Warmly, Yours
on the art of letter writing
This week’s divine assignment comes in the form of a letter. Letter writing continues to be one of my favorite ways to get to know someone, myself included. Letters are time specific, they offer communication about a certain moment or subject within the context of the time it is written. In my opinion, letter writing is a time traveling hack. There’s a reason that letters are powerful primary resources whether in a courtroom or in archival research. They are often telling through tone and syntax, they show us something about the relationship between the writer and the recipient.
I am the type of lover who will write you a letter to give voice to feelings that may otherwise be difficult to articulate. Being the nostalgic Taurus I am, I save letters I’ve received and revisit them when I want to reconnect with that feeling or that person. In a way, each maktoūb essay is a mini-letter to myself, however for today’s piece I wanted to make that connection more explicit. As the ever-challenging year of 2023 comes to its close, I write this letter as a way to remember where I have been so as to guide where I am going.
my dearest مروة,
I pray this message finds you in cherished company. The other day when I was cleaning my things out of Mikelina’s apartment I found old notes from a writing intensive I took in the middle of 2021. It was like reading a prophecy, so many of the goals and aspirations I dreamed for myself have been realized in the past 2 years. A sweet reassurance welled within me, stumbling on to this tangible example of my manifestation powers at work.
What you most desire is within your reach. At the root of desire is valuable information that indicates what is worth pursuing. That contagious energy that excites, nourishes, motivates, the one that pulses through your body and tells you you’re on to something. There is a balance to strike between practicality and impulsivity. Both convey parts of self that want to be heard and expressed, and they each have their own time to shine. I look myself straight in the face and I ask, what do you want? With triumph I know the answer to that question and so I can now act on it. I am also aware that my answer will change many times over, and I give myself permission to explore the fluidity of my desire.
When I was a young child my dad would get me to eat broccoli by activating my imagination and convincing me that they were small trees and I was a giant coming to devour them. I giggled and indulged the fantasy while I chewed on the green stalks. Growing up as an only child against the grayscale backdrop of Virginia, my imagination was bigger than me. It was an escape, a secret back door to freedom. This is a gift from spirit that I do not take for granted – my vision and the drive to make it a reality. The observer within me cautions against getting lost in the worlds I create within my mind’s eye. Breathwork and meditation pull me back into my body and to the ground beneath my feet, you can always return to yourself here.
Reality doesn’t follow the lawlessness of my imaginary, inner sanctum and that can feel crushing at times. But do not fret, because that’s a good thing! The dream of the universe will always be grander than the dream of my Ego. My imagination is a key part of my power, it is the resource from which all manifestations are born. And yet, still, I can only imagine a 1/10th of what is possible, there are eons unknown to me and my imagination is not here to predict. Rather than a destination, my imagination is a starting place on a roadmap.
Consciousness-raising is a jagged path that requires taking a step back to get two steps ahead. Instead of a line, I imagine a circle, where I am coming back to where I started, to the inherent knowledge of my own dignity. It is from this place that I can understand that fear is a friend, an ever-present companion that I can choose to sit with or shun. The latter is an illusion as it is to my own detriment. The only way to overcome fear is to call it by name, look at it and recognize it.
A reminder that the Voice of the Judge is simultaneously my voice and others’ voices that cast their opinion. This part of myself wants to protect me from ridicule and disappointment. But disappointment is inevitable and others’ opinions have nothing to do with me. This is a lesson to be re-learned and integrated again & again as new neural pathways develop.
This year, I’ve become very familiar with the 8 of Swords. The probability of drawing the same card multiple times in a deck of 78 cards never ceases to amaze me. Like the Devil, this card speaks of freedom and how to take it back. The image drawn is of a person tied surrounded by swords who seems to be unable to move. But upon closer inspection, you can see that if she wanted to maneuver her way out, she could. When this card is drawn it asks us whether the barrier we face is real or imagined, whether it comes from a limited interpretation, from beliefs that have already been overcome.
No one warns you about the grief that comes with outgrowing a part of yourself. That before you can make it over the hump, you must mourn, honor and lay to rest what is dying. Surrender is a prayer within itself, it asks us to step and believe that the net will appear. Surrender is giving up the false expectation of “supposed to”, to open up to the certainty of what is present now. Eckhart Tolle begs the question, “What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?”
I remember in a 2000 PBS interview with Octavia Butler, Charlie Rose asks, why writing? Without missing a beat Butler resounds, “because you get to write yourself in”. The unspoken sentiment to Butler’s reply is that women like her – Black, queer, neurodivergent -- are never written in, so we have to do it ourselves. Butler’s poignant and prophetic landscapes shaped my understanding of narrative as an active, world-building force. If I am the narrator of this short, weird, complicated story then I have the agency to decide what comes next. The stories I tell myself shape how I move through the world, so what would it be like to tell a kind story? I make a promise to return to this truth when I become bombarded with societal narratives that attempt to confine, define, dictate someone who looks like me. I am not a victim of my story and neither are you.
In this next rotation around the sun I pray that peace is not something you seek out, but a state of being that you can easily access. I pray that the practice of committing to maktoūb as an exercise in self-awareness is an example for the power of consistency over intensity. Where else can I apply this lesson? I pray that I say yes to what pleases me, delights and intrigues my senses. My yes opens the way and I watch as my own capacity to receive widens. Above all, wherever this letter may find you, I pray that you are held in the light of your own love. I am so freaking proud of you (!), not of what you produce, but for all the ways you tirelessly show up for yourself.
warmly, yours