practicing non-attachment

"me and you, mountain, that's how its gonna be."
It was somewhere up twelve thousand feet on the rocky part of the great Mount Kinabalu and I could not feel my feet. I kept my focus on holding the torch steady and staring at my feet. I focused on the halo of light surrounding them as they kept moving... forward, forward. At times I just closed my eyes...I was so tired. I could have fallen asleep right there. For moments I think i did. i forgot about getting to the peak... i forgot about looking ahead - just kept my gaze on my feet... onward, onward. slowly. i knew at times i moved only an inch or two but yet thats all i knew i had to do...just keep moving. forget about everything else. forget about all the others. forget about getting to the peak. its you and me, mountain.. you are my friend. all we have is now. all we need to get by is this moment.

perhaps its like a prayer, i thought then. because in my giving up, my letting go and my ploughing on, i felt a resonation with the experience of fasting in the month of Ramadhan. just like abstaining from my base instincts of hunger, letting go of it, disentangling myself from the urge to fill it, surrendering my emptiness to the One above and just be.... i felt the same now, letting go of my aches and my tiredness, my body's desire to crumble... and just be. just be, and just know God is. it is at the point when we give up control over giving ourselves contentment  that we enter a place of letting go... we find contentment inspite of ourselves.

so i thought, as i made one more step up. maybe i'll treat this the same... this will my worship. if i could find peace detaching from food, let me find peace fighting my fatigue and keep walking. just let go, surrender, and just be.

found on a serviette

"we count all the different colours
and countless shades in between
toasting them one by one
and find
the night too short

we'll have to continue tomorrow
and each day
and every day after."

he said -
let love be like waves of the ocean between you
with space, and rhythm, and sound, and passion, and gentleness
and abandon - you own each other in the heart; but you do not belong to each other
you each belong, separately and together, in the heart of the universe
the heart of love.

i'd like to
go deep into myself
find the parts of me that knows you
that knows how i feel for you
unscramble them
lay them in order,
and like a line, word for word, draw them out of myself
as a sentence that makes sense, a poem
with rhythm
with purpose.

i'd like to
reach deep into you,
find the parts of you that has known all women
test them for steel
test them for gold
test them for tears.
and see, where i am lodged, in all those -
a passing speck, or an eternal rose.

i don't know how many times can a person die and die again.
i guess they say the point is that we still live despite the worst circumstances, that we have strength more than we know. for now, i die. and for now, i mourn my death. i mourn the death of love, the death of the stars. the death of perseverence, of hope, the death of beauty.

for as much as your love taught me life, love now dies with me. and if only i could make you see.

on dancing

to dance is to keep in step with your partner, follow his lead, mirror your steps to his. there are the basic steps you keep in time, and there are the fancy swirls, where he leads you, lets you go, but you always come back, in step, in time, together. you are not leaning on him, however, you need your own posture, with feet firm to the ground, your core stable. only then can you, together, form the dynamic, fluid, structured tension, just the right balance, to bounce of each other's energy ...to flow, together. even if you misstep and lose count along the way. and even if your partner is out of time with the music, as you mirror him you need to be out of time with him as one. maybe the both of you are dancing to your own tune.

*
if, however, you are a stickler for a certain beat and you need a lead who can keep the same rhythm in time because that is how your heart beats, then find that partner and keep in close all night - it would not do to dance with any other.

I know, because I understand how it feels. I understand how it is to hear something unfamiliar, and immediately shrink away (sometimes even with an involuntary look of disgust) before even thinking about it. An immediate reaction, caused by some mental block in the head. It could be a different skin colour, someone seen as ‘dirty’. It could be someone we think is smelly, though if we ever think about it, we do not really know why we think so – we have not really gone close enough to smell. It could be the smell of incense, or the sound of prayer. I hear a prayer in Arabic, and I catch that feeling. That shock of distaste, of immediately wanting to shut it off, turn it away, change the channel. That feeling that it is foreign, not mine, a thorn in my flesh. It is there before I think about it, before I realise it. I catch it – it is the fear of the foreign that has been imprinted in me; years and years of being conditioned to stay away from ‘these people’, a people who are violent, dirty, lazy, thieves and corrupters. Stay away from their religion, a religion which is controlling, authoritative, misguided, unaccepting, ridiculous. A people who keep taking what is ours and who are trying to overpower us bit by bit. Malicious strangers we must protect our position from. I catch it – the disgust, the hatred. I banish it, and let the prayer continue to play. This is what it is, really - it is beautiful.  

*

Racism (or any other discrimination) is not caught outside, in others. (In an us vs ‘others’ framework, it is natural and easiest to accuse the other of the problem first). It must be caught, and stopped, within ourselves, constantly.