medicine is community iv

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

was listening to dr. clement of the hippocratic institute in florida, speak on the importance of eating right. he referred back to 5 generations ago, as the departure point, between when we knew how to eat and when we forgot, giving way to industrialization and greed.

5 generations ago, he said, you were a farmer. you worked the land. you ate what you harvested. you brought home crops that your wife prepared. but it wasn't just you and her. you were eating at that table with your parents and uncles and aunts and kids and... but we forgot how to live...

interestingly, dr. clement, whose talk was on food, made it a point to underline the lack of community as part of the problem in poor diet.

the hippocratic institute serves as a rest/rejuvenation/healing stop for many who seek another way to engage with food and life, one that could bring healing to their ailments. many go there with chronic issues that have been un-remedied by alopathic medicine.

the hippocratic institute may be a model for the kind of school/institution that could be central to an intentional community.

are you ready for this?

all of us have indigenous origins, meaning, we all have a connection to land in a deep and meaningful way, somewhere in our ancestry. for some, as dr. clement mentioned, it may be 5 generations. for some it may be 15 generations, before kidnap and transatlantic slave-trade, before columbus and the stick-up kids...

..whatever the case...we all have a soul-ar dna/compass that points in the direction of soul-living. our school/institution than will be that of traditional medicine, of soul-living.

are you ready? what kind of medicine can you offer? of course the greatest trait in the medical arts is humility, whatever your craft.

the intentional community will have at its center-piece this school/institution of healing, of earth-shepherding, and central to this will be music-therapists tuned into Essence-frequency, art-therapists, herbalists, story/essay/journal-writers who re-create storylines, massage-therapists, listeners, farmers, shepherds...we can use all the medicine we got...

medicine is community iii

this past weekend i met this lady on a hill on a home in the berkshires. she worked 6 days a week and on the 7th, she met with her fellowship.

the fellowship is my home, she said, making zuchinni waffles for the crew, watching me through her feather pink specs, eat salad for breakfast.

it's been my spiritual home, she said. for 25 years. 

what's a fellowship? i asked, looking up from my journal, my third of the summer, cluttered with words that bled all over from my leaking head, slicing itself to get rid of language and memory.

a fellowship is a church away from a church, it's us gathering every sunday at someone's home for dinner and hanging out for a couple hours or all night. sometimes all night. the lady looked between me and up, toward the ceiling that was so high, another two stories could've been slapped on.

so, what  do you guys do?

we really just hang out, but our focus is on God, on how to embrace the Holy Spirit in each of us.

all praise is due, i said, looking at her deep blue eyes, and back out, at the yard that didn't end, that became forest on all sides, covered with coyote, black bears, foxes, and deer.

yes, she agreed. all praise is due.

how long has it been around? 

we started it 25 years back. it was a shoot off of a church situation that we weren't really comfortable in. the reverend was too into hell and it just didn't feel right. people went to church, and sat on the pews, and said hi and were friendly enough, but that was it really. there was no real sense of community in worship, like it was washing your hands after using the bathroom, you know? something people did, just because...

i get it, i said. i did. most masjids felt thisway. a steady disconnection has been close to constant over the years, except with a few folks, except with the few kindred spirits who it is love to break fast with, bow down and share hopes with.

a fellowship, i thought. yeah. that might be a good start, as we work on building this intentional community. getting together in rememberance of the Essence, through food, convo, Quiet work...all praise is due

medicine is community ii

community.

for 12 years i've been walking from person to person, state to state, asking almost everyone i came across what community means to them, whether they have community or not, what they think of intentional community.

i did this, cause i found adulthood a great challenge. from living in a household where i always had people around me - my brothers and folks - and all their friends coming in and out and breaking bread and praying, debating, playing together - to living with a room-mate, making plans to do everything.

making plans involves calling people up, texting and emailing them. it involves coordination, time. making plans means maybe at some point this week or next or this month or this year. being an adult outside an indigenous household, where home is an open door for community, and community are people who know you through atleast 10 other people in their life and yours, to friends who wouldn't even know who to call if anything happened to you, is a trip. it's the norm.

so i was feeling suddenly confronted by a community-less world and it didn't make sense, but most others around me didn't bat an eyelash about it, the way they did about bp oil spills and bombs and tuition hikes and welfare cuts...

maybe they are all part of a secret community that i'm not privvy to, i thought. so i had to ask...

different people, different responses.

community? ya, i have community, one friend i used to bang with in brooklyn, said to me, on a train ride to the city. 

i tell lisa everything, and even though she moved and we see each other once a year or so, she's community. and, i guess the people i go to parties with and have brunch with and there's my college friends... 

my h.s. friend monica agreed. yeah, i still consider all my high school friends community, i mean we hardly see each other, but we keep in each other's lives through facebook. albert left the marines, moved to cali, you know sabrina had another kid, she's in queens, and you.... monica says. monica, a friend of mine from high school that i run into every 8 years. 

if we had community, we wouldn't be cutting each others throat, trouble told me once, as he clapped hands with 90% of the people walking in and out of wilson projects in spanish harlem. i found it ironic that my other friends who barely said a word to their neighbor, far from exchanging touch, greetings, and questions about - how's your moms? your brother alright? - considered themselves to be part of communities, but trouble who was in a village of interaction didn't. it's cause of the economy, he said. it's killing us. 

what i love about the city, my boy from tennessee once told me, is that everyone is anonymous. you could drop in and out of people's lives and its no  biggie.

my boy matt from Rhode Island found this to be the most scathing part of his ny experience. it's amazing how here you are surrounded by people, and still can feel so lonely. this is what i was trying to get away from in the suburbs. 

intentional community can only work with people of the same ethnicity, my boy shenoda said, when we hung in his backyard in oaktown. otherwise, no, it's not going to work.

some in the informal survey felt they had community cause they exchanged greetings with their neighbors, even got into a convo every so often.

in the absence of people who have stories of you from childhood on, who have broken bread with you and your family, who share space and time and work and bills and spirit and debate and land and meaning with you, there is the community of individuals who get together as individuals and leave as individuals.

this absence provides a massive opportunity...

medicine is community

community is medicine. the guru muhammad - peace n blessings be upon him and his ummah - prescribed community, institutionalized it by way of rituals.

prayer is powerful alone, is more powerful in community. there is a profound power to bowing down, placing head to ground together, in jammat.

fasting is powerful. cleansing your system, getting insight, growing weak in ego, strong in spirit. fasting is more powerful in community. hence the prescription of ramadhan.

zakat, the necessary percentage of income set aside for alms, sustains community needs.

pilgrimage to mecca, the figurative nucleus of the atom, and circling like planets, together, in unison, dissolves status, looks, cool, in the mundane.

at the heart of the guru's prescribed pilgrimage is the experience of being community/tribe on an international level, a tribe that is so dedicated to 1ness, all languages meld into the beautiful lettering of the code of arabic prayers, of nothingness...all praise is due.

community is at the heart of the path of surrender (islam). all praise is due. hands up, bow down.

our babylon teaches us the converse - do you, be successful by getting out of your community, out of situations with others who hold you back. even self-help literature encourages the divorce from anyone who is in your way.

so how do we go beyond the babylon frequency? how do we embrace the Higher frequency?

build real community, not appointments for lunch in 2 weeks, or dinner in 3...

build sustainable community in which you sustain each other, where you recognize your success is less about you getting a name for yourself and dependent on the success of the community.

human existence is a second. this is brief, my brother said. little time to get caught in the helium of ego. just hot air. there is more to this manifestation than the smoking mirrors of success.

so, what will it take for us to do the most radical thing in the western world - build community?