Zikr

on the teachings of Rumi

Focus is difficult to rein in these days. My mind is scattered and I can’t quite find the ground beneath my feet. I leave the lights on the car, I forget to put the leftovers in the fridge, and mornings come and go with a certain animosity. I witness the world around me collapse and the words that bring me comfort are few and far. I ache for the embrace of my lover's arms. In their absence I hold myself until I am no longer shaking. Silence is its own companion, I search for the language of others to fill this space and I am reunited in the worlds of Rumi:

“Give up wanting what other people have.
That way you’re safe.
“Where, where can I be safe?” you ask.
This is not a day for asking questions,
not a day on any calendar.
This day is conscious of itself.
This day is a lover, bread, and gentleness,
more manifest than saying can say.
Thoughts take form with words,
but this daylight is beyond and before thinking and imagining.
Those two, they are so thirsty,
but this gives smoothness to water.
Their mouths are dry, and they are tired.
The rest of this poem is too blurry for them to read.”

Not a day on any calendar by Rumi

I am wary of my tendency for all or nothing. A sticky habit energy that verges on the impossibility of the perfect. Voltaire warns against allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I repeat this mantra. In the throes of Saturn I am submerged in gray choppy waters. The Voice of Grace is quiet, hushed tones drowned. I plunge one leg into the water and then the next, I crouch in the coolness of its touch and search for that distant voice.

“A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.

It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.

A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
to light that’s blazing
inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what’s hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.”

Story Water by Rumi

I remember I used to dread trips back to Sudan. This place is home and yet I am an outsider looking in. Each visit reminded me of the foreignness of my being. Reminded me of my father and his careless departure. I grow older and I don’t want to look that way. The tide is higher and I don’t have much time left. I do not know, yet I know, the end is approaching. I am running through the Heathrow airport before my flight departs. I make it with only a few minutes to spare, so why am I disappointed? Something doesn’t feel right but I am too deep into this decision to change course. In the threshold of the tarmac I weep prematurely. Because a part of me knows there will be nothing left to return to. Now my memory is the only place where home still lives.

 “A naked man jumps in the river, hornets swarming
above him, The water is the zikr, remembering,
There is no reality but God. There is only God.

The hornets are his sexual remembering, this woman,
that woman. Or if a woman, this man, that.
The head comes up. They sting.

Breathe water. Become river head to foot.
Hornets leave you alone then. Even if you’re far
from the river, they pay no attention.

No one looks for stars when the sun’s out.
A person blended into God does not disappear. He, or she,
is just completely soaked in God’s qualities.
Do you need a quote from the Qur’an? 

All shall be brought into our Presence.

Join those travelers. The lamps we burn go out,
some quickly. Some last till daybreak.
Some are dim, some intense, all fed with fuel.

If a light goes out in one house, that doesn’t affect
the next house. This is the story of the animal soul,
not the divine soul. The sun shines on every house.
When it goes down, all houses get dark.

Light is the image of your teacher. Your enemies
love the dark. A spider weaves a web over a light,
out of himself, or herself, makes a veil.

Don’t try to control a wild horse by grabbing its leg.
Take hold the neck. Use a bridle. Be sensible.
Then ride! There is a need for self-denial.

Don’t be contemptuous of old obediences. They help”.

Zikr by Rumi 

Toni Morrison cautions of water’s long memory – ‘“Floods’ is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was”. In my dreams I follow the bend of the Nile, it guides me until I am at the banks of the river where women brew jabana and legamat are frying. I remember where I used to be. The day is conscious of itself and so is the land. The site of water where it began. I become the river and inhabit her rage. From head to toe I am full of memory, repeating, hiding and showing what’s hidden.