Piracy or Communism

Dome of the Salah ud Din Ayoubi Mosque in Egypt- resembling Jung's idea of a Mandala

Jung and I divert on spirituality and other stuff. But sometimes he says the damndest of things!!
Like:

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human
existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being

Every form of
addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or
idealism.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect
but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays
with the objects it loves.

The pendulum of the mind
alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

What do you call it when you're thinking something and it jumps in front of your eyes? This is what happened when I read these quotes.

He would call it synchronicity, scientists would call it mere coincidence and I call it wow:)

Munch or Wffllghmmsht

Cooking makes me feel human

Soil or Concrete

Hospitals and prisons- places where Hollywood makes great series and also places I think are totally irrational and Cornelius Fudge. Prisons would take me years of bitching so let’s concentrate on the first.

When I watched Patch Adams I got irritated with its feel-good syrupy disney-coated feel. However, since watching the movie about a year ago, I have had two scary ICU experiences involving close, close family members. And I felt like doing a Patch.

I felt like reassuring the specialists- Medicine is not an exact science, sometimes a smile can be more helpful than all the euphemistic jargon that scares an already confused family member.

I felt like clearing out an entire visitor’s room and declaring it an adult-free area. All my dad’s 8 grandchildren wanted to be see him in the hospital but after all they are kids. They will forget the gravity of the situation, which I think is a blessing from Allah (SWT). They need space to muck up and make noise and be naturally hallucinogenic.

I felt like retreating from reality into a black hole where I was with my Creator, since that is the only realm that seemed to make sense. Material reality flees in the face of Mortality no matter how much Faith and Hope we harvest.

Yet the sterile atmosphere of a hospital hardly allows such natural instincts. Very few hospitals have suitable prayer facilities which I think are absolutely necessary. Waiting in the corridors trying to confound nurses into telling you what you want to hear does little for your soul and resilience. Sometimes you need to let go of control. I’m serious about the kiddy rooms. I know I’m writing this from a middle class medical aided perspective, and our public hospitals cannot even fit into this description.

What else I think would be helpful is an aftercare helpdesk. No matter how serious the ailment we should have a desk where family members could utilise their energy researching how to look after the patient instead of worrying. The quote on my facebook page is Alex Kerev of Grey’s Anatomy declaring that one should be honest with patients about their chance of life, or death. I’m not disputing this but like Izzy and psychoanalyst Sullivan I believe anxiety can be spread interpsychically. I think the Prophet (SAW)’s sunnah of visiting the ill makes a strong statement about the support and care a community must offer those in difficult circumstances- a prime example of which is a hospital. I understand nurses and doctors have important work to do but at the end of the day they are working not only for the patient but for all those connected to the patient as well.
I have little knowledge of medicine but in my skewed idealist world I believe small changes matter.

Dodgems or Perinaise & wedges

My email signature is "words should be like rainbows". These words seem, contrary to intention, to be very misleading. One of my friends asked if I'd left the cynical-yang movement implying I'd given in to the movement Pink termed in her outstanding work as "Stupid girls". Someone else said that it was irony that my words are seldom like rainbows, simply because I said something not very pleasant and pretty to them.

I think it all smores down to what you think rainbows ARE. If you think rainbows are just there to look pretty and make you pause and think about God's creation for a while, that's good enough for you. The same goes if you think rainbows are gay and should only be admired by girls with "little doggies and teenie weenie tees". I see much more in rainbows. And words.

For example how rainbows are formed. They're not created by charms, what actually happens is that sunlight is dispersed through water droplets in to me what seems like a complex process of refraction and reflection. I wish words were formed that way. I wish people would consider their words, reflect them through different lenses and then present them to me. The once they are presented to me they have to be refracted through my ideas and little zaps to create a rainbow of understanding. This might seem like a dial-up process in the age of instant messaging and mxit, but reflect on Yusuf Islam's words on the Prophet (SAW): "He spoke with the fewest of words and the broadest of meanings".

Rainbows are also optical illusions. The observer's position affects how she or he will see it. Words are much like that. No matter how much technology progresses, it will never be able to capture words. Even magic could not pensieve the tonnes of connotations and inflections contained in a single syllable.

This for me is a sort of ideal. Which is why I say words SHOULD be like rainbows. It is a sort of aspiration I have, to work on my words, reflect them on all the voices in my head, and then experiment them on others' lenses to form the perfect rainbow. Yes, the perfect rainbow does feel pretty, and makes me appreciate God's creation and is a little gay.

Growing OR Lossing (to rhyme with flossing)

I like my black hole.

I know she is fascinating inside like a rainbow spinning wheel.


When the world obtrudes, she gives me space.

The hawking radiation in my eyes makes them glitter and hurt.


I'll never understand her but it is enough to know she exists.

So much I have believed in has not existed but she is different.

It is my everythingness that has created her so she is to stay.

Invitations OR Mode over Native D!!

I want to savour the high and exhaustion of this experience.

At the Yusuf Estes "Cool Islam" workshop this morning our group "Mode" consisting of mainly high school students with a smattering of uni die-hards like meself, had to come up with a rap song or nursery rhyme representing an Islamic value. We had like twenty minutes and this is what we came up with. It's a combination of nursery rhyme and rap song with a unique rhythm. Huge shout out of credit to Mode- Azeezah, Zaynab, Zeenat, Nazrana, Fatima, Maymoonah, Lubnaa, Nadia, Mariam and moi.

RHYME

Aysha Hijabi sat on the wall

Along came Yusuf, handsome and tall

RAP

He looked in her diretion, with passion & affection\

With the wink of an eye

smooth and fly

Ayesha got shy

RHYME

Shining like the sun

He said, hun

let's have some fun

RAP

Aysha, go with the flow and flirt with Joe,

Play it cool and don't look like a fool

No. Aysha that's not right

Think of it in Allah's sight

M to the O tothe D to the E

Modesty is key, don't you see?

To the S, T, Y

Taqwa makes you fly

RHYME

Wa laa taqrabuz zinna

It doesn't take u far,

Love is only for Allah

Patience and Sabr, I can have roses in my Kabr,

Allah rewards u for waiting, so forget about dating

The time wil come,

Allah will send you the one

M to the O tothe D to the E
Modesty is key, don't you see?

To the S, T, Y
Taqwa makes you fly

There are some feelings that never go away.

The high I get from involvement is like that for me.

Laudium OR Kiddyness

Taste memory is fascinating.

Laudium, the land of my kiddyness and beyond has, in order of importance, Romans, Mochachos, Nandos, Mohideens and Wimpy.

Yet if anyone asks me for landmarks, I will say that you get the best, richest-flavoured syrup mangoes and lemons that come in super-sized packets in Delhi Street.
Mouthwatering messy iceblocks are savoured in Heliodoor Street.
The tangiest orange chroria are at the entrance to the Link Road.

What I am nostalgic about most is that we could walk to all those places from our friends' houses.
I am old.

*Afterthought*- Since I am romanticising the debris that is Laudium: In Laudium when somoeone passes away, so many people come to pay their respects that the car guards vacate the fast food outlets' parking lots and converge outside the funeral house....

If I was a famous woman in history I would be...

MARIE ANTOINETTE

No, this is not a dumb facebook quiz.
I just watched the movie, which altho exercises liberal artistic license is luverly.

And she is ME. In many aspects. Like:

• Living on chocolate and dessert


• Clapping in the opera (if it weren't for my friends sensitivities I would make the movies more interactive)


• Being surrounded by protocol and bureaucracy and tradition she finds laughable


• Laughing at all of the above


• Youngest daughter


• Displacing her frustrations (ok so she used drinking and men and shopping. I use shooting and morbid poems and fiction. Displacement is displacement).
• Having a hard to pronounce name
• Weird "ridiculous" rumours. Like the one that I was dating an Afrikaner guy. Nooj does NOT date. Although I have met Afrikaner guys who are more pleasant than their Indian counterparts.
• Bubblebaths!!!

I don't think I would squander tax money. My weaknesses as a leader would probably be idealism. I'd try to make everyone happy and ignore power plays. I would, therefore, be a weak and ineffectual leader. Also I would not be a good example for my citizens since I hate norms- one of the reasons Teaching was never an option for me.

Love OR Sacrifice

Will I survive if my kids don't share the same passions as me???

Reflections OR Visions

K Pax said that he can travel from one position in space to another using mirrors.

Lots of people travel within my mirrors.

If you are on my mind, you are in my mirror.

I.m not sure if this is really related to my idea, but the Prophet Muhammed (SAW) said, "A believer is a mirror to his brother"

Related by Al Bukhari in Al Adab Al Mufrad and by Abu Dawood.

Do I LIKE learning the hard way? OR Chance is synonymous with opportunity

Ever since I got my new car (her name is Buraaq-ah denoting silver, female, winged horse that can take you to Heaven) I've wanted a teddybear at the back to keep her company while I'm at work. I found a gorgeous little doggy in Margate- with melted Dairymilk eyes.

My six year old niece climbed in to my car and immediately made friends with Hafez (denoting Guardian). She started sticking him on her window and taking him off, you know with that sticky thing. I thought it might break, but decided not to shout her firstly because she gives the tightest hugs from all 8 of my gremlins and secondly because who said that it was a sure thing that she'll break it? She broke it. Now Hafez has to sit in the corner of the back windscreen and can't see as much as he could before.

This experience reminds me of a few instances in my past:

Feb 2007-
Friends: "Don't order a fish burger from a Halaal Wimpy because lots of people order beef burgers so the fish is probably old"
Me: You guys are so pessimistic"
I got food poisoning

Apr 1998-
Sister: "Don't speak to X when he phones you because you don't like him the way he likes you. He'll interpret it differently"
Me: "No man we're just friends"
The next day we're the school's hottest item.

The thing is, I think I would probably do the same thing again.
I think it's because I got a lot of opportunities as kid. No one really took off at me.
The other explanation is that I'm dumb and don't learn from my experiences.

I think being dumb is a good trait for a psychologist to have because no matter how many times your clients disappoint you, you always hope that this is the last time.