The Gift

I have known for a long time that islamic prayer does something to me that is as mysterious as it is powerful. It started with pouring my heart out at the mosque, finding comfort simply in prostrating and laying my hands and forehead on the carpet and my chest on my knees.
Then one day I found the " carpet" responding to me, filling me with a new love and energy.
Some years later it reached the next level, mystery.
And now I have become this closet Muslim ( and unknown sufi , after joining a tariqa) who surreptitiously performs her prayers and wazifas in coffeeshops and other places when not at the mosque, silently breathing the names of Allah while pretending to be asleep or wearing earphones in lieu of earplugs to provide a simple explanation to people why I am sitting with closed eyes in front of my tablet.
These exercises have become an instrument to transport me into a different space when I am not physically traveling.
Out of here, into a world of tranquility and peace where I breathe out pain and negativity and inhale bliss and serenity. A new switch has been installed in my mind that can be flicked to "off", "discharge unneeded matter" , "maintenance " , " reset" and "charge with more light". Forgive me for using all these electronic metaphors , for the details one needs the experience.
Subhanallah.

The Beloved

Blossoms raining over me

My hands form a tulip

My shoulders are covered in a soft invisible mantle 

Caressing my skin and filling 

me tenderly with warmth 

It means, the Beloved is playing with you, she said. 

Sacred silence upon the sand

This wonderful book arrived in the mail today. Alessandro Pronzato , Meditations on the sand. 

For one like me who is in total awe of the desert , who is fascinated by Bedouins , and feels a curious sense of coming home in strange places, this is  a book that vibrates with me. 

And the author answered my question about how to respond to well meaning friends who hope to see me turn into a Muslim completely . 

He says:" I approve of the alpinists who remove the nails from the mountain face after them so that those who come later will not be able to take advantage. It is not selfishness. It is respect for the creativity of others. The same should be true about prayer."

The book had a small bookmarker in it. A folded receipt from a fast food shop in Newcastle, Scotland, dated 1995. 

And the former reader had underlined this very passage. 

I have already lost his bookmarker. And got my own, a Segafredo receipt dated 2016. 

God bless Abe bookstore for finding rare used books out of print in the oddest places.