Lightness of Being…

I wish I could pour words into this song. Or better yet, I should learn to play an instrument to help me capture the melody right under the surface drumming of my heart.

The further inward my gaze turns, the more I appreciate veils. These long nights silently healing and nurturing what the light of day refuses to acknowledge. I was reflecting on the Arabic concept of “stara” stemming from the root word S-T-R to cover, protect, to veil, to keep hidden. In shame-based cultures this concept is taken to an unhealthy extreme. Where the Beloved’s gaze is stripped from daily affairs and every one becomes preoccupied with surface issues like “reputation” and what “the” people will say. We are witnessing the other end of the spectrum though; an obsessive need to bare it all refusing to heed the corrosive effect this aggression has on our hearts and societies.

I am stringing together quiet moments, and my relentless need to articulate is rendered mute. There is nothing else to say; nothing beyond what is being expressed countless of times over in the outer reaches of the universe replicated in depths beyond this illusion of “I”.

The “Sattar”/ Veiler/ Concealer/ Disguiser demands a certain quietness of spirit to approach. Keeping me close to the earth. I let this music be my guide, and when I am deeply in tune, I sense the dark clouds rending it obscure, so I retreat further into prayer, into silence, into the soft patter of raindrops mingled with tears, into healing.

Sitr conceals certain things, but in their concealment others are magnified. In a world where everything is stripped down to an ugly “core”, revelation comes in the ability to gather, to stuff empty spaces with silence and weep a little at the brokenness within; at the brokenness of it all.

I am learning to celebrate the gentleness that mystery lends to life. Pausing to open my senses to the universe; the chill of winter air against my skin; the purifying breath exhaling smoky fumes from within. Listening to the chatter of squirrels and birds, wondering where I have been all my life.

There is a misconception among those religiously bent (including a younger more fervent “i”) that senses are somehow to be vanquished in the zeal for God. Yet how are slumbering senses supposed to help us decipher the symbols soaked in beauty surrounding us? How are dead instincts supposed to help us respond to the inner logic of events that confront us at each moment?

When our eyes are glazed over and we are unable to appreciate the intrinsic preciousness of each moment, then what is the point of life itself?

And more importantly how do I nurture the “common” sense my children have, to wake up each day full of enthusiasm demanding to touch, taste, to explore, to see, to listen, to jump, to embrace the universe in all its variety and wholesomeness. I fear contracting them into narrow anxieties of “pre-defined” adulthood where life is systematically desecrated of its layers of spontaneity and gorgeous appeal. My children demand my full attention, they keep me awake cultivating still grounds for harmony riding sun beams to seep into our lives.

They have inspired a wakefulness that keeps me running between the universe, books, revelation. This wakefulness that keeps me yearning to “shout from the roof tops” and at the same time master the art of magnifying the Mysterious; internalizing the integrity of silence.

May we all taste the healing beauty of ineffable songs; a gentler way to efface this certainty of “i” to embrace a larger and more expansive/expanded self (amin.)