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...
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