- in the name of Allah - 


sometimes fingers need to be freed to do as they please, triggering words from thoughts held too deep inside one's self to see. looking often for fresh air to breathe, not often finding time to just stand and observe nature in its own scene, these are days that just mesh together silently, bound by times of disasters that fall like lightning strikes on once-safe pastures. it might be I too count among the sheep, but colorblind to tell what the difference in shades might mean, so I wander from the flock seeking freedom from being slaughtered for wool or meat, thinking I've found sanctuary but in truth another stray for the wolves to pick apart with their sharpest of teeth. 

time, that old friend, it comes for me again, from old recesses once treaded, beneath the oceans in caverns where purpose once crumbled and lay compressed, but time now knows that it too will give in, like any beginning in life has its pair with an ending.

- in the name of Allah -



I wish some ripples could my self reach, across any ocean or river or creek, so even if outside was sun to shine inside there would be rain to make puddles with reflections of others for me to find. All for the moment, static impressions of lives being lived with various efforts, towards some vague but assumable purposes and endings; my lone regret in this midst of busy bees, to be a comet just a shade off visible course, so in their skies I may be seen, but in mine they're just slightly out of phase and misaligned. I know some orbits take the entirety of a lifetime, coming back around to meet again heavenly companions in stride, I know some risks, even look forward to the epilogue, but by Allah, I hope my own journey doesn't take quite so long. 

~<@

- in the name of Allah -

SubhanaAllah. Didn't quite expect to know a place like this. Then again, a year and half ago, didn't expect I'd ever marry either. Now thoughts and consequences drift to not being married any longer. I wish I could say there was some emotion worth having in regards to the person involved, but there isn't. What truly digs at me though, what I fear the most, is the possibility that I may be leaving behind something Allah wanted good for me in. The only issue is, by every mortal lens I have, by every human judgment I can make, there is precious little truly good there in the relationship that is worth trying to hang on to. 

Suffice it to say, the current eventuality is what the person needed I didn't have, the bipolarity and extreme reactions to so many things, such narcissism to make a person cringe, erased any potential that I could have found emotionally, leaving just an utter and wholly repulsive taste in the mouth. Whatever good one hand might make, the other hand would destroy. 

The decisive step is for me to make Istikharah. Innately wary and reluctant to do so for a long time, but in my evolving, I figure I had better brave that too iA: the unknowable, trying to move forward with only human knowledge at hand, uncertain if there was a path worthy of being taken there that would lead me closer to Allah ultimately. iA I'll find one who wants to seek Him too.

 

- in the name of Allah -



some scars, they heal and fade; some scars, they throb and enrage; some scars, they seethe and swell; and then, some scars, they soothe and bring back to health. here's to recollections and projections of pasts and futures meshing into the present, merging threads of consequence and choice into one indivisible line of evidence: pointing forward and marking the road, aiding in moments where I blink, and light by nature into darkness folds, so even in mistakes, by the grace of Allah, I return my gaze back toward Him and the ultimate of goals. 

this blog, this little space I carve onto walls with a pen like a knife in a cave, is my little Ark, a vessel to carry those thoughts that from elsewhere flee and come to find respite like a lamp needs oil to spark. the soul is a fickle thing, it oft waxes and wanes without pause or precedence or time to think, but such is this niche that varying strands of light coalesce in its cradle, growing from mere infirmity to fable, a story still being written to change 'couldn't' into 'able' - inshaAllah and may He make it always so, ameen. 

- in the name of Allah -

there are moments when no rain shines, when no sunlight falls, when every glance outside is competition, between being free or in dementia's thrall. life just wants to close its curtains, or open them and tease potential with no fear of consequences, but seems like the farther I try to see the sooner the near makes me stumble, mind a telescope but need of plain glasses to see what everyone else knows is common-sensical. sometimes this is a dungeon, at others plateau, all limbs chained to the wall, or sight blinded by a wall of things it already knows. 

not as complete as I thought, most of me is here but some pieces still partial, trying to hold a cup of blown glass wrought without a handle, so easily whats inside falls away the moment it gets hot or cold - a tale read without ability to imagine or mold. the coup de grâce of ironies: most often the heart remains silent and I'd rather it be so, than let the pitiful state of what's outside become a closer thing than already it shows. no chance to mourn Alice, there's no glory down this rabbit hole, adventure be damned, just keeping sane at times the only path that forward goes. 

- in the name of Allah -

"The living Aiel had only stopped singing over their dead a short while ago, haunting songs, sung in parts, that lingered in the mind.


Life is a dream—that knows no shade.
Life is a dream—of pain and woe.
A dream from which—we pray to wake.
A dream from which—we wake and go.
Who would sleep—when the new dawn waits?
Who would sleep—when the sweet winds blow?
A dream must end—when the new day comes.
This dream from which—we wake and go."

- in the name of Allah -

it might be those few written words are the last earthly ones from her I ever read, a memoir of all that came before, summed together neatly as the veins in a leaf. Allah knows the order to this Pattern, things falling in place even when to our eyes purpose looks all but lost or scattered. 

perhaps those words are not the final mortal stroke, perhaps as yet I may still find some droplets condensing, extracting from the thinnest of airs a truth unending and unbroken. visions of tomorrow whirl amidst the possibilities, as rain to quench the drought and thirst of a soul trapped in a body it cannot yet leave. 

   sometimes I see those rivers underneath, flowing fast or slow in rush beneath our feet, imaginings without hindrance from every corner peek, just tips of bliss wrapped in dreams lived out in every moment's scene. crowns or glories, jewels or brocades, of every type in every shade, for purposes or fancies, both, to be pleasing made. among the moments in eternity I will treasure, to have you know a promise made was a promise kept forever.

- in the name of Allah -



Sometimes being me is like being a tuning fork, tapping silently, softly against anything and everything and seeing if any matter in existence has a sympathetic frequency. Just that the older I get, the farther it all seems to get away from me. Most don't have the care or patience to understand, even want to understand things, the way I might find the most joy in. With good reason, life goes by nearly the speed of light and such things take up time they'd rather spend on something more applicable, more profitable, more worthwhile. In the dawn of this new age of men, I've long felt a relic of bygone eras, ironically coupled with other vast reasons for the general out-of-placeness I've know nearly all my time living. So what does one born in the wrong century, the wrong millennia, do? After a point the heart and soul shut off externalities, almost like it's all white noise, fluff taking up ear space. Such a place is almost like being in outer space, beyond ice cold, nearly 0 kelvin where everything in between neurons starts to freeze too. Not particularly exciting, but definitely more problematic when the goal held needs so much vigilance, tending to. Alas that this road I need to make through has me crossing the path I hate to reach the point I love. What else could make it worth it I imagine, the saltiness and sheer scale of irony is truly amazing, breathtaking, palpable like a heartbeat. But that's what it is, the undercurrent of the road I have to walk to reach where I want to reach. To swallow the agony of distance, of not knowing both the state either of us are in and if my bones stay cohesive long enough to make over the bridge, this is part of how the picture of my destination, surrounded by all the things one dislikes, shapes out to be. No matter how often things tend to freeze, I'll just try to slip and slide my way across the rink and find you a pair of skates while I'm at it, iA. 

- in the name of Allah -



One of the most striking pains I've ever felt is when I'd be talking to a best friend or else someone very close to me, and while relating something that they couldn't understand, there was a sense that some barrier was there between us. To try and be understood, and yet fail in the attempt, to be blocked off from closeness because what I said was too different...how do words encompass this? I can empathize easily enough with others, account for their emotional/psychological states, but when it comes time to have such a resonance for myself, it evades me. There was a time it didn't, and Allah willing a time it never will again, but still life provides ample tests for me to stay wary: Like a wrestler not yet out of the ring but mind hazy enough to think it is, or like a rabbit racing from a hawk thinking its given up the chase, never seeing the shadow till it looms too close. 

SubhanAllah there is no human feeling quite like resonance. I would call it the epitome of "love", but that would assume I understand enough of love. Not quite, never as much as I'd want. I suppose this underlies one of my primary motivators for Firdaus. To know again those frequencies, this time in their most perfect harmony. I have found it impossible to explain some things in life to another who hasn't felt it. How could one describe the sweetness of a mango to one who'd never tasted it? The feel of snowflakes to one who never touched them? In this way, my cage becomes most poignant, the need for sabr once more eminent. May Allah make it easy on me to keep the road to Him, ameen. 

- in the name of Allah - 

It's strange sometimes, to see one's self inside a set of pixels, a picture not even mine but still it's as if 'me' is scattered somewhere, everywhere, inside of it. Trying to grasp meaning, somehow I am reflected within shades of the red. 

I've found many little pricks on this road of life, pricks from thorns found in places all along the path, except in these pixels. Little parts leak out of me, trickles and streams of a different kind of red, reminding what the journey is all about. 

There are no laments for this pain, no laments of things behind, just hope for what is still ahead. May Allah make firm my standing, my reaching for Him, my finding Him always near and pleased, ameen. 

- in the name of Allah -

“Just because fate has chosen something for you instead of you choosing it for yourself doesn’t mean it has to be bad. Even if it’s something you are sure you would never have chosen in a hundred years. ‘Better ten days of love than years of regretting,’ ”

Just started Book 3 in WoT. It is amazing. Similarly to ASoIaF, though with its own quirks. One of these days I may stop posting random quotes, but I doubt it; it just resonates deeply. 

In not really relatedness, I regret not a step of the road I've been on in life, walhamdulillah. Sometimes one's own life can be seen in the semblance of a Pattern, with its own stylistic weaves and threads. Knowing where I am, where I've been, I would change nothing. If had not the past I have had, how else would shape the future that I seek of dreams in Firdaus? 

- in the name of Allah -

Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.

 

- in the name of Allah -

WoT:

“What a strange thing to say,” Egwene said. “Why do they use it like that? Peace.”

“When you have never known a thing except to dream,” Lan replied, heeling Mandarb forward, “it becomes more than a talisman.”

- in the name of Allah -

 ~~~~~
 "a picture is worth a thousand words" - not even close

 I couldn't even begin to count them, adding up all the words that trace their lineage somehow back to the k. it'd be like taking a tally of sand grains on a beach...that extended for miles as far as eyes could see. the impact of before's and after's, like comets that came from nowhere but landed everywhere and left their mark in the middle of me. from a break so complete I couldn't even recognize my own pieces, to a re-made mirror so perfect every light shined off it simply seamless: I've known sadness that warped into despair and swallowed whole, and I've known hope that became the brightest and best wings ever known. --- so I can say, having tasted both sides of the coin, bitter and sweet: "A Picture is Priceless, only when it's a colored-red dream". 
~~~~~


Every so often I get an inkling to throw a pebble over this divide, see how far the ripples flow, get a sense of how times passes on the other side. I reckon if a few words could manifest themselves into such light and beauty, what then would something of length find? It could be a trap, Allah knows mistakes are easier to make when they're painted in all the right colors and shapes. 'Good intents' and all that, most likely. So I'll keep my pebbles here, by my side, building this mountain bit by bit, till I climb it with Allah's help all the way to Firdaus in Paradise. And when I find that gate, before the angel beckons salaam, around I'll glance for your visage, to crown it the diamond of my triumph's shade, and thus evolves dream from hope into simply true, to reignite the 'y' in 'you'.

 

- in the name of Allah -

WoT:

"Your carneira wears part of your soul as a ribbon in her hair forever."

 Quite true.

- in the name of Allah -


My God, how beautiful this moon, how blessed I am to see things so far through. So round, so bright, water tears in falling, His bounty coming like rain I couldn't hold it all, gratitude pours forth a river all my life in making. My own efforts I swear they're but like ants or faded glass, ready to be crushed or shatter, at the tiniest push a house alone would never last. But He firms my foundation, reconciles my heart, patches the holes that my own infirmity starts. By God I wish I could give Him a speck of what He's given me, this light this road this everything I see, every angle every aspect doesn't matter where I look His gift encompasses, what do I show in turn? where does my response go? how can I repay, what I barely fathom, when I could never deserve any of it with my own deeds, my own futility shows itself and I wish I move toward Him ever close that even this sadness He conceals beneath the shade of thrones or trees. It's there, it's always been, Oh people passing through, God is calling, always He has, answer Him, His mercy, guidance, light, they're the best fruits of this life that otherwise is starved, unsated, never a moment but lies try to drown out truth. I envision the Garden, the place I hope to find, the bounty, the ridwaan from Allah, I have known no serenity more still, and I am one to embrace serenity as a rule. It is...guidance is, so utterly precious. My God, there is no comparison to submission. What it means to believe, to know one's place with respect to Allah, to know Allah's place over all else. Treasure belief, treasure it because we humanity are not the gift given to religion, it is the gift given for us. The second we think we are above it or need it not...so begins doom for the soul. And if the soul is lost, what else could there possibly be worth to gain? 

- in the name of Allah -


Autumn is such a beautiful season alh. Officially and by far my favorite. A fond farewell to winter, loved it when I was younger but cold has a way of stifling that's just as bad practically as it is conceptually. 

If I had to consider it, I would say it's the twin of spring. While the cold of winter contrasts perfectly with the heat of summer, the temperate though opposite nature of autumn and spring is something unique. They're alike in one hand, having much less extremity of temperature, yet flowing in different directions: one from death to life, the other of life fading to death.Truly it's the color that makes autumn what it is. Such a splendor mA, unmatched by any other time of year. 

Wish I had something else to pen too, but every time I come back here and read some of my recent posts, I often find that what I want to say has already been said. It's like having a glass in hand and thinking it's empty and needs to be filled, yet when I pick it up and look inside the glass, the water's always full. True there is always some repetition of words and themes throughout my writing, but I can't recall a time where I've been 'expressed out' just by reading something recent. I'll just have to find something more to picture here iA. 


 

- in the name of Allah -


Ya komla: whenever clouds come, the kind without rain, hold fast in patience, don't let the moment pass in vain. when days turn to mush, and seconds mimic agony of eons, breathe, recall the gardens green and lush. when the tongue begs to speak its piece, in ways untoward or from harm, then remind it of its place, putting on its leash. wherever you walk, whoever you meet, take with you the best of what you find, and the rest just leave. 

I still seek that eternity, the same I've always sought: one with our orbits close, where I've found with my Rabb, all which calms the heart.

 

- in the name of Allah -

Alhamdulillah. The stark contrasts and ironies of life sometimes just really weigh on a person. As I discern something uplifting, almost right next to it is its quantum twin, spinning in totally opposite direction. One force to rise, call higher, the other a chain to keep held down, weighted. It could be one necessitates the other, that life cannot really go forward without these polar opposites always tugging on one's will. It is the qadr of Allah after all, to create things in pairs and cycles, alternating ease and hardship, action and then reaction, growth and decay. Alh not unsatisfied with it, just something to marvel at.
 _____

What if the thinker always thought but never dreamt, would he still be able to see what inside the heart was kept? what if wheels were spun without a car, would they mean as much if people could not travel far? what would the sun remain without the moon, would it leave the earth scorched with no shade to keep it cool?

Glad I am then, the thinker thought to dream, that his past is but a prologue, to shape from hope the best unseen. There's no U-turns on this road, no pauses or rewinds, forward is the only place worth going, with always memory in mind. 

- in the name of Allah -



Yeah, words may be wind, but they're how submission (with the tongue) begins, paving the way for truth and other beautiful things to make their way within. A heart could never find its place if it was only fed with lies, words need their own purity, so we can tell what's really darkness from what's actually light. I know words without actions are worse than wind, rather more like snakes without eyes only emptiness seeking and emptiness is all they can bring. Among my hopes with Allah is that to write these occasional beacons, signposts guiding forward amidst any less than stellar moments.

There's no container that can hold what's behind my words, so to my Rabb they run always, pleading and hoping, fearing His wrath by distance (from me) that could easily rend me back to nothingness again without emotion or feeling. I'd walked so long in the abysses, known their allure of dementor's kisses, soulless pits they were, trying to ever be emptied of anything for all I found back then was only pain in meaning. So it was pain that made me keep on going, but Allah said after every hardship comes ease, and so it could just as well have been a nightmare I woke from to consider now a pleasant dream: finding Allah always once more, so I take as victory whatever path for me He has in store.

With words I hope to capture light in a bottle, cork it quick and hold it close for as long as I'm able. Whenever the present gets darker or dimmer, I'll see the ship inside with a little sun shining in the corner, brightening the skies, reminding me it's just a journey I'm taking to find her.

- in the name of Allah -



If had a choice between having what I wanted most in dunya or in akhirah, there is no question what I would pick: akhirah, in Firdaus, every. single. time. 

By Allah it's amazing this personal reality I didn't fathom till now. The way I am, the way I look at things, the way the soul has always leaned, the answer to one of my history's most enduring puzzles literally feels like it just fell right into place. Surprising given that I'd already accepted and faced what Allah had decreed regardless, but this sort of retrospective in a moment in time where it only adds toward wanting to find my Rabb...is incomparable. To anything. 

Allah knows what people don't, sees what people can't, understands beyond our tiny scope. What beautiful a thing it is, to be able to find my self in complete resonance with a post from 09/02/05. It's akin to being a character in a story and not knowing what the author has in store, but eventually learning of that somehow anyway, like an orbit coming full circle. Wow what a road that was. Long as heck it seemed, such frequent and deep shades of darkness and gloom. But seriously, it was all worth it. It is all worth it. It always was worth it. It will always be worth it. Whether we see it from in front or behind along the stream of time, is irrelevant. WaAllahi this road is worth every moment. To find Allah again like this, in a way I'd forgotten in a younger self, to see purpose linked with past now tied to future, shaping these very moments I write this.....I could not have reached a single bit of it alone, had Allah left me to my own devices. It just couldn't have been, not even in the slightest, if He didn't help me, didn't watch over my wandering nature in a way that defies imagining. Without Allah I would have floundered and kept floundering in a mess of my own making, so it's only fitting that all gratitude and every shukr belongs to Allah entirely. Though my objective remains steady as ever, my purpose is Allah, as it was always to be. 

- in the name of Allah -

Alhamdulillah. It's been a year since that day I looked outside at sunlight shining whitely. mA things have come so far in so little time. It never ceases to amaze me how cyclic and circuituitous life had been for me. What I sought I couldn't have, what I didn't want to seek was the way to go ahead. The layering of paradoxes in this is staggering. If I was me a year or two back, it would have only been something to add to the torment. 

But with that first glance, and following steps after it, alhamdulillah things are brighter. Of the deepest ironies, in what I swear is a ever-growing list of them as I get older, the reason I could go look ahead was because of what had partly rooted me backwards in the first place. The transformation of the "past folly" into my "end-goal hope" sums it up entirely. How do I truly express gratitude for that nudge forward, for the ability to let go of the past in a way so complete I'd never felt lighter in my life? Alhamdulillah is the obvious answer, and it has been said and will continue to be said for long as I remain iA, but what about to the one who played her part, said what came to her though it came in pieces? No 'thank you' is enough (thank you, anyway), not even 'jazakAllah khair' approaches (jazakAllah khair, still) the depth of what it meant to me. 

Though words fail, I guess I won't stop trying: When I reach for a star, I don't want to ever stop reaching, so long as I'm alive, so long as I'm breathing, it's a place I'm heading or a vision I'm seeing. Stay shining, always.

- in the name of Allah -



Risen - a counter to S. M.'s Fallen
10.8.2016 

Heaven hath no need to bend, for my knees can do the same,
Tranquil grace to keep the head held up high, to cool the eyes its rain.

I'm finding the answers now, to questions long since spoken,
Beseeching my Rabb for company, to keep straight the road I've chosen.

Barely now I've begun trying my best, finding light in midst of every stress,
Free from distraction's fences, after hardships to relish the ease and rest.

True, once the pain was so great, once the price so high I'd paid, 
I felt the whole road too twisted, so disllusion thrashed my soul in its wake.

Good intent indeed, the currency of fools, trying to spin from delusion truth,
A love too raw and young, a heart too untested even if still held true.

No doubt I'll carry always scars, wounds that took forever healing,
No doubt those glaciers etched their mark, to a point beyond reason or seeing.

But so much is this very moment worth, that to reach this point I'd run again,
In any direction needed, whether circles of marathons or ellipses of sprints. 

Ad inifitum even, if that is what it took, if it were in fact my fate, to arc around the stars, 
It'd matter not how long I had to wait, worth every second made, just to see the future from afar.

Redemption's always there for the seeking, a guidepost for the willing, a lifeline for the breathing,
Regardless what others might say, He alone decides to lift a soul from baseness into meaning.

As it is with all ships and seas, that which sinks can also find ways to float,
On journeys of tomorrow's breeze, desperate pleas abound, to hold onto always Allah's rope.

- in the name of Allah -



Alhamdulillah. It's always nice to be able to look back and say the parts of ourselves that we'd rather keep are still there, or have been found again. Definitely holds true for me mA. The recovery process took quite a while, but this road is totally worth it, not to mention trying to fix up some old patches in the ground I walked behind me is like the least I can do. Also alh seems like I can now be around people, learn of difficult aspects of their life and things probably better left unlearned, and not be phased by them in the least. the concern is there, but it doesn't hit me like a comet of disillusion anymore. it dissipates in the atmosphere or never even makes it that close to my being. the hope is iA I've finally understood how to separate knowing 'of people' from empathizing with their state so deeply it could drag me in with it. whatever advice or listening is there to be done, is gonna be there iA. but the pull of my own road and purpose appears strong enough biithniAllah that it isn't swayed by them much at all. it feels a bit like being cold-hearted lol, but I suppose that is the price of some level of emotional immunity to the unending stream of life's external issues and temperaments. there are limits to which knowledge we should/want to find in life, just try to navigate them as level-headed as possible iA.

- in the name Allah -


It took awhile, but 2/25's post is no longer published. Should have thought of that sooner as an alternative to deletion, but as usual I'm late to the party. Man, so late lol. All's good though alh. The castles being worked on in Firdaus kinda worth the wait. Speaking of things worth the wait, hopefully it was/is all yellow on the other side of the river too iA.