i've come again
like a new year
to crash the gate
of this old prison

i've come again
to break the teeth and claws
of this man-eating
monster we call life

i've come again
to puncture the
glory of the cosmos
who mercilessly
destroys humans

i am the falcon
hunting down the birds
of black omen
before their flights

i gave my word
at the outset to
give my life
with no qualms
i pray to the Lord
to break my back
before i break my word

how do you dare to
let someone like me
intoxicated with love
enter your house

you must know better
if i enter
i'll break all this and
destroy all that

if the sheriff arrives
i'll throw the wine
in his face
if your gatekeeper
pulls my hand
i'll break his arm

if the heavens don't go round
to my heart's desire
i'll crush its wheels and
pull out its roots

you have set up
a colorful table
calling it life and
asked me to your feast
but punish me if
i enjoy myself

what tyranny is this
-rumi-

The drum of the realization of the promise is beating,
we are sweeping the road to the sky. Your joy is here today, what remains for tomorrow?
The armies of the day have chased the army of the night,
Heaven and earth are filled with purity and light.
Oh! joy for he who has escaped from this world of perfumes and color!
For beyond these colors and these perfumes, these are other colors in the heart and the soul.
Oh! joy for this soul and this heart who have escaped the earth of water and clay,
Although this water and this clay contain the hearth of the
philosophical stone. -Rumi

Almond Biscotti

Having almond biscotti today,
I realized how it can be looked as a reflection of some of us…

One can look so hard on the outside but become so soft,
once we are dipped in the cup of life.
When immersed by the warmth and drowned by its fluidity,
we become soft and almost melt…
The sweetness we can offer to life is left behind in its cup after we are gone, with some type of trace of our being or existence left behind…
We can make a difference or be noticed by our actions even by one dip into divinity…

Almond biscotti…
So many ways to look at life and so many ways to see the meaning and purpose to our existence…
Learn to see things from another view…don’t be so surfaced…(c) -MN-

5 sense thoughts

Tranquil state,
Deep thoughts,
Contemplation as heavy as bricks…
Nobody knows what goes through this chick’s
mind.
What’s in store tomorrow?
What’s next for today?
When will her heart find tranquility?
When will her soul feel at peace?
Where will her mind rest and find ease?
How will she continue to keep her head above water in this sea
of falsehood to keep from drowning?
When will the bruises fade from falling?
Eyes sharpened to keep it from being blurried from disillusion…
Tastebuds going wild from the bitterness and sweetness of life..
Ears hurting from hearing things she wishes she never heard…
Body sore from feeling pangs of emotions she never thought she’d feel…
This is what happens when you can’t be fake cuz you’re too real…
Where is she going?
It’s what her Creator has planned,
One can only wonder....©

-MaryamN-

Ashkhaa ye man hamchoon qatrahaa ye baaraan ast,
peshe yaaram.

shekaayat-haa daaram,
peshe kee goyam
afsos nadaaram, mahram e raazam
ashkhaa ye man...

My tears are the same as drops of rain,
before my beloved.

I have complaints/woes,
who do I tell them to?
Sadly I don't have a companion who holds(knows) my secrets

My tears...
-Ahmad Zahir song "Ashko hay e man"-

As dark as the clouds may be today, remember that tomorrow there can be sunshine…
As lovely as you might be feeling right now, remember that you can be just as sad, so enjoy each moment of it and remember the most High,
If you move to music, make sure it’s the music of life’s creation—the harmony in your heart…
As high as you can get, remember how low you can stoop if you’re not careful…
Remember the opposites in life and you will live in a beautiful balance…©

-MN-

A quote a friend sent me...

"Poetry is a break for freedom. In a sense all poems are good; all poems are an emblem of courage and the attempt to say the unsayable; but only a few are able to speak to something universal yet personal and distinct at the same time; to create a door through which others can walk into what previously seemed unobtainable realms, in the passage of a few short lines."
David Whyte, Poet

Quit Facebook...by Carmen Joy King

A pretty interesting article ... 

The decision to destroy my carefully built-up virtual image came as a result of wanting to enhance my profile.

In march, at the peak of Facebook popularity, I quit. with four swift clicks of the mouse, I canceled my account. Gone was the entire online persona I had created for myself – profile pictures, interests and activities, work history, friends acquired – all carefully thought out to showcase to the world the very best version of me, all now deleted.

Ironically, the decision to destroy my carefully built-up virtual image came as a result of wanting to enhance my profile. All that particular week I’d been hungry for new quotes on my page, something to reflect the week I’d been having: something introspective. I perused a quotes website and found this one attributed to Aristotle:

“We are what we repeatedly do.”

I became despondent. What, then, was I? If my time was spent changing my profile picture on Facebook, thinking of a clever status update for Facebook, checking my profile again to see if anyone had commented on my page, Is this what I am? A person who re-visits her own thoughts and images for hours each day? And so what do I amount to? An egotist? A voyeur?

Whatever the label, I was unhappy and feeling empty. The amount of time I spent on Facebook had pushed me into an existential crisis. It wasn’t the time-wasting, per se, that bothered me. It was the nature of the obsession – namely self-obsession. Enough was enough. I left Facebook.

In the past, my feelings toward Facebook and similar social networking sites had swung between a genuine sense of connection and community to the uncomfortable awareness that what all of our blogs, online journals and personal profiles really amounted to was serious narcissism. As my feelings of over-exposure continued to mount, the obvious solution would have been to set limits on my Facebook time – yet I still found myself sucked in for longer periods every time I visited. In part, it was the hundreds of little links to and hints about other people’s lives that kept me coming back. But even more addicting were the never-ending possibilities to introduce, enhance and reveal more of myself.

The baby-boomers were at one time thought to be the most self-absorbed generation in American history and carried the label of the Me Generation. In recent years this title has been appropriated, twisted and reassigned to the babies of those same boomers – born in the 80s and 90s – now called Generation Me or the Look at Me Generation. Author Jean Twenge, an Associate Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University and herself a member of Generation Me – spent ten years doing research on this group’s sense of entitlement and self-absorption. She attributed it to the radical individualism that was engendered by baby-boomer parents and educators focused on instilling self-esteem in children beginning in the 1970s. American and Canadian youth were raised on aphorisms such as “express yourself” and “just be yourself.”

To further illustrate her point, Twenge also found a large increase in self-reference words like “I,” “me,” “mine” and “myself” in news stories published in the 80s and 90s. These words replaced collective words such as “we,” “us,” “humanity,” “country” or “crowd” found in the stories of a similar nature in the 50s and 60s. This generation might be the least thoughtful, community-oriented and conscientious one in North American history.

In the end, what does all this online, arms-length self-promotion ultimately provide? Perhaps it’s merely one component of the pursuit to alleviate some of the blackness encountered in the existential vacuum of modern life. As Schopenhauer once projected, modern humans may be doomed to eternally vacillate between distress and boredom. For the vast majority of people experiencing the fragmented, fast-paced modern world of 2008, a Sunday pause at the end of a hectic week may cause them to become all too aware of the lack of content in their lives. So we update our online profiles and tell ourselves that we are reaching out.

And yet, the time we waste on Facebook only makes our search for comfort and community more elusive. Online networking sites are marketed as facilitators of community-orientation but when I think about the millions of people – myself included – who spend large portions of their waking lives feeding off an exchange of thousands of computerized, fragmented images, it doesn’t add up to community-engagement. These images have no meaning beyond “I look pretty from this angle” or “I’m wasted” or “look who my new boyfriend is.” And as we continue to chase even harder – accessing Facebook at work, uploading images from our cell phones – we spend our money on constantly upgraded electronic gadgets marketed to our tendency to self-obsess and present particularly uninteresting and repetitive images of ourselves. There’s got to be more than this.

And so I quit…

After I left Facebook, I wondered what all my friends, family and acquaintances were going to think when they noticed I’d disappeared off the Facebook earth. So some of my Facebook narcissism – am I being noticed, am I being missed – remains. But I’m also asking myself some new questions. How do I find balance between my online life and my “real” life? How much exposure is healthy? How do I act responsibly for myself and engage with those I love? These are still “me” thoughts but they feel different than before. As I sit here, keyboard under palm, eyes on screen, I try to remind myself that my hands and eyes need to venture out into the community and look and touch the truly tangible that lies just beyond that other big screen: my window. (c)

It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad; and it is better still to sit with the good than alone. It is better to speak to a seeker of knowledge than to remain silent; but silence is better than idle words. (Bukhari)

How often it is that a small action becomes great by its intention. And how often it is that a great action becomes small by its intention.- Abd Allah ibn Mubarak
[Dhahabi, Siyar A'lam al-Nubala', 8: 400]

The purpose of our creation is obvious:
to reach our utmost goals of
belief,
knowledge,
and spirituality;
to reflect on the universe,
humanity,
and Allah,
and thus prove our value
as human beings.
-M.Fethullah Gulen-

Face off...

I looked at love in the face and asked it what its purpose is…
Love stared back and told me that it can only show me…it’s just not something that can be described…
I challenged Love and asked what if I was blind and couldn’t see, then what would it do?
Love said that it would still be accomplished…
I told love that I have heard, written and spoke about its existence a lot, but still wanted to know how to describe it to others…
Love took my hand and caused my heart to soar…
As I was swimming through tides of various emotions,
Love told me this is what its purpose is…to cause people’s hearts to feel….
Love was created by the Beloved and was sent as a gift and test to humanity…
Love pointed to the sky, the mountains and the trees,
As well as animals, people and the seas…
Love said “this is all created by He” and I realized all of this needs to be cherished by We.
We are taught to love our Creator’s creation…though it be temporary
And as my heart was taking a flight, I came to the realization
That even if I was blind, Love was able to show me…
Love has not let my feet touch the ground, as it has only caused me to fly higher…
As each day passes, my heart expands and no water can extinguish the warmth caused by Love’s fire…
Love is transcendence to the most High…
Were it not for Love to show me and for me to ask love,
I would have never paid attention to the signs of the one Above…
Love has many forms, purposes and ways,
Master your ego and lose yourself to love for the rest of your days…
Take Love’s flight and open your eyes to see what is shown,
Open your heart’s dialogue and learn what needs to be known…
Fly with me in this open, universal space
To catch a flight though, with your heart exposed, you must first stare Love in its face….(c)
-MaryamN-

Heart-knockin...

What is this knocking at my heart's door?

Could it be limitless possibilities?

Endless dreams that can one day be...?

Or is it just a mere glimpse of a false fantasy?

Waiting for the truth to be apparently seen,

tired of hoping that this could finally happen to me...

Hand's on the door-knob, opening the door...

earnestly hoping this could be something more...

something more...

something to finally bring me some peace...

piece together my hopes and sow it all into one reality...

The door has opened and I am waiting for the rest to be shown...

Peering through the doorway, I am hoping for more to be known...

Hoping...

Hope...(c)

-MN-

Don't really know...

The similitude of the one, who memorizes the Qur'aan but does not act in accordance to it, is like a donkey, which carries a load of books, but does not understand!

-Traditional

People claim to know so much, when they don't know much at all when it comes to things such as Deen....You can spend your whole life learning and you still don't know the half of it.....Immerse yourself in humility and know your role.....(c)

me...lol..

alone with the Alone Himself...

Lips sealed,
Heart telling tales..
Eyes used as the lens to paint all images….

Stories don’t have to always be told by the mouth…
Sometimes just the eyes can take you there…

Hard stares reminiscent of deep contemplation…
Soft gazes recount dreamy thoughts and admiration….
Hopeful glances reflect possibility
Long blinks display disdain for what may or may not be…

So much in the eye…
The eyes and the heart…the true master story-tellers…

I don’t let just anyone into my world…
For if I let someone look into my eyes,
then I am letting them look through the windows of my heart…
-MN-

To Those Who Don't Feel This Love (Rumi)

Those who don't feel this love
pulling them like a river

Those who don't drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take sunset like supper

Those who don't want to change
Let them sleep.

This Love
is beyond the study of theology
that old and trickery and hypocrisy

If you want to improve your mind that way
Sleep on.

I've given up on my brain
I've torn the cloth to shredsand thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you

and sleep.

Blessings upon the Rasool saaws

An evening of Recitation and Praise

Rumi

My heart, sit only with those

who know and understand you.

Sit only under a tree

that is full of blossoms.

In the bazaar of herbs and potions

don't wander aimlessly

find the shop with a potion that is sweet.

If you don't have a measure

people will rob you in no time.

You will take counterfeit coins

thinking they are real.

Don't fill your bowl with food from

every boiling pot you see.

Not every joke is humorous, so don't search

for meaning where there isn't one.

Not every eye can see,

not every sea is full of pearls.

My heart, sing the song of longing

like nightingale.

The sound of your voice casts a spell

on every stone, on every thorn.

First, lay down your head

then one by one

let go of all distractions.

Embrace the light and let it guide you

beyond the winds of desire.

There you will find a spring and nourished by its waters

like a tree you will bear fruit forever.

Mathnawi VI: 255-260

Wealth has no permanence: it comes in the morning,
and at night it is scattered to the winds.
Physical beauty too has no importance,
for a rosy face is made pale by the scratch of a single thorn.
Noble birth also is of small account,
for many become fools of money and horses.
Many a nobleman's son has disgraced his father by his wicked deeds.
Don't court a person full of talent either,
even if he seems exquisite in that respect:
take warning from the example of Iblis(shaitan).
Iblis had knowledge, but since his love was not pure,
he saw in Adam nothing but a figure of clay.

-Rumi

“Everyone has been made for some particular work,

and the desire for that work has been

put in every heart.”

-Rumi-