Monthly Archives: August 2011

Lama Foundation, and some good reading

25 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by in Kazim Ali, Lama Foundation, Poetry, Robert Bly, Sufi

≈ 1 Comment

View over the Rio Grande looking West from the Dome at Lama

I’m back from nine thousand feet up in the Sangre de Christo Mountains above the Rio Grand River. My body feels strong and balanced.  It seemed a bit survival-like up there at cloud level. My brain seemed quiet and  breath labored as I climbed the trail to the grave site of Murshid Sam Lewis, to pay my respects.I’ve been doing this since 1975.  This year there was time for long meditations in the DOME, where I sat on an old-board floor with adobe walls crafted in eight facets. The room wrapped me in an earth blanket of calm and certainty. The dome arched above with its glass star at the top. This architectural jewel is over 40 years old and survived a fire that took most of that mountain some fifteen years ago. It feels like home.

Back in California, I pick up Kazim Ali’s wonderful book Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice. Today I read the chapter: Twenty-Second Day.

I have always loved that a “day” in the Islamic calendar begins with the setting of the sun and continues through to the following sunset…. The body is like a day: it begins with the darkness of evening, ends with the ebbing of light.

Mmmmm. This kind of discovery tastes better than the fresh tomatoes in the garden.

The Dances of Universal Peace

Arabic writing goes from right to left, and its history is defined by a line of ancestors beginning with Grandmother Eve down to those who live on earth today, so the past streams out in front of us and the future flows behind us. Now there is the pattern of a day beginning at sunset and my brain is playfully awake with possibilities. I could work this into a poem and feel the patterns of the ancient desert people as they seem draw close, while I tap into this view of the day and night seen through this new lens.

Lama Foundation

While on Lama mountain I read a wonderful new book of poems by Robert Bly. I savored it. I gave it away and am now waiting for the next copy to arrive so I can’t check the poem I offer here for accuracy – the title poem from this beautiful and masterful collection:

 
                                                                                                  
 
 TALKING INTO THE EAR OF A DONKEY  by Robert Bly
 
I have been talking into the ear of a donkey.
I have so much to say! And the donkey can’t wait
To feel my breath stirring the immense oats
Of his ears. “What has happened to the spring,”
I cry, “and our legs that were so joyful
in the bobblings of April?” “Oh never mind
About all that,” the donkey
Says. “Just take hold of my mane, so you
Can lift your lips closer to my hairy ears.”

 

(From Talking into the Ear of a Donkey, W.W. Norton, ©2011

view of Lama from Ghost Ranch, across the desert

Ramadan & Reading The Qur’an

03 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Kazim Ali, Morocco, Ramadan, Sufi, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth
Q: 24,25.
the Sahara Desert near Zagora, Morroco

I’m attuned to Ramadan – and the vast community which is marking the journey of the moon – by going toward this season’s blessings  so apparent to me! I intend to fast from separation from myself, my community, and from the Spirit of Guidance. I do not participate in the food fast. The Quranic verse that I picked on day 1 was Q: 3:84, the one that mentions Abraham, Moses, Jesus,  and others, and says we make no distinctions between any of them. I thought I’d pick a verse every day, but I’m still on that one. I wrote it out in Arabic and went back and forth with my lexicon. My Arabic is very rudimentary, but I love how it feels to pass behind that language curtain. The visual beauty of the letters holds me every time. [See the line from the Verse of Light at the end of this article.]

I’ve always liked the universal implications of this “no distinctions” verse.  Yesterday I was caught, netted by ’unzila ‘alayna from one of my favorite verbs NaZaLa. It us translated as “bestowed upon” but the root has a couple pages of definitions: descend, dismount, alight, go down, come down, dwell. Tanziil means revelation, a rain of blessing. The action seems to be coming from the outside. For me, the “God’s Throne” is inside, in my heart. So this is a curious transmission from the Infinite to finite understanding – all inside my Being, which is God’s Being. The translation goes: Say: we believe in God and what has been bestowed on high upon us, and that which has been bestowed upon Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac and Jacob and their descendents… Moses, Jesus and the other prophets: we make no distinction between any of them. And unto God do we surrender ourselves. <>  <>  <>

banner: "COEXISTENCE"

Michael Sells writes: “…Qur’anic Suras are at their most compelling when the exact relationship of one statement to another hangs in a balance, and instead of freezing into some clearly definable meaning, continues to resonate and pose questions that only a lifetime of searching can answer.”* *note: Approaching the Qur’an, by Michael Sells p. 27.

Part of this month of  mornings for me is a piece from Kazim Ali’s new book of journal entries, Fasting for Ramadan Tupelo Press. He is a favorite poet who has a chapter of his own sparkling reflections from each day of Ramadan. Here’s one I like:

Sixth Day: “…I love as well the cold needling rain of spring and the autumn drizzle so thick you can’t feel it but arrive home thoroughly soaked.

The soaking, I think to be covered, suffused, bathed, owned, by something you didn’t even know was around you.

I love the mysteries and the inexplainables. The Kaaba –– black house of God, called the Near Mosque, circumambulated by millions, determining the direction of Muslim prayers, the cube at the heart of the Masjid-e-Haram –– is empty inside.” <>

Best of all, this season –– I appreciate the “A-ha moments. May you enjoy many. Ramadan Karim!

God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth