The Call

Shuffling Ostara Tarot deck, a deck I haven’t introduced myself to officially yet, or introduced to myself. A deck that’s been traveling a lot and far to get to me. Many cities, an ocean, a great big carbon footprint.

Out pops the Magician. Sideways. I righted her, though.

Ostara Tarot – I – The Magician

What began was an uncomfortable investigation in an uncomfortable moment. And I think it generated a new tarot spread.

Card 1: The Call

The first card that pops up, throws itself at you, slips gently out, turns over in a shuffle fumble: the first card that shows up on its own without being pulled is the card that is calling you. Calling you up; calling you out; calling you to; calling you from, or for, or with.

The Magician is the call to concentrate, to “use your power or let it languish” the Ostara book says. Stop futzing around over the process and get to it. You have everything to begin. Now begin.

The call to be is to be a conduit, in your power, confident.

The call to do is to concentrate, focus.

Card 2: The Question and Response

Ask a question that comes out of the call. To open the call, to bring it in, to understand it, to challenge it. To whine. To resist.

Question: What about the pain?

5 of Cups Reversed: Spills your fears. The lessons have been learned. Ostara Tarot.

Answer: Spill your fears. Whatever was going to be learned is learned, whatever you were worried about has happened. Snakes have been by, it’s all happened. “The road to healing lies before you now.”

Card 3: Okay but…

Ask the actual clarifying question.

Okay but there’s too much of a need to hold it all tight. I feel like a 4 of Pentacles, tightly held together, balanced and precarious and constrained. I can’t let go fears and still function.

Answer: Knight of Wands

Knight of Wands – Ostara Tarot

“Full-on pursuit of an idea” with committment and energy. Growing cofidence, new ability to handle challenges.

be: confident and passionate

do: focused pursuit

Card 4: And so one more thing though.

The heart of the matter probably resides here. This is what is most worrying, the one that you wait till the end to deal with, before you finally cave to the call, submit to the call.

Question: And so what about me and my love?

Answer: King of Pentacles. Who is meditative, consistent, dutiful. Avarice and overthinking are a concern, but the root of the card is the slow build, the long view, the diligent, piece-by-piece building of the wealth of live, in harmony with the earth. But that power is deep, and powerful, and can take over. Mastery over the material can lead to consuming too much, being consumed, being devoured by your own mastery. Balance is essential at all times. Be a bee, not a wendigo. I think.

Card 5: So in sum, how do we understand what this call is?

2 of Wands: Stop stalling. Follow the birds, follow the passion, follow the ideas.

You have it all. Concentrate, focus, and go get it. Stop being scattered. Pull your shit together emotionally by dumping all your fears. 5 Cups Reversed means that the block that is a 5 is unblocked now. Or rather, this is how you unblock the 5 block. Turn it upside down, spill all the emotions your holding. Let them all out.

You know what you need and you know how to get it. Pull the magic together, follow the passion, take the first steps, and know that we’re going, we’re building, we’re making, we’re healing, we’re growing. Slow and steady, build with small magics.

Alhamdulillah wa Allahu ‘Alim | الحمد لله و الله عالم

میں جو سر بسجدہ ہوا کبھی

تو زمیں سے آنے لگی سدا

تیرا دل تو ہے صنم آشنا

تجھے کیا ملے گا نماز میں

اقبال

Sickie, hate thyself (don’t).

I’ve been feeling like shit for about four or five days now. Premenstrual; got period today. First I was depressed, then I got a weird aura for about a day almost. Not aura, prodrome. Something. I don’t see anything but my vision is fucked in exactly the shape of what people say is an aura. Not even blurred. Just a feeling like something is on my eye. I’ve grown a mountain range on my eyeball and it’s not that I can’t see it’s just that I don’t know what I’m seeing. It’s not even that I don’t know. Just that it’s not the same stuff as everything else. It’s all so demoralizing.

I just counted. It’s only day 3 of this. Whatever this is that has ended in a migraine and my period starting. But it feels like 4 or 5. I haven’t done any work. I can’t. I start and then I poop out. I went to the bank. And yesterday, I brought my partner food up from the kitchen one time. And there was something else I did do. On Sunday maybe. But I’m not sure what else I’ve done that should make me feel like there’s something to me. My brain was all active and shit, and now it’s just tired. I get tired of being alone in my head so much, yet when other people are around, I haven’t got anything to say. What is that even.

Who is my advocate?

رَبُّ المشرِقِ والمغرِبِ لا الهَ إلّا هُوَ فاتَّخِذُهُ وَكِيلاً

the rabb of the east and the west, there is no god but him so take him as your advocate

7:39

I was in Qur’an class today with my teacher. We were studying a different surah, but she spoke about this surah as something we’ll start next class, and then we listened to the qirat of this surah, up to this ayat. So Surah Muzammil, 73:1-9.

I found it deeply moving and reassuring, in a time where I’m having trouble going to prayer, but I’m dying to be close to God, that this is the ayat my heart stopped at.

God of the east. That’s here, where I am. Where all of us in the class are. Which was wonderful, because our interpretations come from elsewhere when they liberate us, and from home when they hurt us. And we’ll change that.

God of the west. Where we are told and we believe that knowledge comes from, forward-moving comes from, learning come from. Us, the colonized.

There is no God besides Him. So take him as your advocate.

God is my advocate. It’s so crucial to my sad and fearful heart. God is my advocate. God will tell them when they hurt me, God will fight for me. God speaks for me. God is there for me. And with me.

I am queer and the Qur’an is mine. Alhamdulillah. I love you, Allah.

be-jamaat – بے جماعت

بے جماعت: to be without a jamaat. It looks a lot more ominous than I intended, but I wonder if it’s a real thing. That we are, in some sense, be-jamaat until we find each other, we queers. Yes? We are without a jamaat.

با جماعت: ba jamaat, literally with jamaat, but actually means to do something in congregation. namaaz ba jamaat: congregational prayer.

Do you think we are without jamaat?

be-jamaat

I can’t pray without other people. Since we started being involved queer and feminist jamaat, I’ve realized how important praying in jamaat is. And now that I’m mostly alone in the parental home for a bit, I don’t feel like praying because it’s lonely and doesn’t feel real. I wonder if that’s a bad thing, or I’m on the way to something better. I hope it’s the latter, but I fear it’s the former, that I’m allowing the love of jamaat to make me spiritually lazy on my own.

I’ve always struggled with namaz.

Letter to the Gay Boy Tola II

You can’t call me a bitch. Just because you use female pronouns amongst yourselves sometimes and I’ll sometimes use male pronouns — and none of us is trans — doesn’t mean that you are a woman too or just like a woman. You can’t call me bitch. You can’t ask me if I wax my hoohaa. (Kya tum apni chirrya saaf karti ho jani?”) You can’t grab my boobs and then say, “I’m gay, baji. It doesn’t matter.”

You’re a man. You benefit from patriarchy. You don’t have a right to invade my body just because you don’t fuck women. You can’t cuss at me just because you say about yourself, “I’m a sensitive girl, you know.” You’re not entitled to intimate knowledge about me just because you talk about the vagaries of your penis all the time.

Fibromyalgia is so complex, and annoying.

Day before yesterday, during a communal event that was emotionally full (and somewhat taxing, but mostly wonderful), I got a knot in the middle of my chest that I thought was pure emotion. Over time I realized it’s gas. But when I cured the gas situation by the end of the day, I was exhausted.

Yesterday, I had a migraine that started with my hair roots being on fire with pain on one side of my head and my arm going numb. It took ages for it to even register as a migraine, and when ti did it blew my head off. It fucked up all my cheer by 10pm (which is okay, I slept at 1am), but I was having a good day and it just fucked me up.

Today I woke up energetic and became grumpy for no reason within half an hour. Two and a half hours later, my whole body is exhausted and my joints hurt.

Fibromyalgia is crazy. Happy is not a tenable goal. Just a waystation through a bonkers life of exhaustion and pain.

We interrupt this programme for a public service reminder:

feminist-aspiring cis het men are such a fucking disappointment

you may now go about your business.

I have been imamah for two Friday prayers since Muharram started. They were inclusive and queer and beautiful. And awkward and gentle and trepidatious and brilliant. Queer jamaat is beautiful. Alhamdulillah.