Bliss In Practice

I was thinking about Snow White in her constant sleep. When I was a little girl, I wondered what she was dreaming about. As I got older, I became fascinated with Shakespeare. My favorite tragedy was Hamlet. The soliloquy lines “In that sleep of death, what dreams may come?” presented the same question. Despite the worried look on my family's faces whenever they were presented with my morbid fascinations, I began to realize how a certain set of social norms directed us toward a life that felt more like death. Isn't it normal to make your objective and your focus your career, a family, your physical appearance? Aren't these worthy goals? The accumulation of things can make us happy, can't they? Don't you want a bite of that shiny red apple? Most people will confirm that they do and should make one or more of these things their priority. What happens if you make your career your main objective, and you get laid off or fired? What happens wh

FITRA Fitra, or fitrah (Arabic فطرة ), is an Arabic word meaning ‘disposition’, ‘nature’, ‘constitution’, or ‘instinct’.The word fitrah comes from the Arabic radicals fa ta ra.The root action means, he clove, split, slit, rent or cracked it. The term fitrah literally means, creation; the causing a thing to exist for the first time; and the natural constitution with which a child is created in his mother’s womb. It is for this reason that Muslims prefer to refer to those who embrace Islam as reverts rather than converts, as it is believed they are returning to a perceived pure state. Babies don't have a problem with self image. They have milk from their mother because they're hungry and they don't care what anyone thinks about their crying and attempts at the breast. They feel themselves become stronger and are up for a new challenge. Time to crawl! Yes they mushed their nose on the carpet a hundred times and even went backwards for a while but do they giv

TRUE STORY A woman called into the hospital last night. She explained that her 12 year old son had a concussion. She had been waking him up every hour for the past two days and was exhausted. I asked her to continue her story. She explained that she had a requisition for a CT scan but she had to wait for tomorrow for the appointment. Should she just bring him to the emergency room tonight? Then...she started to cry. Clearly, she was not asking for factual information, she needed emotional support. Like most situations when we are asked for help, we step lively and are careful with our advice. I decided to manage her feelings by encouraging her to listen to her mother's intuition. Whether or not she stayed the night in the emergency room is unknown to me and I will probably never know the outcome of the events with her son, a sort of open system if you will. HAVE YOU HAD TOO MUCH TO THINK TODAY? Scary thoughts run through a mother's head when their

While looking for the next sura to read, I came across one that drew me because of it's title “Ranged in Rows”. The title struck me for 2 reasons. I liked the alliteration in the title, it rolled off the tongue. I also was curious as to what exactly was (a)ranged in rows. So, why “ranged” and not “arranged”? My first thought was that of course the angels are always arranged by Allah. They have no will of their own. Then I thought, ranged reminds me of an artillery range which again is fitting with the first image of a stellar battleground. As soon as I typed “ranged” into google the first 3 things that pop up are ranged training, ranged weapons, ranged armour all have to do with runescape. The rows bit is I think  referring to the hierarchy of angels. The first being on the “front lines” to protect any eavesdropping on the “higher assembly”. I then turned my attention to the psychological effect of sound symbolism in the first 10 lines. Alliteration helps to cre

When I was little I remember my uncle playing a game with me called “ got your nose ”. Maybe you remember it too. Pretending to grab my nose off my face and using his covered thumb knuckle to show me he had really “got my nose”. Then as I became older we learned a rhyme called “here is the church” where I could manipulate my own hand into the image of a church, steeple and inside all the people. Check out this YouTube channel if you don't know what I mean. ;) As I got older, I looked to art and design to understand different ways to perceive the world. David Spriggs is a Canadian installation artist. His 2008 sculptural exhibit called Emergence of Perception tells a story of the seen and the unseen. The structures are almost smoky in effect being composed of white acrylic, transparent film, metal springs, eyelets and light. His art is meant to be appreciated from all sides. And when you walk around the object, you feel your perception change. From the front,you perceive

October 1 2016 will mark 9 months since I took my shahada. The time it takes to give birth. So I thought it might be appropriate to write about my gestational period so to speak. The early days were full of excitement, wonder and innocently questioning my sense of qibla direction. Getting the basics down like how to perform wudu, the reason behind wudu and what exactly counted as 1 rakat were a joyful learning curve. Baby steps...baby steps. During those first young months, I struggled for a reference point. My means of understanding Islam were rooted in Catholicism. I compared and contrasted ideas and methods in the two religions, trying to reach conclusions. My interior dialogue had 2 mother tongues and I felt that I was straddling two worlds. I still am very much straddling those two worlds and I'm guessing this would be much more difficult for a new Muslim who wasn't a born Canadian. That blurry sense of identity is bred in my bones and so it's a place I can dw

How beautiful an artifact you are The atom involved in your beating heart Flung from the vast wilderness of the stars A million years before Melted and boiled with a look Separated like sugar I see all levels in you When I whirl around making microcosms sha’af , law’ah , li’aj taym

Power and Miracles of Islam - Submission to Allah proven by Animals - Video Dailymotion : http://www.femo.tv/ Miracles & Power of Islam - Submission to Allah proven by Animals

We know the story of Ibrahim and the sacrifice he was asked to make. But do we truly understand the meaning and lesson behind the idea of sacrifice? How can we give this idea context in the modern world? What is Allah's allegory? We can start with the dictionary definition of sacrifice. Miriam Webster and Oxford dictionaries define sacrifice as an act of offering to a deity something precious; especially the killing of a victim on an altar.    Pagan vs Islamic Sacrifice and Justice   Pagan sacrifice often involved humans. Some historical accounts indicate that children were sacrificed because they were considered pure. Often if an animal was sacrificed, it was left on the altar. It was considered food for the gods and should not be consumed by humans. Ancients performed ritual sacrifice to gain favours like success in battle, a good crop yield and as retainers for the afterlife of the rich. The Qur'an strongly condemns human sacrifice, as a "grave error and

Today I stumbled upon an interesting article written by Raj Ragunathan PhD in Psychology Today. The article begins with a recollection of the movie The Matrix. At the turning point of the movie, Morpheus asks Neo which pill he would like – the blue pill which will return him to his normal life thinking what he has experienced was all just a dream, or the red pill where he stays in Wonderland and sees how deep the rabbit hole is. All Morpheus is offering is the Truth, nothing more. We all have a vested interest in knowing the truth. But what if the choice given was between knowing the truth and being happy? Dr Ragnauthan and Yaacov Trope conducted a series of studies testing whether happy or sad participants would be more willing to process negative information about caffeine. The test results revealed that participants in a negative mood were more likely to process positive information about caffeine thereby "repairing" their mood (i.e., becoming more "

Let's consider hunger. Look at the way we think about hunger. We use hunger to refer to many different aspects of our lives. We hunger for food, we have a sexual appetite, we hunger for justice, we hunger for divine grace. Sura Al Ma'ida lists things that are appropriate to hunger for. Halal food, chaste believing women, wudu and cleanliness, justice in covenants and oaths and the light of divine teachings. Allah (swt) says “All good things are lawful for you” He is spreading a feast before us. He says eat from this table. Then the sura makes a juxtaposition and talks about the things that feast on you, things that eat you up inside such as: cowardice, jealousy, anger, hypocrisy, pandering and excess. Let's take a look at the story of Cain and Abel inserted into the middle of the sura. It acts as a pivot point between the two descriptions. What does it have to do with hunger? Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer. So they both produced food. Good but