24 degrees of love
Written Saturday 4th April, finished 20th April.
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Today, I was reminded of how what you ask for will come to guide you and direct you towards what you’ve asked for. To know yourself is to know Allah (God), is the famous saying.
I ended up having a 4 and half hour lengthy discussion with a Sufi teacher who reminded me of things I’d written before. Sometimes, because we’re all human, the fear or expectation we place on ourselves takes the wheel or we stay stagnant to maintain, often forgetting everything is happening all at once. We only know the familiar, and we do ourselves the disfavour of replaying that same very familiarity with slight tweaks. However, to go into the unknown, to constantly be out of the comfort of familiarity is where we grow. Everything is ever changing and everything will test you. If not this, then it will be the next. This is a sign of gratitude, you’re being levelled up, having all your efforts marked to take over into the next.
We can forget to repeat, reconfirm the resolve. I often see this in myself when my paintings all do a sudden look confused to me and that’s when the conversation starts again. As the phrase goes, ‘I accept myself, just as I am, and then I change.’ There is one conversation which kept on repeating itself throughout Ramadan which I didn’t share with others, and that is the topic of anger. I was asked by a few people about this emotion, reaction, variable that I hadn’t allowed myself or fully engaged in for a while. And yet, I’d started making red paintings again however red for me has never just been about anger. It’s also passion, desire, lust,, devotion, action. So rightfully these paintings I didn’t want to just hold up to ‘anger’ in its most stubborn form. There’s the before, after and constant throughout anger, there’s heartbreak, anticipation, passion, movement, love, heat from the way we speak and heat from our bodies keeping themselves alive.
When I mentioned I was choosing silence in some capacity, I was told it wasn’t my time to go down this path. I was told to get angry, and ‘you’re in your 30s. Now is not the time to refrain or stay silent. I’m 45, I’ve had my youth of letting everything flow from my tongue. Now is my time for silence, not yours. Throw yourself into the heartbreak. We’re sufis, we lead each other into the depths of intensity. Embrace it.’ Nothing that was said to me today was anything new. But, as I mentioned before, we forget the resolve, we hear other egos, we loose sight of the larger picture, we blur our connection to the Divine, but you can’t have peace without the destruction. We fall into anxieties for after all we were created anxious and this, is all human. At the end of last year, I wrote a review of my 52 weeks which you can read here. This still serves as a resolve when I feel I am too distant from my calling in this world.
4 months ago, I understood to never shut up, I understood how to manifest, how to roar and how I woke up. All because of the outside, the community, the support built as we embraced each other’s backs. Today, it’s another waking up, where then it was the allowance of those vocal cords to sing. Today it’s the internal inner voice. Where is that anger, where is that desire, heartbreak, resolve? The red paintings made before and throughout Ramadan, so different to the green forests of the mind I’d painted before. These red pieces were internal organs, the blood during birth, the sweat between bodies, the biting of another’s lip. So if one is the ahkl, the other was the body. If one was the heavens, the other was this earth.
Understand your power is not meant just to be solitarily harboured even if we intentionally choose this, the energy will flow and spill. So do it with intention, intention towards yourself, and intention knowing others will pick up on your actions as they serve a mirror to you.
Eros, 2024. Study, oil on canvas. 50 x 60cm. Available from the studio
There were other things which we spoken of. Love, messages (or downloads/instinct), instant release of events, how capitalism and individualism has repackaged our traditions to sell it back to us, the foreshadowing of our tests which one we knew would be our parents or children - specifically the death of a loved one and how this will ultimately change, or even for some ruin us, tapping into the wisdom of my Yemeni ancestry while referencing Hadiths speaking about the graciousness of Yemenis, how each word we say is a prayer so be careful what you manifest, how time does not exist (one of my ever present favourite things to talk about) and expressive outputs.
I originally was going to omit this. It is a tough lesson for myself to speak about the following.
When listening to yourself, don’t forget to watch your actions too. I’ve learnt throughout my life, that time really is a construct built for humans on Earth. Everything happens all at once. We can shift our perception and realities by single thoughts and actions. It’s important to note, we can negotiate with Allah, how something happens and the journey we’re prepared to experience in a certain way, but less so on the time, date and destination written. Time and time again, you will occasionally wonder why it wasn’t you, until you show up to the aftermath. You’re speaking to a loved one of who was there before and you’re thankful it wasn’t you in the prior months because then you wouldn’t be having this exact conversation with the person in front of you, and all of a sudden you’re thankful. Always remember, there is a reason for everything.
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Casually
Almost unaware
Buying things in pairs
As though I’m expecting a guest
Who stays the mile
Until our children
Take our place
Untitled poems 29/02/2024
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There are multiple degrees of intuitions from dreams to gut instinct or followed through action. Before I could mention to this teacher I started unintentionally buying things in pairs. I had been doing this for weeks and eventually wrote a poem about this without any particular person in mind. My teacher told me ‘Your next marriage wouldn’t be like my first.’ If it sounds like a download, it’s probably a download. Intuition just is. Fantasy is forced, even replayed time and time again in our minds to justify its wanted existence. You end up learning the difference between intuition and fantasy. I replied with a quiet ‘okay’ while he handed me a tissue to wipe a tear away. ‘Trust the unknown’ he would repeat. I tell people they’ll be fine all the time and I truly believe it. Your own medicine can be the hardest to swallow though.
When I’ve spoken of ‘love’, there’s 24 degrees and 11 types of love in the Arabic language. These go beyond romance, although I won’t, I can’t abandon this strain of love. You have to understand love is the source of all life. Love is God. Or source to some if you will. To love is a way of life.
I've always said, love freely. Do it honestly, and expect nothing in return. Don't try to justify why or how it exists. Just let it be. It is not limited. We never run out of it. By justifying or over thinking, you take yourself out of the moment. For whatever reason. The 11 types of love interweave, grow and fall back. Nothing is sedentary. Sometimes the counterpart is yourself, at other times it's another, but it always starts with the self.
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Amend
Words I should have said
Instead of the words I mentioned
In the heat of the moment
To hope to reassure
A counterpart
My kindred spirit
That all is well
Because all truly is well
And all is the way life is intended
At this time
Between us
Right here
I should have said
This strain of this feeling
Isn’t absent
Speaking of this in lesser measures
To reassure and preserve
What was and is still here
Before the unspoken
Was stifled
Rather it is present
In unknown measures
In unknown depth
This is more than okay
Despite why it exists
That this particular strain
Of this particular feeling
This particular sentiment
Has departed
Because it exists
Continues to exist
Exists in my chest
Down to my stomach
Despite its root
Regardless of it’s destination
This is more than okay
I wish I hadn’t said
A particular part is absent
It still lingers in the air
Despite any destination
And this is more than okay
This is more than okay
Written mid April 2024.
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Even in the past few minutes of writing I’ve traveled through anger to love. Almost reminding me how Mars and Venus converse with each other in the sky. One of the main take aways from conversing with Irfan was the reassurance of the unknown. Fortune always favours the brave. So red paintings, themes of love and anger in the way I want to explore them, must continue. The leaning into my intuition, and learning of mystic systems must continue. But always trust the unknown, every word in a prayer so speak and act with intention.
None of this work means anything without the work with others. Keep the resolve, keep growing. And remember when some are avoidant of the journey, look to yourself and your reactions rather than others. It’s our egos, our hearts which speak in their own language unique to us. Not anyone else. And, love deeply. Always deeply.