full moon: oct 2015: letting go of addiction

days before halloween. no plans to place any more disguises over the layers of costumes i wear. 

hoping to peel like an onion, but wondering if i'm rotting, if peeling at this point would be like digging fingernails into a molded, blues and white onion, and only getting millions of bacteria that the self recognizes as notself. 

full moon.  last one was to let go of resistance and embrace what is. did so. accepted that i am where i am and found ways to engage a little deeper, to take part, and initiate, and be proactive in the tango, at first awkwardly leading turns, stepping on toes, and at some point twirling my dance-mates. figuratively speaking. 

figuratively living through the steps of the prophet muhammad who has laid out the single most compreshensive system of organic living. once it is bombed and depleted, once the taker culture is done with the genocidal campaign that they wage, and have fully grown their tumor beyond repair into this path of humility, then the teachings of the tradition will be romanticized in new age massage schools, and homeopathic schools of medicine, and perhaps even among the spiritually and geneaologically destitue, hoping to connect with something meaningful. we see it with native american spirtiualy and identity appropriation. 

letting go of the behavioral patterns of addiction to that which harms me, and in turn others around me (as my negative is a frequency that impacts the whole). 

been watching my thoughts a little more, since i've been reading on addiction, and addictive behaviors. 

found myself acting out the addiction i was reading about...acting from a place of compulsion, of a reward pathway that would initate the behavior, a mental process of wanting that gluten-free vegan fig newton bar at new seasons supermarket. found myself thinking of how good it would taste, and how gratifying it wold be, and then, concomitantly engaging in why it would be wrong. and this thought process appeared to create a heru-set, a yin and yang, of dark vs light, good vs evil, and thus a hedonism, which is said to be a neccessary ingredient to addiction. 

the reward pathway seems to only be expanded by the hedonism, by doing it anyway, even though i knew it would be a bad idea, knew the consequences. yet, oddly, and predictably, the arousal grows. 

so i'm past phase one of the addictive mind - past the thought process that sets off dopamine, and gaba, and opiods. i run ot of the cafe i am, leaving my ipad, and books, and jacket, and rush down the block, hopping and skipping, and still having this internal conflict, but knowing i will grab the organic fig newton, and salivating at the thought. then getting it, chowing down like a bulemic, feeling a deep sensory gratification, the sugar rush, gold. then it sinks like lead into my belly, enters as a conflicting bit of chyme into my small intestines, which doesn't know how to distro the nutrion-less highly processed babylon organic. so i feel the frankenfood going through the villi and micorvilli straight into the bloodstream, taxig my pancreas to over-activate b-cells, that mass output insulin, setting off insulin receptors on peripheral tissue, and being on the verge of a resistance - diabetes. that's right. body in revolution, in resistance struggle, stops producing insuling altogether, so there is no uptake of all that excess glucose, or the tissues resist it, setting off sweet blood and sweet pea syndrome. 

all this to say, that it was a behavior, sure there are mesmeric colors, and associate tunes that may have come from feel good foods from childhood and the commericals that convinced me of such, but i ultimately make the decision, and the decision happens in my head first. thus, more than a substance having control over you, it is you who exercise control - by way of behavior. 

you is me, and my letting go this month is of the thought pattern that produces these false reward pathways that neccessarily leads to a greater hollow, once the deed is done. it is a negative feedback loop. it is a futile attempt to get secuirty by avoiding what is present, what needs to be dealt with. by avoiding reality, you grow engaged in an actionable preoccupation that holds a momentary (snesory) gratification, and then, suddenly, gone, and your left lower than before you began. 

sure i'm talking about a gluten-free vegan fig bar, but i could apply this to my consumption of coffee, to certain negative thought patterns that occur in the active voices in my head. adddiction is a compulsion to repeatedly do something that results in a negative consequence. doesn't have to be drugs. could be talking smack about others; could be haterations, on constantly having negative emotions towards other ethnic groups, members of your family, people at work, on the street...could be chocolate, or shopping, or, or....you tell me...

i can wear sparkly white kicks and crisp jeans and a white tee, but if my room, and house are dirty, then how clean am i? words are costumes, they might sound good/right/moving, but they disguise what is happening inside. or atleast they can. 

so this month i let go of negative thought patterns by: watching my thoughts, by spending 10 minutes each day in meditation, and then applying the fruits of this meditation in moment to moment presence. when these negative thoughts, words, song lyrics come up, i will ask myself why, and delve into the roots until i can address it on this deeper level, to seek peace with these pasts and expectations and fears, that give rise to them....inshALLAH...

full moon letting go sept 2015

in the name of the One...

where's the love...where's the love? radiohead asks, in their song fake plastic trees...she lives with a broken heart...do you live with one?

my heart's partially broken from the bomb that just fell right now. my heart aches because it feels the gang rape of the 10 country assault on syria...somehow the bombs of the 10 countries, their drones, soldiers who snipe are the good guys ending the bad...somehow their fighter jets, rain of bullets, are helping the internal affairs of another country, helping a civil war...

...what would it be like if during another city at unrest, like baltimore, people vs cops...canada, and mexico, and israel france and japan and russia and britain and...decided to drop bombs on us, saying they were helping to keep the destructive behavior of the terror gangs from spreading???

deep. 

prayers. plant my head in the soil, and surrender these heavy thoughts. 

rise from sajdah in hope, in renewed spirit, prepare for dua, for the begging, for prayers...then i pray for the droppers of bombs and the bombed. pray for compassion, for a better way, for love to fill the hearts of those actively and professionally involved in lying to the public because they run the show we watch in suspended disbelief...

prayers for you oppressor man/woman. 

prayers for the mothers, fathers, grandparents...

is there a safe place for elders? 

nyc speaks the language of high on cocaine through the left lane of moving through hustlenomics, selling you on a day and time and schedule. i forget. 

i forget that we were supposed to meet. appointment books get lost on me. no excell or spreadsheets or google calendar to plug in the date two weeks from now. i forget and we never met again, and no marriage, and another missed boat, and i must not be serious, cause i would've showed up to the appointment. i'll pass. 

this full moon i'm letting go of resisting what i have to offer. so, letting go of resistance to fulfilling of this path. instead, what i'll be doing is embracing, hugging, actualizing, through the Surrender. this full moon reminds me that eclipses happen, and to embrace, to maintain orbit, to keep shining from within, even if without looks dark, appears cloudy. 

this full moon, instead of resisting, by letting go of resisting, i am letting go of control, of attempting to be a perfectionist in controlling perfectly the outcome, the happening. instead, i'm trying my best, and listening and moving, through the work, because making mistakes is important, because other peoples reactions are a reflection, because there is reward in the work, regardless of how belittling it seems, because your Purpose can never be compromised by ego - yours or anyone else's. 

letting go of resistance to my Purpose, to your Purpose, means to let go of the ego that may seek to control you in wanting to control an outcome. 

in dealing with the frequency of ego, you fall in competition with others who are in this wavelength, and un-naturally set measurements with others on the stick of who knows more, who is more important? the most important thing you can do is the Work. the Work is fulfilling Purpose. the Purpose is to serve through humility, diligence, spiritual alliance...

what will be possible when, if i step away from resistance that comes from ego - from, i'm too good for, i'm better than, i am not good enough to, i don't deserve to...? i'll let you know in less than 14 days, during the half moon. you let me know to royalty...

full moon: blue moon july 2015

once in a blue...two moons appear in the same solar month. blue moon...ella fitzgerald sings about it in a jazz club 1955 on lenox ave. i sat in the front row and slipped into 2015, ithaca. 

yoga studio. upstairs from the mate factor. drinking on the prespiration that drips from my frown, smile, Om, udjahee in the vinyasa my students and i flow through to commemorate the full moon. at  the end i share the moon ceremony friends and i do back in the old country kemet, nyc. 

khemet, nyc is the avenue of ancient philosophers wrangling star sightings and lunar eclipses over the pyramids in giza. 

khemet, nyc is between bk, q-boro, bx, les and harlem. its where men and women stand with their shoulders back and chests broad, their heads bowed in islamic humility. 

khemet is where we slip through the cross fire of police and politricians, fake-thugs, and self-destrutive gangstas, experts and media, to look at astrological signs noted by isis and isa, isaiah and muhammad mustafa sallallahoo wallaihe wasalam. names that move through tongues from seekers on the path to decode the maya.

the maya that i let go of this full moon is this fear of rejection. the idea of rejection has me wearing bright suede dc's with bengal jute, and make it fly. the soar of fly is cool, important, if your stylistics emanates from Source...but if it doesn't then, watchout. mines goes back and forth. 

pana nanan nab, na na na na...the music of Soul governs these threads, says Om from Om, regardless of dhaka mumbai tokyo addis abbaba khartoum or nyc, and for that matter 1598 or 2015. 

rejected by the mainstream, i adopted the costume that let me in the door of the party everyone was packed and smoking and drinking themselves into subconscious therapy talk on back in the day, and them-hate, and love you's and chest beating, and hair-dragging to bathroom sex. 

paid half my check to the pusherman behind the counter at the tavern for liver depleting potions like long islands and greyhounds to knock me into acceptance. 

that was then. then was between nyc-babylonotics and sumerian cuneiform. yogum lead me to Surrender, to this path of of the Great Surrender to the Source of Peace (Islam)...so all praise is due.

now, this full moon, i Am that i Am, unapologetically. 

can't allevate the disappointment of others when they find out i sip coffee, or bow down, or recite mantras, and sing blackmoon lyrics right after a bangla baul chant, or that my feet are sometimes size 8, sometimes 7.5, sometimes 8.5, that i am the sun of immigrants who love so deeply, they still make last supper meals for 144 with $12. 

i goto the salvo with 12 bucks and walk out with stitches from the mens and women's section that fit my me in a way that fashion industry new does not. used clothes shroud my lithe frame like a masai, like a baul if he were tossed into 1980's nyc with broke parents with values richer than the materia-aesthetica shah jahan detailed for the masoleum begum jahan and he lay side by side in.

i am the nephew of petty bourgeoise merchants selling incense and oils and knock-off perfumes and shoes in innercity america. i am witness to the sometimes financial success of my kin of the immigrant desi/muslim community and educational degree accompplishment. i am the son, brother of activsts, and believe in a less vulture-driven system.  

this is who i am. i am sometimes 5'7.65 inches, sometimes 5.8 depending on samasthiti.  i am challenged with narration of yoga sequences although the words come like ghee when i am in the flow. i don't feel like i'm good enough to teach. i forget methodology and inhales and exhales, going more through momentum and this is something i want to change. 

i am bangladesh, muslim and outcaste hindu, a vedantist, and follower of the teachings of the prophet muhammad. see my people with saddened eyes, think we are trying to hard not to be us by forgetting our outcaste roots. and i forget and sometimes, and instead i embrace dalit so much that i fit in all too well to outcaste america and this keeps me in contrast to class ladder hoppers in the desi community and in some ways. assimilated into consumer-cool. 

this full moon, i am clear that i struggle with commitment, and want more than anything, a woman who i can build family and community with. this  full moon i am 125 pounds and sometimes 135. 

this full moon i was a teacher a youth program coordinator, a video editor, a retail clerk, an education consultant, a can-collector, a man without a job, unemployed and surviving without government assistance. this full moon i recalled that i decided to pave my own path forward. 

this full moon, this is how i look without make up. this full moon, did i tell you i love you, that i really appreciate our convo. this full moon i recalled how i was jealous and how those moments passed, like all moments so i let go of those strings...love to see you shine in however that is, and give thanks to our brief encounter in this matrix...and prayers for your way in this manifestation of being...

thiss full moon i speak and walk from ALLAH whenever wherever however, so there is no dishonesty  when we engage, so i ask questtions and listen, really listen, to worship this divinity, and take every opp to do work, however challenging and dirty, so i could serve, be of service, grow...

this full moon...shhhh...quiet...real Quiet...this is who i am, letting go to get to who i AM. 

new year intentions: full moon: july 2015

i said it to myself. my intentions for this year, during my new year day. did you hear? if you didn't, is it real?

this year...I AM my Self. 

thiis year i become my Self by actualizing purpose in being medicine man building community. 

began this blog a couple years back as a forum for reflection on this journey of becoming a medicine man. didnn't have a clue on what form it would take. thought, initially, that it would be recipes and formulations and treatment methodolgies as understood through the lens of ayurveda and executed in words that required release from these fingers that tap like zakir hussain on the tabla, that bleat like the wailing fingers of hendrix, that meditate in prophetic poetry like jalaluddin rumi. 

writing has been part of my purpose since i was conceived, since my father's (the writer/activist) nucleotides were transcribed in a story with my mothers, and gave birth to this form. alhamdulillah. have to write. have to. 

my purpose in deciding on path of hakeem/vaidya/medicine man, was an act of Surrender, a step into a ruku that left my head imprinted with earth of the mountain i laid before. it was in growing deeper with my indigenous self - in recognizing that indigenous meant of being of the soil, of a tradition, of a continuum, of a collective consciousness tapped into generations of star-gazing, navigating the ocean with stars, and av nodes harmonized with the pulse of tidal waves. this is how the ancients knew. this is what i needed to surrender to, if i was to be of service.

realized my purpose in talking/building with the shorties. my young homies asked me about next steps in their life...what they should do. they saw in me what i saw in them - Realness. they dug the vegeterianism, the fasting, the no-shopping, the free-the-land, the open-every-cell-in-attica, the exposing of the hunters version of his-story, the herbal medicinal recipes, the meditation, the use of prana, the yogum, the prayer, the surrender to ALLAH...i told them to pursue medicine, real medicine...

in talking to the Real, i was talking to something deeper inside me, and knew right then what i had to do...become a medicine man...

since then yoga has grown more than a quick morning ritual, and fly-by diet, meditation in the A train, and active practice of ahimsa with dudes looking to swing. 

yogum has become even deeper in some ways. have finally stepped out of the box of individual doing into offering classes to others, facilitating asana practice. this was a necessary step in this path.

massage, body work treatments, has become an immersed medicinal tool for me, in which yogum finds expression. your body disappears in my own as i work on my Self, in a dance of jesus energetics, sometimes feeling through blindspots, marma and trigger and shiatsu points that set off past pains. sometimes, my hands land on a crowd of scuffle, entangled in fear and loathing. sink like a hand in mountain that becomes volcanic mud. thixotropy. shaolin. hands through stone. 

the majority of ayurvedic treatments are body-work based: shiro-dhara, abhyanga, marma-massage w/hands/feet, podi/ella/navarra/dhai -kizhi, udtharthanam, shiro-abhyanga, mukhe-abhyanga, taila-abhyanga, shiro/kadi/ghara/uro -vasti, taila/ghrita -vasti's...

herbalism has found expression through this course, investment in herbs, and dialogues with others. of course, without proper immersion, it remains adrift. such is the case with nutrition as well.

i fast. have done a year of veganism, on-off years of pescatarianism, vegeterianism; stints of raw-food-ism. actively make kichoree, oats, salads, and smoothies. understand rasa, and the importance of tastes and gunas in doshic balancing. yet and still, the lack of immersion in this has led to  a peripheral relation with nutrition. 

herbalism and food/nutrition, is the other major modality of ayurveda. the two are intertwined, stemming from a science of foods, that which is ingested, and how the combinations, times of day, body types all interact in this process.

so the intention for the new year, of actulaizing purpose, of being my Self, looks like this:

to fulfill this path of medicine man, i tread next on a deeper relation to nutrition (food and herbs). i do this by immersion, both in studying and the doing, actively engaged in my own apothecary of 100 herbs that i use regularly. actively engaged in raw, vegan, and vegeterian cuisine. active in using food as medicine in prescribing diets to myself, based on season and imbalance, and to others. actively making medicines and meals...

i write and publish that which needs voice, that which requires birth. this has to do with balance, with building community and re-examining our lives of community-less-ness...this means the works of fiction, the educational how-to for educators to grow deeper in education as meditation, the essays, doctrines on community building, community economics, self-sufficiency...

i invest, get investors in building a school/shala/ashram-masjid, in alignment with the Great Harmony, in building true-peace-dynamic-farming-community. 

i plant seeds for a family, and grow family beyond nucelar, through shared understanding, compassion, space...

prayers. have my hands in beggars position for dua. i pray ALLAH that i fulfill this purpose i am set out for, that i am fearless and purposeful, focused and diligent, compassionate and humble in this pursuit ALLAH. i pray that i can do this to be of service to ammu, abbu, choto and boro, my kalas/kalus, kalthabhon's/bhai's and their loved ones, my homies and their loved ones, other clans and tribes, and individuals whose purpose is stifled by imbalance and in the balancing will bring forth amazing. i have my hands up, head down, ALLAH, as i pray for the people who are hungry, in neighborhoods palgued with worry, anixety, fear of safety, i pray for people wo have been torn from their families becasue of apartheid regimes, because of bombs and guns, i pray for the ancient lands that are being riddled by the age-old scheme of divide and conquer, the set up of  let-them-kill-each-other-and-we'll-snatch-their-goods, ALLAH, i pray for all those in dire straights, who are scraping, working 20 hour days in the factories that clothes are stitched together and sold at discount and brand name stores, i pray for those working the land for pennies, those who are without jobs, i pray ALLAH for those desperate, ravaged by poverty and seeking a better life in other lands and being prosecuted in the worst ways for being different. i pray for everyone behind bars ALLAH, whatever the crime, You are the Most Compassionate, forgive them and lead them to a humility that brings them closer to You, give them freedom, i pray for all of us struggling with jobs and holding down families and relationships, and meaning, and purpose, and pscyhological and somatic illnesses...i pray for all my family - all of us - to go deeper in our relation to You, so we can truly surrender our ego, not just on the prayer mat, but into each other, while we are briefly here, in this manifestation of being...

full moon june 2015

in the  name of ALLAH, the most beneficient, the most merciful...

in the name of Quiet................................................do you hear me........?????

nine dots. 9 divided by 3. 3 times 3. 

hidden. hidden in riddles that solve like math when there is a quiet mind and psychoanalysis is just a reminder of the prosecutor questioning where you were that last night.

 i was Home. i've always been Home.

full moon practice alone, in Quiet, in the room next to the bar, where convo happened like last day to talk to each other. i just held her. my ammu. held him. abbu. bhaiyas. said nothing when e, a, d, k, j, passed on, breath turned in, till otherside of the mirror.

through the looking glass. walked in to the river. walked into oceanic  floor. 1000 leaguuess under the sea. under. go under.

there's an  arithmetic to home.   but i go witth feelings, witth momentum, with trying to feel it and see wwhat comes, of ssitting  in the caaafe for  yearrs until teen thhousand paagess and no sttoryy....i g  throoughh aa viinyyassa off peoms  strung intoo pposees. 

thhis month  i let go  oof  of randomm, emotioon bbased,, immproov aand improv annd emotiionn thrrough methodologgies, throught he arrittthmetiic of annatomy and hhsioology of aasaana and medicine making andd things iss we alwayss havee. there's alwaays been a sscience to us,, to  our indiggeeenoous  wayys.   it justt was never stiff.. itt jsut was  neverr jusst a  forrmuula  to stepp oone fooot tto the lefft aand then to the right 3  seconds llater. tthis iss eeuurocenttric ttakeer ccultturee mathh in  diammmetriic  opposition to  truue mmathh. true math iss mmethodolloggies, baased on ccraft,, on skillssmaanshiip, method met wwith  movvemennt aand dance annd painting. all at ooncee.. but havve the methhod ddowwn.  know tthe methood    in hholllerrinng,, inn what wworked didinn't, in shirsaasaana aandd sccoorpppion annd hhandstaand. know the method iin  storytellling and bbones and atttacchmentess and musccless...

this month....meethoodologgy  that is  thee sccience of mmusiicology  in  asaaana,  meditiaon, wsttoryteeelliing, looveerinng,  ccommmunnity buildding, massaggin, mediicine making, herbbalizinng, entrpprennuerrooticss....

full moon: may 2015

all praise is due to the Essence of life, the Guide...

...the One, known only through the secret science of 0...

...the mathematics taught by the prophet muhammad and recognized by the higher I of everyone from the arabian peninsula, to the abysinnians of ethiopia, eritrea, somalia, kenya, to the sumerians, persians, egyptians, nubians, moors, berbers, saharans, dogon, namibians, through the north and east of turks, mongols, chechs, hindustanis, ughurs, javese...

...mass enlightenments/conversions with the metaphorical sword of Higher, from the land and peoples who brought to the world khemetics, zorostrianism, judaism, christianity...why? 

...there must be something to this grassroots knowledge that has no picture to bow to, no idol to worship, no symbol of an ethnicity or a suffering, but of the universal signs - moon n sun (star), no belief to suspend disbelief for...

...only this, only acceptance of what is - there is no Essence, but Essence, no Energy but Energy, that which is always, that which cannot be created nor destroyed...

...the Guide is my intention for this month, is the  One that replaces the i of this man who is in the way of himself...this month, the letting go is more than just getting away from perfection and trying things out through circumstantial structures, through being a conduit, instead of getting all the pieces in, instead of getting it right, instead of doing randomly, letting go of the critic, the judge, the lower i of just practice, of just trying...by being a conduit, by being of service with what it is i know, have had the privilege of getting deeper with...

..what gifts have you been bestowed with young? a beautiful voice? acute observations? illustrating the world outside your window through words? hands that heal? cullinary concoctions that leave diners cured of...

...channel Higher, and offer up your gifts, see what happens, worry about the money later, it will come...do, offer this gift you've been bestowed with, that, thay you have cultivated, that you have spent life time energy groing...offer it, because the world needs you kin, needs me, needs balance, for more than just today, and this year and lifetime...the world needs this Gift as part of a conversation with the past, present and future...

fulll moon april 2015

full moon. saturday night.

got older in the lunacy of the eclipse recalling that i was a past when the future generation bumped into my yoga stroll. 

still strutting.

a little less. a little less of a lean as i get in tryambakum mantras, as abdul basit offers his voice to recite surahs that no one has a copy right of. i wonder if they would if they could. they meaning me and my 7 billion selves in this 2015 of post-hope, or when hope means obama-olitics of brown crackers who could crack a whip just as good and more compassionately than whitey.

glad i'm still a public enemy, that i am the savage in the newspapers whose worship is so condemned that land and rituals are stripped, ancestral people uprooted into ghetto reservations designated for the uncouth. 

glad that i studied my lessons, so that the romantacism of indigenus, holds no draw for me, especially as i hear it from the antecedents of the settler peoples who ask me why islam is so crazy, and why muslims are prone to violence, and what i think of shariah.

odd, i think, as i dance in the dark through vinyasa's that Essence guides me through. odd, i think, as these conversations linger and i wonder where the disconnect is. i wonder if they make the connection that colonization of the americas happened with an almost identical approach to the current snipering of islam. i wonder if islam will be as fashionable as native/tribal culture/spirituality once they have successfully killed us all off, when they have made Surrenderers just a name of people who worship the same god of the takers - capital(ism) = consumerism = what's hot/cool/in = race to the bottom. 

my friend asks me, yes, but what about shariah? 

what about shariah? i mean to ask him. what do you know about it? 

uh, well, shairah means crazy, means fanaticism and promoting this and...apparently, this conscious new age homie has read the news, has somehow taken on the party line of the corporatocracy he condemns. interesting.

whose telling the news? if you and your family were robbing and stealing and you owned the vehicle of what everyone saw, read, heard, would you depict yourself as pathological? who is the hunter and who is the hunted? whose version do we get to listen to?

this lunar cycle, i give up on trying to get it right, and be perfectly messy and perfectly spiritual and perfectly crazy, and perfectly the medicine man that those in the circuit of herbalists and yoga teachers and alternative medicine will respect. 

ALLAH gives me respect by allowing this voice to continue to flourish, to exhale, to get another chance...to serve and be of service, during this brief stint in this body. 

i remember that i am abdul jabbar. compelled by the Compeller, and so long as i remain focused on what and who i am being compelled by, all is good. 

this lunar cycle, i let go of getting it exactly right, of perfection, before i make a move. i make moves... 

spring equinox 2015

crazy thing is that it's snowing and music plays from the birds of spring. the pigeons never left, they stood like the gandhi statue at union square in sunnyside, queens, where the buildings are short enough for them to reach, nest and observe.

spring 2015 is like libra's with boxcutters below their lips, smiling at disputes in the afternoon train, after school is let out and cuss words cut the deliberate silences of straphangars hanging for their lives.

snowfall in ithaca. it always snows in ithaca. always is the word of experts who spend two weeks, two years in a town and write guidebooks. this is just the way it is, the business world of everyone who has converted to the color of neoliberalism, tells me.

chris holds out, still writing plays on a time of butterflies, still goes to the rez to oust nuclear war heads planted like cattle corn. chris in his mid life now, still carries real like my dad in his golden age.

my abba stares at the buildings in front of us at the bus stop on 34th and reminisces of movement, underground conversations between bangli immigrants in 70's new york, about bagels and coffee. he tells me about the coffee shop he used to goto 20 or 30 years back, in midtown, of how he used to get a coffee and people-watch for moments. 

think about spring in terms of seasons of life. what season is spring when someone passes? my little homie by my name, passed in the spring some years back. 

think of spring as always present, no matter the season, as it is always a time of new beginings. there is spring in the winter, summer and fall. there is winter, the end. it is always as well. all the seasons appear all the time - the begining and end.

the end never ends, which is a testimony to ALLAHuakbar, ALLAH, the 1ness, is greater than this moment, as ALLAH is always.

this moment is beautiful, an opportunity to grow past the frequency of a brutal winter, of beginning again. rebirth. time never repeats itself, no moment does. 

whats in season is you, is what is pregnant inside you, is the Real You. come out. play. be a Lover. not a moments rest without You...

full moon march 2015

all praise is due for You, Your Beauty, your Mysterious ways...on my Way, on my Way...

march has been hugging onto february in new york, refusing to part with snow and negative degrees, even as the earth tilts on its axis, a bit further from our star. the orbit continues. the moon comes to complete submission in 28 days since the last...the laws...the signs for those who think, according to the Qur'an...

lettiing go...letting go of what serves the spectacle i stand in front of and watch, even as i listen to tryamabakum and repeat the mantra - om tryambakum yejamahe sugandim pushti... the spectacle is alluring, draws spectators in like a moth, onlookers like myself 20 years back, running to see the fight that sprang off on the other side of the cafeteria...fists, thumps, f him up, f him, yeah, haha...the crowd swells...central park summerstage...

concerts of idols, american and canandian and latin and european and african and asian...idols whose talents are tuned in to the energy of something deeper, sold for a taste of chocolate and wine and one-night stands, and cars and champagne to celebrate the birthday, my birthday...idols...

let go of idol worshipping some time ago, stopped looking at the stage or the magazines, details or source or alternative pubs that offer a subculture of buy buy buy...no thank u...

...keep it pushing, often alone in this walk, often on the hill overlooking the lake, freezing and bracing myself for the stroll through the illusion. i know this moment is a shower, running water, that the water runs over my head, that loses a cluster more hair since the last time i looked...

...since the last time, running water, stopped running feet to pause and bow, to maintain a deepening in my Surrender with no onlookers, done in Quiet, hidden...

...letting go, shedding addictions to safety, to security, in being under covers hoping the bogeyman will avoid this bedroom, this family, that somehow we will miss death and the bullets that spray the other familes with arabic last names...somehow, the blanket i drag over snow and trains and buses persuades me that comfort will keep me from the prison cell my cousin is rotting in, and the toxic bangla air that my foofi's blow out in their early deaths...

letting go of security by getting out of my way and letting the Light shed on those areas of fears, identifying them like the names of war criminals who are responsible for the murder, rape, and atrocities of peoples and lands and species - obama, clinton, bush and the corporate rulers they dance for.

...been dancing with the devil by shutting my ears, by keeping this blanket on, by talking spirit, by keeping silent instead of Quiet...get to the Quiet...let go...letting go...see the Light...see the flotsam and jetsam, the stash of nicotine, porn, hash, and guns...fear...let go...letting go...all praise is due...

full moon 2015... letting go...

letting go of myself, letting go of my angst and alientation and perturbation of alcoholics on the road and behind the wheel and letting go of late mornings and even later nights, and of too much coffee, a teeth full of chocolate teeth, and letting go of eating till i sleep and eating whenever, with irregular consistency, and leaving no room in my belly for air or water and defying the prophet and prophetic admonishments of keeping away from notions of full, which really mean greed. letting go of greedy and selfishly holding onto me, and my sense of pereceived identity grounded in isms of alter-ego's, letting go of lazy and sitting around youtubing how to this and that, and getting as far as two hours later with new fantasies. letting go of parsimonious love, and compromised writing, and spendling little time in growing crafts that i love, have spent great deals of this lifetime studying and working on 9i.e. half-stepping on my writing by keeping it private, by avoding the risk of sharing/offering this art). letting go of idleness, and talking about it, and thinking about it, and scheming about it. letting go of get rich quick, or thinking about being self-sufficient; letting go of creative entrepreneurship spaceships that fly by night but remain only in the firmament of my imagination; and letting go of community-lessness, and beliefs that are shrouded in inactivity...

....in a phrase, i am letting go of actions/inactions steeped in emotions, which are in conflict/contradiction to my values...

...doing this by proactively doing/embracing my values, by defining these values, in the context of what has appeared as truth in my experiences with humility, in the path of Surrender - listing these and posting them in a card and wall and evaluating my in/actions

...what this looks like is: 

un-mindful action: doing prayer by rote, because it's that time of day to bow

value this reveals: prayer is a spiritless routine, a going through the motions for the sake of dogma

yet the value i hold in theory is: always push limits in the practice of rituals

action according to value: go deeper in daily acts like prayer, i.e. focus on breath, on the surahs recited, on dikr, going a little deeper each time in the ablutions, in the motions, in the words emitted, in the dua...

excited about this process of being proactive, of taking charge of doing and being from values instead of just emotions...all praise is due...

especially excited about proactively becoming self-sufficient economically, among other things...

...hold me to it young...

winter solstice 2014

winter is medicine.

the earth rests on her greatest lean today, back further than the cool cats at parties like fat joes and busta rhymes and the illusive realm of idols most of us inadvertently worship, praise, debate at parties on who is better, get starry eyed and groupie about.

i keep it pushing, barely noticing bon iver, kendrick lamar, hozier, drake, wocka, nikki, taylor swift, meek, j lo, rick ross, shakira, and the curly haired, and braided and dred locked and blonde groupies with thin waists and big hips surrounding them. i push past, pausing inches from the culture of spectacle, to see the caged tree on lafayette and bleeker, touching its roots, closing my eyes and hearing the words of the tree...la illaha illalla...

winter soul, sis, is upon us.

brother i see u bowing in the forest, head down at dawn in jamat with pines, so quietly, deer walk past you in salam, noting your ancient mathematical movement, as taught to u by your father and he taught by his all the way back to the guru muhammad...who continued the teachings of the invisible yogis of yore, messages lost on those of us who chose idols of stone and paint to bow down to. that lineage still continues...the lineage of idol worshippers, replacing deities on temples with jimi hendrix and bob marley and bob dylan, and van morrison, and black and white and latino and asian and indian. but mostly black and white. obsession.

winter solstice, the conclusion of months of declining days, of growing so dark that night has conquered day, draws us to meditate on dark, on the night.

the night is sacred, i am reminded, when i am in the forest, preparing bedding and a tent at 7pm, before dark settles in and i am left to close my eyes, listen to, and tell stories, after staring at the quilt of a starry starry night from beside a stream in idaho. all praise is due.

hidden words appear after midnight, in dimensions that leave me outside the shackle of this body, and phones and keyboards and screens.

night is a time to lose self. when i am lost enough, i find that there is nothing more important than being next to my ammu n abbu n bhaiays n nanu n nana n dadu n dada, n all of us in cave-like mud house of my abbu's childhood, listening to stories of a time before my encapsulation into this body. this body is often a mystery to me.

this new moon, i look to get deeper in path of being medicine man by way of bowing lower, of learning surahs, and saying these spells so quiet that the Qur'an can be seen across the cell membranes that make up the tissue of my cardiac muscles.

this winter solstice reminds me that life is a contiuum, that the 5 bowings a day, the same 5 bowings, are proof in constancy, that the sun goes up and down daily, that without this bowing, my great great grandparents ad infinitum would be buried as a thought...

i cannot speak to religion, or make you feel better about why i bow the way i do, but i do it. and this doing has become so clear, that no words of master philosophers, whose words like the warned of poets/musicinas,twist reality to constantly be in question, stir the roots of spirit that leave me so deeply rooted i emerge in jupiter. their words get lost before they reach me. they are words that pause like refrigerator magnets-words. i breathe into hoo, and rooooooohhhh comes out.

this new moon i grow deeper in responsibility, in growing deeper in being so present that the money war has no grip on me, that the irs leaves the roofs they snipe from, next to the privately hired para-military of credit-card companies that call me and remind me of debt that i never had till they found a hole. they always find a hole and fine and fine and penal codes emerge like the words on degrees. peace vulture-peoples who are white and black and latino and asian and indian and arab. i hear your appeals of creating a black wallstreet and a brown empire state, and pray for your soul, and let you keep your blackness and browness and indian and jamaican and polish and nigerian and mexican flag to yourself. no sympathy for your devil walk, no matter how mtv the swagger. prayers for the new-age, multi-cultural crackers - i see you.

walk two worlds, my cuzin once told me. this one, the world of maya, and the real one, the forests. this new moon i am walking both with presence, with clarity, with techniques that serve both. this new moon i am getting bills handled, debt dissolved, and managing money for building ummah. i am doing this as i grow deeper in asana, in bowing, in food and dikr and work. this new moon, i am clear that everything is ALLAH, and that which is off frequency requires technique to flow through.

this new moon i grow deeper in the letting gos and embracings of intentions of previous moons - deeper in the disicpline, in the few, in loving closer, deeper, through deeper work and presence...