Acoustics, Health & Sufism

and then there was Gingeng....

2009-04-28T15:49:00.001-07:00

planting baby ginseng rootlets

2009-03-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

I can't wait for spring, I've got lots of medicinal weeds to plant: Yarrow, St Johns Wort, Valerian, Nettles, Bergamot, & Hoy Basil. ( I hope to write about the benefits of Holy Basil later on). But, yesterday in the mail I got my 28 little 2 year old baby Ginseng Rootlets!

Since it was almost 60 degrees outside I hurried to get them into the ground, since they need the cold snap to properly induce them to sprout. They will take about 3 or 4 more years to mature, so this is a long process. Once they are set and start to grow, all I gotta do is watch them, hopefully this year or next I will start to get seeds from these plantings and I can truely start a cycle of growing and harvesting. There is a large market for selling gensing roots and seeds. This is the area before I dug:

Ginseng likes 75% to 90% shade, anywhere bloodwort and Jack 'n the Pulpits grow are perfect places for ginsengs. After a little snow removal and some digging:

Aftre saying zikr and some prayers over them, like Ya Hayy, Ya Muhyi & Ya Razaq I staked out where I planted them with chop sticks. It seem appropriate...

uyghur children song- tanbur

2009-02-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

cani dilden fani

2009-02-03T04:34:00.000-08:00

dragon dream

2009-01-23T16:25:00.000-08:00

a very cool dream with obvious elements, these only come around once in a while, well at least in my experience..

Fighting a dragon that has been and still hiding in dark places; haunting, conniving, and plotting tricks. It has a voice that is mesmerizing and can turn invisible at will.
...
We are fighting and moving in a dimly lit building, rooms and large windows look out into other open rooms that are darkened. The dragons talks, but I can not recall or understand what it says. The battle consists more of maneuvering around from room to room, using the walls as blinds.
...
I rise high into the night sky, so I can force the dragon out into the open and to meet me one to one. I focus my intention and imagine an image of the Qabalistic Tree of Life projected onto my body and being. I intone loudly the Name of God, Tetragrammaton.
...
As the beast finally approaches in an invisible swoop, as it arcs back towards me either I or it transforms the dragon into a small swallow. I catch the bird with a piece of cloth and cover it, holding it tight. It tries to tear and rip the covering, but I do not let go.
...
The bird becomes docile and I send it on it's way with another "evil" person to go and live out their lives peaceably in some other local far away. Banished, but happy.

dreaming

2009-01-14T04:31:00.000-08:00

working through various techniques, finding certain ones that resonate and others that lack what I need. Some patterns that I've noticed since I've been rigorous in keeping a nightly journal is that it seems to be not uncommon to have occasional periods of little memory of dreams. I will have two or three days on nights filled with heavy dream recall followed up by one to three nights of very little. What does seems fairly necessary is to continually intend throughout the day to be aware of the dream-like nature of waking life. While my lucidity has been far and few between, what has been arising with much more frequency is morning false awakenings. Some mornings I have been dreaming for an hour, a dream that I am in bed... it is very strange. It is as if I am wake, but unaware... Since it is a change, I will take it as indicative of something, hopefully progress.

Other things I have found necessary is an energy practice coupled with visualizations, such as floating or being out of the body and also, very necessary has been physical exercise. I can't stress enough the need for a physical practice, what ever it is. I have found the 5 Tibetans very useful, since they incorporate working with the chakras and their composite energy it seems to help in grounding.

This is the status of life!

2008-12-19T19:02:00.000-08:00

Mevlevi Sema Vermont 2008

2008-12-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

Some pictures of this weekend's Mevlevi Sema in Putney, Vermont. This group has been holding a public turn now for maybe 25 years? Quiet things happen in quiet place with sufis, you have to be paying attention and awake or things will slip by and the doors of paradise close while you were heedless.

Met old friends, made new friends, some new folks discovered doors to perception they didn't knew existed. Enjoyed talk, food and company.

Because of the ice storm the area had in recent days, the electricity has been scanty. Right at the moment when the Quran was recited the lights went out, leaving only candles burning. I thought it was planned, but after a few minuets when we musicians needed to continue with the music, we were unable to see! Allah knows best, so we made do.

Performers, including myself on Ud
Fred Stubbs - Ney
Shanteri Baliga - Voice & Bendir
Noah - Ney
Mehmet Ali Sanlikol - voice & ney

Returning to the Motherland

2008-11-30T16:04:00.000-08:00

My shaykh, Shaykh Taner Ansari just published a new set of translations, 2 in 1 book. Secret of Secrets by Abdul Qadir Geylani and, for the first time in English, Guidance to Mysticism by Ahmed er Rifai.

So, including my shaykh's there now are at least three translations of Geylani's Secrets of Secrets, Al Baz has a good literal version by Muhtar Holland & there is one by Shaykh Tosun Bayrak. I have looked at them all. They all have something to offer. Shaykh Taner's transcription is done in a manner so that is it like you are reading it in Arabic, meaning that his approach to the grammar is such that it preserves as much as possible the word order.

Below you will find my reading of chapter one, "Returning to the Motherland."

Human beings can be looked at from an outer and inner perspective, the outer being common to all. We all have the same parts, some in different proportion, but all the same laws apply to everyone. Eating, sleeping, gravity, etc. Outwardly we are all the same, in a manner of speaking. Inwardly we are very different from each other because we each have access to various degrees of knowledge and experience, in the sense of what we bring back with us on our journey back to our Source.

The inward path contains levels, we attain or reach them through proceeding through the spiritual laws (sharia) & traversing a spiritual path (tariqa). By diligently applying these concepts it is possible to attain inner knowledge, known as Marifa. Humility is a key factor in attaining this high state of gnosis. According to Hz Geylani in this there are three degrees of deeds that need to be done called jannas or paradises.

Alem-i mulk ~ paradise of the material world or Ma'wa

"Near the Lote-tree beyond which none may pass Near it is the Garden of Abode.(Ma'wa)" Surah 53:14-15

Alem-i malakut ~ paradise of the angelic world or Naim

"Their Lord doth give them glad tidings of a Mercy from Himself, of His good pleasure, and of gardens for them (Naim), wherein are delights that endure:" Surah 9:21

Alem-i jabarrut ~ paradise of the archangelic world or Firdaws.

"As to those who believe and work righteous deeds, they have, for their entertainment, the Gardens of Paradise (Firdaws)" Surah 18:107

These can not be known the bodily senses, but through gathering within - or experiencing the Reality of the knowledge of Sharia, Tariqa & Marifa. Somethings that my shaykh said in regarding to tasawwuf applies to understanding how to understand these ideas. First of all, he has on more than one occasion spoken about Sufism in terms of subtlety, "if your shaykh has to tell you the answer to a question, or tell you what to do, then the Sufism is done." I am paraphrasing here, I don't recall his exact words, but what does he mean by the "Sufism is done"? Let me give you another recent tid bit he has also said, and I quote. "the FIRST step to walihood (sainthood) is talking to the dead." Here Shaykh Taner implies that there are many, many steps in being a wali, and only the first one is talking to those who are on the other side. The point is - what is the point of Sufism? To know Allah. How does one come to know anything, for that matter? By interacting with it. So knowledge of Allah is realized through consciously approaching and interacting with Allah, which is done through the gate of one's heart.

On Tariqa, the seeker follows a path where he becomes open to the spiritual realm and he or she begins to see Allah's manifestations in the world around them. A channel of communication has been formally opened through the taking of the hand of one's teacher. By accepting this invitation onto the spiritual path, the student now is invited to see, hear, and speak with Allah in all the myriad ways that He manifests His Self and Will around His Creation. In doing so the gate to the next world is slightly now ajar and with Allah's permission, guides from the other side come to assist the student. The murid may or may not be aware of this "hidden" help, but nonetheless it is there. This is the reality of when someone of true knowledge attributes accomplishments to Allah.

Saudi Arabia has an all grrl rock band

2008-11-24T09:23:00.000-08:00

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Every herb is a Terrene star growing toward heaven

2008-11-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

"Stars, according to Paracelsus, are the forms and matrices of all herbs and every star in heaven, is no other, but a herb prefigured in a spiritual and catholic manner, representing the like of every vegetable in the earth. So every herb is a Terrene star growing towards heaven; and every individual star, is a celestial herb in a spiritual form, in nothing differing from herbs growing in the earth, save only in the matter: therefore stars by their excrements, and nostoch [a Paracelsian term for a slime], prenunciate all future diseases. "

(prenunciate (verb) : to pronounce and/or enunciate). Oswald Croll of Signatures of Internal Things, 1608. http://www.wierus.com/catalog/basilica/

Daath (Da'at)

2008-11-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

some info from wiki:

Daat or Daas ("Knowledge", Hebrew: דעת 'daʕaθ) in Jewish mysticism, called Kabbalah, is the location (the mystical state) where all ten sephirot in the Tree of Life are united as one.

In Daat, all sefirot exist in their perfected state of infinite sharing. The three sephirot of the left column that would receive and conceal the Divine Light, instead share and reveal it. Since all sephirot radiate infinite self-giving Divine Light, it is no longer possible to distinguish one sefira from another. Thus they are one.

Properly, the Divine Light is always shining, but not all humans can see it. The concealment or revelation of the Divine Light shining through Daat does not actually happen in Daat itself. It only seems that way from the human perspective within Malkuth. The perception of change can only occur in Malkuth. Humans who become self-giving like the Light become able to see it, and for them the benefits of Daat's Light seem "revealed". However, humans who remain selfish cannot see it, and for them its benefits seem "hidden".

M y reading of Splendor Solis

2008-11-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

My reading of the First Treatise from Splendor Solis or Splendour of the Sun.

I am in the process of being exposed to alchemical processes and their subsequent symbols, I have a lesson book on the way from Adam McLean on how to read alchemical texts, how to approach their inherent confusing methodology. I have started reading a famous alchemical text, Splendor Solis, which in it's own words, "which is described the hidden mystery of the old philosophers." ie; how to create the so called 'Philosopher's Stone'. This well known text also has wonderful enigmatic colored plates that supposedly have a life of their own, thru practice of projection and dream control one could, inshallah, have contact with a deeper guide...

I have always been drawn to alchemy, for what reason I can not rightly say, but outside of sufism, alchemy would be the next spiritual approach to understanding the nature of things I would have undertook, given a proper chance. I feel myself drawn back in because of my desire to understand two things as of late. One which is my desire to induce lucid dreams and/or out of body experiences, so far my experiments in obe's have been of slow progress. It seems that the area where I feel I have been most successful is within my dream retention. I attribute this progress in memory to some techniques related to alchemy that have broadened my dream recall - the other experiments I have tried in this area, such as supplements, LaBarge's techniques, Yogic breathing, etc have yielded only sketchy results. I believe this is because of my own tendencies and not the failure of the techniques themselves.

Secondly, because I am also working towards studying healing through herbal remedies. My opinion is that alchemical philosophy is one important facet to understanding how the essence of herbs work in inducing holistic cures within the human as a total being. My shaykh always says that all things have a soul, which I take seriously, so I have to explore and firstly I have to have a good foundation in philosophy. Alchemy, among other things, is a spiritual science that works with the living essence within all material.

So here below I will paraphrase what I understand from the First Treatise of Splendor Solis with the intention of returning later on sometime to see how my understanding has grown and changed.

"In the following treatise we shall discourse on the origin of the stone of the philosophers and art how to produce it." "The Philosopher's Stone is produced by means of the Greening and Growing Nature."

I can not but understand this at first without recourse to my own experiences and personal philosophy, I undertake this knowing that it is a limited way to begin, but until the text reveals what has to reveal to me I can not assume another way. Once something else shows itself to be closer to the truth, then I will cast aside assumption and embrace what Allah guides me herewith, inshallah.

Greening and Growing Nature speaks to me as a process of Surrender, for the most natural of actions in the animal, vegetable & mineral kingdoms is the acceptance of what is. Trees bend with the wind, cattle move where water flows, mountains make way for the quaking of the earth. (I suppose it is natural for a sufi to find Islam everywhere, is this the author intends? We shall see.)

"For that reason can Art produce extraordinary things out of the aforesaid natural beginnings such as Nature of herself would never be able to create. For unaided Nature does not produce things whereby imperfect metals can in a moment be made perfect, but by the secrets of Our Art this can be done."

Art, ie; process of Alchemy, Tasawwuf, 'for the performing the miracle of the One Thing', Insani Kemal - the Art of perfecting the human being to know itself. "He who knows his self, knows his Lord."

Art makes out of the ordinary something extraordinary, thru the process of intention. Nature of herself would never be able to create. What can the only truly human process of art do that 'nature' can not? Intend. Nature has no intention, it follows the command of Allah, that is all it can do. Humans, we know, are endowed with WILL. Will is nothing but intention. How much will one has, that is a whole other argument...

The Philosopher's Stone cannot originate in it's natural matter without the intentional agency of the Alchemist's Putrefaction, which according to the text Splendor Solis; consists of drying, trituration and calcination. This kind of Putrefaction is not a process whereby the moisture is destroyed, but the superfluous moistures are separated from the necessary moisture and the dry parts that are now ashes are then set aside.

In Sufism, the raw person with all their inhibitions, beliefs, assumptions, etc, - what we call NAFS, this nafs is cooked. It is how the human becomes acceptable to Allah. And sufis use one term, cooked! But those who have actually gone through this process understand that it is much much more than just that. Students of sufism feel pulverized, emptied, lost, and frequently moved to inexplicable tears. If this isn't a form of putrefaction then I don't know what is.

The totality of a personal human experience is symbolized by alchemy in the curcurbit, or a long necked flask, as seen below. Inside is placed all the datum that a soul accumulates to be distilled, cooked and decocted. This is the "Art" of extracting the essence so that the True Nature of Life is experienced in its fullest capacity by the human being.

next time:

EX DUABUS AQUI UNAM FACITE, QUI QUAERITIS SOLE ET LUNA FACERE ET DATE BIBERE INIMICO VINO. ET VIDEBITIS CUM MORTUUM. DEINDE DE AQUA TERRA FACITE, ET LAPIDEM MULTIPLICASTIS"

From two waters make one, whereby seek to make the sun and moon. And prepare to drink the wine of the antagonists. And you shall see with the Dead. Thereupon make watery-earth. And multiply the stone.

Solomon's Seal

2008-11-05T17:19:00.001-08:00

Solomon's Seal (polygonatum biflorum) is a medicinal herb that has diverse healing properties. It can be used as a herbal tincture (best use), salve, tea or supplement. As an alternative medicine, it gives relief, healing or mending to sports injuries and other acute injuries related to tendons, joints, ligaments, bones, bruises, connecting tissues, cartilage, osteoarthritis, etc. It also soothes and repairs gastrointestinal inflammation and injuries. It is effective for feminine issues, such as menstrual cramps, PMS, bleeding, and the like. Additionally, it is known to lower blood pressure, relieve dry coughs, and to increase concentration and mental clarity. from solomon's seal

The origin of the common English name of the plant is variously given. Dr. Prior tells us it comes from 'the flat, round scars on the rootstocks, resembling the impressions of a seal and called Solomon's, because his seal occurs in Oriental tales.'

Another explanation is that these round depressions, or the characters which appear when the root is cut transversely, and which somewhat resemble Hebrew characters, gave rise to the notion that Solomon 'who knew the diversities of plants and the virtues of roots,' has set his seal upon them in testimony of its value to man as a medicinal root.
Gerard maintained that the name Sigillum Solomons was given to the root partly because it bears marks something like the stamp of a seal, but still more because of the virtue the root hath in sealing and healing up green wounds, broken bones and such like, being stamp't and laid thereon.'
A decoction of the root in wine was considered a suitable beverage for persons with broken bones, 'as it disposes the bones to knit.' On this point, Gerard adds:
'As touching the knitting of bones and that truly which might be written, there is not another herb to be found comparable to it for the purposes aforesaid; and therefore in briefe, if it be for bruises inward, the roots must be stamped, some ale or wine put thereto and strained and given to drinke . . . as well unto themselves as to their cattle,' it being applied 'outwardly in the manner of a pultis' for external bruises. from Botonical.com

The picture above is a tincture of my own I have set aside, my garden is very plentiful in True Solomon's Seal. We shall see how it sets bones... Here is another good post about its benefits.

dreams of sufism & alchemy

2008-11-03T04:35:00.000-08:00

With my wife, looking to visit and pay our respects to another sufi shaykh, walking around a large building similar to a library in New York City. It is a busy place, full of people, stores, and lots of wooden furnishings. We take an elevator that has a large sliding wooden gate and get out at a tea shop/record store and by pass a dervish we knew, ignoring her. There are racks of cd's and books that we need to navigate around to get to the hall.

Outside, surrounded by many people, we reach the shaykh and he is talking with other people in a coffee shop, I had carried with me some Echinacea tincture that I made earlier to give to him as a gift. We are expecting two shaykhs of our order to arrive soon as well.

In a mist of clouds and smoke I see a large white marble tablet inscribed with the words from Hermes Trismegistus, the Emerald Tablet. There is other writings on it as well, some of which pertain to the making of herbal and alchemical tinctures.

I wait for my wife outside the library, she is helping a bride in a wedding.

Hermes Trismegistus

Ayat ul Asma Husna

2008-10-30T04:33:00.000-07:00

59:22 He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, Knower of the unseen and the witnessed. He is the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

59:23 He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, the Sovereign, the Pure, the Perfection, the Bestower of Faith, the Overseer, the Exalted in Might, the Compeller, the Superior. Exalted is Allah above whatever they associate with Him.

59:24 He is Allah, the Creator, the Inventor, the Fashioner; to Him belong the Most Beautiful Names, Whatever is in the heavens and earth is exalting Him. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.

These ayats, among others things, have Qabbalistic qualities. I think that ayat number 23 corresponds to the seprioth on the tree of life. At least that is my opinion.... it would take some time to verify it correctly.

discovery...

2008-10-28T04:34:00.000-07:00

two things that will need verification.

1) I dreamt I was playing an odd instrument that looked like a huge wooden bullet. It was a monochord, had one string that was made out of loose hemp. It was played using your finger nail, like many kemence and other spike fiddles. On the finger board beneath the string was painted a picture of Chinese human body with the points of the chakras highlighted. These point coincided with the harmonic nodes of the string, meaning the place where crest and trough of the vibrating string meet. Guitarists know these places as where they can make a 'harmonic'. In the dream I realized that the chakras needed to be aligned or in tune with these nodes.... How exactly that would be accomplished I do not know.

2) I believe I have found the cure for insomnia. Really. No drugs either. Anyone can do it. The cure is simply to daydream. When you can't sleep, stay in bed and daydream of something that draws your attention away from thinking. Daydreaming takes your mind out of the realm of thinking and worrying and into the doorstep of true dreaming. It assists in stopping the chattering mind that produces norpinephrine, the neurotransmitter associated with attention and wakefulness. Basically I think you are activating the part of your brain that induces sleep with daydreaming, well thats my theory.

dreams, days of the week, & planetary influences

2008-10-24T16:08:00.000-07:00

Day - Ruled by - Monthly total of dreams (# of lucid)
for September and October:

Sundays ~ Sun ~ 8 dreams
Mondays ~ Moon ~ 6 dreams (2)
Tuesdays ~ Mars ~ 5 dreams
Wednesdays ~ Mercury ~ 13 dreams (2)
Thursdays ~ Jupiter ~ 8 dreams
Fridays ~ Venus ~ 6 dreams (1)
Saturday ~ Saturn ~ 4 dreams

Because of my sleeping habits I almost never am truly asleep before midnight, so all of these would have been the morning of the day noted. It would seem by this simple chart that Wednesdays are quite fruitful, but Mondays and Fridays, as I look back in my journal, those days as well have a lot of intense activity. It is interesting that the ludicity coincides with those days as well... I think I will continue to track these patterns and see what else bears fruit.

obe & dreams

2008-10-24T04:27:00.000-07:00

Most of my dreams lately have been overwhelming of water; clear pools, seas, beaches, water gushing out of buildings like a tsunami, or hard driving rain. I haven't really connected with the significance of this as of yet, it is escaping me for some reason. In time I suppose.

Other than that, my experiments with lucid dreaming & obe have been slow and quiet, with all that has been going on at home and work, there has been a lot of subsequent stress, which puts a damper on things, including sleep. So nothing of much to report.

In addition to keeping a record of dreams, I am continuing to practice imagining my body separate from its physical one and float up and around. It is still just in the imaginary condition though, I haven't had the break through of actually crossing the barrier between the physical and astral, so to speak.

The act of intention and keeping a finger on the pulse of the subconsciousness I believe over time will produce real results. I wonder, if any, connections there are to planetary cycles? I would like to look and see if these troughs and valleys of my dream experiences show any sort of astrological awareness...

Surah 91 - Ash Shams , The Sun

2008-10-22T04:20:00.000-07:00

In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful

By the sun and its brightness,
and the moon when she follows it,
and the day when it reveals it,
and the night when it enshrouds it,
and the heaven and He who built it,
and the earth and He who spread it,
and the nafs and He who perfected it,
and inspired it with what is wrong for it
and what is right for it.
Indeed, he is successful who causes it to grow,
and he is indeed a failure who stunts it.

A question that is ever present in my mind, is how can we know Allah, here and now? In this Surah, He is telling us how; By the sun and its brightness. Not only do we use our senses to see what is going on around us, but also we have our inner senses to discern what is happening inside: and the nafs and He who perfected it, and inspired it. Inspiration occurs inwardly, it comes down from Allah to the heart. In Tibetan dream yoga there is a teaching that every single phenomenon is a dream construction of the Universal Mind. It is no different in Quran, every single perception, inward or outward is of sign of Allah. I have nothing that belongs to me and me alone, all that I experience is Allah & Allah's.

Surah X::23

2008-10-21T04:24:00.000-07:00

Bismallah ar Rahman ar Rahim
In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Mercififul

23. He it is who makes you go on the land and the sea till, when you are in the ships and they sail with them with a fair breeze and they are glad therein, a storm-wind reaches them and the wave comes unto them from every side and they discern that they are overwhelmed therein; then they cry unto Allah, making faith pure for Him only: If only You would deliver us from this, we truly will be of the thankful.

24. Yet, when He has delivered them, behold! they rebel in the earth wrongfully. O mankind! Your rebellion is only against yourselves. You have enjoyment of the life of the world, then unto Us you return and We shall proclaim unto you what you used to do.

The unique quality of dreams

2008-10-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that there seems to be a unique quality to each and every dream that tends to fades upon waking. This quality is fairly inexpressible and yet key to accurately recalling the memory of that dream event. For example, a dream I had last night had a specific physical feel and sound to it that is almost like a signature. There was a shape associated with this experience that escapes description. As I draw my attention to the memory of it, my sense of it shifts and avoids being pinned down.

Tales of Immortality & the philosophers' stone

2008-10-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

As a completion to the history of Flamel, it may be entertaining, to quote an extraordinary account which is seriously narrated by Paul Lucas in his " Journey through Asia Minor."
I was at Bronosa, in Natolia, and going to take the air with a person of distinction, came to a little mosque, which was adorned with gardens and fountains for a public walk; we were quickly introduced into a cloister, where we found four dervishes, who received us with all imaginable civility, and desired us to partake of what they were eating. We were told, what we soon found to be true, that they were all persons of the greatest worth and learning ; one of them, who said he was of Usbec Tartary, appeared to be more accomplished than the rest, and I believe verily he spoke all the principal languages of the world. After we had conversed in Turkish, he asked me if I could speak Latin, Spanish, or Italian. I told him, if he pleased, to speak to me in Italian ; but he soon discovered by my accent that it was not my mother-tongue, and asked me frankly what country I came from ? As soon as he knew that I was a native of France, he spoke to me in as good French as if he had been brought up at Paris. ' How long, sir,' said I, ' did you stay in France ? ' He replied he had never been there, but that he had a great inclination to undertake the journey. " I did all in my power to strengthen that resolution, and to convince him that France was the nursery of the learned, and its king a patron of the sciences, who defrayed the expense of my travels for collecting, notices of antiquities, drawings of monuments, correcting maps, and making a collection of ancient coins, manuscripts, &c., all of which he seemed to approve civilly. Our conversation being ended, the dervishes brought us to their house, at the foot of the mountain, where, having drank coffee, I took my leave, but with a promise, however, that I would shortly come and see them again. "
On the 10th, the dervish whom I took for an Usbec came to pay me a visit. I shewed him all the manuscripts I had bought, and he assured me they were very valuable, and written by great authors. He was a man every way extraordinary in learning ; and in external appearance he seemed to be about thirty years old, but from his discourse I was persuaded he had lived a century. " He told me he was one of seven friends, who travelled to perfect their studies, and, every twenty years, met in a place previously appointed. I perceived that Bronosa was the place of their present meeting, and that four of them had arrived. Religion and natural philosophy took up our thoughts by turns ; and at last we fell upon chemistry, alchemy, and the Cabala. I told him all these, and especially the philosophers' stone, were regarded by most men of sense as mere fictions. That,' replied he, ' should not surprise you ; the sage hears the ignorant without being shocked, but does not for that reason sink his understanding to the same level. When I speak of a sage, I mean one who sees all things die and revive without concern : he has more riches in his power than the greatest king, but lives temperately, above the power of events."
Here I stopped him : — ' With all these fine maxims, the sage dies as well as other people.' ' Alas ! ' said he, ' I perceive you are unacquainted with sublime science. Such a one as I describe dies indeed, for death is inevitable, but he does not die before the utmost limits of his mortal existence. Hereditary disease and weakness reduce the life of man, but the sage, by the use of the true medicine, can ward off whatever may hinder or impair the animal functions for a thousand years.' "
Surprised at all I heard, ' And would you persuade me,' said I, ' that all who possessed the philosophers' stone have lived a thousand years ? ' He replied gravely : — 'Without doubt every one might ; it depends entirely on themselves.' At last I took the liberty of naming the celebrated Flamel, who, it was said, possessed the philosophers' stone, yet was certainly dead. He smiled at my simplicity, and asked with an air of mirth : — ' Do you really believe this ? No, no, my friend, Flamel is still living ; neither he nor his wife are dead. It is not above three years since I left both the one and the other in the Indies ; he is one of my best friends.' Whereupon he told me the history of Flamel, as he heard it from himself, the same as I had read in his book, until at last when Charles VI., who was then upon the throne, sent M. Cramoisi, a magistrate, and his master of requests, to enquire from Flamel the origin of his riches, when the latter at once saw the danger he was in. Having sent her into Switzerland land to await his coming, he spread a report of his wife's death, had her funeral celebrated, and in a few years ordered his own coffin to be interred. Since that time they have both lived a philosophic life, sometimes in one country, sometimes in another. This is the true history, and not that which is believed at Paris, where there are very few who ever had the least glimpse of true wisdom.' "

from

Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers Based on Materials Collected in 1815: And Supplemented by Recent Researches with a Philosophical Demonstration of the True Principles of the Magnum Opus, Or Great Work of Alchemical Re-construction, and Some Account of the Spiritual Chemistry By Arthur Edward Waite, Francis Barrett Published by G. Redway, 1888

brain dream

2008-10-09T04:47:00.000-07:00

talking on the phone with another murid of my shaykh. Let me put it this way, I believe I was actually talking to this person in every sense. ( I will check with my teacher and contact this other person to see if she experienced anything.) We were talking about the problem of being able to share with another person the reality of an experience. I gave an example of eating dinner with my wife, how the telling of the story would be just a shade of the actual experience of it. The words couldn't replace the tasting, smells, sounds & emotions that were felt. I wondered out loud on the phone if it was because of the brain or was it the language. (The person on the phone is a native Italian speaker, her English is broken.) In the dream I am thinking that English is such a limited language to use in expressing Reality, and the person on the other side of the phone thinks this would make a good essay.

When I woke I thought to myself that it is the brain that lacks the capacity to express the Reality that the mind experiences.

Galantamine

2008-10-08T04:28:00.000-07:00

My order of Galantamine finally came a few days ago, I took 4mg of that along with 3 mg of Melatonine last night. The only thing I didn't do was follow up with an induction technique, I just wanted to see how this stuff settled in my system.

Had a lot of dreams! I must have dreamt for 4 hours, at least, I don't quite recall them, bits and pieces of them. I know I had a few "false awakenings", I remember thinking I had woken up and recorded a dream in my journal, but I didn't.

The feeling I had while falling back to sleep was one of 'slipping' into sleep, I had a clearer consciousness of the merge between the waking state and sleep. I can see how this supplement might be useful in inducing a waking dream, or WILD.

The wake-initiated lucid dream "occurs when the sleeper enters REM sleep with unbroken self-awareness directly from the waking state".^[28] There are many techniques aimed at entering a WILD. The key to these techniques is recognizing the hypnagogic stage, which is within the border of being awake and being asleep. If a person is successful in staying aware while this stage occurs, he or she will eventually enter the dream state while being fully aware that it is a dream. wiki.

The after effects are little more severe than the other supplements, I am more groggy this morning, and last night my stomach made all sorts of noises. Apparently these symptoms are common with Galantamine. The wear off time for it is 48 hours, the time it takes for it to be completely out of your system, so in order for your body to not become use to it, it is necessary to wait a few days before repeating it. I don't think I would get too far into a habit of taking this supplement more than once a week, maybe...

I think I am more successful in inducing a lucid dream more simply by the power of will and suggestion. When I am in the right state of mind, so to speak, and I lack any overt stressors, I think I would use the supplements to add to the intention techniques and not replace them. Seems obvious I suppose, but I need to see these things for my self.

Struggling

2008-09-28T07:32:00.000-07:00

It seems that the quality of recall and clarity of my dreams is greatly affected by mood, tension, and stress. Some days I remember quite a bit, with a huge amount of detail, other days I can barely even recall a thing. Eyvallah.

I took 3 mg of melatonine, 500 mg of choline, & 600 mg of gpc last night. All I got were a little clearer dreams, after some insomnia. I did seem to have a dream repeat it self, right in a row, kind of weird. Not much lucidity. I am not impressed with this particular mix of supplements. My tendency towards insomnia doesn't lend itself to waking up in the middle of the night, no matter what I always have troubles falling back asleep...

I am still waiting for the galantamine to show up, its lagging a little bit.

Supplements for lucid dreaming

2008-09-19T04:23:00.000-07:00

Thomas Yuschak's Advanced Lucid Dreaming, really very good. It is all about the effects that certain over the counter supplements have on the brain and especially, dreaming. It is a good read for two reasons, one it explores in simple terms how neurotransmitter operate in the brain and what that means for dreaming. Also, from his own experience Yuschak explains maybe 7 or 8 different aspects of supplements that can enhance your ability to have or remember a lucid dream. It is fairly scientific, but easy to understand nonetheless.

Last night I took, 500 mg of Choline, 600 of Alpha GPC and 1.5 mg Melatonine. The choline and GPC increase the amount of "Acetylcholine" in the brain, while the melatonine assist with falling asleep. The general concept is to not actually disrupt your sleeping schedule, by at around 2am you take these so as to have this boost when REM sleep is occurring.

And yes, I had a lucid dream last night. It wasn't as long as would have hoped, but it was very clear. I was with my wife at a college, and it occurred to me that I might be dreaming so I thought, to check I could try flying. Up and away I went... Too bad we can't do this in our waking life.

I am still waiting for some Galantamine to arrive, this supplement is apparently one of the primary 'triggers' in inducing lucidity.

Some people who practice lucid dream (LD) or out-of-body experience (OBE) use galantamine to increase their odds to achieve LD or OBE. ^[8] ^[9] ^[10] By taking small amount of galantamine (around 4 to 8 mg) after 5 to 6 hours of deep sleep and practice an induction technique such as meditation, MILD or WILD [3] many people report more success with galantamine. ^[11]

There are also reports that taking galantamine without proper induction technique will not lead to LD or OBE but will result in only a vivid dream instead. It should also be noted that due to a long half life Galantamine will stay in the body for a period of up to and over 48 hours, as such it is advisable to space out the use of Galantamine over a period of three days so that the body does not build a resistance to the drug ruining its effectiveness. ^[8]

Galantamine used with choline bitartrate or Alpha-GPC can dramatically increase one's odds of becoming lucid.^{[citation needed]} Some people report mixing galantamine with other nootropic can enhance the degree of lucidity, but this is still controversial since some mixtures may work for some people, but lead to failure for others. (wiki)

Over time I will explore some of these other "nootropics" and see where it goes, I am only primarily interested in extending and clarifying the lucidity of my dreams so as to have a working experiential knowledge of this state and its relation to my spiritual path.

It is all about Haqq al Yaqin...

it is not a cloudy vapor...

2008-09-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

A spirit and a vision are not,

as modern philosophy supposes,

a cloudy vapor, or a nothing;

they are organized

and minutely articulated

beyond all that mortal

and perishing nature can produce.

He who does not imagine

in stronger and better lineaments,

and in stronger and better light

than his perishing eye can see,

does not imagine at all.

William Blake

Shaykh Taber Al Ansari - my Murshid

2008-09-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

This is my Shaykh, my spiritual guide along the path of Tasawwuf. I can not possibly truly share how much I am in debt to my shaykh, "Shayim". I can not really share how I have experienced "true knowledge" by my association with this person, or how he has helped me find what I misplaced... It is true, as he says, this path of Sufism is the hardest thing, or the price or reward for patience is more patience! A sufi who is rained upon, falls into a river and then breaks a leg is only made more grateful thereby. But who is there that can understand this if they haven't gone through it? No one, there is nobody who wants this... Who would? We want the world to be as WE want it to be, and get angry when it doesn't work out that way. No, I now know that today I only know less than I did yesterday because I realize that Allah is much much more than I could ever imagine.

Sufism and out of body experiences.

2008-09-06T05:26:00.000-07:00

I sat with my murshid last night and asked him whether or not there are any teachings about projecting oneself in the Sufi tradition. He told me how his Naksi shaykh, (Nakshibendi) taught him "to think that you're the size of an orange, and just keep reducing yourself, then shooom! Out you go"... and "you can practice sleep", he said, "you examine it by watching what occurs while falling asleep." He demonstrated by just lying there as if he was falling asleep. "But, you can get caught up in the distraction of it." "yes, what can you do with it?" I asked. "Thats exactly the point, you can loose your focus on Allah."

My shaykh, or in Turkish, Shayım, continually reminds his murids (including me) to pay attention to Allah and not to the forms. If you see a rose, do not think it is the rose is that is beautiful, know that it is Allah is Who is Beautiful. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean one can not approach these things with the mind of an explorer, just keep the eyes on the prize. What ever takes one to the goal, do that.

I have found an online book called "SPIRITUALISM AND MAGNETISM" by Shaykh ul Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, it is primarily argues that "the phenomenology of Islamic Spiritualism is compatible with the modern scientific method", but there are also mentions of the views of the connection between 'extra-sensory phenomena' and Islam. There are sections on ESP and OBE's, hopefully work will be slow today and I can read it.

False awakening

2008-08-24T05:56:00.000-07:00

This is a little harder than I thought, I figured this exploration would be more like going to the library. I guess I can't just induce certain states of consciousness and look around to see what is there... The subconscious has a agenda of its own.

So, lying in bed this morning with my eyes closed I was practiced extending my awareness to sense the walls in my room. Bouncing it back and forth trying to get a feel for what it would be like to out of my body. I eventually must have fallen back asleep, because I started to dream. The sequence of events I can't quite seem to pinpoint, but I think I had an ordinary dream and then what is called a false awakening.

A false awakening is an event in which someone dreams they have awoken from sleep. This illusion of having awakened is very convincing to the person. After a false awakening, people will often dream of performing daily morning rituals, believing they have truly awakened. A dream in which a false awakening takes place is sometimes colloquially referred to as a "double dream", or a "dream within a dream". wiki.

I have had them before and the experience is fascinating, apparently they are rather common, too. I dreamt I was still in bed practicing the awareness thing I just mentioned, but as I tried to envision the wall next to me it appeared as a deep blue textured material. I opened my "eyes" to check what the wall looked like and closed them again, only to see the same blue texture. At this point it gets weird, then I assumed I was remote viewing... Sorry, I don't just nonchalantly assume that kind of thing willy nilly.

So I thought, okay, I am 'remotely viewing' something, I should try to look else where. So I closed my - dream eyes- and up popped this lush deep blue sky and a fantastic desert landscape. A very cool image, but I haven't the faintest idea where it is... (because I was dreaming and not remote viewing!) . So I closed my - dream eyes - again and tried to picture a place I knew. This time up popped a image of Cambridge Massachusetts at the Longfellow Bridge looking from Boston to Cambridge. Incorrectly I was picturing one of the Metro T stops at the connection between the bridge and the land, so I flew into into and zoomed up the long stairway where people where going up and down. ( I must have been thinking of the stairs at Porter Sq). I flew around for bit looking at things, people and what not, and then I eventually woke up. At this point I knew I wasn't doing what I thought I was, I realized I had a "false awakening" dream.

Longfellow Bridge in Cambridge, MA

yayli

2008-08-22T15:23:00.001-07:00

Mayan destruction dream

2008-08-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

Maybe I enjoy watching disaster movies too much...

I dreamt I was outside a collection of parallel universes, I guess portal like, it had a Mayan quality to it. I sensed that if one were to enter a "past" universe there would be a certain amount of "danger" and destruction. Of course, since I thought it I did it...

I saw displayed out in a floating three dimensional fashion, earthquakes, volcanoes, and erupting boiling water everywhere. This water flowed towards me so I moved around a rock corner to hide. From there I could watch voracious rain flying sideways past my hideout. I sensed there was some animal like beings also moving away from what was happening and this dream stared to drift into another mode;

I became Lucid and found myself with my wife and daughter outside in the yard of a old Victorian house. I taught my daughter how to fly by surrendering and using the objects you float by to support you, but told her to beware of the electric power lines. We floated by some trees that were frozen with ice and pulled ourselves around by the gutters on the side of the garage.

We decided to go inside and told our daughter to find a friend to play with. Inside we saw my dad but ignored him and explored the house, the feel and look of the curved wooden banister to the staircase was unbelievably real, the sensation on my hands was felt completely solid. We walked upstairs and looked at all the different rooms, it reminds me a bit of the Harry Potter films.

another lucid dream and no flying!

2008-08-19T04:20:00.000-07:00

I've had three lucid dreams since I've started intentionally inducing them, my plan was just to have one for the month of August, so this is good progress.

My goal for the month of August is:

remember at least one dream a night
have one lucid dream
have one obe

so, far I remember almost a dream a night, some days go by without recalling any, but others I remember up to three in one night. So I guess I could say I've reached that goal; have had 3 lucid dreams; and no obe.

In last night's dream I asked one of the people in it what their name was and her response was barely recognizable, it sounded Arabic. Walking down a hallway I avoided an elevator, knowing that it might alter the dream and I didn't want to lose it. I then tried to fly, but some one grabbed my legs and wouldn't let go. I started to wake at that point.

I've figured I also need to have some goals for when I am in a dream. One idea that I like is the concept of having a place you return to, an area for learning and experimenting. What I want to try is create a place where I can meet people who will teach me deeper levels of music than I know currently. One way of promoting this is to induce a fantasy by thinking of a person whom you'd like to meet and day dream while in a hypnogogic state doing this and also imagine being lucid during it. So, I want to meet Tanburi Cemil Bey, a famous Turkish musician who invented the yayli tanbur, which I play, and have him teach me Turkish makam. crazy huh? yep.

My other goal is to use lucid dream to pass into an outer body experience, I think it may be the easiest way for me to achieve one. I have been doing various preparatory practices to induce one while awake, but it is difficult and I am an American, I want to do it now!

The tree in house still sucks, but onward and upward!

Disruption

2008-08-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Life has taken a turn, since a unusually large tree decided to attack our house. We are safe, but have lost some things and have a holes in our roof. Thank Allah it isn't winter....

Before.
Yeah, our house is back there somewhere...

After the tree is removed.
Hope springs eternal.
We met a lot of nice, wonderful,
beautiful neighbors we never knew we had.

dream singing

2008-08-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

Lucy Gillis uses singing to affect a change in flying while dreaming... She describes using k.d. lang, Pink Floyd, & Led Zeppelin for different modes of soaring, but she's aware it may have less to do with the specific melodies and more with her emotional connection to each tune.

I am going to have to try this...

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming

2008-08-04T05:28:00.000-07:00

or, MILD, is a technique devised by Stephen LaBerge, a researcher and author on lucid dreaming. I successfully had another lucid dream this morning using it. It only lasted for a minuet or two, but I had a chance to intentionally verify the idea of the changeable nature of reading text while dreaming. I looked at some advertisement on a napkin, (apparently I was in a bar or diner) and looked away and then back again to see if the words read the same as before, and they did not. Not earth shattering, but interesting nonetheless.

MILD, or Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming consists of 4 parts. First of all you must have good recall of your dreams, hence the necessity of keeping a dream journal. Second when you go to bed you make a solid intention to remember your dreams that night and to record them as soon as possible. Third, after recording your first dream of the night that you recall, you then solidify your intention to recognize your dream state. It is a sort of meditation I suppose, you just repeat something to the effect of, "I am dreaming" or "I know I am dreaming." It can't be forced, but on the other hand in needs to be reinforced, which is why I associate it with meditation. Fourthly, you combine this intentional reinforcement with your imagination of the dream you just had. You imagine being back in the dream but include the action of step three. It helps if you are a good day dreamer.

So, I did that last night and subsequently awoke in a dream this morning. LaBerge claims that the benefit of this technique is that one can have lucid dreams pretty much on demand by using it.

So far I can see the importances now of having a good memory or recall, of intention, and of the hidden nature of imagination or day dreaming. My studies in the western occult have always given me a healthy respect for imagination, now it makes even more sense. I think of a day dream as being on the patio before the door of your subconsciousness, a little bit of material leaks through from each side to the other. This quality, obviously, can be used to your advantage by being able to influence your subconscious for what ever desire you wish, I suppose. It would be necessary to have a goal.

Sweet!

2008-07-28T18:53:00.001-07:00

beginnings of obe

2008-07-24T04:05:00.000-07:00

Had a dream were I was semi-conscious, I had a certain amount of volition that I could direct, a sort of nether world of few images and little sensory input. All I knew was that I was floating or maybe even flying. Where my semi-consciousness fell into play was in struggling to "break" out of what I considered to be my body. I rocked back and forth, side to side. This is typically what all of projectors describe, and I had a sense of memory of this knowledge, that it was the right thing to do. After a while I grew weary of it and the dream faded. I am taking this as the beginnings of an out of body experience, or obe.

Yes!

2008-07-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

musicalche f wanted to know, did the lucid thing work?

Yes! I have had them in the past a few years ago, a couple of times. Currently, after keeping a dream journal for a few weeks I did have another that I could say I deliberately induced through the methods I mentioned previously. It was cool, but brief. Here is the entry from my handwritten journal:

7/16/2008 Bismallah ar Rahman ar Rahim.
dream: In bed thinking about Shayim's kids and Melissa and how we share a room. I go to another room past an old friend, I notice he's punching a kid and I remark,"how come you're always beating someone up?" I go to the bathroom with a sandwich (!) and while going I accidentally soiled my pants. Apparently there are lots of other pants around, cause I begin to look around for another cleaner pair. At this point I realize I'm dreaming. Yeah!

I was fairly calm, said "Alhumduiallah" and strode off looking for something to do. I looked at my hands and repeated, 'this is a dream.' I had memory, memory of what I had read about to do inorder to facillitate lucid dreams. After a minuet of walking I started to lose the visual part of the dream, so I said aloud, "restore visuals" ~ a technique passed on. A little something faded back in but then my consciousness quickly shifted to my body in bed.

The sensation of being consciously aware in a dream was that there was a clear physical sense of vibrations all over, like I was fully submerged in water that was vibrating, effecting everything, sound, light, etc. I am curious to know if this perception will be repeated or will there be other sensations. I have heard that the level of lucidity can be alarming, apparently it can feel more "real" than waking consciousness. I think it is fascinating that I retained memory, obviously intention is a LOT more important than I ever thought. Just the experience alone convinces me of the consequences of intention, prayer, & sending peace out to the world. Its hard to explain, but these altered states bring a new level of certainty which physical existence lacks, IMO.

Up at 3am

2008-07-19T00:35:00.000-07:00

So, among the other crazy things I've done, I can add waking up at 3 a.m. to facilitate lucid dreaming... The concept is that when you return to bed the time you fall back asleep is more in sync with REM, and hence more of a chance to experience lucidity. I got the idea from a treatise written by Marc VanDeKeere, "The Ultimate Lucid Dreamer's Manual." It is quite interesting, it simply and succinctly touches upon many of the angles dealing with the subject, including many approaches to supporting to learn how to have one and how to stay lucid within a dream.

Currently my regimen is the following:

Morning 5-7 a.m. ~ Use counting method (1. I'm dreaming, 2. I'm dreaming, ...) Which uses the early hypnogogic state to reaffirm in the subconscious the intent to be aware of one's dreams and also creates a habit of 'reality checking' - an important tool to realize one is dreaming.
Daytime 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. ~ worktime, reality checks, breathing practices, & "resonant tuning". Throughout the day doing short reality checks, kind of like pinching one's self to see if your dreaming, is used to create the habit within the subconscious. Resonant tuning is a type of breath/energy practice that is taught in the Gateway program from the Monroe Institute.
7 p.m. - night ~ Hemi Sync tapes. A self guided audio system developed by the Monroe Institute for the purpose of consciousness expansion.

I've considered about the Names of Allah and which ones correspond to musical pitches. Concerning the pitch Do, Ancient Greek mese, or Indian Kshobhini (Sa), in Modal music this is the note used typically for drones and more importantly is considered home, usually where a piece of music or melody ends, the listener feels at rest.

In Indian musical parlance Kshobhini is associated with the jata Madhya, "comic, love". (Alain Danielou, Music & The Power of Sound.)

My association is As Sallam (Source of Peace), Al Wadud (The Loving One) , Al Ahad (Unity), Al Wahid (The One) & An Nur (The Light). Basically the Names which have a certain "staticness" or stationary emanation sense to them. Do is the easy one to attribute ideas to, getting to the other steps on a scale are a whole other matter...

good night!

Lucid dream

2008-07-16T03:45:00.000-07:00

Had my first Lucid Dream this morning in a long while, I am excited about it because I have been intentionally working on different techniques to induce them. I have considered that if I really want to know the connections between sound and consciousness, it is perhaps necessary to have a objective experience of what consciousness is, and my take is that inorder to achieve this one needs to step out side of one self. There are altered states of consciousness that are available to us with practice that we can achieve, such as waking up in a dream or also an outer body experience, or OBE, astral projection.

There are many tools out there these day on the web, just like everything else. I recommend the Monroe Institute, they have been around for 30 40 years offering audio that 'entrains' your brain to be open to extra-consciousness, particularly their "Hemi-Sync" tapes are good. They sell their cds for a fair amount of cash, but they are available for 99cent download at Amazon... And this online group has a lot of good reading material.

Inshallah I will be posting more about what happens in the next few months, as my shaykh has given me direction in this and I hope finally to see some real results. Already one of the intriguing things I noticed is that memory is maintained while in a dream, as much of it as one could want. The key is intention, since I intended to accomplish this and prepared, I had the tools once I was local in the dream.

Quran & the Speed of Light

2008-07-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know how true this is, as I am no math wizard, but it could certainly be one way of understanding that passage...

Musical Adab

2008-07-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

I am developing a theory, just a thought really, but I hope to verify it and expand it. It seems to me, from studying cultural musics, such as Indian, Makam & Pythagorean systems, that they all knew that musical pitches had corresponding qualities, such as love, mercy, awe, etc.

Musical intervals can be accurately defined in two ways, either by numbers (string lengths, frequencies, etc.) or, with no less accuracy, by their psychological correspondences, such as feelings and images they necessarily evoke in our minds. There is no sound without meaning, assert Vedantists. In the guise of sounds, it is only the manifested idea that we perceive, and therefore it is logical to conceive a theory of sounds based on ideas represented by the sounds rather than on their numerical values. (Music and the Power of Sound, pg 78 A. Danielou)

If each and every specific nuanced pitch has an exact correspondence, then what is happening during the flow of music in which a stream of pitches are uttered? A whole pallet of colors is spoken and a treasure of ideas lays before the consciousness. Now, take the idea of love, infinite love, mundane love, mystical love, lustful love, brotherly love, maternal love, comic love... And now in the otherhand consider Mercy, lifting a child up from the ground, feeding the hungry, rain on a parched land, the breath within your lungs.... How does these shades of Love and Mercy interact? How do they entwine and interact?

Consider the sound of a single pitch, a drone. Aum of the Yogis, Huu of the Sufis. The sound of the Tambura of the Indians. Now imagine that sound gently passing from this note to one that is higher or lower, in a slow and soft fashion. Does this not evoke what we intuitively feel about the relation between Love & Mercy?

Adab is a term used in Sufism to denote the practice of good manners. I am positing that there is an adab of behavior when it comes to the relation between two or more musical pitches, that there is an etiquette of melody & harmony. Not a theory or a mathematical system, but function of decorum of what is necessary and what is unnecessary based off of the local effects of vibrations within the environment as well as what is present in the human psyche. How does a mother decide to punish a child and console her? I am thinking it is similar when a jazz musician is improvising and is making choices of melody and effect.

Sounds from the Big Bang

2008-06-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

What a great article! I've clipped some of the tantalizing parts & added some emphasis:

Have you ever wondered what the "Big Bang" actually sounded like? Surely, you may be thinking, this is a trick question -- didn't it just sound like, well, a really big BANG! Surprisingly, perhaps, the answer is "no, not really". As is often the case with Nature, things are not so simple, and a more accurate description would be something like this: a moment of silence followed by a rapidly descending scream which builds to a deep roar and ends in a deafening hiss.
....

Compared to concert pitch A, for which 440 sound waves pass us each second, a typical cosmic sound wave takes more like 50,000 years to pass by, about 50 octaves below the human range! On reflection, this is not too surprising -- something as large as the Universe must surely have an exceedingly deep voice; and indeed it does. Using a musical instrument as metaphor, the cosmic concerto is played on an ultra-ultra-bass piano, the seventh in an ever deeper series extending below the range of a human piano -- a truly GRAND piano of cosmic proportions [Figure 2]. With this in mind, we might now ask: what was the piano made of; who played it; and what music was being played? Here are the answers: the pianist's name was Gravity; his instrument was made of dark matter; and he played a single powerful chord which contained hidden within it both sadness and joy.
....
The Universe is actually playing a chord! This bizarre property is tricky to understand, but worth the effort. Most musical instruments generate a harmonic sequence of tones because they have a fixed size. Between their ends (either strings or columns of air) one can fit only a whole number of waves; one, two, three etc; and this sequence of waves generates the sequence of harmonics. Now, although the Universe has no ends or edges, it is bounded in time. At any given moment, there has been a finite time since the Big Bang, and so there are specific region sizes across which exactly one, two, three, etc, full sound waves have passed. The sound waves created from these regions are, in a sense, louder than sound waves from regions of intermediate size, and hence they dominate the sound and create the harmonics. It is even possible to analyze the harmonic sequence and figure out what the chord actually is. Choosing the lowest two harmonics (which are the loudest) we find a slow change across the first million years from a major third (4 semitones) to a minor third (3 semitones).

...

Read the rest! My thanks for Mark Whittle, Professor of Astronomy at University of Virginia, for dumbing down some of these concepts for us, so that we can begin to appreciate the meat of the matter!

What I find particularly interesting is the idea of the Universe being defined and bounded by Time. Time is the early key factor in determining pitch. Instead of physical length, such as a string or a tube, the the size of this instrument is based on the lengths of light years!

Al Asr

In the Name of Allah. the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful
By Time!
Man is truly in a state of loss,
save those who believe, and do gooddeeds,
and counsel each other unto the truth,
and counsel each other to be steadfast.

The sacred oud

2008-06-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

More on Aristixenus of Tarentum

2008-06-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

In Ancient Greek thought there are essentially three streams of thought when it comes to the world of music. Usually it is common to refer first to the esoteric, theoretical aspect of the Greek approach to the art, but no matter how you cut it - first and fore most is the practice of music. This we know of, sadly, actually very little, other than fragments here and there of pottery with images and a few extant texts which are actual examples of notated music. After this we have what the philosophers have said about music theory, and this they have had much to say. The two sides, can conveniently be broken into two sides, the Pythagoreans on the one side with musica universalis & ratio based theories and the Aristotlean approach on the other with a non 'cosmic' focus that attributes music theory solely to the ear and what it apprehends. Aristoxenus is from this camp of thought:

Aristoxenus (Greek: Ἀριστόξενος) of Tarentum (4th century BC) was a Greek peripatetic philosopher, and writer on music and rhythm.

He was taught first by his father Spintharus, a pupil of Socrates and also a musician,^[1] and later by the Pythagoreans, Lamprus of Erythrae and Xenophilus, from whom he learned the theory of music. Finally he studied under Aristotle at Athens, and was deeply annoyed, it is said, when Theophrastus was appointed head of the school on Aristotle's death. wiki.

I found an excellent article Joe Monzo wrote on the Tonalsoft web page, which is dedicated to the study of alternate systems of tuning, and this article is a inquiry into the the way Aristoxenus divides the tetrachord and examines the text Harmonika stoicheia, or Elements of Harmony, which I have posted about previously. I'd like to highlight a quote from Monzo's work, since it helps me think clearly about Aristoxenus's work:

Aristoxenus sought to separate the study of music from that of both physics and mathematics. He refused to make use of any ratios in his treatise, distinctly contra the Pythagoreans, and he also spoke of the raising and lowering of pitch in terms of tension and relaxation, which in his day would admit of no exact numerical measurement, rather than in terms of string-length, from which ratios could be calculated.

[Landels 1999, p 131]
... ancient acousticians never solved the riddle of the relationship between tension and pitch. ... they seem not to have attempted to assign a numerical value to the tension (in terms of units of weight), or to relate such a numerical value to the pitch. In fairness it should be said that the true formula, by which the pitch varies according to the square of the tension, is not one that would easily be arrived at by chance.

Aristoxenus therefore chose to use the newly formulated methods of geometry to pinpoint examples of his divisions of the tetrachord.

Thus, his music-theory was radically different from anything that had come before in ancient Greece.

This is all quite complicated work that despite the insistence of not relying upon ratios and mathematical concepts to describe music thought, nevertheless it quickly dips into the world of deep numbers and their relationships to sound. As Ernest G. McClain demonstrated in The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato, when math is tied to sound and meaning the world of entropic confusion lies very close when the numerical correspondences are driven to extremes. The question in my mind is; how far is it practical to follow this train of thought if one's intention is to find what the essence is of the power of sound, melody and music upon the human soul? There is theory and there is practice. Either can too easily become tethered to cultural preference or bias.

Vitruvius in De architectura Book V Chapter IV paraphases the writings of Aristoxenus on music

2008-06-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

(Vitruvius in De architectura Book V Chapter IV paraphases the writings of Aristoxenus on music. Translated by Morris H. Morgan, Ph.D, LL.D. Late Professor of Classical Philology in Harvard University. The full text of this translation is available from the Project Gutenberg[2])

CHAPTER IV
HARMONICS

1. Harmonics is an obscure and difficult branch of musical science, especially for those who do not know Greek. If we desire to treat of it, we must use Greek words, because some of them have no Latin equivalents. Hence, I will explain it as clearly as[140] I can from the writings of Aristoxenus, append his scheme, and define the boundaries of the notes, so that with somewhat careful attention anybody may be able to understand it pretty easily.

2. The voice, in its changes of position when shifting pitch, becomes sometimes high, sometimes low, and its movements are of two kinds, in one of which its progress is continuous, in the other by intervals. The continuous voice does not become stationary at the "boundaries" or at any definite place, and so the extremities of its progress are not apparent, but the fact that there are differences of pitch is apparent, as in our ordinary speech in sol, lux, flos, vox; for in these cases we cannot tell at what pitch the voice begins, nor at what pitch it leaves off, but the fact that it becomes low from high and high from low is apparent to the ear. In its progress by intervals the opposite is the case. For here, when the pitch shifts, the voice, by change of position, stations itself on one pitch, then on another, and, as it frequently repeats this alternating process, it appears to the senses to become stationary, as happens in singing when we produce a variation of the mode by changing the pitch of the voice. And so, since it moves by intervals, the points at which it begins and where it leaves off are obviously apparent in the boundaries of the notes, but the intermediate points escape notice and are obscure, owing to the intervals.

3. There are three classes of modes: first, that which the Greeks term the enharmonic; second, the chromatic; third, the diatonic. The enharmonic mode is an artistic conception, and therefore execution in it has a specially severe dignity and distinction. The chromatic, with its delicate subtlety and with the "crowding" of its notes, gives a sweeter kind of pleasure. In the diatonic, the distance between the intervals is easier to understand, because it is natural. These three classes differ in their arrangement of the tetrachord. In the enharmonic, the tetrachord consists of two tones and two "dieses." A diesis is a quarter tone; hence in a semitone there are included two dieses. In the chromatic there are two semitones arranged in succession, and the[141] third interval is a tone and a half. In the diatonic, there are two consecutive tones, and the third interval of a semitone completes the tetrachord. Hence, in the three classes, the tetrachords are equally composed of two tones and a semitone, but when they are regarded separately according to the terms of each class, they differ in the arrangement of their intervals.

4. Now then, these intervals of tones and semitones of the tetrachord are a division introduced by nature in the case of the voice, and she has defined their limits by measures according to the magnitude of the intervals, and determined their characteristics in certain different ways. These natural laws are followed by the skilled workmen who fashion musical instruments, in bringing them to the perfection of their proper concords.

5. In each class there are eighteen notes, termed in Greek φθὁλλοι, of which eight in all the three classes are constant and fixed, while the other ten, not being tuned to the same pitch, are variable. The fixed notes are those which, being placed between the moveable, make up the unity of the tetrachord, and remain unaltered in their boundaries according to the different classes. Their names are proslambanomenos, hypate hypaton, hypate meson, mese, nete synhemmenon, paramese, nete diezeugmenon, nete hyperbolaeon. The moveable notes are those which, being arranged in the tetrachord between the immoveable, change from place to place according to the different classes. They are called[142] parhypate hypaton, lichanos hypaton, parhypate meson, lichanos meson, trite synhemmenon, paranete synhemmenon, trite diezeugmenon, paranete diezeugmenon, trite hyperbolaeon, paranete hyperbolaeon.

6. These notes, from being moveable, take on different qualities; for they may stand at different intervals and increasing distances. Thus, parhypate, which in the enharmonic is at the interval of half a semitone from hypate, has a semitone interval when transferred to the chromatic. What is called lichanos in the enharmonic is at the interval of a semitone from hypate; but when shifted to the chromatic, it goes two semitones away; and in the diatonic it is at an interval of three semitones from hypate. Hence the ten notes produce three different kinds of modes on account of their changes of position in the classes.

7. There are five tetrachords: first, the lowest, termed in Greek ὑπατον; second, the middle, called μἑσον; third, the conjunct, termed συνημμἑνον; fourth, the disjunct, named διεξενγμἑνον; the fifth, which is the highest, is termed in Greek ὑπερβὁλαιον. The concords, termed in Greek συμφωνἱαι, of which human modulation will naturally admit, are six in number: the fourth, the fifth, the octave, the octave and fourth, the octave and fifth, and the double octave..

8. Their names are therefore due to numerical value; for when the voice becomes stationary on some one note, and then, shifting its pitch, changes its position and passes to the limit of the fourth note from that one, we use the term "fourth"; when it passes to the fifth, the term is "fifth."[7]

9. For there can be no consonances either in the case of the notes of stringed instruments or of the singing voice, between two intervals or between three or six or seven; but, as written above, it is only the harmonies of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up to the double octave, that have boundaries naturally corresponding to those of the voice: and these concords are produced by the union of the notes

The Tavern of Love

2008-05-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Ye Hai Maikada - The Tavern of Love (Aziz Mian)

The drinkers were entangled in moral argument O Saqi!
But when you loosed your black braids any dispute ceased.

This is the tavern.
It is full of drinkers (of Love)
In this tavern we are all drinkers!

Among the Kaaba and the temple
there is an open space.
Should it become a desert?
Why not build a tavern here!

This is the drinking tavern
full of revellers!

Here, it is the Saqi who is our guide!
This is the drinking tavern
full of revellers!.
Here our imams is the Saqi...

This is the tavern.
It is full of drinkers (of Love)

It is not forbidden to drink
nor give someone a glass.
The only thing prohibited
is to become sober after a drink!

It is written in clear letters
on the door of winegiver!
It is forbidden to give wine
to those poor in spirit.

This is the tavern.
It is full of drinkers (of Love)
Our guide is the Saqi!

O Sheikh, this is not placed for puritans!
Here is prohibited to be chaste.
O Sheikh, this is not placed for puritans!
It is forbidden to be moralistic here!

Be attentive, my heart! This is a sacred place!

The wine has no special nature.
But this wine discrimination and discerns.

This wine has no special features.
It is neither good nor bad.
It raises the pure of heart.
Those who have the character weak,it destroys!

He who's drunk on a little knowledge, throw him out!
Here there is no place for narrow minded.
There is only place for the pure of heart!
Here there is no place for narrow minded.
There is only place for the pure of heart!

Conjunct & Disjunct Tetrachord Combinations in Makam

2008-05-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

In Uzeir Hajibeyov's (1885 - 1948) book, Principles of Azerbaijan Folk Music, Hajibeyov's sketches out the system of Azeri mugam, or Makam, drawing mostly from traditional sources. While he is debt to Pythagoras, Farabi, Al Kindi and others, the system he lays out is basically the one the 12th Century musican Safiaddin Urmevi derived from Greek ratios, and Urmavi ended up separated the octave into 17 parts. Later on in the Turkish system of makam there were added a few more divisions to make it a 24 note octave, but I think the additions weren't that overly notable, but I'll investigate that further down the line...

The following quote notates how the pentachord and the tetrachord is combined to create a full scale, the page online has midi examples, so go to that if you are really interested.

II. WAYS OF TETRACHORDS COMBINING

Scales of Azerbaijani modes are structured by combination of tetrachords represented in succession of 4 diatonic degrees.

Tetrachords within perfect quartes (Perfect 4ths) are called perfect ones.

Tetrachords within increased quartes (Augmented 4ths) are called increased.

Tetrachords within diminished quartes (Diminished 4ths) are called diminished.

Tetrachords can be combined in 4 ways:

1st way - chain combination, i.e. a combination where the last tone of the lower tetrachord coincides with the first tone of the upper tetrachord. An interval formed is a perfect prima. In the manuals on music theory such combinations are called conjoint ones.

2-nd way - mixed combination, i. e. a combination where the last tone of the lower and the first tone of the upper tetrachords form the interval of the major second which is called separate combination.

3-rd way - combination by intermediate semitone, i.e. a combination where an interval of the minor third is formed between the last tone of the lower and the first tone of the upper tetrachords.

4-th way - combination by intermediate tone, i. e. a combination where an interval of the major third is formed between the last tone of the lower and the first tone of the upper tetrachords.

Combined or joined tetrachords can be equal or unequal by their structure.
Combination of equal tetrachords forms consequent succession of degrees in the order of scales. When the 1-st way of combination is applied to perfect tetrachords, identical in structure, it forms a scale consisted of gradual succession of perfect quartes.

This way of "tagging" on the various tetrachords together reminds me of the Greek method of systematizing their varieties of four note and five note scales to create their families of scale genus. Itis common knowledge that the Makam is really the closest surviving cultural method that preserves the Pythagorean ratios of dividing the octave, but it also heir to the Greek idea of "Conjunct" & "Disjunct" combination. For example, this is from the philosopher Aristoxenous's "Harmonika Stoicheia":

Successive Tetrackords are either Conjunct or Disjunct.
WE shall employ the term conjunction when two succès
sive tetrachords, similar in figure, have a common note ; the
term disjunction, when two successive tetrachords similar in
figure are separated by the interval of a tone. That successive
tetrachords must be related in either of these ways, is evident
from our axioms. For a series, in which each note forms
a Fourth with the fourth note in order from it, will constitute
conjunct tetrachords; while disjunct tetrachords result, when
each note forms a Fifth with the fifth from it. Now as all
successions of notes must fulfil one or other of these conditions,
so all successive similar tetrachords must be either
conjunct or disjunct.
Difficulties have been raised by some of my hearers on
the question of succession. It has been asked, Firstly,
what is succession in general? Secondly, does it appear in
one form only, or in several? Thirdly, are conjunct and
disjunct tetrachords equally successive ? To these questions
the following answers have been given. In general, scales
are continuous, whose boundaries either are successive or
coincide. There are two forms of succession in scales ; in
the one, the upper boundary of the lower scale coincides
with the lower boundary of the upper scale ; in the other,
the lower boundary of the higher scale is in the line of
succession with the higher boundary of the lower scale. In
the first of these forms, the scales of the successive tetrachords
have a certain space in common, and are necessarily
similar in figure. In the other form, they are separated
from one another, and the species of the tetrachords may
be similar, only on condition, however, that the separating
interval is one tone. Thus we are led to conclude that two
similar tetrachords are successive, if they are either separated
by a tone, or if their boundaries coincide. Consequently
similar successive tetrachords are either conjunct or disjunct.
We also assert that two successive tetrachords either
60 must be separated by no tetrachord whatsoever, or must not
be separated by a tetrachord dissimilar to themselves.
Tetrachords similar in species cannot be separated by a
dissimilar tetrachord, and dissimilar but successive tetrachords
cannot be separated by any tetrachord whatsoever.
Hence we see that tetrachords similar in species can be
arranged in succession in the two forms above mentioned.
The interval contained by successive notes is simple.
For if the containing notes are successive, no note is
wanting; if none is wanting, none will intrude; if none
intrudes, none will divide the interval. But that which
excludes division excludes composition. For every composite
is composed of certain parts into which it is divisible.

Rast according to Hadjibeyov

2008-05-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

clipped from PRINCIPLES OF AZERBAI JAN FOLK MUSIC
by Uzier Hadjibeyov

Peoples of the Middle East used the valuable "debris" of this collapsed "palace of music". They erected their own "temple of music", in a style peculiar to that people only, using own "mode construction" material. Naturally, the names of 12 classic mugams, as well as the mugams themselves, were subjected to great perturbations. Those once considered as independent mugams, turned into the sections of those mugams. And on the contrary, those that once were sections, turned into independent mugams. In this way, the names of one and the same mugams and their sections started to denote quite different notions at various peoples. The only mugam that could stand against the crushing influences of time and events was "Rast". Foundations of this mugam are so firm and logical that they fully deserve and justify the name and the meaning of "Rast". The word "rast" means "straight", "right", "true". Ancient musicologists called "Rast" mother of all mugams. The mugam "Rast" has retained up to now not only its name and the structure of its scale, but the pitch of its tonic, as well.

Amongst all the Middle Eastern peoples the mugam "Rast" has one structure, and one pitch of tonic. This tonic is sol of minor octave. The following comparison shows that the tone we call sol of minor octave, referred to the pitch of the "Rast" mode even in antiquity. So, Arabian - Iranian and European musicologists assert that according to the ancient Greeks, 7 tones invented by Pythagoras correspond to 7 celestial bodies.

Here is a list of the seven tones:

In Gгeek	In Arabic and Iranian
1. mi - Moon	1. Nava
2. fa - Mercury	2. Busalik
3. sol - Venus	3. Rast
4. la - Sun	4. Iraq
5. si - Mars	5. Ushshag
6. do - Jupiter	6. Zirafkand
7. re - Saturn	7. Rahavi

leap year

2008-03-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

this is my new thing, using what is called "an adapted" guitar, ie; by placing 'extra' bridges onto the neck of the instrument one can play it like a zither or a koto. This also allows for a different set of pitches to be generated that aren't dependent upon the tempered nature of the frets. The drawback, or variously, the benefit, is that fewer pitches are actually available for use - only six notes in this case. But, who says a pentatonic scale is a drawback anyway?

My inspiration is obviously gamelon music, which is music of Indonesia. The rhythmic flow in their pieces has always been intoxicating for me. The tuning I've used is: A Bb (+20 cents sharp) D (+20 cent sharp) Eb F Bb

I have another piece awaiting in the wings, too - I think I am stirring up for larger scale things, perhaps I will try to incorporate other voices as well, inshallah.

Fire eating Iranian Sufi Women

2008-02-17T18:55:00.000-08:00

Mevlam Nurdan Yaratmış

2008-02-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

Sufis sing songs, here I trash the beautiful lyrics by the wali & beloved sufi poet Yunus Emre. The pictures on the wall behind me are of my Pirs, the 'saints' of our Sufi Order. Abdul Qadir Gilani, Ahmeder Rifai, Muhammad Ansari, his son Muhyiddin Anasari, Nuriddin Ozal & my murshid, Shaykh Taner Ansari. May Allah increase their light and bless their families.

Çalap nurdan yaratmış canını Muhmmed'in
Aleme rahmet saçmış adını Muhammed'in

Dostum demiş yaratmış hem onun kaydın yemiş
Ümmetten yana komuş yönünü Muhammed'in

Muhammed bir denizdir alemi tutup durur
Yetmiş bindir peygamber gölünde Muhammed'in

Dünya malın tutmamış hiç emanet artmamış
Terzi biçip dikmemiş donunu Muhammed'in

Tanrı arslanı Ali sağında Muhammed'in
Hasan ile Hüseyin solunda Muhammed'in

Yılda yetmiş bin hacı her biri niyet eder
Varır ziyaret eder nurunu Muhammed'in

Yunus Emre'm aşıkdır eksiklidir miskindir
Her kim yemez mahrumudur honını Muhammed'in

Some sufic numerical meditations...

2008-01-20T18:48:00.000-08:00

Bismallahir Rahmanir Rahim

10 is a solid number. Not as solid as 1, but pretty solid. Each number has its charm. Been musing on the significances of 7, too. Ten seems to be a number of solidness and form.

1 = point
2 = line
3 = plane
4 = solid

See? Solidness.

Now, seven has appeared to me as something to be traversed, a ladder, levels to be gained, a cycle to witness, the curve of DNA... The seven heavens of the Quran, the seven layers of the nafs:

1. Nafs-i-Ammara, the Commanding Nafs
Behold! The commanding nafs encourages evil,
except when my Lord bestows mercy. (Qur'an 12:53)
2. Nafs-i-Lawwama: Blaming Nafs
But I swear by the accusing nafs that this Scripture is true. (Qur'an 75:2)
3. Nafs-i-Mulhama: Inspired Nafs
And a nafs and Him who gave order to it and inspired it
with a sense of what is wrong for it and what is right for it. (Qur'an 91:8)
4. Nafs-i-Mutmaina: Tranquil Nafs
To the righteous soul will be said, "O, you nafs in complete
peace and satisfaction!" (Qur'an 89:27)
5. Nafs-i-Radziyya: Satisfied Nafs
Return to your Lord, content (Qur'an 89:28)
6. Nafs-i-Mardziyya: Satisfying Nafs
for His being pleased with you! (Qur'an 89:28)
7. Nafs-i-Safiyya: Purified Nafs
This day have I perfected your religion for you,
completed My favor to you, and have chosen for
you as your religion Islam. (Qur'an 5:3)

Seven is also the number of a great many musical scales, ie; the heptatonic scale or more commonly known as a diatonic scale. Do Re Me Fa Sol La Ti. For Westerners, C D E F G A B.
In my studies in Ancient Greek musics, I found that the seemingly general way they strung their lyre was, in common western terms:

So La Ti Do Re Me Fa

The emphasis on Do is reflective of the Babylonian method of naming this their middle pitch as "The One Enki Made" or Ea, the Creator. Do, the mese note of the Greeks, is our home, our base pitch that we return to when making music. So, why is it in the middle and not at the beginning?

My studies in Tasawwuf, under my Shaykh, has taught me that murids, students in spiritual growth are brought to the fourth level of nafs, Nafs-i-Mutmaina or the Tranquil Nafs, and then after that it is considered "extra credit" so to speak to go onto the higher levels of attainment.

So La Ti DO

A gradation, a ladder to be led and then to the higher steps one must wait upon Allah's Will.

Here's my meditation, my dream:

In Sufism, Tasawwuf, the Science and School of attaining true knowledge of the Absolute begins with the four doors of Sharia, Tariqa, Marifa & Haqqiqa. Spiritual Law, Spiritual Path, Wisdom and Truth. Boom, there you are, you have learned what Allah wants from you, you know how to manifest it in your life here on Earth, you have some access to Why and you've begun to Taste What Is.

So La Ti DO

1 = point
2 = line
3 = plane
4 = solid

See? Solidness. You've become cooked and ready.

Now comes seven. What is Seven?

Certainty.

ilm al-yaqin (The Knowledge of Certainty) - You've read about it.
‘ayn al-yaqin (The Eye of Certainty) - You've seen it.
haqq al-yaqin (The Truth of Certainty) - Allah sends it directly to your heart.

The goal is to be in unlimited direct contact with one's Lord. It is, what we all seek. With the four doors of Sharia, Tariqa, Marifa & Haqqiqa. Spiritual Law, Spiritual Path, Wisdom and Truth and the three levels of certainty So La Ti DO

Re Me Fa!

Seven begets the effect of the Octave, the octave is the harmonization of the "home" pitch, the root, the beginning returns to it's Source, but at a higher frequency, ie; cooked.

In the imperfection and variance of the musical scale, the sequence of Fifths, the lopsided return of the lunar months, the calendar skipping with the leap year - is the sign, an ayat, of Allah's Infinite Vastness spiraling into a never beginning never ending greatness.

Do we have a leap year to climb the ladder to our higher pitch?

Hisar Buselik Pesrev

2008-01-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

How are they connected?

2007-12-30T14:17:00.000-08:00

Question: What, if any, are the connections between symbols, letters, words, sounds and other correspondences? How are they connected?

Al Kindi: "Numbers, geometric figures, musical sounds and heavenly bodies are midway between what is sensible and changes, and what is supra-sensible and does not change." Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam, Fadlou Shehadi, pg 18.

Question: Are we separate or connected to the rest of Creation? Or, is there a difference between connection and dependency?

Connection between created items implies relation, two elements sharing some quality perhaps. This quality finds its source in the Absolute, thus things that relate to each other by way of connection do so because their Lord is the Owner and Maker of this shared quality. The issue that comes to my mind is whether or not the things being considered actually have this quality or not...

According to Al Ladqihi (15th century) the maqams have some of the following correspondences:

Rast Aries - Fire
Iraq Taurus - Earth
Husayni Scorpio - Water
Hicaz Sagittarius - Fire
Ussak Pieces - Water

And from the Ramuzi Musiqi of Abdul Aziz we find something even more interesting with correspondances in addition to the elements and zodiacs, but also to Prophets and aliments:

Rast: Adam - Paralysis
Iraq: Yaqub (Jacob) - 'Cooling the heat'
Husayni: Daud (David) - Fever
Hicaz: Ibrahim - ear and left side pain
Ussak: Musa (Moses) - Smelly winds (!)*1.

Al Kindi, the well known Muslim philosopher, attributed many things the strings of the 'Ud. The highest string, or "al zir" was Fire, southerly winds, the season of summer, humor of yellow bile, courage, the organ of the heart, etc, etc, etc.

Fazlallah Astarabadi, the Pir of the Hurufi group, a quasi sufi order that originated in Iran during the 1300's. He was one of the people responsible for generating interest in the alphabetical, numerical and mathematical connections of the Quran, even going so far as to suggest that the Quran could be read as if it was written in Persian. (Read Fazlallah Astarabadi And The Hurufis By Shahzad Bashir for this fascinating person.)

An idea of Fazlallah's that intrigued me was the idea of a meta linguistic language that was bestowed upon Prophet Adam (a.s). "And He taught Adam all the names, then showed them to the angels, saying: Inform Me of the names of these, if ye are truthful." Sura Baqara, Ayat 30. My understanding of this concept is that it is the mother of all languages, of all speech and, really thusly... all knowledge, and hence Adam as the precursor of humankind in all things. Now, Fazlallah also taught, perhaps as did others, that when Allah said, "Kun" or "Be" and created Creation, this statement is to be taken literally. Allah literally "spoke" and creation appeared. Ibn Arabi apparently said and I parphrase, "Kun is the saying and Creation is the listening."Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam, Fadlou Shehadi, pg 160

So, where does this leave us in relation to our correspondences? Well, I am not exactly sure, but I believe that this is a real start...

*1. I am indebted to Dr. Jozef Pacholczyk's dissertation, Music And Astronomy In The Muslim World for these maqam correspondences.

Safiyyaddin Abdulmomin ibn Yusif al Urmavi

2007-12-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

Safiyyaddin Abdulmomin ibn Yusif al Urmavi (13th century) was the author of two fundamental works in Arabic, "Kitab al-Advar" and "Sharafiyya," which were crucial to the theoretical and practical development of Azerbaijani music. These books deal with sound and its quality, intervals, reasons for dissonance, mugams and techniques for playing instruments with two strings.

Urmavi disagreed with earlier scholars who said that a musical sound is, by nature, pleasant to the ear. He countered, "It is not necessary for a musical sound to be pleasant to the ear. Sometimes we don't like a sound. But still it can be a musical tone. Suppose we hear two sounds. If we can differentiate between these two sounds according to pitch (e.g., one is half a tone or two tones higher than the other) or identify them as equal, then we can talk about musical tone." Urmavi pointed out that musicians needed to be careful with dissonant intervals, such as the augmented fourth: "C - F Sharp."

Urmavi organized the Eastern sound system into a scale of 17 keys. This was different from the 12-key chromatic scale founded by Al-Kindi and the 22-key scale created by Al-Farabi. Azerbaijani melodies were recorded in Urmavi's writings using the "ABJD" Arabic alphabetic notational system. "ABJD" (pronounced "abjad" which rhymes with "pad") are the first sequential letters of the Arabic script. Urmavi used this sequence of letters to indicate pitch. Duration of the note was indicated below that alphabetic symbol. There were 59 different notes designated. This score system was widely used up until the 16th century.

from Zemfira Safarova

Fatiha

2007-12-15T19:42:00.001-08:00

The seven subtle aspects of Sura Fatiha of the Holy Quran.

Abd= Slave

Body: Bismallahir Rahmanir Rahim
Nafs/Ego: Alhumduiallah Rabbi alemin
Heart: Rahmanir Rahim
Spirit: Maliki yawmiddeen.
Secret: Iyyaka na'budu wa iyyaka nastaeen.
Hidden: Ihdinas siratal mustaqiim.
Secret of Secrets: Siratul laziina anamta alayhim gayril magdubia alayim walad daaliin.

Holy: Amiin!

Some Greek modal experiments

2007-12-09T19:02:00.000-08:00

A little test, imperfect since I am using a guitar to work out scalar theories.

The pentatonic mode I am working with is suggested to be from an 'Auluos' player by the name of Olympos.

The original mode goes like this: C Db F G A C.
What stays the same in the following three genus is the Octave, Fourth, and Fifth, ie; C, F & G. These notes in most of our Greek modes don't change according to Aristoxenus and the others. This is one thing that seems true by all what I can see.

Because it is on the guitar this following diatonic is tuned to this:
C F D G A C

Diatonic

This Chromatic mode is tuned: C F Db G Ab C

Chromatic

My favorite, with the closer 1/4 tones, the Enharmonic. Ideally these would be tuned to ratios that reflect a simple relationship between them and the rest of the mode.

Enharmonic

down the Nile

2007-12-06T18:02:00.000-08:00

on my acoustical traveling we come to the Egyptians. The image below shows many things musical, but what interests me most for now is the concept of chironomy. Chironomy is an ancient ancient technique of using hand signals to designate musical pitches to musicians, like early music conductors except with the added meaning of displaying the exact notes they are to play. This method of visual music notation has been used in many cultures, Hebrew, Coptic, Byzantine, and up to the present as well with a version of it taught by the "Kodaly Method" of music instruction. At this point in time though, I am not sure how much we know of the roots of this art and with what degree of accuracy we understand how the Egyptians used this practise, but it is conjectured by Professor Hans Hickmann of the Museum of Cairo that

"... (the) degrees of the scale filling the space between the fundamental and its fifth were represented by the chironomist [the conductor of the gestures] by the elongation of the hand, the arms forming an acute angle corresponding to a higher note. The ensemble of gestures forms of sort of scale...of which the number of degrees coincides with the musical scales known from the measures of the preserved instruments."

On the far right we have an egyptian harpist being 'conducted' by two chironomists, each with a slightly different hand signal, presumably to account for the harpist's ability to play more than one note at a time. (An early pictorial proof for harmony perhaps.) According to Professor Hickmann, the hand position with the thumb touching the index finger represents the tonic note, so by that we can see that every one here is playing just that, except the harpist who is playing, possibly, an additional pitch.

Now if I may meditate on this idea a little, I find that I can't but wonder if there is some distant biological connection between specific pitches and anatomic gestures. Are there relations between sound and body like the correspondences we find within acupuncture or ayurveda? If body movement is sound or dancing is harmony, then certain bodily harmonic motions might bring attunement and others induce the opposite

No doubt I am traveling perhaps an already well trod path, but nonetheless it feels more valuable to me to find out on my own what is and what is not...

Greek Music - Western Confusion & Musical Purpose

2007-12-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

So, as to my previous post with the "modal glyph" and the study of Greek modes for healing, having looked into what our beloved western scholars have had to say about such things, it has became apparent that Botheius (500 C.E), a early Greek scholar of the Middle Ages, botched the names and proper placement of the Greek Modes.

So my sense is that Agrippa (1400 C.E.), worked from an incomplete understanding of the modes. Ie; his sense of what constituted a "Dorian" mode was in fact much different in practice during the times of Ancient Greece. So, I think, in my opinion, it is hardly reliable to claim that a certain Greek mode can alleviate particular "humours" when the name and particulars of the mode is in question.

Accuracy is of primary importance when dealing with the movement of the soul in relation to its Lord. We must know our place. When I say, "our place" I am referring to something subtle and not recognized by Western thought. Nor is the reference to one of religious dogma, but to the universal inherent relation of the human being in all its facets to the greater whole of Creation.

For example. Take the number seven. In Quran you have the notion of seven heavens.

The term “seven heavens” is used seven times in the Quran.

2. The Cow, 29
17. The Children of Israel, 44
23. The Believers, 86
41. Elucidated, 12
65. Divorce, 12
67. The Kingdom, 3
71. Noah, 15*

In Sufism there is the seven layers of the nafs or ego. A student is led thru each one of these stages by having each of the seven layers cleansed in a certain manner.

In many ancient cultures their Gods were frequently divided by seven, Babylonian's major gods were seven. Who, by the way were equated with the constellation of Pleiades, seven stars.

In greek literature the number 7 abounds, the myth of Amphion is where he uses a seven strung lyre to build the seven gates of Thebes. The Illiad and the Oddessy is full of this number, seven gifts, seven temples, seven men, etc...

The concept of the "diatonic scale" in music is one where the seven strung lyre evolved the western seven note scale of do re me fa sol la te. Each note or string was attributed to a Planet, this was also true of the Lyre (balag) of Mesopotamia - the seven notes were only! just equated with their gods...

I leave you with this from Alain Danielou:

"The work of the musician consists therefore only in the knowing as accurately as possible, the symbolic relation of all things so as to reproduce in us, through the magic of sounds, the feelings, the passions, the visions of an almost real world." pg5, Music and The Power of Sound. The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness

"... we nevertheless expel the heavenly element from music when we obliterate the possibilities of contacts with the spiritual forces by disfiguring the intervals." pg8, ibid.

Carmen of the Spheres (July 31, 2006)

2007-11-23T16:10:00.000-08:00

from Greg Fox's "Carmen of the Spheres":

This is my attempt at a naturalistic, astronomical approach to the "Harmony of the Spheres".

The overwhelming majority of historical examples take a broadly astrological or mythological view of the solar system. A long time ago my school-teacher Paul Caller recommended that someone (me!) write a new take on Holst's "The Planets", and this is it, so I dedicate the piece to Paul Caller.

My approach in "Carmen of the Spheres" is to try to literally hear the planets as they orbit the sun. Obviously 365.25 days is a good deal slower than the average sound wave!! However there is a wonderful principle in acoustics, at the very least for humans, and that is that when you double the speed of the wave, the "flavour" of the pitch remains the same. The implications of this are obvious for things like "octaves" - an F# is an F# is an F#. However we can only hear certain frequencies - broadly speaking something like 50hz (ie. a pressure wave hitting the ear drum 50 times per second) up to (depending on age and exposure to loud noise!) around 5000hz, perhaps higher. Meaningful musical inflections are available for much of this range to differing extents, with chordal harmony being possible from approximately 300hz up to approximately 2000hz. Once the trick of doubling the frequency takes the sound-wave outside what we humans can hear, we have to take nature's word for it that an F# is still an F#, but there's no reason to suppose that it's not equally true. Therefore if you have the planitary orbital period enough times, you should find the "pitch" of a planet orbiting the sun (or rather that pitch raised several (in the region of 36 to 40) octaves!!
(Obviously this metaphor has limits: doubtless planets do not orbit with ABSOLUTE reliability, though perhaps the 'errors' in orbital period become "small enough" once the wave has been sufficiently sped up!!)

To listen click here.

Enneagram as an Octave

2007-11-23T15:06:00.000-08:00

courtesy of wiki...
so... what may be the relation...?

Modal Gylph

2007-11-22T19:54:00.000-08:00

See "Using Ancient Greek Modes".

At this point my concern with using these scales, or modes, for purposes of retuning the psyche is that when they use the word 'mode', how can we confirm to which exact system of pitches they refer to? In Ancient Greece there was much contradiction on what constituted a "Dorian" mode, for example. Pythagoras, Aristoxenus and others, each had a shifting idea to as what actually constituted their scales in usage. Nor can we rely upon the Church fathers neither, since they botched the associations of the Greek modal names.

Nonetheless, it is useful to look upon what the esoteric investigators like Agrippa or Ramis de Pareja came up with when deciphering what the Greeks had to offer. It seems to me that we have to go further back in time to the Rig Veda & the Sumerians to get a fuller cosmic glimpse at the power of sound to alter the soul.

punk rock

2007-11-12T06:48:00.000-08:00

at your own risk....

FU

Love is the thing

2007-11-11T08:59:00.001-08:00

confucion swing!

2007-11-11T07:10:00.000-08:00

a little chinese for euphony groove at Lichtenstein Center for the Arts

Beezlebub II

2007-11-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

"If you can put real attention on Beelzebub, you can have a real attention in life. You didn't know this secret. In Beelzebub there is everything, I have said it, even how to make an omelet. Among other things, it is explained; and at the same time there isn't a word in Beelzebub about cooking. So, you put your attention on Beelzebub, another attention than that to which you are accustomed, and you will be able to have the same attention in life." - Gurdjieff

Featured: Fall 1998 Issue, Vol. II (1)
Revision: October 1, 1999

Beelzebub

2007-10-31T19:28:00.000-07:00

—that always and everywhere on the earth, among people of every degree of development of understanding and of every form of manifestation of the factors which engender in their individuality all kinds of ideals, there is acquired the tendency, when beginning anything new, unfailingly to pronounce aloud or, if not aloud, at least mentally, that definite utterance understandable to every even quite illiterate person, which in different epochs has been formulated variously and in our day is formulated in the following words: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson - G. I. Gurdjieff.

some random anonymous comments about said tomb:

I really don't know a thing about him. He's one of those peripheral kinds of writers to me - the ones where you hear their name and nod your head as if you'd read them. I know he was an influence of P. D. Ouspensky's (Who I never thought too much of - too "mystickal" for my tastes, but interesting, given the time...) and Frank Lloyd Wright, but that's about it. Flipping through it, the writing style is strange, but kind of readable to me. Plus there's that lovely Tabriz medallion carpet on the cover. (Why they didn't use a carpet from the Caucasus or Armenia is beyond me, since the author was Armenian...)
Books like this can be interesting if you don't take them too seriously - they do tend to have a lot of interesting ideas. Kind of like reading science fiction, if that genre hasn't banished traditional religion. ;-)

Hi -- this book is actually more serious than you might think; it's certainly not intended as entertainment.

My father, a noted medical researcher, met Gurdjieff on several occasions as a young man in London and Paris after WWII (G. was already quite old by then). His scientific complacency was deeply shaken, and his life profoundly influenced, by these meetings with Gurdjieff, who was by all accounts an extraordinary man.

The book is in places maddening, preposterous, irritating, impenetrable. It causes a sort of itching. It can be simultaneously disturbing and exalting.
At the very least, it'll keep you busy for a while...

No, Gurdjieff was not insane, at least not in the sense one would normally use the word -- meaning a pathological inconsistency in one's thinking, and an inability to harmonize oneself with the outer world. He certainly didn't think just as most of us have been taught to, though.

Some "helps" for you as you go through G.I. Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales:

(a),http://www.gurdjieff.org/beelzebub.htm (b),http://www.triadbooks.com/OrderPages/Gurdjieff.htm
(c),http://www.traditionalstudiespress.com/inprint.htm#Welch_MP3

Regarding (b): The "Study Kit" and the "Guide and Index" may help you. Still, it's best to take the Gurdjieff's advice on how to read the book unless you just find yourself impossibly "stuck" and must absolutely have help. Beelzebub's Tales is one of of the most important books ever written and it is a particularly important book for "unfortunate beings" living in these difficult times.
Why Gurdjieff wrote as he did may not always be clear. We do know that he spent a long time on the work, including one full rewrite. If something is as it is, it is because he intended it so. While writing, he had the book regularly read aloud to his students and if something was too clear, he 'buried the dog deeper,' as he himself put it. So one must work through the shocks to human vanity and Gurdjieff's circuituous expression and often humorous style to glimpse deeper principles. (*)

Euphony Groove's Sonicbids page

2007-10-31T18:43:00.000-07:00

old news, but I've added a link, check it out...

View Euphony Groove's EPK

idrib

2007-10-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

Been waiting for this to come out, I don't know if it is the first time a women has translated the Quran or not, but either way I have heard quite a bit about her focus upon the meaning of the word "idrib"

Most translations of the Qur'an, which Muslims believe to be the word of God revealed to Muhammad, say the woman should first be admonished, then left alone in her bed and then beaten, albeit lightly.

"When I got to chapter four I had to really look at this carefully," says Bakhtiar, a Chicago Islamic scholar who is the featured speaker at the 25th annual conference of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, which opens on Saturday at Toronto's Noor Cultural Centre. "It took a lot of research time to see what it means.

"It's a command in the Qur'an, an imperative and the point is the Prophet never did it, it meant something else to him," continues Bakhtiar, 68, one of seven children of an American nurse and Iranian doctor.

She concluded that the word idrib, which she found could have 26 different meanings, was best translated as "to go away" or "to leave," not some form of "to beat."

thank you to Dr Godlas's blog for this...

even though this is old news...

2007-10-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

it is still the main reason why we, the USA are hated. One word.

Hypocrisy

Because the P.K.K. is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations and aiding such groups is illegal, the United States is eager to avoid any hint of cooperation with the P.J.A.K.

Guerrilla leaders said the Americans classify the P.K.K. as a terrorist group because it is fighting Turkey, an important American ally, while the P.J.A.K. is not labeled as such because it is fighting Iran.

In fact, the two groups appear to a large extent to be one and the same, and share the same goal: fighting campaigns to win new autonomy and rights for Kurds in Iran and Turkey. They share leadership, logistics and allegiance to Abdullah Ocalan, the P.K.K. leader imprisoned in Turkey.

Read the NY TImes article...

Socrates & the ἀποτρεπτικός

2007-10-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

Bismallahir Rahmanir Rahim

Catching up on my early Greek philosophy, I found myself reading some of the required reading in the dialogs of Plato about the trial and subsequent death of the sage Socrates. It occurred to me that I don't think we in the West truly appreciate the enormity of Socrates's genius and what was potentially at work in this business of his about this "daemonic sign": the 'supernatural' voice or 'averting (ἀποτρεπτικός) inner voice that Socrates heard only when he was about to make a mistake' wiki

O my judges - for you I may truly call judges - I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about anything; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech; but now in nothing I either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a great proof to me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good. ( Apology of Socrates - Plato 40a. translated by Benjamin Jowett in 1871)

Here the translator uses the term 'oracle' to signify the voice Socrates would hear time from time. While I don't think that the word oracle is the best definition to use here in our case, it is an interesting hint for those who want to follow up on the "mysteries" of the Delphic Oracles. Note that this voice would only warn Socrates of something not to do or say, it wouldn't affirm or confirm the rightness of an action.

I think it is easy to assume that this phenomena is a simple case of conscience working at its natural capacity within a liberal human mind and it is exactly this assumption that I'd like to differ with. There is Sufic concept of heart connection which is called rabita that consists of deliberately focusing the heart's attention upon one's connection to the Absolute. When this connection is made, a channel is opened whereby direct knowledge is given permission (from the top - down) to flow to the heart. This is a specific phenomena which the human conscience is just a small part. Knowing right from wrong is just a baby step that is required in order to attain this heart connection, or rabita.

Rabita is mentioned in the Quran:

Ya eyyuhellezine amenusbiru ve sabiru ve rabitu vettekullahe le'allekum tuflihun
(Ali Imran 200)

which could be understood to mean:

O ye who believe! Persevere in patience and constancy; vie in such perseverance; make rabita and fear Allah; that ye may prosper.

Rabita is variously translated in the Quran as, prayer; linking; unite; be ever ready [to do what is right]. In Sufi Tariqas rabita is taught, as a practice, generally by mentally picturing the Sufi teacher as the one who is 'doing' the action that a student is involved in. For instance, when I get into my car to go somewhere I make a mental note that it isn't really "me" that is driving, but it is my teacher who is driving the car. I "connect" to my shaykh, my teacher, and realize through my heart that it is he (or she) is the one who is acting. Working with the rational mind is the first step. When the mind recalls, the heart remembers.

There is an argument that this concept of referring to God, referring to something outside one's self is an error in self responsibility. The worst cases of excuses for horrible actions have been attributed to 'talking' to god. No doubt we have all heard someone at one time or another claim their personal worry about those who would attest to have permission from God for an action. Personally I think that this excuse is a crock, it is sloppy thinking that is the culprit in these cases where persons have committed atrocities in the name of God. Mature human beings are needed to discern right from wrong, it is maturity that is the key that unlocks the mysteries of God consciousness within the human creation.

Socrates is a case in point. His fame as the origin of Western philosophy is fine and well, but I am more interested in his actions than his words. Reading the Dialogs I was struck by his insistence that his wisdom was useful only because he realized he knew nothing, and others were charlatans simply because they pretended to knowledge.

Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether - as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt - he asked the oracle to tell him whether there was anyone wiser than I (Socrates) was, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser.
...
What can the god (the Oracle of Delphi) mean? and what is the interpretation of this riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After a long consideration, I at last thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, "Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest."
...
the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name as an illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. ibid

What struck me was the appearance of a link between the daemonic sign and the cognition of Socrates's own lack of wisdom. He must possess a great sense of personal human presence here in order to be both aware of his own lack of self worth and to see where his inspiration to knowledge actually arises from. Kabir Helminski speaks about this dynamic of transcendent awareness in his book "The Living Presence":

This book is about one aspect of Sufism -- presence -- how it can be developed and how it can be used to activate our essential human qualities. Abu Muhammad Muta'ish says: "The Sufi is he whose thought keeps pace with his foot -- i.e., he is entirely present: his soul is where his body is, and his body is where his soul is, and his soul where his foot is, and his foot where his soul is. This is the sign of presence without absence. Others say on the contrary: 'He is absent from himself but present with God.' It is not so: he is present with himself and present with God."

Presence with God and presence with one's 'self' - herein lies the key that the mature human uses to unlock the real connection to the Absolute. The struggle is not only to see things as they are or to recognize truly what one does know and what one does not - the struggle really is to discern where one's true knowledge arises from. To claim personal ownership to knowledge is a little presumptuous, is it not?

Most parents can (hopefully) see how human beings develop when they are in the process of child rearing. They have the opportunity to watch for the inclination in their young learner to "own" what they have learned; (ie, has been previously taught). What parent hasn't heard from their child, "oh, I know that..."? The child "acquires" the knowledge through an outside source and then directly proceeds to claim it for themselves. The natural formation of personal identity includes this tendency to acknowledge what is and what is not "one's self". Once something is within one's brain it taken to "be owned". Surely this is mine because I know it...

So here is Socrates - this giant of a sage - making no claim to know anything, as well as claiming to "hear" voices which direct him in life - here he is discoursing to all manners of people, politicians, workers, poets - anyone one who would listen. Just to find out if any of them actually were truly wise!

... not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them
...
I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom ibid

While on the one hand we have Plato preserving for us what seems to be the beginnings of a system of philosophy through the mouth of Socrates, and yet, on the other hand we have this image of Socrates himself going around to the various people of his community trying to find out who actually owned a small piece of wisdom themselves. In this process that we find Socrates engaged in, we learn from him his way of observing others and his self and thusly finding a sense of presence that realizes where true knowledge is not. Socrates finds that wisdom does not arise from himself nor others around him - and he teaches this!

Of course, this train of thought leads us to the problem of ontology, whose basic premise is: what exists? This isn't necessarily a 'bad' question to ask, but we began with the enormity of Socrates genius and the West's following digression from what was at stake. I think that in his quest to find the truth of who actually had wisdom wasn't simply intended to teach other how to define their thinking. The importance of clear and pure definitions is surely important, but is it an end goal? No, I think not. I think the gist of Socrates purpose was to define for us, our community, how to clear the self so the brain can receive true knowledge from "where ever" it comes from ...

tufan altaş

2007-10-18T08:29:00.001-07:00

Davut Sulari

2007-10-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Live In-Studio

2007-10-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

Euphony Groove live on WZBC

On Sunday, October 21, three members of local music collective Euphony Groove will be stopping by ...it came from the east from 4-5 p.m. The band will be playing a live set featuring the ney, guitar, percussion, and bouzouki, talking about their modern use of ancient instruments, and upcoming shows in the region. Tune in for original and improvised sounds of the near & far east. For more info, contact itcamefromtheeast@gmail.com.

Inspiriation...

2007-10-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

"I am not afraid of romantic clichés, but really I do not know what inspiration actually can be. For me, inspiration means to be in the full availability of my intellectual powers and to feel connected with what I do. It does not happen very often and, when I am not in such a situation, I prefer avoiding to compose: the result could be only partial and unsatisfactory.

I am ready to accept the danger of failing my attempts when I feel at the top of my means, but I am not ready to go and meet a secure failure when I know I am not in my best shape."

a recent post from Angelo Gilardino - an excellent Italian composer of music for guitar.

I couldn't agree more...

nikrz

2007-09-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

Valediction : Celestial

2007-09-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

Murmur pale shades
Soft tears in midnight dreams, echo young love
Chanting in shadows and grieving, whisper
From tombs forgotten in mysterious waves;
 Thus thy sobbing
 E'er returning.
Intone night siren, in clouds of lost love,
Weep thy ballads, soft, low, to the cold, deep blue,
Pour forth thy salt pearly tears and hope Her mercies to move.

Purer than pearls
These fruits of toil; bewitching long sighs,
Deeper than seas casting their gaze at skys,
More dark than waves o'erwhelming this world;
 Thus thy grieving
 E'er returning
Long dead ghosts of lovers: ascending
White roses wilt, die after their fading;
And whoses cold heart jesting in death would mock this lamenting?

Luna begone!
Banish thy shades for good, thy love forbear,
Draw not up brine to drown Her in thy sphere,
Love not black crystal seas that can not be won;
 Thus thy sobbing
 E'er returning.
Exhale pale orb, respire in thy abode,
Her pure sweet soul, of salt and tears is woe;
This seas' not for love wan moon; Her heart, Her soul
      will weep bones cold.

Epitaph:
   Murmuring Moon,
   E'er returning.
   Languishing Sea,
   E'er receeding.

One year following every rule in the Bible?

2007-09-22T05:56:00.000-07:00

Sept. 21, 2007 - After A. J. Jacobs spent a year reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica for his book “The Know-It-All,” he figured he had the yearlong experiment thing down. How much harder could it be to follow every rule in the Bible?

some interesting excerpts:

One of the lessons of the book is, there is some picking and choosing in following the Bible, and I think that’s OK. Some people call that cafeteria religion, which is supposed to be a disparaging term, but I think there’s nothing wrong with cafeterias, I’ve had some delicious meals in cafeterias. I’ve also had some terrible meals in cafeterias. It’s all about picking the right parts.

...

We all talk about freedom of choice, but there’s something very attractive about freedom from choice. Religion provides structure, mooring, anchoring. Should you covet? No. Should you give 10 percent to the needy? Yes. It really structures your life. After my year I felt unmoored, overwhelmed by choice. I have adjusted, but I’m still overwhelmed by choice, as we all are in America.

live online interview with Shaykh Taner Saurday Sept 22nd noon

2007-09-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

Shaykh Taner Ansari will be featured on Glenn Brooks' Vibrant Living Radio Show this Saturday, September 22. The show will air at 9am Pacific Time on KRXA 540am and it will be streamlined live at www.krxa540.com. This will be noontime for those of us on the East Coast (USA). (I believe you can also listen to after the fact as well, though I am not positive...)

Glenn Brooks will be interviewing Shaykh Taner about the healing practices that he will be teaching at his upcoming workshop Alternative Healing: The Sufi Way at Valley Yoga in Westfield, MA on October 6 & 7, 2007.

Interview with a Master Healer, Taner Ansari

2007-09-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Interview with Sufi Master Taner Ansari

The Sufi Master, Shaykh Taner Ansari, Pir of the Qadiri Rifai Tariqa, has recently written a book on Sufi healing methods called “Alternative Healing: The Sufi Way.”

Can you tell us a little about this kind of healing or medicine and how it differs from other methods of treating ailments?

Sufi healing is complementary to other methods. Our way is to begin by using natural methods. We treat in this manner because there is a balance between the spiritual and the material arenas and we try to leave it undisturbed as much as possible. When something is taken from the spiritual world and given to the material world, that balance is disturbed.
This is why we want to keep everything as natural as possible.

First, we send patients to physicians who practice Western medicine. We use all means of healing that are available to us, such as herbs, massage, diet, acupuncture and pharmaceutical drugs. It is only when these methods are exhausted that we turn to spiritual healing techniques.

Can you tell us how you became involved in Sufi healing?

Part of the job of being a Sufi master is healing people, helping them as much as we can. One time I had to heal my son’s leg; that was how I found out I could do this.

Can you give us some other examples of healings you have done?

My students are compiling case studies of some of my patients. These should be available soon.

Can people who aren’t Sufis use these methods?

Yes. I wish you asked: what is your aim?

Good question. What is your aim?

To give connection to people who aren't Sufis so that they can have a spiritual connection to our Pirs—the founding fathers of our order—and through them, to the Almighty God, who is the energy of all.

In your book Alternative Healing: The Sufi Way, you mentioned the necessity for being connected to a Sufi master and also the need for having attained a certain degree of spiritual station or maqaam, as you call it. Can you share with us how this might work for those of us who aren't Sufis?

They will still have a spiritual connection with us. When a healer calls on us spiritually, through prayer and heart connection, we will give him or her the energy needed to do the job.

You will channel it?

Yes, channel. They won't be the ones really doing the healing; we are the ones who will be doing that. They call on us and we provide the spiritual energy.

How much training might it take for someone to use these techniques successfully?

It doesn't take too long. They have to memorize some written prayers, they have to know how to use herbs and they need to learn the Names of Allah. These Names are different energies that have distinct properties.

In your book, you also describe the need for the healer to "talk" to the body, or even to the DNA. How does this work?

For this, the healer has to be evolved. That means that the healer has to be able to hear spiritually what the body says. Not everybody can do that. That is why we have other methods as well, such as muscle testing.

Talking to the body, which we call rabita, is done by making a spiritual connection with it or with a specific organ. It is a kind of subliminal communication on a finer level than normal. The center of this connection is the heart.

This happens because Allah, as Creator of all, is in touch with and knows everything. As you get closer to Allah, you can tune into His/Her/Its energetic lines of communication. These channels are open to you, too. You get a connection to the main energy, which in science we call the Absolute, also known as God or Allah.

Is Sufi healing related to traditional Islamic medicine?

Yes, and to much older methods as well. Our healing methods didn't start with Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him; they began with Adam, and developed through Kabbalah, Gnosticism, through a long line of accumulated knowledge.

How do you envision the different practitioners putting Sufi healing into practice?

This is important for them. This is why I want to teach it to physicians so that they can have a broader spectrum of knowledge with which to help their patients. If they are scientists, they should not have closed minds. They should accept that there is more than one way of doing things. This is another way of healing. If they know this, they can better help their patients. Isn't that the goal?

I have trained doctors and psychologists in Sufi healing methods, which they now incorporate into their practice. I would like physicians who practice Western medicine to try this, because for certain problems there is no cure in Western medicine. Take epilepsy for example. In Sufi healing, the cure is actually fairly simple. Western science can do nothing about it but I am able to cure it in one day.

If a doctor knows this, why wouldn't he use it? It is not harmful to the patient or to the doctor— it is just a prayer that the physician says. Why would it be undignified or stupid to make a prayer?

Healing by prayer has been studied through experimentation. Scientists have taken test groups of patients, prayed on them loudly and the patients recovered faster than others who were not prayed on. Some may say that's just a placebo effect. But the fact is that they pray on the subjects without letting them know, and still they are cured. And faster than others, as well.

This is not hocus-pocus. There is a science to Sufi healing, too. Western doctors study for many years to learn their profession and I have also studied for many years to learn my healing techniques. I have been studying this for 37 years. I have a degree from my school. You may not recognize it, but it is a degree.

We don't have to talk about the effectiveness of our healing methods: we can prove it. If in some cases it doesn't work, it costs the patient no pain or suffering. When our methods work, the patient is healed.

Do you have anything else you would like to add?

We want to give this connection to people who really want to help others. Our workshops are for this purpose—not to give extra knowledge to someone who isn't going to use it. We want our students to act with it.

The world is heading into a bad place. When there are no doctors, when social structures break down, Allah's wish is for there to be some healers around the world who can help people in any condition, with whatever they have available. That is the knowledge we are sharing.

Can you tell us who Geylani and Rifai are?

Abdul Qadir Geylani is the founding father of the Qadiri Tariqa, which is a Sufi path founded in the 12th century. He is a descendant of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. He is a very powerful person.

Ahmed er Rifai, his cousin, is the founder of another Sufi order called the Rifai Tariqa. The real healer is Ahmed er Rifai. He is the one we will be working with; spiritually, we talk to him. You may not believe this, but that's up to you. We channel Allah's energy through his energy, so he is the healer. Abdul Qadir Geylani and Ahmed er Rifai are generous. They are opening their connection to anyone who wants to do healing.

So the healing doesn't really come from the tariqa. It comes from Allah, from God?

Yes, it comes from Allah but Allah has assigned these people to do it and they have assigned us on the earth to do it as well—through channeling their energy.

Sufism is purification of one's ego, to open the modem to the Absolute/God/Energy, who has no form. He is in every form but no form can contain Him. This is Sufism.

Did it start with Muhammad and Islam? No, it started long before that. In the Christian world, these people are called Gnostics (like Quakers or Shakers); in Judaism, this spiritual path is called Kabbalah. Jesus studied Kabbalah and he studied Buddhism with Buddhists.

Our path is an international, multicultural essence of what to do and how to achieve unity with Allah. That is the true knowledge: the science of transcending your consciousness and identity, and attaining consciousness of the Big Identity. You don't lose your identity, you surrender it to the Absolute.

What is our purpose as Sufis on earth? We are not trying to convert people to any religion. We want to convert people to Allah, to give them a connection to Allah in their hearts, so they won't be lonely.

Our purpose is peace, love and togetherness—unity—and helping each other, that is all. We don't want war, we don't want violence. We want knowledge, wisdom, connection, to do things that are for the sake of the Whole, the Absolute—not expecting anything in return, but simply because it is the right thing to do.

Alternative Healing Workshop October 6-7th

2007-09-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

Alternative Healing: The Sufi Way Workshop with
Sufi Master Taner Ansari

at

Valley Yoga
82 Broad Street
Westfield, MA 01085
t: 413.562.1140

Saturday and Sunday, October 6 & 7, 10:00am-3:00pm

Fee: $450 on or before October 1st, $500 after October 1st

Register for October's Alternative Healing Workshop at Valley Yoga!

Valley Yoga is hosting a two day intensive hands on training in spiritual healing. Learn a transcultural method of healing from a Sufi Master who has healed countless ailments. This course is offered to those who are medical providers of western and eastern medicine alike, chiropractic doctors, massage therapists, yoga teachers, reiki practitioners, and anyone interested in spreading health and wellness. A light lunch will be offered or you can visit local eating venues. For more information about Sufi Healing go online to Sufi Healing Workshops

2007-07-23T06:06:00.000-07:00

Wanting to fish the essence out,
the quiet atmosphere of dusk
yearns to know the girl who laughs at clouds.

Where is the incantation
that might turn back the hollow breath
of the setting sun?

With it might we cease the rain to fall
and wake the sleeping moths beneath
their beds of dawn and evergreen?

But, the moon is still quite hidden,
our time for dream draws near.

Speechless, I receive her arms,
cast about, and dip into the pith of night.

Corn - watch em grow!

2007-07-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

Mt Tom

2007-06-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

Greek Meatballs

2007-06-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

Ground beef, lots of oregano, onions & garlic (as if...) brown them in a pan and then add some chicken stock and lemon juice letting it simmer for a bit.

Must be eaten with olives and white cheese. Or else.

What a weird world we live in...

2007-06-06T14:36:00.001-07:00

rough draft

2007-06-04T08:09:00.000-07:00

It is, most inconvenient, unfortunate. This darkness, this interrupted sleep, the inward turn of gaze. I was, let us say, outmoded... never to return again to that landscape of eldritch design, that creeping abandon out of time somewhere between ennui and deja vu.

This spent coin of normalcy is no more a trinket than these most hurried thoughts, this transfigured expanse some call life I can not escape. I can not close my eyes against this thing they call sleep.

It is the oldest things that I fear.

II.

Then, there are the bells.

Harbingers of the most wretched sounds, pealing in the background, wrenching memories away from they are wont to go. Horrid sounds.

I avoid them.

To no avail, the clarion morning would hide whats to come; the charging horses, the passing steeples, fields of orange poppies - they conspire against the sleepy memory of me.

III.

I don't always see beauty. It comes in many forms, this fever. At times, when night brings the odor of forgotten places I think upon the shadow of her face I once thought I knew.

There was no light. Somethings' amiss, wrong. The geometry was somehow queer. My vision held captive on the threshold of paradox, and what was once beauty now seems an aberration. I'd look away, but can't.

IV.

I don't deny the time for travel draws near. Equinox has been discovered and some thing is afoot. Real breath is needed and every step to come will be welcomed by an intake of questions.

What is this dawn that continually advances? Where's the arc of sun beyond that wooded brow? I faint at the quick step of the marrow and the retreating shade leaves its trace of dread.

V.

The kiss of landscape runs along the amber streets, mute deer run next to our car, each wooded wheel striking a different clatter against the basalt road. Fields of newborn poppies float by, dreams dreaming themselves awake in a lucid play of orange and orchards.

Death strikes a fancy in an unborn cloud nearby in the distance and the miles retreat. "Not yet", she whispers, "not yet."

VI.

In the beginning, the very beginning, (be there any real sense of that...) I was filled with all odd manners of strange visions or dreams. Indescribable events of unusual proportions, lacking any normal explanation one could attach to science, philosophy, culture, or occult.

The most perverse religions barely had faint recollection similar to them, perhaps there were suggestions in the days of ancient rites or mentions of unspeakable rituals, but these even were too close to human likeness to reflect my experience.

VII.

Sometimes memories are incomplete. Dreams aren't memories, right? Cold, dark wet stones, the constant pounding of pain. Pain is new, shocking. Each time it seems different.

I remember beings, single or in groups. I can't recall names or features, just their gift of torture.

Then there is the blackness. Formidable, palpable, inert and yet alive...

VIII.

The worst moments were the lucid visions. Anywhere, they only came when I was awake. Horrible, slippery things. Wet, strange doors, places which resembled homes, but only in the most despicable, vaguest sense.

Things or creatures, I know not which, moved about in methods too awful to relay. I wish I could erase the memory of their quick and repetitive motions. Sounds came out of them from places which I can not attend to, the sense of it was near horrific.

Their boundary was me...

IX.

The closest thing to me was me. I have these limbs, I know not how and I taste an invisible nothingness all the time. What is not me is all colors, shapes, and motion. I wish it would stop.

When it is dark I hear a sound that is appalling.

X.

Whether I am leaving or being taken it is hard to say, her every word is whispers. Sometimes I am quiet or at times I reproach; neither distills the mystery of her.

Each line upon her face is a journey, each mole an abyss of despair. Her eyes hold a cavern terrors and I wait, for the minuets are hours in this noctuary of terror - terror holds no diary.

XI.

Outside is a forest nearby a wild embankment, a murky river. The bells are now a faded memory, a distant fear. The odor of poppies still clings to her veil.

Where now in this dark sequestered place will my fate lead? My past in the cities throbs below the surface and I long for the return of the nameless knowledge I once had.

"This is new", she inferred.

XII.

All meaning, all words, all supplications are dumb in the frozen moment of lost time. One long endless painful draught of invisibility fills my self untill I burst with rain from my vision. I experience a wet and blurry dream, her is touch is soft and I fall into nothingness.

XIII.

Before us march a multitude of many limbed things, an odd number of eyes adorn them. Flimsy opaque sails rest atop what I surmise to be their backs.

The line of thousands head into a dark, cruelly obverse basalt tower surrounded by gabbrous idols and formations.

I shudder at my lack of breath, but the nightmare does not want to end.

...

...

just thinking...

2007-06-03T18:46:00.000-07:00

Each year, each decade, every consecutive generation finds a new age to contend with and for now globalization is our new moment. I understand the term 'globalization", to mean the deepening and cross pollination of knowledge that transcends race, cultures and borders: Christians obtaining and implementing knowledge about Indigenous lore; African peoples becoming aware of each others languages and trades; Irishmen practicing Yoga, Jews learning and applying the art of Japanese Martial Arts; Canadians creating Buddhist art; a New York Haiku contest; A UAE businessman acquiring an American company. So on and so forth. I am not concerned with the political import at this time.

I think there should be a better name for this phenomena: Universalization.

Let us bring all things and all characteristics into the field of Unity.

Universalization has ramifications for every field and I'd like to make an example for art. There has always been the tendency for the poet, painter, author, or composer to "borrow" from one place or another, this is not at all new. On the contrary, it is the very foundation of creativity starting with cave drawings and beyond. This method of borrowing, in my opinion, has appeared like a cook who takes one recipe and adds spices according to the flavor of the day.

What I suggest is that we stop acting as if we are stealing. Stop acting like the other is so different as to be an alien, exotic. I am suggesting that these borders are illusionary, that we have created them in our minds and habits and we have made them seemingly real by acting upon our perceived notions. There is no doubt that we are formed and informed by our cultural differences, but any one of the qualities that we see in another person, place or thing could just as easily potentially occur in ourselves as well. We may very well say that we reject, did not learn, or are not 'born' with this or that, but the reality seems to be that there is a certain element of arbitrariness to what we say we assume and from what we decline. A white anglo-saxon joe could have been just as easily born a native american women instead - what makes us different also makes us the same.I think acting contrary to this is to become a vulnerable to the of chance of fate washing you willy nilly this way and that way based upon a fantasy that one's condition is superior to another.

The ramifications of what I am considering is that there could possibly be a deeper level of understanding to be gained by behaving in the manner that we all own everything, EVERYTHING belongs to us. Every single human being is each responsible for the use of all things, irrespective of their supposed origin. Take literature. We have divided genres of short story, poetry, fiction, mystery, horror, comedy, romance, etc. What if we were intentionally more deliberate in blurring the borders of our understanding of genre? How far can a novel blend into a poem and hereby expand the nature and understanding of our human consciousness? What if the novelist ceased to identify with being a novelist and merged his or her creative skills so as to contain the infinite possibilities which lie right outside his self made border? We somehow understand that some songs are poetry, what if a song became a novel? These things are happening right now.

I think there a limits to style, while it can on the one hand lend strength to a created work and on the opposite it also can take away other possibilities of greater knowing. No doubt, we are already surrounded by style and categories and surely there are good reasons for this. What I suggest is in no way new, that the tendency to merge one thing with another is really just another preexisting technique, which each person always had in their bag of tricks. There endless examples that can be pointed out. What is my hope and striving for is an up-welling of a new kind of understanding which a further or deeper blurring of our borders may bring. Expand the borders! Be more of everything, leap into the awareness that all life pervades each other! Atoms become molecules, DNA merges into cells, the Earth's atmosphere blends into the illusionary vacuum of space.

While I can not be You,
You are more certainly me.
Anon, anon, anon.
Every escape's a loss,
each crossing, a birth.

To and fro de la mia
we are nowhere
and everywhere.

I am afraid that what we don't understand we turn away from and what we claim to know we embrace. Rather shouldn't we look way from ourselves and accept the other, the unknown? Maybe the world will be ours.

Actually, it has already begun...

Say: He is One, the Self Sustaining.

All that is past, present and future is, indeed, AUM. And whatever else there is, beyond the threefold division of time—that also is truly AUM

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.

"The Aleph was probably two or three centimeters in diameter, but universal space was contained within it, with no diminution in size. Each thing (the glass surface of a mirror, let us say) was infinite things, because I could clearly see it from every point in the cosmos. I saw the populous sea, saw dawn and dusk, saw the multitudes of the Americas, saw a silvery spiderweb at the center of a black pyramid, saw a broken labyrinth (it was London), saw endless eyes, all very close, studying themselves in me as though in a mirror, saw all the mirrors on the planet (and none of them reflecting me), saw in a rear courtyard on Calle Soler the same tiles I'd seen twenty years before in the entryway of a house on Fray Bentos, saw clusters of grapes, snow, tobacco, veins of metal, water vapor, saw convex equatorial deserts and their every grain of sand...."(The Aleph - Jorge Luis Borges)

Shayim

2007-05-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

Bismallah Ar Rahman Ar Rahim

Some pictures of my shaykh, Shaykh Taner Ansari at the recent Sufi Symposium in Phily last week or two ago.

Shaykh Taner on the left & Shaykh Tijani on the right:

Here Shaykh Taner is complimenting Shyakh Tijani's shoes. Shaykha Muzenne Anne, Shaykh Taner's wife is on the far left. I don't know who the other lady is.

Later on they visited and performed zikr at the Bawa Muhiddin's mazar or tomb:

Protect Falwell!

2007-05-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

Christian Terrorist in the US!

oh no!

ABC News was reporting the youth told authorities he had made the bombs -- which were found in his car -- to stop protesters from disrupting Falwell's funeral.

aren't you scared?

Zikr!

2007-05-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

A Somber and Splendid Softness

2007-05-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

A somber and splendid softness
Floated under the starry sky,
One might say up there, in the darkness
A paradise fell or died.

And like the burning odor,
The fevered scent in the jet night,
From a hair of a belovéd
Untied through the twilight.

All space languishes of fevers.
On words which close the eyes,
The numinous heart of hearts
From there is coming on the lips to die.

And from thy lips evaporates
The incense of last blisses,
And of this still vibrating heart
Arise vague melancholies,

For all these which are on the earth,
Arms held tight, by such a twilight,
A point in their lonely hearts they do not have
For a name, in silence, with which to sigh.

Translated from the French of
Albert Samain

Letter to the NYT

2007-05-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

this says it all ...

To the Editor:

Bob Herbert conveys Paul Rieckhoff’s lament that Americans are shopping instead of paying attention to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While I feel terrible for Mr. Rieckhoff and his fellow soldiers and the sacrifices they have made, I and almost everyone I know opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning.

I marched, I protested, I signed petitions, I wrote my Congressional representatives, I voted in 2004 and 2006 with the intent to signal my discontent with the direction the country had taken on the war. Since nothing I did and nothing I felt, wrote or signaled has made the least amount of difference, I have indeed detached from the situation.

While I honor the good intentions behind the military service of Mr. Rieckhoff and others in Iraq, I disagree that they’re carrying out “an important task.” The reason Americans are distracting themselves is that the importance of the Iraq war is no longer (and perhaps has never been) apparent to many, and it’s too painful to watch the unnecessary killings of so many Americans and Iraqis.

Of course we’d rather watch the fake conflict of “American Idol.” Or buy shoes.

Lisa Hamilton
Los Angeles, May 3, 2007

Forget

2007-04-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, Sadiq and Tiel successfully lit a fire under me :9 Allah bless them both...

Some of us seek and forget,

Some forget, some forget forgetting;

Draw near, be an ocean for them.

Some pine for their Beloved's curve,

Finding the Law of do this, do that;

Be close, pray with them in their fashion.

Some, lost in the wilds of this world,

This world, their worlds, these wilds ...

Hold their hand so they know Hu is there.

Don't say what you are, this or that,

Hu fashioned you knows what you are,

Neither He nor His Creation needs your bravado.

Who saw a side of their Beloved

And says He looks like this...

Smile and look towards that way;

Hu is both this and that (or not ...)

For you, you, and you...

O impatient guests of this place and time!

Where is your quest for the One

Outside of expectations?

Littleville Dam April 19th

2007-04-19T16:53:00.000-07:00

Ya Qadir!

Ya Qawi!

Bloggss

2007-04-19T06:05:00.000-07:00

Bismallah

Sorry, haven't been blogging much, nor versifying either. My good friend Tiel invited me to a sufi poetry event, alas! the muse has been silent as of late. I have always lamented about my inconsistencies, I tend to leap from one thing to another.

I am not sure if it is a tendency of my nafs or the reality of the situation, but as I strive to be authentic I veer off as the heart directs. I do make a point of finishing things I have begun, (maybe not the books by my bedside), but I rarely leave a song or poem unfinished.

I guess this sufi is in passive mode, discovering new music and other interesting blogs to read. For those of you who like loud guitars and catchy lyrics find your way to Jonathan Harnish's Built On A Weak Spot for a super collection of endlessly updated posts on new noise rock, shoe gaze and punk rock. I found my way there by his review of a noise rock band I used to play in, Kudgel.

Sticking with the weird rock side of things, there is OngakuBlog with new music from Japan.
Okamehachimoku is a cool track...

Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches posts on free jazz and other similar things.

The Musical Chef has a recipe of Spanakopita! No offense, but I seriously doubt it is better than my wife's Yiayia. You have to have olive oil burned into your hands and a magic pan to get close to her spinach pie! Joking aside, Musicalchef has good reads about current music by muslims and lots of cool posts on cooking.

And for a fix of superdeeduper power pop go to Powerpopulist, a never ending surprise of catchy tunes by knowns and unknowns....

Have some pics from the last gig with Euphony Groove:

Thats me on Oud and Fredd Stubbs on Turkish Ney.

The whole band going at it:

2007-04-19T06:04:00.000-07:00