lub dub lub dub

...if only...if only...if only you would think...

this lament is repeated in several of the surahs i've come across...thinking happens when the mind is surrendered and the heart rises like the moon...at the stroke of midnight, while the rest of the world sleeps...as nehru eloquently placed the birth of a new nation, at the treachorous cost of an ancient one, carved and dissected for war, and rumors of a war...

...thinking means, requires surrender, abandon of the chase and the stagnation, by way of the lub dub...

lub dub is the beat of the universe, it is what all species are in tune with...no need to market yourself as the founder of lub dub, or credit your community as the first to discover it...if you do, you may be suffering from a false sense of self, as none of us are an island...

all praise is due for every opportunity, even when the world weighs like hate speech etched in aluminum and depleted uranium and dropped on the minds of tens of millions...

...the heart may be stopped but the spirit continues, life cycles, another birth, another burial...as i write this, as you read...it's happening...just a cycle...what is the meaning...?

...the journey...

you and i are here in this realm at this moment, and some have dropped off between the last sentence and this...this is life...moments of breath...are you breathing...?

expectation to be more than, to be what it is you may not be, have what you don't have, etc., will lead to stagnation, to the bedroom, the blanket, the internet, shopping, porn, blunts, wine and gin and vodka, eating out, binging, staying up till 3 watching the 18th episode in a row of the show you just started, texting for hours, dropping pills for sleep, calcium, vitamin c, digestion, indigestion, constipation, anxiety, depression...

dope. dopamine. quick fix. getting doped up from breaking bad, from the vodka and milk, from big butt dot com, from coffee and croissants, from zoloft and selexor, from quarter pound angus burgers, from another certification, another degree, from dropping fists on the weak, from cussing others out, from pocketing pocket watches, from being branded, and in the know...

baby, take off your cool...

get to Know You...

...what is that you are avoiding? what is it that keeps you in: stuck, glued to can't's and i suck, and my life sucks, and no point, and not today, and if only i had this, then that...????????????

i believe it is when we forget to see life for what it is - a moment in a series of moments, all of which pass, none of which there is a returning to, but all of which shape us and everyone around us...

play King/Queen. get in the game. try. you are royalty, from the most divine lineage, regardless of what anyone has told you, regardless of whether your family struggles with rent money and food, whether you are considered to be alien in citizenship status in the country you reside in, whether your complexion is anathema to arbitrary standards of beauty, whether you are discreet and humble in a loud and indiscreet realm, whether you are too old or too young....

you are of the origin of the Infinite, the Source of Peace, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate...

...this moment, no matter how challenged and confusing, and painful, and difficult it is, is a gift...how?????

every problem provides an opportunity for us to get deeper, to grow, to let go with surrender and purpose...

this requires grapple, this requires struggling through with embrace, this requires being fully present...

are you fully present? are you here now? are you listening? what is your stuck telling you? what's keeping you in the cycle of depression, anxiety, unemployment, addiction...?

you say you don't feel your good enough? what makes you feel that way? you are being rejected? okay...how many times? rejection is good. means you are playing. but are you? are you playing or did you try a couple of times and throw your hands up? did you really try? did you learn from what you did before? or do you keep doing the same thing? if someone were to give you a ball and told you to throw it and get it through a hoop and you kept missing, do you quit? how about trying to do it differently? how about trying a different stance, a different twitch of the wrist...

get deeper, do it differently...

most importantly, do it from within. a lot of self-help and motivational talks focus on things from a business perspective. that's because they worship capital, the dollar - in god we trust - yes, they trust in manipulation, hoodwinking, etc. and because they've made millions from it, they want to share their success stories with you, and when you try it out and try to fit it to your purpose and it doesn't work, you get down, depressed, feel stuck and inept...

work from within, from the Surrender, whether this leads to financial gain or not. recall, at every instance that just as you were five years ago, this moment will be a past, and go just as quickly.

we are in a running river and are holding on to rocks and branches against the tide, our arms and legs becoming stiff, turning yellow...why, of course...we are going against the course of nature...

you have a purpose, and it lies in the pain, in your particular struggle...embrace it...go deeper...

full moon july 2016

whoever saw You died...

who so ever, sheds this uniform, the chrysalis sheds, wings spread, seven heavens...

...bismillah...

full moon in queens, ny,
returned to a childhood and smoke...
...the songs of mary poppins and dick van dyke in the outdoor screening of summertime in the park...i tell my mom...she's excited for a moment, recalling us, recollecting the gold she stuffed under antennas on the roof, in proximity to the smog of heaven, to buy a stairway to suburbia, 30, 40 years ago...

...i played the lotto then...vicariously, watching the line of dreamers outside the optimo, the same one i'd get optimos in later, discarding tobacco, and rolling the overgrown weed of familial dreams, lit it in the car with ed and hap, and crept the city, laughing like exorcism, up in smoke, homeless in our tribe...

...youngblood, that's what my brother calls me, the One who Knows...that's his name, given before birth, upon the siting of the moon by my grandfather, his brother, and our chacha, men with humility longer than their beards and garments, as quiet as the beads they held behind their back like secrets as they counted the geometry of crescents and stars...

...this full moon perched in the sky like an owl, wise and elder, shining through the glitter of the ave i walked up and down for years calculating race, gender, ethnicity, brown face white mask, black mask, latin mask, until i was old enough to leave the mask with you, and become invisible, bullet-through...they shoot...

...i walked her home in silence...me lost in the moon and conundrum, the equations of pi, in the space of bullseye, continuing the paternal legacy of job-less-ness...but i'm working, i tell myself...and she is quiet, perhaps in felicity...peace...

stop running, rumi recommends, and lose your self...what is your old life anyway, nothing but a struggle to be someone, nothing but a running from your own silence...

july, mid-summer dreams flirt with possibility and fantasy, and have been overcrowded by doubt and second tenth 47 guesses...as i sit in coffee and screens...comfort...

...what would it mean to try, to really try - fall, used to fall, that's how i learned to walk, to run, jump, leap, steal bases...the longer road has been avoiding the fall, staying in the safety of illusion, of dishonesty, of avoiding truth by pretending, by being less than forthcoming...

...gurrukul tells me that to practice ayurveda, to truly practice, means to be honest, completely honest, with yourself, with yourself because if you can't be honest with yourself, you can't with anyone else, amd of course with everyone else as well...

...fall, this is who i am, this is who i am without these shirts and shorts and kicks i think are cool cause you may...this is who i am in this path in yogum and ayurveda and this is what i have to offer and this is what my lines are and this is why....

...to fall is sermon on the mount...is the ring...muhammad ali...is to swing...is to play...is to play beyond the game...is to split legs and stay in fold...iyengar...is to talk to you...little-danny... is to let go of the false idols...rumi...which holds me up, which i've come to hide behind...is to be so Real, is to skat, flirt, try, get rejected, laughed at, try again, go deeper...

...what are you missing in your practice? i'm still sliding off eagle and trepid in scorpion, and without a handstand...

...what would it mean to go deeper? to hurt, to fall, to let go of the destination and instead breathe the experience, appreciate the journey, like knowing that i will never be in this moment again, like making love for the first time, and the last...

this full moon i let go of destination by being destination in every step, in the moment, as it is happening, in this writing, in this skat, in the letting go of that which keeps me from falling - the fear of rejection - by going through the wall - the looking glass - and moving from compassion - as i let go and reach past the mirror to greet you, to try, and fall and try again, and laugh, and play...

count on yogum

yoga. all praise is due for yogum...for this path of yogi, for keeping me anchored in the realm of Nothing...door closed, sweat beads like orbits...peace...

...peace when you call...peace if i never see you again...peace if you cuss at me...peace if you make me laugh...peace if you denigrate my religion...peace if you give me a check...peace if you see me...peace if you don't...

...peace because there is only so much time between sequences, between morning and afternoon/evening practice...that whether you remind me that i could count on you to not count on you as is the case in the modern world...i have ancient mathematics, formulas i become sycamore, bristle-cone pine in...dripping from every pore, every orifice...puddles...shed old to renew, daily...

...peace because i have connection with the One (salat), and prayer (dua)...regardless whether you term it as anathema or connect on it as just rote movement...or you give an academic explanation on how religion is the opium of the masses and sadly people aren't capable of thinking the way you are...i listen and no longer respond no longer engage in your anxiety and depression and sense of misery and isolationism that you'd like me to fall into...leading you to talk more, drink more coffee, get a bagel and a donut and mimosas as you phase into speech, dissertation...i leave you for Connection, for prayer, for surrender to the Source of Peace...from science...spiritual science...

...yoga is fire...when you need upliftment...fire...surya's...vinyasa...can't stop won't stop...

...yoga is water...motion is lotion...subtle movements...find movement in every part of you...in every moment...like water...

...yoga is earth...when you root, move like the building of appalachia, of kilimanjaro...like the yogis of darjeeling in bengal and shimla in punjab...

...yoga is air when you brush strokes, when you are fast and slow and dega, and klimt...

...yoga is life when you breathe from Source, flow through your day, when you are present/mindful, walking tadasana, samasthiti, from your center, hands folded in namaskaram to all, regardless of your sense of happy or sad, respect or violation...peace...when you are fearless, stretch limits, take it further...

...peace

new year intentions 2016

the full moon sat in the summer solstice this year. this year is said to be the hottest on record. this year, flies on the windscreen...this year i completed the academic portion of what i set forth some years back, in pursuing this path as medicine man...

...medicine man is referred to as kabi-razi in the noakhali dialect of bengal, in what is now bangladesh. kabi-razi means poet-king. the medicine man then is a poet of medicine, herbs...

all praise is due...head down and heart up...

...bow down and surrender...no bombs, no weapons, no knives, no guns, no cuss words, no foul language... just prayers for peace, compassion...

...the hope for the hunter
and his tale of saving the world
from the pathological
and the hunted and their rage,
to dissipate
into the language of peace.
is it possible?

...in the name of the Essence, i recall, am reminded, that this journey is a brief set of experiences like a deck of cards, shuffled and distributed for play...

...i've been watching the game, in the bleachers, at times bored, at times excited, rooting

...used to root for the running statues, the idols, the ones i had posters of, and looked at mesmerized...

in magazines, celebrated celebrities and how many women they slept with, how many leather jackets they had, how many cars and homes they owned...

...hypnotized by their floss, their middle finger up to everyone, un-accountable to anyone...ah yes freedom to be perpetually an angsty, alienated adolescent who trashes planet earth, cause who cares...

...lost my fascination with the idols, the lexuses, rolexes, stretch limos... with the rebels whose only cause was fame and expensive shoes and greater capacity to shop and trash our sacred earth...

...i'll pass on you, on looking up to you, on repeating your destructive lyrics and egocentric ways...

...got in the game...getting in the game...playing from the song of solomon and noakhali and santal and berber and tuareg and mapuche, and hopi and mohawk elders...indigenous ways...ancient mathematics that some in the frequency of colmbus-discovery are noticing and so the media is noticing them and so are the academic institutions and jobs, and that's what's hot and whose hot and are the voices of our elders in some warped way, after all we were taught by their parents to think ours were backwards...

so this new year, this return of sun to the house of Essence i was born in, returns me to womb...

what was the purpose then? at birth? in the space of a mother as ancient as star dust, and a father as modern as marx and engels and gandhi and nerhu and tagore...intellectual meets infinity...

to continue these ways of humility, of respect, of love, and loving from more than a moment...unconditional, accountable, and always...

...my purpose is to be always...to let go and let You be the voice box and tongue, the eyes and ears, the skin and feet...walk with me...please...

...the purpose, the intention for this coming sun cycle, is doing less...and in doing less...in being less scattered...letting go...letting loose embarrassment and fear of getting it wrong, and not being good enough, not yet ready...doing from what i know and knowing that i know very little and can learn from what you have to tell me as i try and fall and try and grow...

who are the Guides?

this year, i am isa, the Lover, rumi, the worshipper. this year my medicine flows like rumi...i do less and do more...i am a poet of herbs and food and breath in alignment with the One, the Essence, the Ultimate Truth (ALLAH - the Great Nothingness).

this happens, this letting go happens through the rituals, the work, livelihood, carving the path by doing, setting up circumstance for the doing, and being vulnerable, humble enough to try my best with the understanding that this is as far as i know, and i am only in a process, in a journey, that is infinite, but i would like to offer what i know, and these are the parameters for our exchange...

all praise is due...

my values can all be summed up as the lover rumi in shams...the Lover, isa in the doing, in the humility, in being vulnerable, and seeing what happens...

...videos, books, workshops...family, kids, house, travel, weddings, ceremonies, habituating wealth through exchange of currency...my current to yours...this is how...this is why...