Reminder: I am a flower, and I rejoice in the spring

My neighbour said to me one morning, as he stood contemplating my face for some time: “Why do I see you today radiant of countenance, your brow aglow, a light in your eyes I have not known before? Only yesterday you seemed near to withering, your movements subdued, your vigour spent. And now you appear brimming with life, as though a new spirit has entered into you.
I replied to him calmly, “My friend, I am but a flower in this vast human garden; and every flower has its spring, if it comes upon it, it brings life, and if it turns away, it leaves it withered and drained of colour. A long while passed in which I was distant from my spring; the light withdrew from me, the water in my veins ran dry, and I imagined that life itself had taken leave. What you saw in me was neither bodily weakness nor a frailty of nature, but rather a heart cut off from its breeze, a soul veiled by heedlessness from its sun.
“Then the spring arrived, not the spring of the earth, when buds unfurl and fields grow green, but the spring of hearts, which, when it comes, restores their clarity and awakens meaning after slumber. The month of Ramadan came, like dawn after a protracted night; through it the accumulated darkness was dispelled, and within the soul there flowed a quiet, profound light—one that does not clamour yet fills, does not glitter yet endures.
“In Ramadan the body hungers a little that the heart may feast abundantly; the mouth thirsts for an hour that the conscience may drink for ages. It is as though man is summoned in it to cast off the burdens that have settled heavily upon him, and to return to his first simplicity—when his inner being was purer and his inclination nearer to heaven. In it the mirrors are cleansed after their tarnish, hearts grow supple after hardness, and deep within, dormant powers awaken, awaiting permission to emerge.
“Ramadan is the springtime of every believer: whoever enters it withered is revived; whoever enters it heedless is awakened; whoever enters it weighed down is restored light and unburdened in spirit. So do not wonder, my neighbour, if you see radiance in my face and vitality in my step; I am but a flower to whom spring has returned, and with it, life.”

(by: Dr Mohammed Akram Nadwi, Oxford, 6 Ramadan 1447)