Day 5
The beast you ride is your various appetites.
Change your wantings. When you prune
weak branches, the remaining fruit
gets tastier. Lust can be redirected,
so that even when it take you backward,
it goes toward shelter.
A strong intention can make “two oceans wide”
be the size of a blanket, or “seven hundred years”
the time it takes to walk to someone you love.
True seekers keep riding straight through,
whereas big, lazy, self-worshipping geese
unload their pack animals in a farmyard
and say, “this is far enough.”
“New Moon, Hilal”—Rumi (Coleman Barks transl.)
I didn’t make it to the new masjid I was going to check out y’all. My partner got really sick, so I decided to stay home. I’ll go for taraweeh, I thought–until the post-iftar and walking alone at night in a city I don’t know that well kept me at home. And I missed suhoor and fajr.
I forget the amount of time one can safely sleep and still be able to wake up. Is it 2 hours? I wanted to get a little call tree going but there were no takersJ
Missing the morning has thrown me off today and I am moving more slowly. I’m walking slowly, thinking slowly, being slowly, which gives me the opportunity to notice the voice that says “move faster, get more done, push push push…” When I really think about it I realize that that isn’t my voice so much as an internalization of the constant messages I absorb that I must always be doing and/or striving to do more,work harder, keep extremely busy, anything else is laziness. This year I transitioned from working in an office full-time to working from home. The first two or three months I felt like a loser sometimes because it was really hard not to feel lazy—though I was working sometimes harder than I had in an office. In fact, I did feel lazy. The double whammy of this was to hear that other voice that says as a black woman, you have to clearly be working hard to prove that you, black person, are not lazy. That internalized stuff is nasty. I’m still working my way through it. Accidental motion?
But today is Ramadan, and so today I say to that pushing voice—we’ll call it the Pusher—chill bruv, chill!Today I get to take my slow time, gaze turned inward, to notice where I have need of healing, and to appreciate my inner riches, the inner riches of being human, to abide in a state of gratitude. Ya Shakur!
Shayka Fariha writes:
As the mystic lovers recommend, put a joyful face on the fast. Do not go around looking sad and depressed. Your limbs might become weak but you can still give a smile.
May we continue drinking from the endless fountain of Allah’s boundless Generosity!
Inshallah and amin!
