The Energy That Must Not Be Depleted

Livity names the energy of life understood to be present in a person, and the whole cluster of practices grouped under it are unified by a single test: whether a given practice increases that energy or depletes it. Ital food is the clearest expression of the principle. It is natural and as minimally processed as practical, prepared vegetarian in most Rastafari households, frequently made without added salt, and cooked with deliberate attention rather than for simple convenience, on the reasoning that what enters the body either supports or undermines the life energy livity names. The uncut locks for which Rastafari are widely recognized outside the movement belong to the same logic and are commonly connected by Rastafari themselves to the Nazirite vow described in the biblical book of Numbers, which forbids cutting the hair of a person consecrated to God. That scriptural connection gives the practice an explicit warrant within the tradition's own terms, in contrast to outside observers who have often read uncut hair as a matter of appearance or style alone, missing the doctrinal claim that actually grounds it. Livity treats the whole person, body as well as spirit, as the proper subject of religious discipline, so a decision about what to eat or whether to cut one's hair is understood within the tradition as carrying the same weight as a decision about prayer or belief.