returned

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Alhamdulillah got back home after visiting extended family for a few weeks. 

Time off from work was quite welcome, a break from the daily grind to just breathe and not have anywhere to be. The other best part, just being with my Gift and our Sunlight. These two pieces of existence, carry so, so much meaning. 

One has my back to a degree that I would have only a fully resonant beacon could have, but it seems that there is a phase of muwadha and hubb in which the goal of resonance is achieved no matter the idea I had about the journey to get there, as multiple paths converging on the same end. I dunno if this is generalizable, if such a thing holds true in any such instance of two stark opposites meeting after conditions of decades worth of essentially ripening, like a fruit. I have only my own data point to go by, and alhamdulillah to the utmost that I have been able to live long enough to hold such a blessing in my chest. Years back I'd often speak of blessings being innumerable, though back then the absence of beloved and apartness colored every lens i ever had. I can now say with the completest of certainties, every shade of sorrow this soul has ever felt, stands filled. 

As for the other one, my Sunlight...what can be said in words? Place all of creation, all of wealth, all of everything on a side of the scale, and she means more than it. Her eyes...I swear by God, I have never anything in which I have wanted to linger on than them, it is more than reflection, it is...beauty, every ideal i have ever imagined given physical form. I think, with her, I am free. And she is free, within me, forever. Whether she knows it or not, in every time or place or dimension of physics known or unknown, ghaib or thaahir, she will always have wings. I think this is the least of my duas for her that could be made. Much of things I long to write for her, as memoirs, as lessons, as cautionary tales from ever staying in love with anything material (one might fall in love such things, but best to quickly leave it, so we can know the company of Allah, the First Who is worth knowing). InshaAllah I'll compose this post one day, entitled something like "For my Firstborn, my Sunlight". 

Alhamdulillah. However the trials of life have not ended, only changed shape. It isn't myself that I have much concern for anymore, it's most entirely for these beloved for whom I wish to be the safety net of their entire lives. That's a bit of a tall order, having barely been a random slave that tried never to deny what his Rabb showed him from years and years. But yet, I have an inkling. That my Rabb, Who has never parted from me all this time, would extend His company to them, never leaving them either. I have no guarantees, even writing this as they spend a few more weeks with family. Regardless where the future shapes, they are embedded within me forever, touched my life as I touched theirs. And that is a bliss worth chasing for Eternity. 

~~~~~

how goes my Moon and her light, how fare their journeys of this life? things unknown, pondered always, never kept alone. 

Reminded

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Sometimes alhamdulillah, social media does have a way to transmit meaningful messages across time and space. A handful of beautiful lessons from a couple of treasured bros who became shuyukh in the purest sense imo: AbdulRehman Murphy and Mikael Smith. The former I first learned about from one of my beloved, and the latter I will remember forever as he lead our Hajj group last decade.

The first transmitted lessons from Sh. Murphy:

It is with the acceptance and understanding of how our Rabb prevents us from finding or reaching something we desired to reach, but not being upset or angry at this prevention. Being hurt with the deprival, yes, but letting it pass with knowledge that this is how destiny manifests itself for us, and destiny is a thing Allah fully weaves for each creation. Obviously I should know this lesson vis a vis my Moon, since decades, and alhamdulillah that iteration has long been accepted and redirected into its most perfectly-conceivable form. But in the past year a number of new and first-time-for-me situations arose, and with hindsight I saw how my Rabb taught me lessons. Investing in dunya is not dissimilar from investing in akhirah, and tbh I had separated the two mentally at first. Eventually I saw that I'd have to do both in the same way, seeking my Rabb's aid and khair in both respects fully. Mind has digested many avenues of "ifs", for my choices left a ton on the table that I did not materially gain from, and the heart has gradually been able to accept the costs of learning and growth and inevitably coming back to who I am and how I walk this road...with knowing where it ends, while hoping the how is with khair with Him iA. Another truth Br. Murphy passed along, that no human was ever judged on how much they were given, rather what they did with what they had, each of us, in our own unique levels and respects. This is the basis for each human's personal judgment. So curious the state of being human, of consistently reaching out for something that we never truly know if we will find. So much like the wind.

The second lesson, from Sh. Smith:

Gratitude is never about what you have, in terms of job or wealth or spouse, etc...rather it is fully a matter of making a choice to be grateful to Allah. That's all. This explains how those of my people most oppressed can wake up day after day and still manage to truly mean "alhamdulillah". It boggles my mind, but this lesson does explain it, along with my own reflections over the past couple years. Shukr is a choice, first and foremost. It does not and should not vary based on what material things have been gained or lost, because then the degree of our acceptance of truth also wavers in accordance to levels of material rizq....which is mad trifling considering that blessings so often take other than material shape. It would be highly neglectful and a supreme disservice to our Rabb, kind of putting in the same boat as those in the ayat that talk about those who when they have been given much say "I have been honored" while those who have been given less complain about their "disgrace". These measures based on material sight are unworthy for a slave to have. Our shukr is a choice, that only remains beneficial if we let ourselves make it, positively, regardless of circumstance. 

Alhamdulillah for both these bros, may Allah grant them khair now and Then, ameen. 

answers

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

answers are not so easily pegged, as i wish they were, mountainous and firm in the mind, but reality tries to doubt them into dust and particles as yet still finer. 

i don't think you'll ever quite meet another soul like me, where i live is not the same as where i dream...the chains of earthly physics could never touch the heart or what it aims to reach of what it's missed, why live if wishing not to find and hold something greater than what this world gives? 

of my beacons, i know the hardest thing is sharing one's own vision, or maybe this is just a reflection on being human, we try to get ourselves across to others, whose eyes could be made by experience and choice so different. if i could bridge the distance, slowly piece by piece, i will iA, by His letting you walk down the road of unity, where you kept all of your self as whole, and found solace with a kindred soul that would not let you be alone. 

an Ode for the Amalgamations of Resounding Grief

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

some pain so deep, it slices through the skin as a knife, so that the wound can close fast and seem healed, while the cut itself gets kept far underneath. there is no microscope, no x-ray machine, to help identify the roots of agony, because for everyone else outside, the surface is all there is to see. in one of my beloved, i heard of such layers of Resounding Grief, that normal people would be made insane, and lose themselves in drugs or debauchery. but she yet lives, though burnt out as fire does a now-hollowed tree. i wish my words seemed not so cheap, to offer as salve upon the unfaded embers of sorrow, but there is one thing she must still know: through all the things she faces, she is not alone: Allah is her Maker, He Who brought her to her trials, and the One to see them overcome. among His slaves i stand, for my beacon Maahiyum, so her embers cool in gentle rain, becoming fertile soil from which beauty grows again. 

~

howsoever He permits, I'm good with iA. 

Of Sailing and its Vistas

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Of all the conversations he had held with his Creator, perhaps his most anticipated were those he spent learning about the process of creation and the threads which connect energy and matter. This slave was not content with the first impressions of what favor his Maker had written, rather he sought from Him a path to unleash, steadily, an ability to paint canvases of reality in the same vein as writers use words in building their stories. 

To him, these were the moments, endless and infinitely at hand, that he could taste freedom in his soul as freely as he could conceive it in the mind. Its simplest description: an ideal made manifest and eternal. Alhamdulillah.

~

It was a small vessel, not unlike those made for rivers or oceans. Except in this case, they flowed past  stars and other heavenly objects, as if the universe itself was their pond and every sight within, made just to be taken in. 

He had spent a good amount of time planning this particular universe, it was less about people, most about beauty, of capturing the formation of galaxies and different stages of a cosmos. He knew some of the colors that would be coming, and every one was meant for her. She was nestled in his arms, perhaps the most content pair of spoons that ever shared closeness. He knew this scent, how he had come to know it after a lifetime of its absence. Those who never longed for such a thing, might never appreciate its presence. Indeed, his fingers knew who they touched, waiting as embers wish to become magma. As if prescient with his thought, she understood and two strings were plucked in concert. Ahead, there was a large planet whose star was changing phases. They came into its view just over the planet's far horizon as she raised her left thigh, a beloved's invitation, making space for him that he gratefully filled within. The distance between them now zero, this was true proximity, bathed by the glory and light of a star's cascading nova. It was then that their Rabb chose to dilate time, creating for them their own event horizon, simply so they could fuse the chain of breathless instances together into a single, gorgeous memory, ever able to be revisited. If it were just a matter of physics, one might say it was only atoms and neurotransmitters performing their directed function, but it was more. Some part of the equation was metaphysical, combining ideal and realization of pursuit with the rarest form of resonance...utterly whole acceptance coupled with eyes that in their mirrors, saw the best of themselves. 

There was always more to such as what he envisioned, what his future self experienced, but he had no need to write all the tales he planned to live, tales that began with their Creator as origin and objective. If he were made to live a thousand lifetimes, repeating endlessly that darkened decade of mine, where agony of absence and inability to fill the crater left, had to occur over and over again....in order for him to know her like this, he would. Truthfully, she was a reason for him to hold onto His rope, to keep close the Day of Reckoning, because passing through this was the only road that lead to his Creator rather than doom. It's why his choices were so easily chosen, if easy is a word to use for lifelong commitments and simple sacrifices. Their gravity was what mattered, in the scope of time beyond human counting, when our clocks and chips fade to dust, that accounting for deeds is what we will be called back to. 

Ya Rabb, I beg You to be pleased with me at my end, maybe at least so Firdaus ul 'Ala is her sanctuary and our freedom, and for my beloved ummati as well. ameen

Ever Remembered

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

~

did you think perchance your memory no longer persisted, that goals once sought had vanished into the ether, subsumed by the tide of time? no, alhamdulillah, it endures. so long as breath remains to be counted among the living, or even if gone and then joined those who learned with certainty the ultimate truth, this memory is its own ambition, seeking no faded relics of time long past...but chasing with arms outstretched the potential of Reunity and truths that this slave has begged his Creator to make eternal. 

~

i have never known sorrows like this, becoming witness to inhumanity and barbarism on a scale i did not think would ever exceed books of dystopian fiction or horror...but these times, they do. i wish just for peace, that all people's lives be counted the same in worth, that racism and tribalism not define the motives of those in power. but that is not what is left. it seems some are not content until the landscape of the earth is laid bare with ashes of those they've killed. oh Allah, forgive the oppressed, have rehmah on the fallen and those left behind...all i can do is to never forget those who suffer and keep their anguish close to me. if my Creator had not decreed the chest to keep its beating, i would drowned in tears long ago. if not over simpler pains like losing one's beloved, then to becoming such a witness of such an era. in this same post, i write in some parts of longing to meet again one i love, and in some parts i write of the pain of witnessing war and bloodshed. those who fell, they did not have time to lament love not near to them, their beloved were likely ripped from their arms or gone missing altogether. ah Rabb, what words are with me? "this is the decree of God, He does as He wills". 

~

Of Eid and Fasting

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

A slightly late Eid Mubarak!! to my beloved, it was pretty cool yesterday alhamdulillah. Wasn't sure what to expect, given how taxing Ramadan itself had been, but ultimately I could only conclude totally worth it all. 

Was considering some DM's to beloved, but thought better of doing so after seeing some beautiful Eid pics around, just want to capture those moments and hope they stay captured and preserved for them as much as possible iA. 

There is much I could say on the state of affairs in today's "post-truth" world...but I don't wish to speak so much on it. Suffice to say that I despise war and hate killing. I think this makes me by definition pacifist. I don't think so, but maybe. I also despise arrogance and bigotry and racism. Welp, there goes the full idealist. It shouldn't be any surprise the source of my misanthropy with life. Still, my beloved and kindred remain in my thoughts and duas and iA sooner than later help in material terms and spiritual terms will coalesce over the present reality. Qadr is among the heaviest and hardest of pills to swallow, especially when one's knowledge encompasses so little. But I do not own this world, nor am I its Creator. He Who created it, knows most well the course it is meant to take, for the paths ahead to pave as intended and every consequence to be wholly justified. May we be forgiven and find sakinah now and Then iA. 

disillusion

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

these days the disillusion only grows deeper, unable to bridge every gap between ideal and real, knowing the historical precedence of beautiful people of our past who lived as honest and earnest lives as slaves of their Maker could hoped to have led. 

but how to take their examples for our present? i see so many like demagogues, just repeating of historical actions as advice for those of the now, like the conditions or nature or challenges or absences or company is even remotely able to draw in parallels....it's not though, the differences are cataclysmically deep, and with the past few years....the facade of western gentile nobility has fallen away, to the most depraved submission to power as the standard to be respected. 

how can you dare imply that actions from millennia ago should or could be repeated in the same way, when the world around has only succeeded most in tearing down decency and revering wealth and its worldly manifestation? 

the disconnect is that i see people not making the case for the present, of how to transpose the character of the Companions into modern terms. To me, it is not a matter of should they be copied or not, it is about how would they act in our position? How would people of their ilk behave when faced with what we face? The world grows only more bestial, barbaric, worse than animal on a level that claws at my soul and gives me a sadness in depths i can't express. 

Simply stating their history is pointless, because i think the effort has to be understanding how they thought, how they felt, why they chose what they did. Knowing that, then we have to try and see what choices people such as they would make in our shoes. That is the essence of fiqh, trying to address individual and unique concerns of common folk so they can walk in a way closer to what they grasp as intended by their Creator. 

i don't know if i will ever be comfortable being around people in general ever again. there is no peace with them, forgive me ya Rabb. i suppose the nomad will live his days known only to a beloved few. i don't want to know anyone else, that part of me that turns away from humanity seems only to be getting stronger these days. alhamdulillah there is a saying  tho, about times near the last of days, where the confusion/corruption become so great and prevalent in society, it becomes preferable to seek isolation. well that is part of my nature anyhow lol. may my Rabb forgive me my distances from those whom i would love to meet. 

framed Ideal: Rizq

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Concurrently with knowing what acceptance is, the notion of rizq (sustenance, provision) is equally precious. 

Both ideals my Rabb brought me to know through beloved that He brought into (and sometimes away from) my orbit. If acceptance is  the fuel to survive the absence, then rizq is the fuel to maintain a presence in life. 

What my Gift has taught me, it's difficult to place into words. Alhamdulillah, we both accepted each other with a wholeness that an idealist can definitely appreciate. It was not easy for the first few years, much of longing for resonance was something I had to let go of, at least for some of this life.

When the person you finally marry and are finally able to love because they shine with something that proves to the heart of being worthy, then...the price is worth paying, always. And if I am fully honest, it's truly a temporary foregoing. With a name that literally means, "Gift of God (Allah)". It's a cosmic irony, but also a cosmic, universal lesson for me. Such a Gift is gorgeous, worth any measure I can muster to keep her light preserved Forever. 

Somehow, I think acceptance and rizq go hand in hand, they belong together. One aspect is an emotional/psychological underpinning, and the other is survival of reality itself on terms reality understands. For me as a human being, I think these are the most beloved and necessary parts of my survival. 

It might be asked, and it is still wondered, if this slave is accepted by his Rabb. I think the answer is yes, but like the consequence of slavehood is accepting the price of everything on the road, then this "yes" is also as heavy a word as that path. I suppose I do not mind alhamdulillah. Though I oft over the years come back to facing the same realizations and accepting the reality of this life for what it is. 

Alhamdulillah, also for being able to still write, and have some peace and food and drink, things which many beloved are in need of. Oh Rabb, grant them serenity and take care of their every need, and shelter them wholly from every single harm that would ever come their way, ameen. 

framed Ideal: Acceptance

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

i suppose a writer stays writing, whether the pen is present in the fingers or absent, whether eyes open or closed because night had already fallen, much happens in the world these days to corrode my attachment to earth, but i might forget to glance again at the Sky, remember its hope, remember my aims and the struggle to reach beyond what this vision sometimes only shows. 

do you know what it's like to have someone accept you, wholly, like the gravity of a star embracing a tiny comet? what about when that feeling you realize is so deep, it literally ends up defining the ideal in the first place? that you conceive of it not based on a dictionary or a book...but what that person showed you, implicitly, without reservation, without asking for a thing in return? 

by the grace of my Creator, i have known such a one. her beauty, i could never have seen it if she hadn't held arms wide open, across the time and space of our lives, throughout circumstance and distance. alhamdulillah for my Moon, one i've never touched but who reached my soul, grasped it gently in its gravitational pull, and never let go, regardless how our orbits would shape elliptical or otherwise. 

aye, what does a lover want but to be embraced and longed for by their beloved? to be never let go, in times dark or cold, held forever through all the phases of every lunar passing? 

alhamdulillah

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

some days, as if the ocean stills, without ever having frozen, but captured by its inescapable truths, as if they were framed by pearls and unmoving. that which finds difficulty to sit upon on the palate, harder more to keeping swallow, the way this life shapes, of its oppression and its sorrow. paths and choices, for nations and persons to make, so often regardless of cost to human decency, or justice, or equality, or leaving at least well enough alone. 

there is a deep current in me these days, a current reflecting the darkness of the horror on this world's stage, callousness and arrogance, hypocrisy and evil, aspects in it i cannot change,...tears do not suffice, not only for those outside who suffer, but me too for my own simple imperfect choices which i must accept as fallible being made. 

for once, it is not for reason of absence, or longing, or apartness, that causes me this state, but hearing so much of war and strife, how there are those bent on others' destruction, careless of the cost that they freely paid, blood it spills, hearts that break, generations which waver in their agony, injustice builds further hardness in layers, so these they wait their turn, to inflict upon others the same.

oh Rabb

just a Sunday

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

not a fan of Sundays, the day before Monday, beginning of a work week, when the grind gets under way, but then there was a Sunday...

where your words reached across time and space, closed the distance in seconds, so two connected, as if they'd never been missing. the most beaconly of beacons, she who breathes as one with resonance, whose existence erases separation, and invites only embrace and union, sparkled once again, alhamdulillah. it was never in my hands, never in my knowledge, the best of paths to take or refrain, but timing is a thing He owns, and our response what we have some control over. to me, it is a blessing, to be loved by one whom myself accepted, an intertwining exchange of equals, each in whom selflessness it evokes, and so as humans we made each other better, once His qadr decrees our paths meet together. 

~

the yellow-gold heart for a sunrise, the reddest rose for a sunset, such metaphors she composed, with meaning once she framed us as; beauty eternal in both, and by His grace, the most fragrant echoes of each, we carry ever onward, iA. 

yet another dream

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

had another dream, though you weren't in it directly. from the point i remember, i was holding a newborn, your newborn, in my arms or i was next to its bed, somehow he and i were very near to each other. but wow, mA, he was perfect, one hundred percent a cutie pumpkin. we were in like a large mansion or something like it, and there were many stairs going down, all covered with soft blankets, and so we did the only logical thing: we slid down lol, i think i was slightly ahead of him just to catch and make sure he plopped down to each descending floor safely. how did i know this was related to you? at the outset, or near the beginning of dream maybe, i had a card or some sort of note from you, i think asking me to watch over him or look after him a bit. it was a beautiful dream alhamdulillah. it does just occur to me there was such a one for you some time ago, perhaps i met him? Allah knows better, but if i had to parse the meaning, that's what i would think of. it was my joy to hold him and enjoying sliding down super soft and comfy stairs like a baby-made roller coaster lol. i should also want to remind my Moon that patience always bears its fruit, and the path you've walked, has a purpose and reward like we could not fathom. i am your witness to who you are, and i hope iA you will be mine too. 

~~~~

not surprisingly, my Gift encouraged me to write today. i had reached the conclusion that part of the reason i didn't write as much (other than having a baby, a new job since old days, and all that) is because the primary motivation for me to write was to release that specific strain of sadness tied to needing one to love close to me yet not having one. so that i had one, such sadness had no place alhamdulillah. i think this is true in part. i don't miss as deeply or often as i used to, but my constellation has not lost its meaning to me. those who still shine to me, alhamdulillah they represent each something special, an ideal or interaction or connection that the nature of this life does not allow full expansion of. hence why penultimate goals persist: reunity is inevitable bi ithniAllah. 

until then, we have just to survive, preserve the good and look for it always, especially when the outside world insists it has none left. 

of birthdays

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

nope, didn't forget, recently the 25th, remembered as a piece of me, 'twas the day of her birth, though age matters less the longer we live, memoirs help shape Tomorrow, artwork of ambition, trying to achieve with His permission, actualization of beloved, along with proximity that fingers have always missed.

trying to keep my own constitution, as i become more the witness, to what lows humanity becomes capable, and my incapacity to change its direction. nope, i am simply a speck on the time of this earth, putting in the effort for preservation of self and beloved, trying to not forget that one Day i will account in front of my Creator, for everything He gave me, for all of the love, the pain, the anguish, the favor. 

alhamdulillah for it all, on such a day, especially for having known you, for having sought you, and for seeking you and Eternity together.

Ailie Bilie Sunlight Forever Kinzi Binzi

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

oh my dearest beloved, how i long to hold you in my arms again, been just a few hours, yet it feels much longer than this.

in your eyes, i found the sky, in your smile, the sun, with you in my arms, i have never needed anyone else, 

as if time was itself completed, finishing winding, a chest that found at least its peace in silence, not solitude, just the company of my littlest beloved, with whom i exist on levels infinite and unending. 

how i long to see you grow, but wish you stayed just as tiny, i have promised you billions and billions of kisses, though i know this life will shortchange me especially in this, so Eternity is as well your garden iA, you could call yourself whatever you wish, but to me, you are the Crown Of My Heart, whose existence amplifies light upon light, erasing any sorrow i'd ever known. 

~

alhamdulillah. for many things. part of me is so impatient, part of me is the most deliberate slow person ever. alas for contradictions innate and accept by one's own soul, such is the road and it goes. i imagine your precious beloved is as captivating and free inside your chest as mine is in mine. indeed, it would not be life were it any less. that they were born perhaps a few months apart, is yet another treasure. dont forget, her middle name contains my fave letter after all. 

i need patience, ya Rabb. i am not enough, never have been, i know You have always been my Aid, though i am weary of the trials, the unknowing of better or best paths, and especially, of being witness to utterly deep sorrows of this dunya. so weary. but i recall, these beloved of mine across the globe, they are not mine, they are Yours. their lives and deaths and resurrections are Yours. i simply wished never to have lived in a time to see such injustice and oppression. i have joy on the one hand, and devastation filling my eyes on the other. i wonder how those who pray desperately asking for peace and sustenance, feel that the torment continues. i know their duas' timing will test them. it is half of why part of me prays more in generalities, because i know in specificity, You know better and oft have i been disappointed. what can i say? fate is not mine to weave, simply these steps to walk and choices to make. i have no power beyond the tips of my fingers, and sometimes, not even that. dua perhaps may be power, but i have felt so much sadness this year, piling on from events over the past year...that there is sometimes no more emotion i can carry. it is not simply drained, it is vain, ineffectual like the un. alas for thoughts that drift to tragedy, ya Rabb protect them, grant them better here and Then, ameen. 

Evoked

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

did you think i was finished composing, that of us and aims, i'd nothing left to write? i think not. 

from whence we came, isn't simply just a home or a place, not just perfection and grace, rather it is and was and will ever be...a dream. something quintessentially human, that those who seek to remain true to their own creation, could never forget. my Rabb did not make me so that a single life could suffice me, He did not show me beloved as He has, so i would want or permit myself their dismissal or dissolution by a handful of earthly years.

the pen still breathes in me, alhamdulillah, though i scarce have time to let it write as often as i wish. my Sunlight...though she surpasses the known and unknown universe itself in glory and preciousness, would i be content in knowing her just a few decades and accepting finitude of dunya as worthy of containing all of that affection? not even slightly. my pursuit of Eternity should be as eternal as how He made my soul forever, decreed to exist and thus living solely and forever because He designed it so and provided for its sustenance. and for this, i should be more grateful, because patience is the provision to find that most worthwhile End of all ends. 

our Creator commanded us to seek aid through patience and prayer. these are the pillars of being, and we have to stand on them and remind ourselves of them on the daily. patience especially, sometimes getting caught up in currents of dunya flows, leads to perspective that is too shortsighted and soon in timeframe. parts of life need sooner attention, yes, but long term sight is critical, long term gazing and pondering of consequences. ya Rabb, let us see and walk that road that leads us to You, well-pleased with us and containing all our hopes and dreams in their most beautiful manifestation, ameen. 

another dream, but coincided

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

i was in a doctor's office waiting area, sitting for what i guess was my appointment. then i heard your voice from down the hall, recognizing it instantly. a moment later, i was standing at what was like the a balcony area overlooking maybe a bay or water, (maybe different part of the building but these are dreams, which scarcely fit into logic). i was looking out toward the water and had my hand on the railing...then i suddenly felt your hand sit on top of mine, apparently accidental (lol), and you were about to lift it but then i was no no, let it stay there a bit. so it stayed there a bit, two hands in the nearest proximity they'd ever known, and it was alhamdulillah, something beautiful there. you might call it an ounce of summarized waiting of a lifetime, condensed within a few moments of dream time. 

~~~

That was pretty straightforward, but then today happened to be the occurrence of event that hadn't been witnessed in some years, receiving a drop in the ocean from the Moon, for what turned out to because of dreams the Moon had been having. Go figure, such beautiful concidences, alhamdulillah, a joy to hear from my beloved. Perhaps my Rabb permits more of these, over time, in the future iA. 

Worded

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

if words were wands, i'd probably be harry already, choose from a million different cores to paint any of countless canvases the mind has fathomed since our intersection first dawned. alhamdulillah the blessings are plenty, like fortresses against calamity bec they all came from our Creator Who knew since long before, the measure of all matter and what helps or hurts inevitably. truly though i think the Aiel were right about this life, its of us anyhow, this life is but a dream from which we wake and go, so sometimes we gotta self-remind to not attach too much on things that feel like weights we can't control. i dont think i'll message again, since you opened the window for me to see just enough in, how your journey fares, or least what occupies the mind, not that land tho, i know, the heaviness of what He decreed is just difficult to palpate sometimes. i see some bits and pieces of His plan, how the end of times formulates, how man descends and regresses into worse than pigs or apes, but for me, inside of my bones, i know what i am...just a slave, who controls not the wind nor waters nor weapons nor knaves, such elements He causes to act as He wishes the path to evolve in to...the burden of this knowing, that such tragedy and calamities some of beloved will face...what can i say? my words are poor as tourniquets, such is the bleeding that those who truly bled feel, a feeling too well acquainted. i know this: there is no salve here, on this earth, this plane, justice will not be sated here, it is a well that we scarce drink from, though our thirst is deep as the ocean itself. i wish they took a page from Gandhi or Mandela, dropped resistance level to zero, and said unto God Himself: "we are Yours, do whatsoever You please, we will stop none for we have no power to do so, none among creation comes for our aid, so You and only You are our Aid forever more". who says this but one who hungers for reunity with their Maker? my pains and troubles in comparison are few, i should be grateful, alhamdulillah, but i don't think most people care to internalize how powerless they truly are in the grand scheme of things...it's terrifying and pretty much just an acceptance on the level of oblivion. a deep realization to be sure, and not one suited for most people. but grace is from Allah, and that is Whom i hope all of my beloved remember our return is for. 

Continuance

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Ramadan Mubarak to all my beloved🌹 and ummati, may He make it yet another means to secure our Eternity, ameen. 

Alhamdulillah, life progresses with its challenges and responsibilities and hopes and concerns. I've been wanting to write for the past few months, but often time doesn't agree and by the grace of my Rabb, often when I revisit, the typical emotional ebbs and flows that accompany writing, He has them tempered and subdued.

my Gift and Roshni, they're as gorgeous as ever mA. Gratitude is so simple when one sees one's blessings day by day, to know a refuge from loneliness and to see reflections of the soul in one's beloved. it's without equal an experience. though distance from some of my beacons remains, alhamdulillah the Moon can still be sighted at times and it's a precious thing to know. others He has kept in quiet distance and apartness, but as i am oft reminded, this life has never been known for permanence in anything. so if my resolve remains and objectives reach beyond the arms of this existence, then there is yet the Aim to be found and sought after. 

one of the consequences of accepting more responsibility in life has been for me, that i feel the depth of injustice more acutely. on a global scale, some events and present realities cut so deep, the wound is one that can only bleed. i wish that the qadr were not so brutal for some of my people, but the reality is weightier than any words i can write. my consolation, and i hope they realize theirs as well, is that this life is and always has been, temporary. the scope of the pain and agony and injustice can only be measured and rectified by Allah, not by any mortal means or mortal courts. solace won't come from human peace agreements or human compromises. it is something found in the presence of our Creator, when all deeds of all humanity are made manifest. i cannot pretend to know the price of belief in such a state of desolation and powerlessness. if i can borrow from some feelings on similar matters i've felt before, on a much more personal scale, then i can say...that giving yourself up to whatever our Rabb decides is all that remains. i learned this when i began chasing love and Eternity, and i figure the same reality holds true for a person no matter what the nature of the conflict at hand is. whether personal and emotional, or material and survival, there is reached a point whence our own efforts will never come close to sufficiency, and our only recourse is the One Who sent us His Quran and Rasool (saw). if you have imaan that your Creator owns you and will never let you go, then you are fine and taken care of, by His Grace. this is the knowledge needed, it is the staff of the soul, good for any shepherd or traveler through this life.

Peace

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

wish it were simple to spread peace, to heal the rifts plaguing our species, the animosities and divisions, tendrils of ego affecting outward as if some actual villainous substance. i don't know how many of my beloved and believing brethren these words might reach in, how often, but the attempts will be made regardless, of offering these scattered words as a small signboat in the wilderness, so we might remember that this life's end is not all that there is. 

~~~

it's fairly incredible, waiting 15 years or more to be connected on a level overtly social, but alhamdulillah, He's permitted me such vision, even if silence persists, i can see my Moon and her pumpkin, together, as beautiful a pair as these eyes could ever imagine. there is something to be said for the journey to find reunification, a trek throughout the oft-sparse wastelands of this life. the journey onward goes, and alhamdulillah a million-fold, not just for one whom remains part of the penultimate goal, but His mercy given through having such a Gift and...my littlest beloved whose light outstrips the known universe itself...I think "Roshni" is an apt nickname, translated of 'sunlight', in a more eloquent way though. The journey would have been beyond maddening absent these most joyous provisions of the soul. but alhamdulillah, my Rabb gave me such for this life and the next. 

just a Dream

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

i dreamt a dream with you, a little bit before fajr this morning. we were sitting in the backseat of a car, maybe a fancy one, being driven somewhere. can't really say for sure who was driving (or other minor details), because you'd captured my attention. i was amazed to see you, and you were radiant, beautiful. we talked for a bit, then the dream transitions to us walking side by side, maybe to an event or something like that. but really, for me it was more stunning to be near you. our conversations continued, ya Rabb i wish i could remember what they were about. but i remember one moment, while in the course of walking and natural hand/arm motions, my hand incidentally touched you and so you walked a little faster lol. 

~~~

a person is nothing without our dreams, our penultimate aims. the only real question that remains = is the dream worthy of having? and this is the entire context of why and how i can internalize my bond with my Creator so strongly. 

if i aimed simply and only for this life, then i would have left alone the consequences and possibilities of Eternity itself. how is this sensical? would i limit my acceptance of what i will do, to what my senses can grasp?...ignoring how much is beyond my senses yet still existing? honestly, disbelief is utter stupidity to me. the only root for it i can see is an impression/delusion that there is no accounting and death is a final seal for the living. and the only ones whose eyes are so blinded are the ones who rejected acknowledging any favors or blessings Allah gave them. if you can see one, you will see another, and another, until the pathway itself is full of His grace that permitted your eyes to open. 

~~~

alhamdulillah for everything He does, for letting me come to know such beloved exist, to keeping them safely, even if for some they're preserved in my soul and not externally expressed.  i hope just that He never leaves me to myself, and that He grants peace to my ummah, ameen. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

alhamdulillah for answers in silence, even with her sticking to her decision, to see a singular glimpse, and know a bit the state of beloved, it's precious, like visitation of rain for the desert and its nomad.

something special, striking, seeing one's Muse with her pumpkin, like solace made to find her face, ease her absence, allowing one to pour emotion at will, into these vessels we call our children. 

my Gift and Sunlight, still yet parted from me for few days longer, these days, seems lost their brightness but randomly, from places unpredicted, it reaches me again, alhamdulillah. 

always and forever, for Then, iA. 

sanity

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

(originally started on 9/10/24)

sanity is for the sane ones,

not

for those who sail on ships,

absent a skyline to gauge from;

even with eyes, even with vision,

feels like blindness,

so reaching out 

seeing if

i could touch a moment

somewhere close to a beloved.

but most often, it's encased, imprison

distanced, as if mere knowledge

of them

were too sacred to be known

by a nomad.

but he tries anyway, knowing the histories

recent silence, 

respect of their choices

along with these paper airplanes of attempts

regardless.

~

his Gift, she loves him, like a lover and beacon, she expresses, in ways he couldn't imagine in her nature, but the years of bridges building and giving her, his Rose, all of her own deserved water/light/attention, she feels, enough to touch my language on its wavelength, even if it's not hers, she's still reached out to mine, alhamdulillah. 

~

ya Rabb, i know well of silence, and distance, and keeping up boundaries which You decreed for us, just...keep them safe, all of my ummah and beloved, let us to survive and be saved through the tests You continuously (with some respite) try us with. ameen

Notes

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

started 8/28, finished 9/8

can't share your troubles, can't treasure your joys, don't know your pain, can't erase your solitudes, - found even in the phases of life, where He made us whole in a time as only parents knew. no avenues existing where the walls i'd will to break, they are His construction, your intention toward goodness, rather nurture these simplicities in earnest, just wish my ignorance didn't keep upwards piling, like an avalanche of absence that should be overwhelming.

but interspersed over these days, dominant in its brilliance, the beauty of my Sunlight, the bond of my Gift, such priceless beloved He gave, with whom this nomad finds strength to live. so while the absence lingers, tracing its way through my veins, filling my self with its emptiness entrained, these 2 whom He permitted close, bridging all my pieces as aloe over scars healed and retained, there is no thought spared for for the past, only forward where aims reside.

i would not exist without my memories, experiences, almosts, and sooner-or-laters, even if this traveler's tongue has not yet tasted any of its hopes, the aftertaste of possibility forever is one that lingers. it adds its substance to my pursuit, towards all my beacons, my Moon, all those whom He brought across my vision, whom He made precious, that not longer after i finally have met my Rabb, i too would soon meet them. most thoughts these days that occupy, how to persevere and protect these two closest beloved from the vagaries of this life as He made it our test to be born in. 

but it is a mixture, of the present and Tomorrow,  two trains of thought, who must walk hand in hand, for each offers its own wisdom and needs addressed, offering sight of both joy and sorrow. 

alhamdulillah, onwards still. 

The Value of Resonance

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

what is its worth? 

people always seem to understand things in terms of trades, exchanges, balance. what is given up for what is gained, the valuation of scales on each side. 

for me, resonance is the most precious substance one person can find with/from another. these days i don't know how to quantify it anymore, because i meet my beloved at levels we share, and some parts of the ocean run too deep for them to dip in to. it is a choice, to continue with what my Rabb decreed for His slave, to be content with it, and especially: to be appreciative of the sanctuary that He provided as my rizq in this life. going forward, that is all there is for me, all the past, all of the choices made that i'd remake had i the chance, point in the same direction. why would i make again the same in-the-moment past choices again, if i could choose again? because what He permitted me to grasp of life, of death, of akhirah, of reorienting one's sight not from a limited confine of earthly days, but from the pov of Eternity itself. 

i chase resonance. always have, and i always will. if i expanded my explanation to spread beyond human forms who it could be found with, then it is obvious Whom takes the place of supremacy in resonance: Allah. it is not like the resonance of mortals among mortals, but of the Master and His slave. of knowing what is submission, of being taught it over and over, in times good and times low. His desire is that I remember Him, that I hold accountability for myself and never lose sight of the end of life. people may assume there is no joy in standing before the One Who made them. i think they would be sorely mistaken.