Very squeezing tests.(Dios aprieta pero no ahoga.#)
Bismi'llah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim...for the sake of Prophet Muhammad saws and Sheikh Nazim may Allah protect his secret.
First of all, thanks to Anna and Kit and Nis for support and comments.
I hardly know where to begin with the awful saga of my life that is unfolding right now.
The market was pretty much a disaster even though I did everything humanly possible to make it work.Without going into details,they moved the site this year and it was very uncommercial.Meanwhile Bilquis got a lot sicker and I had to come home and leave the attempt to earn money half way through. So far I made a tenth of what we would normally expect and about a quarter or less of what I hoped to get in this year's conditions.
She is now frighteningly thin,weighing less than forty kilos ... the change was such a shock when I got back. I didn't expect to see her looking like an eighty year old with a skeletal face and large staring eyes.My heart is breaking.
At the moment she has terrible symptoms of diarreah though for the moment it seems the vomiting she had has stopped. It may be the result of the morphine patches which they gave her after having given an injection into the hip joints to try to stop the pain of the bursitis.The oncologist today said that it could be the radio treatment too.
Perhaps tomorrow she will go into hospital again in order to get on a drip that she has needed for about three days, but, due to burocracy, has been unable to get either at home or in hospital.
The whole situation is so excruciating ... When I was in Granada I could hardly sleep at night and was taking homoeopathy to try to get myself a bit stronger and calmer to deal with the situation.Perhaps I overdid it, I don't know.Anyway I stopped the homoeopathy and tried some natural remedies with Valerian and Passionflower and Tila ..and also Californian poppy. None of them really worked and the chemical one called Dormidina (which was actually an anti hystamenico) just left my mouth dry after giving about three hour's sleep.)
The gradual build up of sleeplessness and the endless messages and calls about Bilquis's progress and state became a kind of nightmare drama.The woman where I stayed is an old friend of Bilquis's and there was some pretty strange stuff going off in her relationship as a forty eight year old Spanish woman with a thirty three year old Morroccan guy, who is into all sorts of strange deals and atmospheres.
I found it awful and the lady in question who is depressive and under pressure found my emotional state and negativity over Bilquis too much to bear.I had to pack up and go to sleep on the floor of the sitting room in my son's flat. Very kind of him,but I was somewhat concerned about his work hours and especially his nightly exoduses.
This afternoon I have been able to get a little sleep on the sofa and feel slightly more 'normal'.
On the last night in Granada I had no sleep at all and my fear and insecurity and negative thought patterns, which all ended in disaster,became so intense that I felt as if the forces of evil had got to me and I was unable to get the taxi and train which I was supposed to take.
I was just a mess of tears and emotions with no one to talk to or help.My son had arrived at six in the morning and gone to bed.
I phoned some old Muslim contacts and then Clara, who is a friend from the markets who was going to look after my stall.She came round to Hashim's (my son's place) after going by the market where very little was happening.
I was in such a state that, despite the fact that we both know I have a big work ahead of me to develop independence and strength to confront life .. she decided to say yes to my petition for help and brought me up to Zarauz here in the Pais Basquo,driving 1000 kilometeres in eleven hours and maintaining a very useful and interesting conversation on the way.
I am 52 and she 33. I could be her father biologically speaking, but here I was listening to much of her advice like a little boy.
It is so hard to believe that Bilquis will get better now ... there is always a slim ray of hope. As I am writing this she gets up to get a book ( I don't know what possesed her) and takes a fall "Bonk!" on the wooden parquet floor.
What is God doing to us ? I am not a good Muslim ..I am not a good anything ..I have done loads of things wrong in my life .. I find it easiest and most intellectually/morally/ spiritually satisfying to believe that this is a punishment on me for all the bad stuff I have done. However, as I have said before, it is much harder to apply that to Bilquis who has always been such a good and kind person to everyone, and everyone loves her.
She has said that maybe it is a purification ... I do believe that some things which may look awful and even cruel could be a Mercy viewed in the light of eternal life.Perhaps it is better to suffer here in temporal existence than there in eternal existence. I am even beginning to wonder if cancer (which is now the plague of our times acording to statistics gleaned from the internet where it is said that one in two men die of cancer and one in three women!) is not somehow a blessing for those that are taken away by it,having been cleaned of their sins and bad actions in preparation for the next life and meeting their Lord and ... avoiding confrontation with the terrible events which it seems are just around the corner in the shape of the nuclear Third World War, or Armageddon.
I wish I could be good and alleviate some suffering that way .. I wish I was a good enough and strong enough Naqshbandi sufi Muslim to be in that Third World War under Divine protection.I wish I could alleviate Bilquis's pain ..but .. no matter what we do .. it seems to be Allah's Plan for her to be suffering this way ...
Strangely, each time she has managed to get an appointment with the naturopath ( who it seems cured at least one woman with terminal cancer of the pancreas) the other medicine has made her so sick she could not go.
For now she may go into hospital to get the saline drip and probably there they will try to finish off the five remaining sessions of radio treatment which remain from the twenty five prescribed.
I just hope they don't kill her in the attempt.
Please pray for her or send energy in your way.It would be a good idea if everyone especially tried to do that at about the same time of day to join and increase the effects .. say between ten and ten thirty in the evening European time.
# "God squeezes but He doesn't suffocate." (Old Spanish saying.)
On a more positive note, one wonderful thing that came out of the whol thing in Granada, was the support of friends. Especially one particular little gem which came in th shap of my friend Bill Ducket. He has stall with Indian artefacts and antiques and is quite an extraordinary eccentric character. His continual support and steadiness, advice and generosity have been a bastion and island of calm to me throughout the
personal drama which played itself out down there.
I discovered at the same time his interest in Buddhism and especially a particular Japanese strand which his cousin (who he hadn't seen in twenty years and then just appeared in his life with this connection last year) introduced him to.
It's main mantra is "Nam Miyoho Renge Kyo." and I have been finding it very useful .. At the begining to pull me out of the energy hole I found myself in, in the first house where the atmosphere was so dark I could hardly pray .. and then later for trying to be strong and decisive so as not to be a burden on my friends.
It is said it connects one to the essential energy of the universe and I like not knowing what it means, as it was working that way, just on faith and not on intellectual interpretation and ideas.
One of the most horrible things that is happening to me at the moment is that I never have a normal or comfortable bed of my own to sleep in.I am continually going from one place to another in this wierd story .. here in Zarauz sleeping on the sofa and being woken at all hours to accompany Bilquis to the loo.Tomorrow, once again the oncologico ..sleeping in a chair ..
Sleep deprevation is used as a torture and sometimes it feels like that ... a torture ..I can only believe that it is at the level of my wrong doing ..
Why does everything that we try to do for Bilquis come out back to front ? Punishment enough it is for me to watch her poor little body being whacked by radio treatment .. but what about her ? Why why why is god doing this to her ?
She is so strong and valiant, poor little thing ..she has never been much good at standing physical pain.
One thing I can say is ,perhaps ... she has been caused to say that she needs me ...something that in other circumstances would never have escaped her lips. I have been caused to realise just how much I love her and say it sincerely .. something which perhaps I have been blocked from finding inside myself ever since my parents split up 41 years ago.
My lap top continues to be a pain in the butt as far as the keyboard is concerned ..my mobile (which I bought for being down in Granada) is also horribly complicated and unresponsive ..As luck would have it, it was bought on the thirteenth, as was the lap top.
Up until now, a strange symbolic happening which ocurred on the first day of Ramadan this year,when, after a day reading the eulogies on the site dedicate to Nicholas Battye after his death,I went to the supermarket and my change came to 13€ and 13 cents, has meant Bilquis's death and, somehow mine too. Now perhaps it is beginning to mean the death of her ego and the death of mine, in certain ways.
To see another point of view..more dispassionate and less emotional than my ,supposedly,sufi one ..try this site which will indicate the ,perhaps more objective or scientific view of the interconnectedness of all things and the immediate efffect of our actions thoughts and feelings etc.
http://www.sgi.org/english/Buddhism/nmrk.htm
First of all, thanks to Anna and Kit and Nis for support and comments.
I hardly know where to begin with the awful saga of my life that is unfolding right now.
The market was pretty much a disaster even though I did everything humanly possible to make it work.Without going into details,they moved the site this year and it was very uncommercial.Meanwhile Bilquis got a lot sicker and I had to come home and leave the attempt to earn money half way through. So far I made a tenth of what we would normally expect and about a quarter or less of what I hoped to get in this year's conditions.
She is now frighteningly thin,weighing less than forty kilos ... the change was such a shock when I got back. I didn't expect to see her looking like an eighty year old with a skeletal face and large staring eyes.My heart is breaking.
At the moment she has terrible symptoms of diarreah though for the moment it seems the vomiting she had has stopped. It may be the result of the morphine patches which they gave her after having given an injection into the hip joints to try to stop the pain of the bursitis.The oncologist today said that it could be the radio treatment too.
Perhaps tomorrow she will go into hospital again in order to get on a drip that she has needed for about three days, but, due to burocracy, has been unable to get either at home or in hospital.
The whole situation is so excruciating ... When I was in Granada I could hardly sleep at night and was taking homoeopathy to try to get myself a bit stronger and calmer to deal with the situation.Perhaps I overdid it, I don't know.Anyway I stopped the homoeopathy and tried some natural remedies with Valerian and Passionflower and Tila ..and also Californian poppy. None of them really worked and the chemical one called Dormidina (which was actually an anti hystamenico) just left my mouth dry after giving about three hour's sleep.)
The gradual build up of sleeplessness and the endless messages and calls about Bilquis's progress and state became a kind of nightmare drama.The woman where I stayed is an old friend of Bilquis's and there was some pretty strange stuff going off in her relationship as a forty eight year old Spanish woman with a thirty three year old Morroccan guy, who is into all sorts of strange deals and atmospheres.
I found it awful and the lady in question who is depressive and under pressure found my emotional state and negativity over Bilquis too much to bear.I had to pack up and go to sleep on the floor of the sitting room in my son's flat. Very kind of him,but I was somewhat concerned about his work hours and especially his nightly exoduses.
This afternoon I have been able to get a little sleep on the sofa and feel slightly more 'normal'.
On the last night in Granada I had no sleep at all and my fear and insecurity and negative thought patterns, which all ended in disaster,became so intense that I felt as if the forces of evil had got to me and I was unable to get the taxi and train which I was supposed to take.
I was just a mess of tears and emotions with no one to talk to or help.My son had arrived at six in the morning and gone to bed.
I phoned some old Muslim contacts and then Clara, who is a friend from the markets who was going to look after my stall.She came round to Hashim's (my son's place) after going by the market where very little was happening.
I was in such a state that, despite the fact that we both know I have a big work ahead of me to develop independence and strength to confront life .. she decided to say yes to my petition for help and brought me up to Zarauz here in the Pais Basquo,driving 1000 kilometeres in eleven hours and maintaining a very useful and interesting conversation on the way.
I am 52 and she 33. I could be her father biologically speaking, but here I was listening to much of her advice like a little boy.
It is so hard to believe that Bilquis will get better now ... there is always a slim ray of hope. As I am writing this she gets up to get a book ( I don't know what possesed her) and takes a fall "Bonk!" on the wooden parquet floor.
What is God doing to us ? I am not a good Muslim ..I am not a good anything ..I have done loads of things wrong in my life .. I find it easiest and most intellectually/morally/ spiritually satisfying to believe that this is a punishment on me for all the bad stuff I have done. However, as I have said before, it is much harder to apply that to Bilquis who has always been such a good and kind person to everyone, and everyone loves her.
She has said that maybe it is a purification ... I do believe that some things which may look awful and even cruel could be a Mercy viewed in the light of eternal life.Perhaps it is better to suffer here in temporal existence than there in eternal existence. I am even beginning to wonder if cancer (which is now the plague of our times acording to statistics gleaned from the internet where it is said that one in two men die of cancer and one in three women!) is not somehow a blessing for those that are taken away by it,having been cleaned of their sins and bad actions in preparation for the next life and meeting their Lord and ... avoiding confrontation with the terrible events which it seems are just around the corner in the shape of the nuclear Third World War, or Armageddon.
I wish I could be good and alleviate some suffering that way .. I wish I was a good enough and strong enough Naqshbandi sufi Muslim to be in that Third World War under Divine protection.I wish I could alleviate Bilquis's pain ..but .. no matter what we do .. it seems to be Allah's Plan for her to be suffering this way ...
Strangely, each time she has managed to get an appointment with the naturopath ( who it seems cured at least one woman with terminal cancer of the pancreas) the other medicine has made her so sick she could not go.
For now she may go into hospital to get the saline drip and probably there they will try to finish off the five remaining sessions of radio treatment which remain from the twenty five prescribed.
I just hope they don't kill her in the attempt.
Please pray for her or send energy in your way.It would be a good idea if everyone especially tried to do that at about the same time of day to join and increase the effects .. say between ten and ten thirty in the evening European time.
# "God squeezes but He doesn't suffocate." (Old Spanish saying.)
On a more positive note, one wonderful thing that came out of the whol thing in Granada, was the support of friends. Especially one particular little gem which came in th shap of my friend Bill Ducket. He has stall with Indian artefacts and antiques and is quite an extraordinary eccentric character. His continual support and steadiness, advice and generosity have been a bastion and island of calm to me throughout the
personal drama which played itself out down there.
I discovered at the same time his interest in Buddhism and especially a particular Japanese strand which his cousin (who he hadn't seen in twenty years and then just appeared in his life with this connection last year) introduced him to.
It's main mantra is "Nam Miyoho Renge Kyo." and I have been finding it very useful .. At the begining to pull me out of the energy hole I found myself in, in the first house where the atmosphere was so dark I could hardly pray .. and then later for trying to be strong and decisive so as not to be a burden on my friends.
It is said it connects one to the essential energy of the universe and I like not knowing what it means, as it was working that way, just on faith and not on intellectual interpretation and ideas.
One of the most horrible things that is happening to me at the moment is that I never have a normal or comfortable bed of my own to sleep in.I am continually going from one place to another in this wierd story .. here in Zarauz sleeping on the sofa and being woken at all hours to accompany Bilquis to the loo.Tomorrow, once again the oncologico ..sleeping in a chair ..
Sleep deprevation is used as a torture and sometimes it feels like that ... a torture ..I can only believe that it is at the level of my wrong doing ..
Why does everything that we try to do for Bilquis come out back to front ? Punishment enough it is for me to watch her poor little body being whacked by radio treatment .. but what about her ? Why why why is god doing this to her ?
She is so strong and valiant, poor little thing ..she has never been much good at standing physical pain.
One thing I can say is ,perhaps ... she has been caused to say that she needs me ...something that in other circumstances would never have escaped her lips. I have been caused to realise just how much I love her and say it sincerely .. something which perhaps I have been blocked from finding inside myself ever since my parents split up 41 years ago.
My lap top continues to be a pain in the butt as far as the keyboard is concerned ..my mobile (which I bought for being down in Granada) is also horribly complicated and unresponsive ..As luck would have it, it was bought on the thirteenth, as was the lap top.
Up until now, a strange symbolic happening which ocurred on the first day of Ramadan this year,when, after a day reading the eulogies on the site dedicate to Nicholas Battye after his death,I went to the supermarket and my change came to 13€ and 13 cents, has meant Bilquis's death and, somehow mine too. Now perhaps it is beginning to mean the death of her ego and the death of mine, in certain ways.
To see another point of view..more dispassionate and less emotional than my ,supposedly,sufi one ..try this site which will indicate the ,perhaps more objective or scientific view of the interconnectedness of all things and the immediate efffect of our actions thoughts and feelings etc.
http://www.sgi.org/english/Buddhism/nmrk.htm
posted by longgone1 at 1/02/2006 05:00:00 PM
3 Comments:
ya latif. do something independent of your wife to regain power. I pray for you, Omar (I visited Waleuddin and the tekke in Orgiva in April 2004)
May ALLAH Make it easy for you bro!
Greg,
How are you? Its Bernie from Poole here who wrote to you some time ago. Hope you are well and that the healing process is moving forward. Are you living in Somerset now?
Anyway, I hope you are finding peace in your life.
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