sometimes, days skip a beat like men in love with the queens chick in the underwater ashram where everyone gathers in satsang and pulls songs from ganesh's vast volumes of lyrics he wrote on the n train, in between past and future lives.
day 26 was two days after christmas, on the 27th, 26 days after the new moon, just as the 9th month, ramadhan, never stays fixed, due to the prostration of muslims (ones who submit - islam- to the Oneness) to the signs described in the qur'an, for man to live by - the moon, the planets and the stars.
the signs have led this fast to be on the edge of the cliff of winter, the most festive of all months, when food becomes plentiful and holiday parties abound. i did not choose this lunar month to fast, to detox, but my indolence grew in me a hunch back and arms dragging asphalt till i was crawling, on fours.
and the signs say: stop, walk, men at work, fulsom prison this way, welcome to queens.
as a shorty, my sight was poor, more short changed than my pops for rent, then my moms for dreams. i missed all the signs, and watched kids plot futures, schools and professions while i looked at the motion of their cheeks, the blink of their eyes, how many times in a minute, the cute gesticulations of their arms that almost fit the rhythm of their flapping mouths. years passed and i wrote it all down. then i started meeting random people, people who would pass on a message, sometimes in a whisper, and keep on, as if they were rebels of a rebel army, relaying the word of the movement and being spotted could get them life. i didn't know what to do with these situations until they piled like the unread books in my room.
i'm seeing signs now, like the roach that just crawled up the wall in front of me, means i gotta clean this room thoroughly before families of them come out in broad daylight with a picnic cloth and suck their teeth at me. i'm also reading signs in others, about their bodies, their health, imbalance and how it fits into the theory that is the fabric of life - Air Land Liquid Atmosphere Heat.
i was in the foxhole last night, watching the world come to an end inside a toilet, as i purged ghee and chicken grease and the parasites they washed out, like an oil slick surfacing plastic bottles on the shores of the mississippi. bottles that looked like dead worms on fire.
every moment i laid back down - 2:46am, 3:21am, 3:47am, 4:15am... - i burned inside like los angeles, 1992, every part of my insides rioting, at war, setting the trash i'd been stuffing in my body ablaze.
after the 13th time in the bathroom, i prayed, made promises and pacts with the Essence. i prayed for another chance, to get me through this self-immolating body.
i keep getting second chances, keep forgetting that i am alive after a near death. forget that i prayed and asked, and that i might've been heard, that i have another opportunity. i forget that i am engrossed in opportunity, that i have shed, and for brief moments watched myself from heaven and hell and asked to be reinstated, to get it right this time. i swear, i tell the One, i will get it right this time.
humility departs like promises in heat, that climaxes with the morning sun and clothes. as soon as i regain enough strength i am beating my chest, strutting like a cougar in the jungle, rampaging through my days without a pause.
after i puke the slick of my insides, i came as close to the One as mortality can bring and i asked for strength.
i was reborn today, back on earth with a new opportunity, a greater humility to live the promise.
years become a singular month that i stand and grow and wither in like an avocado in a box shipped from northern california, below the marijuana fields of humboldt county.
on day trillion in this manifestation of arms and legs, i listen to the ancient songs of everywhere together. my ancestors are from mars and jdfk and osiejr and lreiw and star ships you can only conceive before the moment of death, when reality becomes so crystal clear, a peace embeds over your paling face.
i've become a traitor to race and the theories that had previously bound me to an us-ism. the only us is solar and has very little to do with this accidental skin, complexion and features i was born into. i know that for certain now. there is no doubt that this skin i'm in is mere happenstance and those who deride it or uphold it are enmeshed in a hurt so bad no miles davis quartet dedicated to the jazz of the blues can capture this blockage, no top cardiac surgeon's stint in the heart can open the valve of reality when material is god.
our bonds are bondage and resurrect only a prison industrial complex driven by the motive of profit.
my honey complexion, dark hair, alley cat physique and movement are just northface and suede pumas, outter wear that i bought into as potentially marketable if worn as the danger and cool babylon paints it as. i traded it in, at the pawn shop for nothing.
nothing?
you can have it, i said to the pawn-shop dude behind the counter, you can have it if it'll get you food for dinner tonight, but then discard it, burn it in a bonfire beside riverside park, there are no cops there between 2 and 3am. no one will see you, not now, not in this weather. burn it, i told him.
what will you wear? he asked, the gold ropes around his neck dull in the face of the sun that made his presence known through the glass of bulletproof.
i was naked, except for the shawl, except for the loongi, except for prayer beads that i counted below the garbs of earth i adorned like leaves on the oaks in prospect park - i counted through chant, through dikr:
ya Rahmanu, y Rahimu, yal Maleku, ya Qudusu, ya ALLAH, ya ALLAH, ya ALLAH...
christmas day i awoke into a trial. the prosecution held a strong case for giving in, for letting go of this starvation, of looking at my emaciated self in the long mirror and feeling sorry, finding evidence to my contrary, so i can return to the cell of complacency, where my meals and time are governed by the wardens of babylon. so i went for a walk.
by 11am, i was in a near empty church, having just missed mass by half an hour and walking in a circle, around the pews, and nodding at mary and jesus and paul and john and the three kings who guided by the stars appeared before the prophet that was known to arrive in the city of bethelehem in the land of palestine. i circled like i was in mecca, around the house of abraham, until i grew weaker in my fast and sat on a pew, right in the center of the golothic space with a never ending detailed stone roof. i sat, closed my eyes and began to meditate.
all praise is due. i walked around the ghastly city, never so devoid of people except this one time of year. their voices lingered like smoke that i inhaled as deeply as the muslim oil i had in my pocket, recalling the prophet's requirement to smell pleasant. the trains were running empty, as if a house suddenly vacated by it's boisterous inhabitants and i stepped in like a foreclosed tenant wanting to recall the scent of home.
home is behind the happenings, behind the boxes of gifts packed with stuff that will be in landfills in a few months and leave coming generations walking on an artificial earth, bloated with stuff it can't digest like the obese masses, consumed in their mirrors.
my christmas was with the hands of the prophet of bethlehem who stood nailed into a meditation so deep, none of the blood that flowed from his hands and thorn-crowned head were of consequence. none of the jeers of the masses of rome, who yelled obsecenities at the guru, mattered. there was a path beyond the moment of suffering. suffering is only a moment. all moments pass.
the chord strikes, a voice comes on: when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, you'll be successful, a man says, inspirational and outraged at our laziness. how hungry are you for success? he posits like your mother after seeing your failing grades, after getting a call from the authorities again, after being fed up with your waywardness. you gotta be willing to give up sleep and some of you like to sleep too much.
success, happiness, health, are ads in the papers, are every other sit on the internet, are a pass to the club where you can feel vip if you spend enough at the bar. 1000 people will get you on the guest list to to the road to happiness, lean that fat, shed that pout, breathe that health.
at the isha ashram at the foot of the vallanigiri mountians in tamil nadu, a bubbly man i met there gifted me a book by the resident master - sadhguru. guru's are highly sought after by the dis-spirited and hungry. sadhguru seems to know that. many in india are hip and many more grow keen on this need.
he's who he is and i'm who i am, monica, a kindred spirit i met there, and i concluded, on sadguru, in our conversation in the cafeteria that lasted for hours, until we moved into talk of home life and music on a patch of grass under the clear blueberry skies. i thought of her as i read the book weeks later.
the sadhguru book was in a q n a format. the western interviewer asked sadhguru about purpose - what is one's purpose? how does one know?
your Purpose, everyone's Purpose is a spiritual one. if it is not, then it is not your Purpose. word. that's what muhammad (s.a.w) said, that's what rumi extrapolated from the teachings of the prophet, that's what my pops taught me by his example, in his humble service to community. all the great teachers have shown me this.
the purpose is to be nothing, the sheik hisham said in a kutbah he delivered in a small mosque, to an attentive audience. to be the number zero is the goal, in islamic numerology. when you are nothing you have everything, and thus become the number one.
made sense to me, the 1ness of Air Land Liquid Atmosphere Heat (ALLAH), to realize God-consciousness through humility, through moving away from this skin and these features and the attachments to false gods - what the prophet referred to as idol worshipping.
i stopped believing in jay z and sharukh khan, and johnny depp and method man, and others i idolized, after it became clear to me that they were becoming gurus i didn't choose, but were handed to me by the pressures to be accepted, to fit in, to be part of what everyone was talking and dressing about. my worship of these idols led me straight into the shopping centers, into donna karen's and h&m and even the thrift shops to buy buy buy and be an individual and dismember from community and do you and chase that leprechaun and join a gym, cause "image is everything" the heart-throb tennis giant, andre aggassi, once said, and i liked him, thought he was cool, so, i took his words to be the book of paul.
image is everything in babylon and success is the road to purchasing imagery - house, lawn, beamer, travel, dinners in paris lunches in jaipur. soon the image becomes you and it feels so good to have everything at your fingertips - toasted shrimp wrapped in wild walnut crusted salmon with a nepali chutney and glass of abruzzo wine, and the people who are joyous in eating out and sharing space without communication for one hour.
my uncle who got fat with benjamins, attributed his monetary successes to God. it must've been ordained, he said, afterall, look at everyone else in my village, they are all still poor and broke.
maybe it's because his desire to get rich, was aligned with what the established system promotes, rewards. maybe if he valued community and fishing and growing crops, and respecting the land and not manipulating people into buying stuff they didn't need, he would still be broke in the village too. maybe.
what is success? are you driven by it? i am driven by the volition to complete this fast, to see it through, to cleanse and reset and get Deeper, in working towards being a medicine man by way of my written word, by way of herbs, of yogic movement, ayurvedic touch, divine tilling of land and community like a love supreme.
"success is my only muthafu@#%n option, failure's not," eminem said, in his song lose yourself. he's right. the trailer park of misery has got to go. poverty is not a path i chose. but my drive is beyond diamonds and rings. my drive is to be in Union, to facilitate Union with those in my path, so that we are closer.
implicit in success is work, and work, the prophet reminds us, is worship.
worship the path you are on towards your Success. if you are not on the path, get on. stop talking, thinking, worrying, configuring about it. get on and work like you have just got the word from your fellow inmate that there is an exit out of the prison you've been trapped in for the past 20 plus years. that there's going to be a lot of people who are going to try to stop you, lots of barbed wire to climb and lots of media that will portray you as the worst possible being and rumors will fly, and it's a long road, but you can get there if you put in the work. hustle and flow. my success is tied into yours.
been avoiding this. being here. writing. posting the day without a post-apocalyptic plan that some of the crew used to have, used to talk about when armagedon was looking like the kids with hoodies bending the corner after midnight, after i left the party alone.
the hood on, casting a shadow over the eyes, means to be unseen, to be static image to you, po-po, surveillance cameras.
i watched the juicer break before me, on the 1st day of the juice fast, a couple days back. the $200 juicer, the one that is as brolic as ll cool j, in his video in the ring - "mama said knock you out". my omega used to squeeze potatoes like Yahweh making mountains into sand in the old testament.
i was in a desert, for hours, maybe four, walking within myself, wondering if i should let go of this portion of the cleanse. but it was everything i walked towards, every pound i shed was for this deeper cleanse, i recalled.
recollection is good, necessary, a picture of moms, pops, and the brothers at a picnic in bear mountain, with cousin pin being chased by his stoic pops in the background. a smile. yeah. i forgot that love these guys. this is why.
my boy step told me to stay focused and avoid faltering, getting sunk, in the process of the job hunt. i told him that before, when he got fired again. someone else told me. i heard stic man rap about it in his song on discipline, as he dropped quotes from bruce lee about being like water. reminders are good, growing.
i forget a lot. i forget where i was going. i know i started to go somewhere and then i got lost, my girlfriend lost, an ex, a new spark, a date in the park, spark, long walk, revelations 3:14...peace out on her, on my way to the juice spot, the sista with the sparkling cider eyes - say wassup - you juice?
i do.
i meditate.
me too.
no good.
why?
cause we gonna get High tonight...
then i remember You, and the world is alright with me, just one look at You, and the world is alright... the juice fast, leaves me in want, makes me crave the mundane. rememberance draws me back. ebb and flow, but sail through the tidal waves of winter with reminders that guide me like a compass to You, my Purpose in this Path of being a warrior, a medicine man.
been hearing the term yogi a lot, in magazines, in conversation. some friends who teach yoga refer to themselves as such. the media seems to call anyone who does asanas and may have inclinations towards vegeterianism, but not necessarily, a yogi. some friends say it's ashamed, yoga has been appropriated. idk.
different things mean different things to different people. waking up early means 6am to me, means 4:30am to rameshji, one of my yoga teachers, means 11am to my cousin nus. but i do know that the sun rises and sets at a certain time.
according to the practitioners of yoga from its ancient lineage, beyond asanas, the term yogi is a title that is conservatively reserved for those who can walk on this royal path of humility, of warriorhood.
none of my yoga teachers in india referred to themselves as yogi's, but as teachers. as masterful as they were in their contortionist movements, they were all too familiar with the discipline involved in being a yogi.
with every fast i do, i aspire on this path that sits like a full moon on a may day, clear and bigger than the city, yet a trillion miles away. i'm walking.
the warrior code of yoga is also known as ashtanga - 8 limbs. yama is the first limb mentioned in the order, as presented by all my teachers so far.
1. yama - laws like commandments you live by to restrain you from engaging in lower frequencies
-Ahimsa- Non-violence: this includes not just the act of refraining from violent behavior from your fellow human, but all species, thus, vegetarianism is a requisite. of course self-defense is debatable.
-Satya- the practice that gandhi has come to be known for - Truthfulness - "happiness is when what you say, do, and think are one and the same" - gandhiji
-Brahmacharya- celibacy - control of the senses and celibacy - how many of you can hang?
-Asteya- respecting other peoples belongings by not stealing. in the frequency of corportacracies robbing the world, it's people and resources blind, it's arguable about what subverting this may mean.
-Aparigraha - Non-covetousness and non-acceptance of gifts, meaning to not be a hoarder. ultimately, nothing belongs to you anyway, right?
the sun of God has died today, in relation to Mystery seekers of planet earth attempting to make sense of the mathematics of this planet in this universe we occupy and how it shapes our daily moods, health, imbalances.
the sun has sunken to His lowest phase in relation to the tilt of the earth's axis, which travels on its elliptical orbit nearing a conclusion of a 365 day revolution.
this crucifixion, is the lowest plane the sun appears to us. thus the sun has died in His exhausted undying radiant Love that He gave for our often sinful behavior of taking Him for granted throughout the year of light.
through this death, the winter of our despair is realized. our acknowledgement is enough to lead the steady resurrection of the Sun, as the Earth grows closer in her understanding of how important the sun is to her body, her trees and lakes, mountains and villages of people and beings, and thus a Love story is born.
i believe in the sun of God. the sun of this solar system that we cannot live without. the sun who provides so selflessly, without the ego that we/that i partake in, even in this fast, in describing it, in talking of it, as if i were building the tower of babel, as if i were zarusthra deciphering heaven and hell. i was reminded of this yesterday, as i came together with kindred spirits in a warrior gathering by the hudson, burning our lower i's through sage and the palo santo that my sol brother brought, and the words my lunar sister read. all praise is due, i thought, as i became just a little bit lighter. i became a little bit less seen in the moonlight that peeked through the buildings of gotham and shone perspective on us. thank You.
the winter solstice is an opportunity to fall in Love again. to be reminded of the Greatness we are divine numerals in. what's todays mathematics?
the revolution of jesus lead to a resistance movement that would deify the man who spoke of a Higher Source among the oppressed masses he Quietly lead. this movement would eventually galvanize a generation and generations to come against the oppression of the roman/imperial/colonial powers of the time.
of and from the masses of poverty, the jesus of folklore and bible, offers the Essence of spiritual practice - the inseparability of spirituality from the fight for, equanimity, social justice, Harmony.
some marxists have separated spirit from resistance and new agers have done the converse- the separation of resistance from spirit.
somehow, in the modern frequency of babylon, being spiritual has become equated with turning a blind eye to the crimes against Life which occur with every drone bomb obama approves, every plant that is moncropped and patented by monsanto and agribusiness, by every tree that is murdered during deforestation for highways and more furniture, more consumption, by every being that loses their natural habitat in this process, every being that is captured and incarcerated in the prison system - zoos; with every work place raid that sends people who work for next to nothing in shackles and packages back to their destroyed home countries that have become starved by the obesity of our over-consuming cultures. but don't talk about that, that's politics, not spirituality, the babylon gurus say. that has nothing to do with us.
if i weren't born to a 3rd world country that was referred to as a basket-case by nixon, for its dire straits in poverty, if even in my father's highly self-educated intellectualism, we didn't grow up in economic poverty in queens, ny, if i wasn't on several occasions faced with decisions that could involve jail time, out of a sense of neccessity, if brown were not the layer of this shell i am in, and the dirt brown of bangladesh that is the scar tissue of the olive brown of pakistani racism and genocide, if the food i ate and the air i breathe did not lead my family into diabetes, asthma, cancer, etc, if i didn't wonder what happened to all the indigenous people who lived here before new york was a city, if i didn't have friends from puerto rico, peru, sudan, harlem, palestine, louisiana, jamaica, trinidad, south carolina, virginia, and in our conversations and in our attire and in our thinking process, i didn't realize that we were strewn together by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, if if if if if if if if.................................i would probably separate spirituality from resistance or resistance from spirituality too. but it's impossible. i am of the creed of jesus and muhammad (peace be upon them). i am the sun of God.
ghosts find their way by my side on my subway ride here - home - queens, ny - from the apothecary where i write prescriptions for tyrone's left eye that was shot off when he crossed the line of boy to man at 12, in our junior high that sits like a landmine in the crevices of conversation when i am asked about the past.
the bitter past sits with the bleak future, both scratching themselves into scriptures i live by when i am not awake.
most of the time i am sleep walking, slipping into somnambulistic talk of Being and Nothingness like a sufi, except i am in the frame of sartre, riding nihilism like a skater rolling ferociously down that 100-story sky scraper that curves out, in grand central, across bryant park, behind the monday night summer movies that i just missed and lament over and over again until i am holding my head in the last subway car on the Q, in the seat reserved for the handicapped, and grow crippled in my inability to shift the stories that begin to sound like the lyrics and tone of 'fast car' by tracy chapman that the musician on the platform at union square played like he wrote it, like he wanted out and i sang along not knowing it wasn'tmy song.
i want out too, from these stories that i made up so that there could be a way in to times square spectacles, and morning side heights ivy columbia university intellectuals, and on the battle stage of club-pyramid on avenue a n 7th st, where rappers slay one another to the finish, and the desi dub clubs that i made up in my mind and still believe exists but i'm never invited too. missed breakfast lunch and dinner again today, missed the notes of fried dough and eggs, missed jessica and mahi's thursday night party, missed the sneaker sale, the one for the new jordans, that stick-up-kids have been pulling out cold steel for. missed it and didn't want to miss a thing like the way i would stay glued to tv, to breaking bad, to friday night, in case i'd miss out.
miss out.
miss out. your fly but... i'm cool. real cool. got to smell good for ALLAH. gotta path to walk on. hope we can walk together. hope our paths are siamese. hope to see you there.
missing out, brings me Closer. reminds me the past that sits like ghosts in my ears are demons that lend voice to decisions that paint my future into a two-dimensional facebook picture where everyone is smiling. tyrone and junior high are gone, juan, willie and high school, gone, college gone, 20's gone, eighties, nineties, two thousands...
miss out. it's okay. it's more than okay. miss out and Work. shhh...
born into a brothel, this body withers and tears through ethiopian skin, nigerian hair, ecuadorian cheeks, korean eyes, to land in bangladesh. bang bang bang. this is a hold up! i screamed at my moment of death in america, when i entered school for the first time. it was a 13 year bid that would cost me my life and i've been tracing the footsteps back to the beginning of time before fayrooz became a sensation in beirut, and the middle east was set ablaze by petrodollars that hired my cousin from the grahm. we haven't talked in a dozen. it's been a dozen. december. 2013. i am atleast 500000 years old, but i only remember the traumatic rebirth into the modern, like i were an iphone 6, as if there were never a cord, or never not instagram. my historical amnesia has gotten me hysterical gazes from the dying trees permanently in winter in this drying city that sucks on my nipples until i am a euncuh and begging for change like a diva, like the rupaul-alikes in the indian metros who walk with a shift and demand to be heard, seen, and adored.. i adore the stares from my hold up, when i blaze through fashion with a close of my eyes and an open of my I. Higher than the high i got from the 40's and blunts and kennedy fried chicken munchies up on the ave with eddie and hap walking outta ed's whip epileptic, like we hit the pipe of freeway rick ross.
today was a long journey on the trains and buses. i'm almost there. there is next door, where everything Shines.
12:30 pm in the winter sun. i return from the mirage of manhattan with a blender under my arm, with horse power equivalent to 3 subway rats dipping in full trot when the N races in through the tunnel.
the last couple of days have been spent in strumming on thoughts of how to continue this journey in fasting. the purpose of it slipped, like the ground below the elders, shoved past respect on the slick streets yesterday.
i was like alice again today, years after i fell through a hole in the park across the street, when my bhaiya's and i were being chased by the grey-pitbull of the guy with the smirk and handkerchief around his throat. i forgot the rumors about him when i fell and scraped my knees hands and cheeks. i didn't know what i was doing or where i was supposed to go from there. was the chase still happening? i scratched my head and found Alice's voice: “How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another.”
over a decade later my brother pondered my quandary with the woman i was talking to, and shared this:
“Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don't much care where. The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go. Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere. The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.” i'm hitting forks, one after another, roads crisscrossing at every nook, signs pointing in opposite directions like the scarecrow in the wizard of oz. i am dorothy and the tinman, alice, and the smoking caterpillar, with questions that float like smoke through a hookah and remind me that i forgot where i started. then a prayer and a moment of Quiet bring it all back, remind me before i begin to talk, before my mind rushes chaotically for to do's hurling through obstacles like jason bourne being chased by feds and cia hitmen. who's after me? where am i supposed to run to? i forget again, and when i quiet, the inquisitive voice of the 11 year old girl that the mathematician, lewis carroll, fell in love with, returns like the rhyme of the ancient mariner, the investigation of living renews. the fast becomes clear and my purpose in doing it paves itself and i walk forward with my hair in patches and my walk as rooted as my dada and i realize i am mad, totally out of whack in my state of barely employed, barely scraping by, bothering only to cleanse, to reflect through these blogs, to pay homage to the trees down the block and watch my abbu and bhaiya and ammu do the same. i realize i was born into a family diseased by brokedom, with no sense of hustle, or money, but revolt and spirit and having people over for dinner and lunch and chai time. madness. “But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.”
minna tells me that the full moon is a time of letting go of the things u feel are holding you back, keeping you from...
in this full moon, i tremble under city snow. there is much i want to let go of.
after i returned from india i was avoiding all the lights, i circled the grass and plants and trees in astoria park, like it was a forest, like i was in a hindu temple marking 7 spheres around kali, shiva and krsna. on the 7th day back in the city i stepped into the train and looked for work under the city, where i imagined brooklyn would remember my name. i met a guy with a card and a name. he wore skinny jeans and a beard, his shades had the city skyline. behind him were a horde of women in silver pants and spaghetti tops clinking glasses with men with converse and brooklyn lagers. they could be you, he said, the guy with beard and skinny jeans. just drop me a line, tell me about yourself. i did. he looked away and i walked over to the next guy, who wore a suit, tie and shiny smile. behind him were men in a tribeca sushi lounge. they await your presence, just submit your cv. i did. he raised a finger and said he'd be back and disappeared. i walked over to a hundred more men and women with promises and american gold. i typed cover letter after cover letter, adjusted resume after resume. hundreds. nothing.
maybe what you want to do has no track yet, no footprints, has nothing to replicate, viv told me, before i left crown heights last year. maybe you have to create it.
i want to let go of standing on the sidelines in tremble, afraid to walk into the unknown path that bears my personal legend. i want to let go of tanning in the city sun, in hopes of color, in hopes of being down. i want to let go of forsaking this Gift, by dragging my head through this desert, going through motions without the Work necessary to becoming yogum, vaidya, kabi-razi, warrior. i want to let go of my practice of seeing the maya of babylon n deconstructing it like an egyptologist, yet in practice, placing belief in it like a disenchanted scholar criticizing academia at every opportunity. i want to let go of the clutter, the ideas, the talk, the waste of wind in the process of breathing fantastic recipes for elaborate fiction.
Be. Do. Work. Quietly. Quietness is the surest sign.
full moon. full like geometry, like khartoum pyraminds communicating with orion, a series of stars that flash cryptic code to galactic floaters of outer space.
i'm out of my mind, so out that neither bengali nor english nor spanish nor hindi nor arabic nor french fits in my mouth. no bible. no shakespeare. no words can tell you what i want to do.
i want to tell You that i fall in Love with You every time we sleep together, every time our bodies lace around like the 2000 year old shawl my ammu has given me to stay warm to the icy winter of economics and the mathematics of injustice.
i want to tell You that my lips tremble even after they touch Yours, that words make sense when our tongues thread like the braids of indians in bangladesh, in tamil nadu, in peru, in puerto rico, in nevada in new york.
i want to tell You that our ascension is Higher than the late night whiskey and smoke, that believe me when I say forever with You is not long enough, that ever since i laid eyes on You, I knew, that I know now, that there is no one that can come between Us.
I loved You when we sat desk-to-desk in the 5th grade and i called you vanessa, and at 19, on the sidewalks and in your dad's car, cruising the bronx when Your name was alisa.
and i keep on falling in Love with You, every time you twirl my hair, whisper sweet melodies, draw hieroglyphics on my chest and back with nails that tear into my flesh until i bleed my Self out of this outfit.
Your gaze just knocks me off my feet and i can barely move but somehow i can dance, somehow my fingers find a way to lace into Yours and draw You closer, draw you so close that... smoke, dissipate...
free the Move 9 - wrongly incarcerated since 1979. Love to them. all praise for their fearlessness...
the beginning and end. my nephew neel ('blue' in bengali and hindi) das ullah was born yesterday, behind glass panes revealing a terrarium of a snowy city shaken by disparities of wealth so great that no ekg screen could display the bottom and top 10 percents.
10 percent of all people born in december will recall past lives.
i was buried on a mountain behind bengal, by sikkhim and bhutan, by a gathering of elders from the lal tribe, moving in secret like prisoners breaking free of their perceived selves, behind bars.
the freedom was there all along, laid behind the walls of the inmates limitations, the tunnel that started from a fearless scratch of the surface and led to a hole so deep that the sun was within a dim sight.
run, i yell, every time i hear that police are on a search for a wild crazy person who has escaped rikers, attica, sing sing. run. escape. let the Light lead you. i'm rooting for you homie. my prayers n blessings r with u. all praise is due for U.
ten years ago i bore a hole through these walls my soul is trapped in. i spent most of my time running towards the rays of freedom, reading the scriptures on the wall like the liberation theologists of latin america during the era of giants my abbu is often speaking of, the time when the colonized said no more and sought exegesis in marx and engels, in the legacies of jesus and muhammad (peace be upon them).
i got far enough in my morning meditations to know that the Light was more than mirage, that the dessert of my thirsting body was not drawing castles in the sky and seeing lucy with diamonds. but come a call, a text, the afternoon and evening, i ran back into my jail-cell and paced, taking comfort in the complacency of a cot, toilet, roof, that the system provided, that for all its shortcomings, offered a semblance of security.
i paced. inside myself, i was frantically running like an iraqi vet tortured by the acts of terror he partook in to establish the idea of terror concocted by the shadow government of obama, bush, clinton, bush, regan, carter, johnson, nixon... i'd been acting out the conditioned training i received from 13 years of public education, hands folded and listening to lies my teachers didn't know they were saying. lies so deep, they were beyond words and books, but the very seats and board and buildings we sat in. lies I Knew, but accepted, allowed to hand cuff, and mummify me, till i was a walking dead, inside a prison of my own acqueiscence. i participated in the set up, in getting myself jumped, beat down and 25 to lifing.
through the calamaties of war, of media lies and the regurgitated enactment by the inmates of normal social behavior, i have sat behind this cell of my body and mind like a good inmate, looking for recognition, for acceptance from the prison guards and warden, for greater time in the yard and library.
i am reminded of my incarcerated self everytime i speak from a place that is beyond the frequency of Humility. i am reminded of my striped uniform every resume i send to the babylon system. i am reminded of these bars from this trepidation of what if i take a risk and fail, what if it doesn't work out, what if this is all there is, what if i can't get rent paid, what if the women in my life get tired of my empty-handed state, what if my Purpose is not my purpose, what if i am wrong for being bangladesh and 3rd world and overpopulated and india, and islam, and too hood and not hood enough and too dark and too light and too straight in my hair and not straight enough and what ifs about whether i am accepted.
the hole in this body-mind, in this prisoners uniform, has grown into a scratch again, like an epic poem written in pencil and erased. the erasure indicates passages written once upon a time.
on day 14, the hole has grown, is still dark, no light in sight, other than the One that Guides me, the One that assures me to let go, the trust, to have faith, that the risk is worth it, that the work towards Light is the ultimate act of worship, and should be conducted with urgent Purpose, in the pace of sun moon and planets, in the Quiet cadence of the snow.
december 2013, december the last into the first into a cycle of regeneration - spring, summer, fall, autumn, winter. in traditional chinese medicne the seasons are aligned with the organs, with balance and imbalance, with colors: wood-green, fire-red, earth-yellow, metal-white, water-black.
the ocean is black at midnight. so black that it is blue like krsna, the flirtatious lover, who was so expanisve and honest in his love, that each of his 16,660 concubines knew of each, knew that he was seeing that many others, and also knew he had a special thing for radha.
love is unconditional, my friend daniel reminds me in the art he is building for his lover, the one who has fleeted. she will be with me always. yes.
there is no one who i have not loved that is not with me today, writing these words with me, giving me Grace.
your children are your children but they are not your children, khalil gibran professes through his character the prophet, in his book, the prophet.
i beg for wisdom from the prophet muhammad, a man of such humility, that what your right hand does to give, to love, to serve, your left hand should not know about, my abbu tells me. my abbu, my teacher in the teachings of prophecy, of making clear that birth is both accidental and deliberate, to pay too much homage to this skin, this body is ignoring the You, beyond it, to reinforce all the injustice in the world.
i am shedding, little by little, yet some-days, when i am so caught in the cacaphonic scale of babylon, i throw on clothes that match magazine covers and mtv. i shiver, and my skin erupts into bumps larger than nfl footballs, and my fever runs so high i see the river my grandfather bathed in, the prayer beads he held in his hands as he chanted down the 99 names of ALLAH, on the mound on the hill overlooking the mud huts and mango trees of his village that he served with calls to prayers and medicines.
i am reminded of this lineage of medicine, of this path that is beyond name and money, that in its traditional form knew no degrees or labratories. i am reminded that in this present stage of searching for meaning, there lies a ocean of past to learn from, if i listen.
close your eyes and listen, my friend yari once told me. what do you hear? the train going by, dmx blaaring from the car speakers.
what else? listen. what are the furthest sounds. shhhh. listen. can you hear the seagulls soaring over queensbridge, the fish flapping fins on the shards of 40oz bottles? shhhh, listen. grow still. be quiet. do you hear? you can only hear if you're Quiet...
friday the 12th. 12 holy men, 12 at the last supper, 12 around the sun of God, 12 hours in the a.m, 12 in the p.m, 12 months, 12 signs, 12 tribes, 12,000 per tribe, 144,000.
the 144,000 will meet on a mountain between india and africa, that's what kam told me, when he mysteriously appeared at my gig. i found him in my chair after returning from walking on winter to ground my fleeting head.
i didn't recognize him at first. kam had stopped eating anything cooked since last i saw him, since the year before when he laid like a feather on the couch in my family's living room couch. he was fasting then, water and juices, going into a deep meditation, explaining why he dropped out of yale, why school was deterring his education. he left like a breeze that night and his stories would be retold like the words of paul and john, among the few of us he shared revelation with.
he'd been to iran and india and followed the silk road into east asia and until he met mystics trading biblical secrets for islamic prayers. kam recited the words djibril spoke to the prophet, the men, in their ancient cloaks, handed kam a key to revelations.
jesus was on a diet of primarily bee pollen, kam told me, pulling out a little sack of golden seeds that he placed on my desk, strewn with paperwork.
the meeting time is coming, kam said, brushing his newly formed beard that sat close to his sunken chest, bulging ribs. he was on a permanent fast, drinking waters, teas, munching select sacred fruits and beepollen.
how? when? where? i asked, trying to understand his language, his references, his frame of thought.
we will know. we will recognize each other on the streets and the trains. we will make our way to the mountain, before the fires, earthquakes consume them.
fires? quakes? the fault lines that already exist, that are giving way, the natural disasters, the wars, the pollution - all the man made chaos that was predicted in revelations, is coming to fruition. but not everyone will be consumed. not the 144,000.
kam slipped into the fall night and became a pyramid code i've been returning to ever since, to decode the meaning of 12 and 144,000. fasting brought him to these truths. his truth.
cold clouds blow out like helium balloons from everyone's nose.
cold cold cold. brrrrrr. brrrrrrr. flap my arms and leap off queensboroplaza, straight into a vaccarro's italian bakery with everyone i've been cool with from every part of life hanging in every crevice of the restaurant like it was new years eve, like it was prince's 1999. lean into a booth full of friends feasting like it was thanksgiving. i sip the bakery's famous hot chocolate and jonathan hands me a hot toddy, and sala feeds me a chocolate eclair with extra vanilla cream squishing into my mouth filling me with decadence. i indulge, move onto a tall hazelnut cappucino and blueberry cheesecake that alisa serves like it was my birthday, and all of us at the restaurant pause to sing some merry merry song to food, to merriment to partying like 1999 like 2999.
chicken grease on my brain as the cold sits in my stomach like a graveyard and begs for debauchery in every way. a moment, i think, as i pass the thai and halal street spots whipping up deep-fried goodness.
on day 11, You are the only hope i have of getting through this fast, of moving past taste, of these senses that are a window to health but a deceiver to the soul, as the yogis explain, as vaidya's (ayurvedic medicine peoples) detail in health texts that read like scriptures.
i barely make it in my drift, brought back only after the gathering this evening, after linking with warriors who remind me that we are where we are and have a choice as to how to move from here. things are as they are supposed to be but don't have to be the same, don't have to be giving up again, giving in again, of moving on again without the kind of focus and commitment that brings forth change, that lends closure to chapters.
in this chapter, i hold a clay cup of nettles and mint tea, and stare at the naked body before me, a masterpiece of Creation, and when s/he awakes from the marma-massage, i hand over a pouch of medicines made for their ascension. pack the bamboo mat and pine oils in to my duffle bag, place the donation bag in my back pocket and float to the next patient, to the bronx, out over by gerard, to see a child of the stars who has forgotten how to fly, whose wings were clipped and needs just a gentle abhyanga, a kizhi with rice pasted all over her body, which trembles like the earth, and accepts the soft grains like seeds that will birth flight.
fall 1962, smoking a rolled joint of mullein and tobacco, looking over at the french couple tangled in each other as they walk past us, blowing puff from pipes that look like long thin pencils.
on day 10, i am between space and time, collapsing into mileus i read of and zones of cold i have only heard rumors of. on day 10, time is like a stack of cards in the hands of the shuffler - 52 cards suspending and shuffling in mid-air.
thank You. thank you for the collard greens, fuyu, the avocado, cashews, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, sea salt, pepper and maple syrup in my morning salad. thank You for the earth that birthed it all, the rains, streams that watered the roots. thank You for the heat, rays, light of the sun that nourished, fed this plant life. thank You for the air that carried forth the seeds, that gave way to breath, in all its complexity. thank You for the tremendous pulls and tendencies of saturn and mars and moon and milky ways in the space, that influences and holds all together. thank You for the farmers who shepherded the Land, fostered this birth, acted as a vessel for harvest. thank You for the runners who carried forth the harvest. thank You for the shivering women and men in chinatown who i picked cherries from in the 30 degree city freeze. thank You for these teeth, to bite, this tongue, this throat, this alimentary canal, these intestines, these parts within, in this Divine machination i have no names for i have no names for. thank You for this mosque/church/temple, I reside in. thank You for minna, sadhya, julie, miguel, peter - new energy, brilliant Light - who conspire with me for Higher. thank You for smack for keeping me grounded, from floating into the subways and talking out loud to myself in what is meant for only You. thank You for chino for being the multiple arms of ganesh and holding our old school crew together like a mother weaving a charollottes web to keep her wayward children from drift. thank You for kaz for always being open arms when i appear from air as thin as time. thank You for d for being the river i baptize in every session we interact. thank You for mo and lil sif and ash, who maintain family ties and keep me in harlem, just long enough to sustain my foot in this city. thank You for chris, who reminds me of the Ways and the why's of this land i somehow crashed into. thank You for ammu who is the reason i am alive, who keeps me ancient. thank You for abbu who has given my hand a writers swag, who has given my eyes the lens of nkrumah and nasser, bangla-bhundu and nehru, of resistance by way of Spirit, who reminds me why I am here. thank You, thank You, thank You. thank You for boro bhaiya who has shown me how being here is worth, it, how no matter how challenging the situation, battling obstacles will lead to Higher ground. thank You for chotobhaiya, my soulmate and brother and mentor, and guru and light, who i often swear is the mahdi the twelver shia talk about, that rumi referred to as shyams and yogis of old, climbed barefoot for days into the sky to see. thank You for sabu who quakes when i do, for ree, who understands, even when i'm so off tune, glass shatters, for nus, who reminds me that there are fruits of this world to be enjoyed, for salman, who reminds me the potential of human beings to be better than our prescriptions. thank You, thank You, thank You. thank You for all the beautiful people i have loved, have loved me, whose names are tattooed all over my organs, so that i see them with every breath i take. thank You for all the fist fights and name calling and racism and for placing me in this manifestation as branded by third world brown bangladesh and india and poor and immigrant and islam, of a religion so demonized that it has become synonymous with terror, of making me an other and the opportunity this has afforded me to grow deeper in your Path, when i Quiet and Humble myself. thank You. thank You for bjork and nas and portis head and nusrat fateh ali khan and bauls and mos and talib and lupe and mobb deep and krs and d'angelo and sade and hamza el din and ragas and bismillah khan and robert ester marley and peter tosh and celia cruz and bomba y plena and suzzana vega and depeche mode and the cure and coldplay and arcade fire and tu pac and tu pac amaru and the sandanistas and the puerto rican independistas and the july 26th movement and the palestinian liberation movements and the tuareg rebels and mukti bahini, ghadars and black panthers and black liberation and young lords and american indian movement and brown berets and weather underground and ramdev and the yogi path and rumi and this snow and this winter wisp and december and all praise, all praise, and so much, so much, thank You, all Praise is due for You, all praise, All praise, All PRAISE, ALL PRAISE IS DUE...
-in love, in struggle, in aspiration, prostrations, your servant, you and you and YOU
growing lighter. growing into deep movements inside. black white red brown rumble and flow. yellow afternoons. colors. lots of colors. i see the color that i Am. walk towards it.
people will come and go i was never told but live. ny is a swivel door for many. community is a yoga class. everything i learned about tribe, loyalty, looking out from my indigenous family, i unlearned from the outside world.
friends are of convenience here, my ammu tells me. shuker bhondu, dukher bhondu nai: when things are good they're around, when things are not, they are ghost.
don't be a ghost, be a spirit. amiri baraka. my boy kaz texted this to me, some time back. when i was becoming the ghosts i was around. when i embraced the motto nas advanced in memory lane: born alone, die alone, no crew to keep my crown or throne.
i am a spirit these days, focused beyond the ephemeral relationships i am around. there is much that is beautiful about the world, about people, about women, about men. they may be an mmm mmm fly, but it's a moment. i know that now. i recall someone saying it once upon a time: you're fly, but you're not that fly.
everyone is fly and no one is that fly that you should lose your focus on the greater Path. perhaps, except for family, especially if they are indigenous, if they carry themselves in the indigenous way, in the way of villages.
the closest semblance of village, i've seen in america, are the hoods here. hood, not brown, or black, or red, or yellow, or white. not hip hop or spoken word or hats turned back. hood - village people, surrounded by struggle and the potential of humility. the more degrees and upwards in class, the greater the appointment-schedules-isolation culture.
i trust and maintain my loyalty to my family and people of the village persuasions, to Air Land Liquid Atmosphere Heat - ALLAH - who is the Prize my existence depends on. all praise is due to/for ALLAH.
as i enter into stage 2 of this fast - raw foods - i give thanks for the opportunity to grow Deeper in the Path of traditional medicine in the displaced quagmire of jungle city, new york. after over 3 decades here, i'm beginning to know this city a little, how it causes balance and imbalance. my grandfather, the village medicine man would have little effectiveness here with his unani/ayurvedic/bush medicine.
rest in peace: jimmy, eric, day-day. your Spirit is merged. all praise is due...
"i am not in this world to live up to your expectation, nor are you to live up to mine... i said I AM, that I AM, that I AM, I AM, AM..."
peter tosh, by way of noah, a singer, who played the harmonium and sang his rendition, incorporating the teachings of krsna and moses in the kirtan i attended last night. it was a beautiful, deeply stirring moment in meditation for me, as i sat with my eyes closed, legs crossed, in front of my Light-lit homeboy by the same name of the singer, noah, his radiant girl and homegirl, and dozens of others, stirred into chanting.
the singer said that I AM is the name of God.
last year, before i left for india, on new years day, my homeboy maurice, a warrior, spiritual teacher, had me over for an I AM gathering at his family home in brooklyn. while he helped ayanna, his warrior wife, chop up ingredients for the stew that was brewing, and while their son darted around, he explained.
I AM, maurice said, pushing up his glasses, is the recognition that You, your deeper Self, is in alignment with God, that there is no distinction. he said that instead of putting forth an intention of a goal you wish to accomplish, become the essence of that goal. doing this, he said, is acknowledging the sanctity of your Being, and going against this, not recognizing nor working towards this, is blasphemous.
so say it, Mauirce said, when he walked me out, into the brisk brownsville january air. I AM, he said...
I AM, i said, a medicine man.
then Be it, maurice said closing the door to winter.
so I AM that I AM I AM I AM I AM. and You Are that You Are You Are You Are.
ny is a forest of trees, magical and moving. we are a biosphere of plants from mongolia, namibia and paraguay. some of us are first generation city, first generation away from a thousand generations of people waking to the sun and bathing in a river. i am.
for a while i flirted with the idea of leaving here, of floating to someotherwhere, where food rises from the ground and water flows from the mountains. i imagined living the way my parents did briefly, that my grandparents and greatgrand parents did in bengal bangladesh/india. i imagined coming home from a day of harvest, chilling with the chaiwallah, sipping chai and politicking about a movement of people returning to the earth. i imagined that this would happen in the states, a recreation of the grahm - the village.
i am learning that living with the earth, in Harmony with her, is more than a once upon a time, more than an imagination that i daydream of, that many of the people i have been blessed by in this city, that breastfed and raised me, also have earth in their dna.
i learned from my boy amadou, that village and medicine men are how people live in ghana; from suzan, that villages in what was palestine, were tribes of bedouin shepherding land and olive tress; from yari, that even in the barrio's of puerto rico, community ties were impenetrable; from miguel that there were no locks on the doors of the countryside he grew up in the dominican republic; from eric, alisa, robert, that the trees were as part of the family as the sugar canes in trindidad; from keith, darron, henry that the bush was the pharmacy in jamaica; from kaz, shawn, givon, jermaine, charmane, sala, that the south was were pies were exchanged as often as morning greetings and barbecues; from chris and jason, from the dineh and mohawk nations that even after it all, the earth remains the most sacred player in the native community.
southernisms from bengal to p.r. to the sudan and peru, from the seminole nations to america's blackbelt south, exist here, in the city of subway gods and earths. i am reminded of it everytime i am on fulton street and flatbush in brooklyn, on jamaica ave and roosevelt ave in jackson heights, queens, on 125th and LES in Manhattan. every hood here is trying to make sense of what happened, philosophzing like ancients on the meaning in the meaning.
ny poses a problem and in turn an opportunity. the rat race of competition in every way, from sneakers and bags to film and nonprofits - scathes the soul, leads us to grow amnesiac about our pasts and embrace every new gadget and trend to maintain face. it's survival. but it's not.
beyond the constructed tick tocking of the clocks from iphones, bills due and stock markets, there is the real.
getting down with the Real is the opportunity. gold. it's gold, a real Blessing to meditate beyond centers and schedules, to be in communion beyond workforce, schools and appointments. if we pause, the Ways of our ancient selves are just a memory a way, below the asphalt, where a dandelion springs forth and blows a whisper.
that's what d said. that's his intention for his new year - to learn from all. i dug it. dug into it and found myself laying around dreaming of learning from all, of dissipating with every conversation, spoken and unspoken, of really appreciating the earth on this skin i'm in. a Gift.
on day 5, i am floating, finding communion with chopping apples, and bananas for oatmeal; communion with grey clouds, with bangla, with shawls and homies over time, with derek, warren, tony torres, gene, tyrone and jitandra. with chuck and brian, eric and charlene and alisa, miguel, juan and wil.
today, i'm at peace with jungle city, okay with its panting that whispers like a lover who i will never see again n see in every new encounter - the beginning, end and on to the 4, 5 and 6, uptown in ascension through a conference of birds.
all praise is due...
met this brother in a chinatown spot last month. been going there for a while. it's off canal, a bakery that looks like 1980's bronx. it's where other broke people go, sit down huddled like an arab feast around the little trays of food. 8 people scrunched into a table for two, sharing stories in mandarin, cantonese, spanish and nuyo-brokonics.
my dude had has ny fitted low, saw new york in my spies.
all praise is due, i said. yes, he agreed. we shared blues, broke in our 30's, and praying.
what's good though? i asked. what r u thankful for?
for waking up. he said.
word.
give thanks for that. God wakes you up, you do the rest.
eating light has kept me light on my toes, in my speech, in my thoughts. light in my prayers. prayers...
r.i.p nelson mandela.
mandela was a name people rocked like malcolm, when i was coming up. he was a symbol of a dying freedom movement that roared like forest fire, like zapatistas/lakota/zulus/naxalites/sandanistas refuting the contorted media images that depicted their tortured existence as terrorizing.
mandela's departure from robin island, the home of the prison system that contained him, left him not far from where he was 27 years prior, when he was first incarcerated - in a state of liberation of movement activity, ready to conclude the chapter of apartheid in south africa.
protest. does it still happen?
"only a hundred people showed up at the protest," my young homie said today, when i ran into her on the 6 train. she held a book on injustice and reminded me why taking a step back to interrogate the political structures we are entangled in/by, is important.
there was a cuny protest this past week. heard about it from another homie. it was to question why the war monger david patraeus was being upheld by city university. the man decorated with medals that commemorate genocidal actions, was well protected by the university and the hordes of police that outnumbered the protestors 2:1.
"the movement is not the same any more," my little homie said. i wondered if there was a movement. did we forget apartheid and colonialism because it looks different now?
in the spirit of mandela, and freedom movements in america and throughout the world, pelican bay prisoners protested the inhumane practices of solitary confinement. they fasted for 2 months. 10 california prisoners that expanded to 30,000, at its peak. palestinian prisoners joined in solidarity.
mandela called the practice of the colonizing of the bloodily concocted nation israel, on the indigenous, land-robbed palestinians, as nothing short of apartheid. desmond tutu, mandela's right hand man, in the struggle for freedom in south africa, said that the zionist nation's practices were worse than the dutch apartheid regime. that says a lot from a man who lived through the apartheid in south africa. says a lot about an ideology that touts the tragedy of the holocaust, to steal land, loot, plunder and decimate the natives and make them appear to be the heinous outsiders. deep.
a lot to weigh, if you consider mandela's life and deeds, if you consider gandhi. easier to think of them as posters, as moral-sheep, who just smiled and said peace. you wouldn't know that they were freedom fighters deeply engaged in political/spiritual/physical struggle. halo, smile and i-had-a-dream soundbytes sound good enough to get a tear rolling, say cheers. go deeper and you might act, resist, be called a name, as mandela, gandhi were when they were alive - a nuissance, supporters of tyranny, terrorist.
mandela fasted. gandhi fasted. attica inmates fasted. guantanamo inmates fasted. in protest. to resist. what were they resisting? how did fasting advance their resistance movement?
in thinking about the meaning of fast, the depth of it, the movement that i am integrally tied to for the freedom of my spirit and body, i find that the giants before me and amidst my existence, have always taken a stand from a deeper spiritual place, not in retreat of self into a hermetic spiritual existence, but a deeply engaged spiriutal challenge amidst the immoral, heinous behavior of systemic oppression.
i dedicate my fast to the movement for freedom, in homage to runaway slaves, harriet tubman, fredrick douglass, pedro albizu campos, the mirabella sisters, abu taher, subhash chandra bose, gandhi, the countless women and men whose contribution is felt if not known, the greats of the palestinian and arab freedom movements whose very mention, can lead one to a life sentence. my fast is dedicated to chief sitting bull, chief seattle, geronimo, the mukti bahini of bangladesh, the ghadars of punjab, the news outlets that counter the heinous upside down media, who, as malcolm put it - makes the victim look like the enemy and the enemy look like the victim.
between aspiring towards warrior codes devised by ancestry and worrying about not enough personal space/privacy/independence - i am in battlegrounds with myself vs myself, my ancient self and my modern self, my community movement and my hyper-individualisms.
with the setting of the sun i turn into a worrier, scratching my head about rent, job stuff, future stuff. discipline sets me free. i recall focus, hit the books. stay away from: gotta get that money, get that real estate, push that retail. but i slip, fall into the cracks of the internet after midnight like a grown orphan annie, looking at big houses and dream of cooking medicines, raising herbs, hanging with fam next door, and stepping to the corner to philosophize with the village i live in.
pipe dreams stay in a pipe in the crack of internet surfing, if there is no action to back it up. act. work.
prepared chard and yam for dinner, ate by 7:20. no more gorging of everything in the fridge after. i ate less yesterday. felt good. after a coffee in the morning i didn't eat till 2:30. felt good. body loved it. loved being a warrior. loved smelling all the deep fried goodies of the growing street food culture and walk on by, focused on the Deeper.
so far i have been falling short, shorter than my five eight. five to eight i'm dropping into a daze, ready to lean into the korean series - dong yi - that i've been dreaming in with my folks.i dream of being the commoners, the ones in revolt against the tyranny of aristocrats; commoners who dance with swords, whose choreography is guided by air and sun, by the desperate longing for dignity . other times, i am dreaming, of being the royalty, my hands tucked into the silk robes they adorn, plotting secretively with the clandestine movements on the ground to make revolt happen.
i'm imagining more than doing. if i ruled the word ... open every cell in attica...
one of my spritual teachers tells me that what seems impossible is made impossible by the limitations we place in perceiving that possibility. so far, the mundane intentions i have r falling out of grasp, becoming methane clouds, choking me through insomnia.
so far, i have yet do the preparation i need to do to manifest the intentions of this fast. instead, like a vegeterian eating deep fried noodles and plantains and snickers, i am eating on the go, spending very little time preparing my meals, the way i need to.
so far, my meditations r stints, in the subways, when i suddenly recall that it is part of my intention for the month. i abruptly close my eyes between others, rocking to the beat of fast life , and fall into a left lane of thought.
so far , i am spending my mornings with promise, my afternoons with getting ready for work, running to work, slipping into work, and my evenings with becoming smoke.
so far, i am hopeful that with Your strength, i will metamorph, become a monarch in my flight like the shaolin masters doing yoga in mid-air.
walking meditation. brahmi pranayama. write: the yogi of post-apocalyptic camden. lesson 7: tcm 8 stages of dignosis. massage licensing. pulse readings: abbu, ammu... prepare foods high in vitamin a/betacarotene, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and patothenic acid. prepare week 1 food chart. shop for those foods.
pray by the river. sit with the trees, touch the roots and head in the sky. pray for Mother. pray for mohegan, mohawk, sioux nations of new york. pray for blood on this land. pray for displaced birds, bears, deer, antlers, peoples. pray for their great grandparents, 7 generations back. touch the soil. sit with the plants. give thanks. give thanks. pray with compassion, with love, without judgement, with hope, with belief, shape.
prayers for my family to grow in our economic sustainability, to be self-sufficient, by placing faith and doing. Do. Be. Create. All praise is due...
today the moon is between the earth and the sun, a new moon, a new moon - no moon in sight. silence is the lake of possibility, where what could becomes what is. the forest flourishes in silence.
today, my intention for this process of moon, earth and sun is that i walk my prayer through diligence, focus, discipline and Purposefulness. my dua is to hold a mobile apothecary/clinic, where i can serve/build with family community by way of yogum - ayurveda, herbs, writings - all aligned with the 1ness. the hope, the first step/s is to facilitate healing, first within myself, within my family, then within community.
one of my spiritual teachers told me today that a man who is told he should be thankful can show thankfulness, but at the drop of a dime, he may growl and pit, as his core is rotten. to be genuinely thankful/loving, one must heal his rot. my intention is to do that this month, by cleaning out my organs, my skin, my mind and spirit.
intentions...
i intend to finish the remaining lessons of the foundations section in the herbalism course i am taking. i intend to have a materia medica for 25 common diseases that my family and i have bee prey to and 50-100 materia medica of corresponding herbs/foods/vitamins that can treat those and other diseases. i intend to revise/finish and submit 2 short stories. i intend to build my herbs collection. i intend to make various vitamin and dosha and ying yang based dishes for this month of detox, including fresh juices and broths. i intend to find a higher paying temporary job, while i work on uncovering meaningful study opportunities. i intend to grow into 8 asanas that i am currently struggling with, i intend to teach yoga and have a steady practice with teachers i respect. i intend on having herbal concoctions for flus, colds and other illnesses. i intend to deepen my meditation and pranayama practice. i intend to put in all the worshipful work necessary to make this happen. i intend to love...
