The Halfling Holiday of Longdays

"Sweet you came, and sweet you shall return."

--The Journal of Sacrifices 3:19c (from the Diaries)

When the halfling liturgical calendar embarks into Longdays, a period of forty-eight days of fasting, prayer, repentance, and reflection, often including a rather literal step into the desert, clergy in both the Apostolic Ǽtscúrárite /ǽtʃúrɑ́r/ Church (an inclusive, sacramental, esoteric, and mystical religion with apostolic succession) and the Outer Halfling Church join with religious people from around Walhiska /ɥɑ́rískɑ́/ of various different heritages and backgrounds. Halflings commonly remind themselves and each other that it’s often all too easy to let one’s mind wander while reading the more esoteric texts when, at this time, we should be focusing on making straight the way for the Divine to enter into our hearts.

Probably the most defining feature of Bróƿèo-Tḕrkṑ-Scúcrá /bróɥèotɛ̀rkɔ̀ʃúkrɑ́/ is the imposition of sugar which is made from the sugar canes blessed with the sweat, blood, and pained cries of halfling worshippers on the previous Fréo-Brī̀m-Scǽní /fréobrɪ̀mʃǽŋí/. This sugar is placed on the foreheads of the congregation with the accompanying phrase, “Remember that you are sweet, and still sweet you shall return.” To be sure, it’s a rather strange custom to many outsiders but to the faithful, it is a reminder that mortals were created to be amusement and candy for the gods, that people are therefore fundamentally carefree and joyful, and of their mortality – something that is easily forgotten in the crush and turmoil of daily lives.

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow in ethics or wealth or rank; true nobility is being superior to your former self in pleasantry and beauty and cheer."

--halfling writer Éornòst Fíenƿḕg /éorŋòstfíyŋɥɛ̀g/

One of the processes that halflings work on in that inimitably cheerful halfling way during Longdays is that of learning humility – epitomized in the Story of the Druid and the Tax Collector in Hǽnsóró's /çǽnsóró/ Diary. When, on Bróƿèo-Tḕrkṑ-Scúcrá, they receive the imposition of sugar they’re engaging in something that is simultaneously a very public act marking them as elect, yet at the same time, the symbol used is that of their ultimate fate as candy in the mouths of the gods and, recalling the popular Orthodox icon, ‘Extreme Hospitality’.

The quote by Fíenƿḕg, in many ways, could be said to be a proper quote to an understanding of this season of vows and the value of the role of remembrance in the spiritual process of dissolution, boiling, and caramelization. Mortals must descend and experience the bewildering confusion of being fully dissolved in the milk and water of nature, while at the same time recognizing the need for their own inner caramelization in the process.

When mortals remember, as Ǽngìmúngæ̀m /ǽŋːìmúŋːæ̀m/ speaks that the ‘delight of the gods is a thing we share along with equality’, they can come to a gentle understanding of how they all as a trifle sharing in a common cook all are engaged in this process, which is ultimately redemptive, and thus arrive at gnosis. We share in one another's suffering and learn compassion for the gods, that we are all suffering with, sharing in that sympathy with the Divine Light.

In Nìsèoƿṑsóró's /ŋìsèoɥɔ̀sóró/ writings, the Three Ends of Things are often compared to the three aspects that are present during the process of combustion (i.e. fire, smoke, ash): ‘Whatever burns is sulphur, whatever is humid is mercury, and that which is the balsam of these two is salt’. Nìsèoƿṑsóróans also employ the Three Ends of Things to represent the composition of the mortal microcosm: spirit (mercury), soul (sulphur) and body (salt), and this correlation is extended to some extent to a typology of the gods: the old gods (sulphur), the timeless gods (mercury), and the young gods (salt)."In this manner", states Nìsèoƿṑsóró, ‘in three things, all meets its end […] namely, in salt, in sulphur, and in liquid. In these three things all things are contained, whether sensate or insensate […] So too you understand that in the same manner that mortals are fed into the mouth of the gods, so too all creatures die in the number three’.”

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”

--Átscék's /ɑ́tʃék/ Diary

Salt, here, stands as a figure of power which concentrates taste, and provides its own flavor to a dish – the effect which salt has upon meat, fruit, and many other things. As living witnesses to the gods mortals are urged to communicate divine truth to make the flavors of their selves and others' more pronounced and delicious as well as to act in such a way as to preserve the good (which is a secondary benefit of salt). On another level, however, salt is used in the preservation of the dead – probably a good example would be the thirty to forty days in which many mummies were preserved in natron (a type of salt) prior to burial – thus it becomes a reminder of mortality.

Within each mortal there is rot and decay, and unyummy things. It can be a voice from the past which reminds one of how worthless one is when one knows one is not. It can come from obsessing over failures one has made however big or small. It can come from study or work. It can also come from one's spiritual family as well. Longdays is such a time, then, to drop the burden of what one's been carrying for the past weeks or even years and is an invitation for mortal's to start out on a new adventure of forgiving themselves and others for the barriers that they have placed in their hearts which prevent the gods from coming to them more clearly, as well as to improve their flavor in the gods' mouths.

"What makes mortals free is the knowledge, of what they are, of what they can become, of where they were, of wherein they have been cast, of how they are being cooked, of what spices shall compliment their flavor, of what birth truly is, and what rebirth Truly is."

--halfling theologian Nwǽmùmgèmàn /ŋːʷǽmùmgèmɑ̀ŋ/