Thus weave for us
a garment of brightness
That we may walk fittingly
where grass is green,
O our mother the earth,
O our father the sky.
~ Native American Prayer (Tewa Pueblo)
Fasting from words, fasting from a volume of speech, being willing to humbly accept the yoke of silence and quietude deprives the tongue of the mastery of our hearts and minds. The tongue is a very useful tool for the art of love and for the art of prayer, but it is also the means by which we afflict others and even our own selves so often. So it must be called into holy obedience.