circumstance is do what you love

what i love is herbs and touch and movement and juicing and smoothies and salads and veganism and raw foodism and ketogenic and yogi and ayurvedic world view and peace and justice and i'm not competing, not trying to flex muscles on mine bigger than yours not tryna be theeee boss, you keep that, not tryna be right or wrong, just...

...just trying to recall the wisdom from the Recitation that i came across recently - avoid placing yourself in the role of idol, instead place One before you in all that you do - how are you placing One before you? how are you forwarding the work of the One, being an abd'ullah? fidel castro (r.i.p king - i see You, even through the hunters controlled slandering of what we saw heard and read thought about you). something like that...

what it made me think of is yeah, of course. get past yourself, get past your drive to be a personality, a mark, a known, because this passes - skin has already changed, eyes, hair, all of me is not 19 or 22. and 22 and 19 were puzzling and not 15 and 16 and at 15 16 i couldn't wait to be out of the jailhouse of school and grow some facial hair...

a sham...this frequency of always in want...advertisers, marketers study this. it is a science to get you perpetually dissatisfied with everything. for this reason the richest, prettiest by babylon standards, are on pharmatropics, doing lines of zoloft and coke...strumming bass in the plane in front of flight attendants that eye me for being that brown - not dark enough to be not a threat, but that lighter shade of dark that gets glossed over in binary convo and race and class and prisons, the kind that inhabits much of upstate and torture rooms, water-boarded and being questioned on what the words i whispered in prostration before eating meant... peace i say. reverence...

so herbs...herb classes not for me to prove what i know, but if it is truly in worship to One, to get you and i to get deeper with the Creation - the plants, leaves, pinnate and bicipital, and nitrogen and all praise is due-ing...reverence, scientific knowledge for reverence, energetic knowledge for reverence...not to prove a point but to Connect...this class will explore 3 classes of herbs from an integrative yogic perspective - meaning - ayurvedic science, western herbal science and yogic energetics.

start with this...incorporate meditation, asana that supports the properties of the herbs, i.e. adaptogens, breathing techniques...nutritional goodies that could be made with these herbs...writings on these herbs...drawings/sketches - where science and art come together

classes support community, grow/create community, are positive frequency spaces to grow deeper in a subject, with a subject matter...

i want to take the teachings of the One to serve the One, by promoting peace, humility, nutrition, community...love communities...

the circumstance is to build on what u have - to promote and build community...

focus or the circumstance is chaos

knocked off my feet by running past myself, running to keep up with subways, left lane of the left lane of skills, and jobs, gigs and relevance...

...irrelevant. i've always been irrelevant. shunned it. sought to fit, sought to squeeze a circle into a box, earth into a fridge. did it. came out stiff and broke-dancing. so broke, i became cool, part of the in, looked at, checked out.


the race to the bottom opens doors in babylon.

never me, and knowing this has kept me running, on an escalator going 50, on 3 planes, 3 trains, 3 cars, and 3 subways at once. nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah...

...spinning...a million thoughts...a million ideas...a million dollars somewhere over the city skyline...

the circumstance has been to default on what is set forth for me...jobs that exist, ideas for change, ideas for entrepreneurship, a million of them

...and thus, by circumstance - dizzy, nauseous, running a million and never moving an inch, and then the full moon comes out - speechless and brilliant...

...circumstance to shift into focus...focus requires honing in, getting deeper...

...i have been getting deeper in yoga and touch...

...through touch, i can go deeper in the work i do with people. touch requires medicine making - oils. it requires using herbs - making poultices, oils, lepanas. it requires preparing the body through nutrition - ghee, ghritas, tailas, ketogenics, paleos, elimination...it requires therapeutic diets...swank, fodmaps, sibo...it requires collaboration of movement - yoga, yoga therapy, assisted movement...it requires breath, breathing techniques, meditation...

...through touch, i can touch on everything else...everything...getting deeper with touch would be panchakarma - detoxification...i can focus on just this - detox, detoxification means letting it out, letting loose, talking about it...

...panchakarma allows for a focus on a finite period - 7, 14, 21, 18...it allows for meaningful results...it allows for sacred preparations to remain sacred...it allows me to hone in what i studied and get deeper with it...it allows me to make herbal preparations...

...the circumstances then will be...panchakarma...herbal detoxing, becoming more flexible, programs of self-detoxification, periods of being outside panchakarma but maintaining a detox path...

...circumstance - touch, self touch, partner touch for flexibility - the becoming flexible again, rejuvenating, and becoming whole...

habits of circumstance

some people want it all...snow...i want snow...

i want to be snow flakes, just moments before they touch the ground...

...touch...lets go...all praise is due...

circumstance is to be required by the force of nature to respond...

...lack of food, lack of water...out, scavenging, working for $2-3 an hour to buy a loaf of bread and peanut butter...

...circumstance is be on time or you lose this job, which means no pay, means no rent $, means out on the streets, means no wife, kids, friends...gonna go to work, gonna set the alarm, gonna go to bed extra early, gonna drink coffee and do jumping jacks to stay up...

...circumstance is there is a paper due tmmrw for a class you paid $1100 for, and if you fail, you lose that $$ and have to take that class again, otherwise you lose the opportunity to get the certificate/diploma/license you need to get the job that will give you a job that will pay your rent and bills, and food...

circumstance is performance tomorrow, in front of friends and family, no $ involved, but reputation, the sight and thoughts and words of others hold gravity...and you have to get it more than right...you have to do great, otherwise...rumors, disappointment, perceptions, status, bridges - burnt...

...circumstance is i am doing this workshop with someone i know...we are in it together, we set a date and a time and a place, and already put the deposit down, now we need the people, we need 5 at this price-point to break even - 10 to make minimum wage for all the hours we put in, and 20, to make it worthwhile...

...set up the circumstances in the areas you are interested in...that will grow you in your field of passion, in your path...

...do it now...

full moon november 2016: super moon super you

all praise...bow down to You...rooted in You...

this week, in a surah i opened to at random, You reminded me, kept me in humility, in peace, connected to The Source of Peace (al Salam).

You said that the obsessor will keep me in desire, in chase after false idols. i understand now that false idols, and idol worship is not merely statues of zeus, and ganesha, but the concept of worshipping something which is not real.

false idols abound. we are mesmerized by them - the new shelltops everyone is rocking, with the gold writing on the tongue; the fade dudes wear with the line on the side; the coffee i sniff and float to; the jeans with the slashes that draw you eyes to the knees and thighs of the women rocking them, the new prius with the extra smooth silent engine, and large trunk; the pretty boy, the pretty girl; the famous yoga instructor/nutritionist/martial artist/musician...

false idols can also be our jobs, things we obsess over - our supervisors approval/disapproval. it can be unemployment.

the source of stress then, is itself a false idol, and idolizing what is false will keep us in a state of stress.

i was in a state of worshipping the false, stressed by this new job i took on. i was obsessing over what my boss thought, whether i was doing my work right or not. obsessing over whether i would fail at what i was trying to do, what they would think, how embarrassing it would be...  then i came across some passages from the Recitation. it reminded me of the importance of seeing past maya - the illusion. that this was a moment, and that by anchoring in it, i was anchoring in what wasn't even air - the ephemeral - growing heavy in weight and dragging when life itself has passed.

obsessed with the obsessor, i listen to his whispers when i am not Listening. i fall to his tune and think what is injurious is beautiful. i take it in like a drug. it keeps me in a state of distance from what is Real.

i am reminded to root in what is Real by the Recitation. when you do, branches and fruits of heaven on earth.

last month - peace, planning, presence. this kept me present in listening, in the moment with You. it kept me in deeper exhalations during asanas. it kept me in a state of peace. it kept me from being sunk by election results. peace is the way. peace is the root. moments of anguish allow for this realization to be even starker. so all praise is due. the planning i did has become habit - setting up my clothes the night before, preparing my meals for the next day and packing it, being a step ahead in my job commitments by investing in the planning from weeks ahead, n then fine tuning. the planning went well with the peace n presence. they complemented one another. by planning, i was prepared n in a good state to deal with the days as they came. by being in peace, i was open to collaboration with others, allowing my plans to be malleable. and by being present, i was able to listen, and support the ideas of the others i was working with, in their ideas. this lead to less labor, less stress, and greater ease.

this month, i hope to continue this practice of presence, planning, and peace while letting go of prioritizing that which is other than the art i want to grow in - ancient medicine. i plan on letting go of prioritizing that which is job, and not work, by creating circumstance. this full moon, i create circumstance that requires me to be manifest path. i will do this through rooting in Real. thus, circumstances that i create align with what is Always, rather than personality and identity.

if i were to practice that which is most important in my offerings, it would be ancient medicine, yogi, hakeem, humility, shawl, treatments. it would be herbs. it would be medicine making, it would be bodywork, food, it would be Quiet, meditation. it would be transforming the false idol of stress, by supporting others to root in what is Real medicine. it would be holding group sessions - community - where we practice - go through a sequence of nutrition - learning to cook foods that will help; meditation, juicing, counsel - talking about it, yoga sequence for addressing stress - building community - an 8 week series that gives people participating an opportunity to build with one another, to have community, to do cleanses, to be quiet together. i would have a gift available for them that they can use in the absence of physical gatherings - a box of guidance and supports that they can open, that can help them. i'd like to have this available to people at different levels - people from humble indigenous backgrounds like my parents, people in the education world, people in corporate backgrounds, musicians, artists, leaders of schools, places of worship, lawyers, doctors, housewives, house-husbands...

i see it. the offering is a spiritual one. the circumstance is the gifts and the 8-week sessions or 9.

i see You.