don't imagine the rain falling on you, imagine yourself rising up to meet each drop

We are created from dust and clay. It's a pretty fair consensus amongst the religious and gets shuffled along with the sentiment of how common we are in Friday lectures at the Mosque. And it always tickles me the tone of derision with which it's said;

"We are made from dust. We are nothing, insignificant."

I never really got the hang of that. We're made from the Earth; we are, as we live, an organic extension of an incredibly complex matrix of inter-living. I am the Earth, and the Earth is within me - and through it I exist within, and when I surrender myself at death, without myself. It's thrilling to imagine being a part of that kind of magic, that we aren't alien in our world, we are a part of it, incubating a soul.

The next time you're about in a muddy field, lose the shoes and socks and squelch your feet in the mud and imagine yourself being connected, or remembering, where your skin (oh yeah, your skin and bones) come from.

What really perplexes me though, is the general disregard amongst our learned Muslims of the universe. It's there, why aren't we pushing through the thoughts of our Creator and spirit through an infinite expanse? It should be discussed more from our pulpits and at our dinner tables. It'll help the case anyway - don't tell me I'm made of dust, tell me the Earth and the sun are puny bodies in a majestic universe, that Bellatrix is four times hotter and a hunderd times bigger than our feeble furnace. When you consider the galaxy and the universe, you heart shivers a little to imagine yourself scaled to insignificance.

And the Universe, which is an undeniable creation, is something we are a part of too.

What do you need to make a man:

Iron enough to make a nail,

Lime enough to paint a wall,

Water enough to drown a dog,

Sulfur enough to stop the fleas,

Poison enough to kill a cow,

Potash enough to wash a shirt,

Gold enough to buy a bean,

Silver enough to coat a pin,

Lead enough to ballast a bird,

Phosphor enough to light the town,

Strength enough to build a home,

Time enough to hold a child,

Love enough to break a heart.

Iron, thallium, indium, gold, uranium, tungsten. We have an enormous mix of different trace metals within us. Fine and dandy. Thing is, while dust and clay are easy enough to come by, the amount of energy required to make an ounce of Iron can't be found in our solar system.

No, really. Eight and a half planets and a sun 1,300 times bigger than us all put together couldn't make an ounce of Iron.

Iron is formed in the hearts of intense and unimaginable heats and energies that happen when stars burst and go supernova. Those celestial explosions, which would wipe out everything we can conceive in an instant, went into making us.

We are, of the universe. Say that out loud in front of an overly bearded Muslim type and you'll get reprimands of disbeliever. In my experience and opinion anyway. But knowing that we are a spirit housed in a living extension of the Earth and ignited with the majesty of the Universe, inspires a kind of serenity and wonder.If all of that's not indicative of a Power that we cannot begin to comprehend, then nothing is.

Go visit your planetarium, and look at the horse head nebula. They all exist within you. Yeah baby, you. Doesn't that make your creation and purpose all the more significant?

'Course it does.

never try to predict what sufjan stevens is about to do

A decade of the noughties fades out to the anticipation and hype of "twenny ten"¹. more than three and a half thousand days since the millenium hype (and here I refer both to the MS Windows OS and the Backstreet Boys Album).

It'll be pretty dull to quantify really, ten years is just less than half my life². So instead, a list!

• I am a pretty dab hand at candid photography and take some of the best portrait pictures I know. In the same vein, it upsets people that I never give them a chance to pose and they can get quite physical in their insistence.

• The Google Complex is indicative of how, with so much more stuff to read and look at, people's attention has shifted from peruse to skim. And it makes me wonder how hard/easy it'll be for me to be forgotten. Not very.

• People who have spent Christmas in London never forget it. New York is the third best place to spend Christmas after Jerusalem and Finland.

• It's a fairly normal thing to be in limbo about life, when you don't have a specific direction to pursue or fall after. The biggest mistake in this though is that people busy themselves pointlessly - thinking that any effort is good effort. The two things Girl³ has shown quite nicely:

1. you can only go forward if you know which way you're facing, else its pointless effort and insincere contribution
2. when you're not oriented in any particular direction, busy yourself in things you love to do.

• Lean against winds.

• Typewriting is harder than you think⁴.

1. Coming soon to a gregorian calendar near you.
2. I had to sit and think really carefull about that. I'm barely two eleven-and-a-half year olds put together
3. Yes, notice the capitals!
4. And lovelier

I couldn't hear from the sound of the freeway

Trying to arrange the last twelve months into a series of newpaper headlines that I can recite to you is hard. Not because I'm inept at doing so, but because there's been a little bit of polarity in it.

I've changed my working plan right around to something all the more gorgeous, I've had a full swing in my spiritual life and I'm fighting to push that last little bit back on track, I've been afraid and courageous at the actions of others, crushed and thrilled by a fringe and smile.

And while one of the most socially significant things hasn't really changed; that I'm not in a romantic relationship - there is someone that I'm specifically not in a romantic relationship with¹.

And so, as January and Muharram approach, I ask for what's best; for me and for others.

1. and if my mum is to be believed, that relationship can happen when I can afford my own appliances.

Once more, with feeling!

heart.