Slow burning & the ironing of ribs…

This body we carry around is such a vehicle. It has its own set of really sophisticated detectors; it produces tears when our heart is touched by something sorrow-brining or joy-filling, two emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum. It gives us burning sensations when we feel great joy, or great annoyance, or great anticipation. What is really impressive is that it uses the same set of symptoms to indicate a host of contradicting emotions. Our knees can become jelly-like when we win a prize, go on stage to sing, receive really bad news, or get an unexpected bouquet of roses.

The burning sensation that eats away at our nerves, making us cough nervously and ready to shoot ourselves, can be brought about by many stimuli… it can be triggered by intense locked up emotions that you fight all day long so you won’t express them impulsively, colossally, crazily. I know people with great ability to bear the heat of anticipation, love, emotions, joy, sorrow; they aren’t the “burnt onion” kinda folk.

On the other hand when one’s onion is the type that can turn into charcoal the instant love starts forming in the horizon… expect a lot of suffering. Suffering is not limited to bad things in life, suffering is a word that signifies an over-activity of emotions taking place around the body, the ribs included (Um Kalthoum was right when she sang: Yakwee Adlo3ee – ironing my ribs). When suffering hits the heart that’s when we enter the red zone, but if it’s still in the ribs, bones and flesh, then it’s orange, or yellow, depending on the intensity.

We suffer when we fall in love because we aren’t trained to take high temperature. If we were built from something other than flesh (like Light, for instance), I think our ability to sit calmly inside the fire of love, like Prophet Ibrahim, would have been double fold (“Ya naru kooni bardan wa Salaman 3ala Ibrahim”). I admire people who burn and brace themselves and carry on with life without any sign of fatigue. The “khroo2” (weak) type, like this writer, melt under such pressure and start walking into walls (fooot fil 7eetan).

When fire starts burning the flesh of the impulsive type of woman with onion-ready-to-turn-into-charcoal temperament, then expect a lot of suffering. You try to relieve yourself from some of the internal steam by filtering through some messages here and there, not as an attempt to win over your beloved as much as an attempt to stop yourself from exploding.

I don’t know if the slow ironing of ribs can be captured on x-ray… Ya Mogheeeth.

Men who have 3-meter thick walls around them…

There is a certain breed of man who is locked within a thick, 3-meter wide wall; bullet proof, water proof, everything proof, that you cannot reach that man easily. Why am I complaining? – I am a good example of the same kind of wall-locked woman.

But it is quite interesting and challenging to see the “protection” mechanism at work. The worst kind of man (romantically speaking) is the man who maneuvers from behind barricades. He comes out to meet you when you’re totally un-interested, and runs back in at the faintest sign of interest. Very tiring in deed, very tiring.

He communicates with you using everything, but straight-forward language, as medium. He knows (and that’s the part I hate) that you are picking up on all the sign language he is using; he plays with your heart’s strings from a distance, making sure it beats a little bit for him, but without putting himself in a compromising position where he has to reveal himself, and open his heart and get involved and fall in love, and … eventually get hurt (or hurt you). I know, it’s the getting-hurt part that keeps them hiding inside their shell. 3adi.

The merits of straightforwardness

A few days ago I met a Sufi man, not for the first time, he happens to be in my community of Sufi chanters, regularly attending Zikr (Sufi gatherings and Hardas). He shocked me with his straightforwardness, although what he said was something I knew already. Hearing it out loud was something completely different.

The veils inside

It’s very interesting to see how there is a wall between what we think about inside our heads and hearts (we are veiled & divided), and the expression we create into the universe. Some thoughts dwell inside our hearts and minds for decades but saying them out loud can make them lose their meaning, or maybe shock us a bit, or take them from the safe realm of being inside our “Secret” (sirr) and out into the desecrating world we live in.

Some people treat love this way, they cherish you so much that they don’t let you know – unless after they lose you – and of course when you realize how great their love for you has been while they have been making you walk over broken glass and coal, you start appreciating your training in the field of communication. Communicators are people with such a great blessing, not all people have that talent, my heart goes out for the ones who don’t (myself included)!

Benchmarking love

What the Sufi man did was create a new benchmark for my expectations from men; a very high, unreachable one. He vocalized the impossible; I am positive no other man would be comfortable enough with his soul to say what he told me – it’s totally out of this world. He is a Sufi Sheikh with whom I have frequent conversations, we have great rapport, and understand each other without even talking. Sometimes he reads words right off my mind before they reach my tongue.

What he told me made me realize that there are at least 3-meters of wall & clay and steel around the man I am faintly, barely, occasionally, distantly, and  patiently “flirting” with… if this description applies (talk about great fun!). It’s the thickest wall I have every bumped into in my whole life… so thick one really wonders… is there something going on or what is this exactly.

Raising the white flag on you, my Damascene gazelle.