision, and live a healthy and wealthy lifestyle.
Living in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) was a joy with its epic outdoors, nature, healthy food selection, great educational system, vegan restaurant options, robust social health system, and conscious citizens. The high living standards influenced me, leading to a healthy spiritual lifestyle. It made me realize that humanity has evolved toward ethical, conscious, and mindful living in societies like the PNW. This awakening challenged my beliefs, behaviors, habits, cycles, and rituals. Coming from an ancient religious and spiritual family, raised by awakened fathers, building my brand, being highly educated, and becoming the change I wanted to see tested my comfort zone at every phase.
Navigating life through experimentation, exploration, and spiritual guidance helped me heal and grow. I live conservatively, disciplined, and focused in mind, body, and spirit to gauge my emotions and maintain high energy. Raised by hardworking awakened fathers and fear-led mothers, my religious practices, self-love, focus, discipline, and purification of mind, body, emotion, and spirit led me to spiritual awakening. I took full responsibility and accountability for myself to be part of healing God's universe.
I learned early on that I have the power to dream, envision, and manifest whatever I want despite fears, environment, parents' views, friends, and life's challenges. Discovering spirituality through church fasting, Oprah, books, and the global world intrigued and challenged me, becoming my path within. Each stage of my life has been about serving God, aligning my being with my spirit and the universe. Living in the real world while practicing what I preached triggered, evoked, projected, reflected, provoked, and made me uncomfortable, prompting realignment, awakening, healing, growth, upgrades, and evolution from within, embracing my feminine divinity.
This Christmas is no different from other Christmas seasons, my favorite after Easter. I started building my Christmas tree in November, preparing my mind and body to detox, retreat, seclude, and go deep into a spiritual practice for 43 days of Lent, prayer, fasting, inner work, and meditation, leading me and Mother Earth into an abundant 2025.
Many Ethiopians fast in the lead-up to Christmas Day to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. The fast begins on November 25th, known as Tsome Nebiyat (Fast of the Prophets), and continues until January 7th. Fasting, a form of self-denial, typically refers to abstention from food. During Lent, the purpose is to show restraint and self-control, disciplining and training the mind and body to focus and live by God's spiritual laws, grounding and sharpening in high-vibration energy, shielding oneself from the collective ego-driven false world.
It is generally agreed, and asserted by the Church, that the Ethiopian Church has the strictest fasting regime of any Church, with 180 mandatory fasting days for laymen and up to 252 days for clergy and the particularly observant. The general list of fasts is laid out in the Feteha Negest. Lent is a common time for fasting in many churches, practiced by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Christians. While some churches, like the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, have strict fasting rules, others leave it as a personal choice. During fasts, Ethiopian Lent observers partake in only one meal a day, eaten in the afternoon or evening.
Fasting involves abstention from animal products (meat, dairy, and eggs), and sometimes fish, and refraining from eating or drinking before 3:00 PM. An absolute or dry fast involves abstaining from all food, liquid, and sex, as well as anything that gives pleasure to the body and mind, for a defined period. For those who want to go deeper, a silent reclusive period can provide insights, visions, and preparation for challenging situations in life, even experiencing a metaphorical death and rebirth.
Lenting, fasting, abstinence, and introspection are intended to allow each person to focus more closely on their relationship with God and spiritual living, free from worldly distractions. This does not mean abstaining from all food or social activities during Lent. Instead, many churches extend fasting restrictions beyond food to a lifestyle of healing and detox from within. For instance, one might abstain from vices like smoking, drinking, partying, or porn, refrain from extreme hobbies, or avoid activities like watching television or oversharing on social media. The goal is to steer attention away from temporary satisfactions to concentrate within, practice mindful living, connect with one's soul, embrace stillness, listen in silence, be with nature, and connect with God's universe to purify, cleanse, rejuvenate, and heal.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church, through its spirituality, customs, rituals, culture, traditions, habits, laws, and practices preserved over thousands of years, embodies the essence of aligning, balancing, and evolving the mind, body, and spirit. It reminds followers of their consciousness, made in the image of God, and their direct spiritual connection. Ethiopian Orthodox rituals, from the rich knowledge of marriage, astronomy at conception, birth, baptism, lenting, fasting, daily church practices, festivals, purification, and cleansing with awakened holy places, holy men, and holy water, enlightened forefathers, saints, and devoted worshipers, encompass repentance and healing.
The profound respect for humanity's birth and death processes, and the spirit's departure to rejoin the source, has been deeply embedded in Ethiopian Orthodox followers. This serves as a reminder that mankind's cradle, the source of human existence, our ancestors' birthplace, and the original genetics of Homo sapiens call all beings to believe they are made in God's image, are enough, and that utopia is within. No one, nothing, and no body should have power over one's mind, body, spirit, emotion, and energy. Fasting, lenting, meditation, prayer, and healthy living with boundaries enable intuition, strong gut feeling, and instinct, making one alert, vigilant, aware, mindful, and detached from hijackers, emotional vampires, and energy vultures.
As we participate in lent, prayer, fasting, and repentance this Gena Christmas tsom, we reflect on the changes, challenges, and tests that have impacted our homes, families, communities, societies, and humanity as a whole. We are humbled to remember the journey of St. Mary and Joseph, who, while pregnant, were chased out of their country, persecuted, and faced an uncertain future. Despite these hardships, they remained full of faith, hope, resilience, and selflessness, trusting in God's plan, protection, guidance, and insight. St. Gabriel conveyed the message that they were to birth the Son of God. It was St. Mary's purity, Joseph's trust, and God's guiding light that led them to a stable in Bethlehem to give life and birth to the Son of God, the King of Kings, who brought light and love to the world and, through His death, forgave our sins. He showed humanity how to live like Christ, to awaken, be enlightened, and follow God's commandments, despite the world's cruelty.
We, as humanity, are children born from the past and present, living at a challenging crossroads. It is imperative to say #nomore to seeking validation and love from others, as God made you a gift. Awaken, be mindful, seek what is seeking you in spirit, be conscious, and forgive. Make peace within yourself, be humbled by all that God has blessed you with, and surrender to the uncertainties of what your home, community, society, and humanity hold. You are love and light; trust in God's will, Christ's birth, and your inner truth.
Loving yourself means being humbled, grateful, and selfless in recognition of God's gift of life in creating Adam and Eve in His image. It also means forgiving all our sins for breaking and betraying God's trust and light. God saw the innocence and purity of St. Mary and gave us His only Son, Jesus Christ, to walk on Earth as a human being, suffering for our sins. Jesus lived among us, praying, fasting, teaching, meditating, and living. He died on the cross for all our sins, blocked energies, ancestors' wounds, scars, and pain bodies, showing us how to walk in spirit and truth, purify, heal, and awaken to our authentic light and love given at inception. You are not a mistake; you are enough, exactly where you need to be. Be still and know that silence is God speaking to you, healing you in light, guiding you through challenges, tests, and suffering, and helping you overcome the trauma bonds, codes, programs, and engineering you were born into.
This Gena, in remembrance of Christ's birth, I hope you pray, fast, meditate, engage in inner engineering, trust the process, say 'yes' to life, and let go of whatever is not serving you. Learn to become the peace, love, joy, purity, naivety, innocence, and light that you are. Be wise, sharp, grounded, aware, forgiving, grateful, and resilient. Surrender to your life's situation, seeking, exploring, searching, and researching.
I am ready, excited, and looking forward to the unfolding of 2025, as well as a little apprehensive and nervous.
Happy Fasting, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year 2025.
By Dutchess @deldeyoch
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