Hola mi amigas!
Yo estoy aprendiendo Espanol. Es facil y sympatico y yo estoy muy contenta con mi progreso!
Uno dia mi deber fluente en el idioma!
Inshallah...
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Habla Espanol
Hola mi amigas!
Yo estoy aprendizaje Espanol. El es facil y yo estoy muy contenta con mi progreso!
Uno dia mi deber fluente en el idioma!
Inshallah...
Yo estoy aprendizaje Espanol. El es facil y yo estoy muy contenta con mi progreso!
Uno dia mi deber fluente en el idioma!
Inshallah...
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Sufi Tarot Card Reader
He sat near the railings in the center of Camden Lock market, obscured by two white lace curtains that provided shade not only to him, but also a pair of velvet covered stools and a short round table. I wasn’t sure but he seemed to be playing with a pack of tarot cards.
Curious, I peeked in and was met with a bright grin.
‘Hello! Would you like a reading?’ he asked, shuffling the cards with a flourish, his round, bald head settling into his broad shoulders with a friendly shrug. Like a turtle I thought, warming to him.
‘Erm,…ok’ I found myself replying. I was unemployed, after all. Time stood still, aching to be dispensed with.
‘Ooh,’ he gasped as I sat down opposite him, ‘I must tell you. There are spirits with you’
‘Spirits?’ I looked about me in fear.
‘Yes’ he replied bending his head towards me, ‘can you sometimes intuit things?’ His eyebrows wagged mischievously.
Yes, I thought, I can intuit that I am wasting my money here.
A short pat on his deck and a lavish spread later, my love life was stripped of all its essential clothing. Blushing, I tried hastily, to change the subject and took a wild guess. This was Camden, after all.
‘I don’t suppose you could direct me towards some literature on Kundalini Yoga?’
‘O yes! I was a practicing Buddhist for many, many years!’ he exclaimed, launching enthusiastically into a long discourse on Buddhism. I breathed a sigh of relief. Buddhism I can talk about, but employment? My lackluster love life? Perhaps another day…
‘I do find, however’ the oracle pondered, ‘that Sufi Zikr is a far more effective means of tapping into one’s psychic self. I am a sufi tarot reader’, he presented a business card, ‘indoctrinated in the arts by a Pakistani Sufi Master. The man changed my life.’
I was intrigued. Every week I had been taking a bus to my friend Laura’s home. She was training to be a yoga instructor and gave free lessons. I found meditation to be a great relief from unemployment angst but somewhere, in those intense sessions, I had started feeling the absence of God. Here was the ideal combination: my Islamic God and the silent, introspective Buddha, both kneading my energies into a calm balm to soothe nerves worn raw with fear and worry. I begged him to direct me towards a center of learning and a week later found myself hesitantly entering the doors of a converted church enquiring after the next Zikr session.
It was ramadhan. I had found a job, but was also afflicted with a feverish cold that had struck when the weather turned. I was sniffling, my body ached, I had been on my feet all day, but some undeterred curiosity dragged me onto bus after bus towards Seven Sisters. The anticipation was immense, but the evening’s worship was to start with Iftar and Taraweeh. Zikr, itself, would not commence until several hours after and was to bring the evening to a climax.
Warily, I found my way to a cafeteria. Here sat cloth covered women on cloth covered tables. I could sense they could sense an intruder. There I was in my jeans and flashy red jumper, my bare head standing out in a crowd of modestly attired faces, muslimahs well versed in the art of cover up. I sneezed and was graciously offered a piece of bread.
It was an uncomfortable meal. I escaped to the women’s toilets with tears in my eyes. What was I thinking? I didn’t belong here. So many perplexed pairs of eyes couldn’t possibly be wrong. We had no common ground, regardless of how generous they were with their food. Should I stay or...(Flee! Flee! Flee! my mind hollered)
No! I had come all the way here, I must see it through. I shoved my hands under a running tap to perform ablutions. Dear God, show me a sign.
‘Don’t judge this mosque by those people’ a Hijabi lady spoke up. She had been watching me from afar. ‘Everyone has their own understanding of God. Are you muslim?’
Yes I am, born and bred. In need of a God I have abandoned for far too many years and wrestling with fears and anxieties, chasing after empty pleasures knowing full well their aftertaste. And O, did I mention I was unemployed?
She is a convert, breeding a young family of muslim women. She has fought her family for her beliefs and now they too have found her way to be good. She is my sign.
Upstairs, in the prayer room, Taraweeh starts and I join a jamaat of women. I am struck by the beauty of the room. I can easily visualize a yesteryear when this very room featured an ornate altar and multiple rows of wooden benches facing it. The walls are high and huge glass windows in the gothic tradition welcome in a wispy layer of pale silver moonlight that wrestles with the orange glow of the lanterns. A large patchwork quilt hangs on a facing wall bearing the names of Allah in brightly colored thread, lovingly created by some of the women I am seated beside. There are wall hangings featuring Quranic verse and a framed picture of the Kibla. This room has witnessed centuries of prayer and performance within its stone walls and I cannot imagine a more tranquil space for tonight’s anxiously anticipated Zikr.
Prayer starts and I painfully realize that this is my first Taraweeh at a mosque and I am clueless as to the format. The prayers seem different and once again, I feel doubt, a nagging fear that I am not meant to be here. Then, gradually, a rhythm settles into my joints and unfamiliar words settle onto a familiar tongue. I feel my aches and pains melting away as I pray and bow and chant with a community I now, somehow, feel a part of.
20 rakahs later, the room falls silent. Some one has extinguished the lanterns and the moonlight no longer needs to compete for attention. It settles, instead, just below the high ceiling, lending an eerie glow to the many figures that have now assembled in front, the cloaked Shaykhs conducting the Zikr and the men who have come to attend. The room is still, I can almost feel it breathing, or perhaps those long deep breaths are mine. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray for magic. My toes tingle as I hold my breath.
A voice starts chanting itself into a loud, heavy chorus, they are chanting clipped, short words; the names of Allah. My eyes remain shut as I join in, swaying to the tune of this heavenly chorus. It feels pure and rich and resonates in harmony with some chord within my person. I can feel my eyes tear up, tears i have no control over as they cascade down my cheeks with shameless abandon. I am overwhelmed with remorse. What is this feeling? It is immense and palpable and it is as if my entire being is melting.
I leave the church in a daze.
Due to a series of unfortunate events, I could not revisit the mosque and a month later found myself boarding a plane back to Pakistan.
Struggling with culture shock and the confusion of repatriation, I sought Sufi friends, if only I could contain within my heart, the series of cathartic emotions I had witnessed that fateful day. Within the midst of chaos, they alone took on the mantle of guide and oracle. Such intense sentiment must have SOME meaning.
What?
It must be relived!
So onwards I march, past a seaside mazaar, its colorful building replete with flags and swarming with people pulling to itself with some cosmic magnet the crippled, the psychic, the mad, the eccentric. I witness soothsaying parrots, fortune tellers, palm readers, I read tales of women being picked up and raped from outside its gates and it perplexes me. In that entire stretch of land swarming with the occult is a culture I do not understand.
Weeks later I find myself in a majlis. There are hymns and prayer and songs of praise but I cannot feel God. It is as if he appears and disappears at will, I chase after him and catch a fleeting glimpse. Then the fight begins, the struggle to be cleaner of heart and purer of spirit.
I wonder if my Sufi tarot friend had any idea of the yearning he would unleash, or if he could sense my hungry spirit. Were he in Pakistan, would he too be found practicing outside the mazaar of a deceased saint? Despite my confusion I remain convinced. In the land of mystics, teeming with saints and guides, I too shall find my path. And it promises to be an overwhelming journey.
Curious, I peeked in and was met with a bright grin.
‘Hello! Would you like a reading?’ he asked, shuffling the cards with a flourish, his round, bald head settling into his broad shoulders with a friendly shrug. Like a turtle I thought, warming to him.
‘Erm,…ok’ I found myself replying. I was unemployed, after all. Time stood still, aching to be dispensed with.
‘Ooh,’ he gasped as I sat down opposite him, ‘I must tell you. There are spirits with you’
‘Spirits?’ I looked about me in fear.
‘Yes’ he replied bending his head towards me, ‘can you sometimes intuit things?’ His eyebrows wagged mischievously.
Yes, I thought, I can intuit that I am wasting my money here.
A short pat on his deck and a lavish spread later, my love life was stripped of all its essential clothing. Blushing, I tried hastily, to change the subject and took a wild guess. This was Camden, after all.
‘I don’t suppose you could direct me towards some literature on Kundalini Yoga?’
‘O yes! I was a practicing Buddhist for many, many years!’ he exclaimed, launching enthusiastically into a long discourse on Buddhism. I breathed a sigh of relief. Buddhism I can talk about, but employment? My lackluster love life? Perhaps another day…
‘I do find, however’ the oracle pondered, ‘that Sufi Zikr is a far more effective means of tapping into one’s psychic self. I am a sufi tarot reader’, he presented a business card, ‘indoctrinated in the arts by a Pakistani Sufi Master. The man changed my life.’
I was intrigued. Every week I had been taking a bus to my friend Laura’s home. She was training to be a yoga instructor and gave free lessons. I found meditation to be a great relief from unemployment angst but somewhere, in those intense sessions, I had started feeling the absence of God. Here was the ideal combination: my Islamic God and the silent, introspective Buddha, both kneading my energies into a calm balm to soothe nerves worn raw with fear and worry. I begged him to direct me towards a center of learning and a week later found myself hesitantly entering the doors of a converted church enquiring after the next Zikr session.
It was ramadhan. I had found a job, but was also afflicted with a feverish cold that had struck when the weather turned. I was sniffling, my body ached, I had been on my feet all day, but some undeterred curiosity dragged me onto bus after bus towards Seven Sisters. The anticipation was immense, but the evening’s worship was to start with Iftar and Taraweeh. Zikr, itself, would not commence until several hours after and was to bring the evening to a climax.
Warily, I found my way to a cafeteria. Here sat cloth covered women on cloth covered tables. I could sense they could sense an intruder. There I was in my jeans and flashy red jumper, my bare head standing out in a crowd of modestly attired faces, muslimahs well versed in the art of cover up. I sneezed and was graciously offered a piece of bread.
It was an uncomfortable meal. I escaped to the women’s toilets with tears in my eyes. What was I thinking? I didn’t belong here. So many perplexed pairs of eyes couldn’t possibly be wrong. We had no common ground, regardless of how generous they were with their food. Should I stay or...(Flee! Flee! Flee! my mind hollered)
No! I had come all the way here, I must see it through. I shoved my hands under a running tap to perform ablutions. Dear God, show me a sign.
‘Don’t judge this mosque by those people’ a Hijabi lady spoke up. She had been watching me from afar. ‘Everyone has their own understanding of God. Are you muslim?’
Yes I am, born and bred. In need of a God I have abandoned for far too many years and wrestling with fears and anxieties, chasing after empty pleasures knowing full well their aftertaste. And O, did I mention I was unemployed?
She is a convert, breeding a young family of muslim women. She has fought her family for her beliefs and now they too have found her way to be good. She is my sign.
Upstairs, in the prayer room, Taraweeh starts and I join a jamaat of women. I am struck by the beauty of the room. I can easily visualize a yesteryear when this very room featured an ornate altar and multiple rows of wooden benches facing it. The walls are high and huge glass windows in the gothic tradition welcome in a wispy layer of pale silver moonlight that wrestles with the orange glow of the lanterns. A large patchwork quilt hangs on a facing wall bearing the names of Allah in brightly colored thread, lovingly created by some of the women I am seated beside. There are wall hangings featuring Quranic verse and a framed picture of the Kibla. This room has witnessed centuries of prayer and performance within its stone walls and I cannot imagine a more tranquil space for tonight’s anxiously anticipated Zikr.
Prayer starts and I painfully realize that this is my first Taraweeh at a mosque and I am clueless as to the format. The prayers seem different and once again, I feel doubt, a nagging fear that I am not meant to be here. Then, gradually, a rhythm settles into my joints and unfamiliar words settle onto a familiar tongue. I feel my aches and pains melting away as I pray and bow and chant with a community I now, somehow, feel a part of.
20 rakahs later, the room falls silent. Some one has extinguished the lanterns and the moonlight no longer needs to compete for attention. It settles, instead, just below the high ceiling, lending an eerie glow to the many figures that have now assembled in front, the cloaked Shaykhs conducting the Zikr and the men who have come to attend. The room is still, I can almost feel it breathing, or perhaps those long deep breaths are mine. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray for magic. My toes tingle as I hold my breath.
A voice starts chanting itself into a loud, heavy chorus, they are chanting clipped, short words; the names of Allah. My eyes remain shut as I join in, swaying to the tune of this heavenly chorus. It feels pure and rich and resonates in harmony with some chord within my person. I can feel my eyes tear up, tears i have no control over as they cascade down my cheeks with shameless abandon. I am overwhelmed with remorse. What is this feeling? It is immense and palpable and it is as if my entire being is melting.
I leave the church in a daze.
Due to a series of unfortunate events, I could not revisit the mosque and a month later found myself boarding a plane back to Pakistan.
Struggling with culture shock and the confusion of repatriation, I sought Sufi friends, if only I could contain within my heart, the series of cathartic emotions I had witnessed that fateful day. Within the midst of chaos, they alone took on the mantle of guide and oracle. Such intense sentiment must have SOME meaning.
What?
It must be relived!
So onwards I march, past a seaside mazaar, its colorful building replete with flags and swarming with people pulling to itself with some cosmic magnet the crippled, the psychic, the mad, the eccentric. I witness soothsaying parrots, fortune tellers, palm readers, I read tales of women being picked up and raped from outside its gates and it perplexes me. In that entire stretch of land swarming with the occult is a culture I do not understand.
Weeks later I find myself in a majlis. There are hymns and prayer and songs of praise but I cannot feel God. It is as if he appears and disappears at will, I chase after him and catch a fleeting glimpse. Then the fight begins, the struggle to be cleaner of heart and purer of spirit.
I wonder if my Sufi tarot friend had any idea of the yearning he would unleash, or if he could sense my hungry spirit. Were he in Pakistan, would he too be found practicing outside the mazaar of a deceased saint? Despite my confusion I remain convinced. In the land of mystics, teeming with saints and guides, I too shall find my path. And it promises to be an overwhelming journey.
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