I just heard that M died. Succumbed to his cancer. Difficult to imagine because of his highly optimistic nature. Thats three known funerals while i was gone. Landing in the middle of January 2006 makes the new transition a rough-edged one, and the experience of the past three or four weeks rather dream like...
Hajj, the peaceful Medinah, the bustling Mecca and the streaming crowds of pilgrims from the world over.. Arafaat. The five days. Words are insufficient. Vivid images flash through my mind. Like the night through Muzdalifah.. We were meant to pray maghreb and esha together. Discovered an island in the middle of the highway amid some crazy traffic and fumes at about 2am. Almost. Another jamaat (prayer congregation) was already in process. We spread out our mats, made a roadside óut-the-bottle' wudhu and proceeded with our salaah. Cars and 4x2's rambled on in front of trucks and lorries both a metre in front and a metre or two behind us. Hooting and fumes soon got blocked out of my mind as the peace descended on me. We also managed to collect our stones for the pelting. .. Then it was time to move on towards Mina. It took a further three hours before we got to a point where we could stop and pray Fajr. 2 Buses. We did the bottle wudhu again and salaah between these buses. My one straw mat. 3 ladies at a time. And some time for the Wuqoof. I had just woken a few minutes before that, having fallen asleep on the bus. Freezing from the cold/post-sleep and a fresh wudhu.. Elated and woken by the beauty of the moment in time completely unlike any other. Flanked by the buses. Salaah on the wet tarmac, glistening beneath the mat. Surrounded by a few similarly emotional muslimahs. A short space. A short time. An eternity in a moment. Alhamdulillah. I can still feel the morning breeze kiss my forehead as i raised my head from salaah. And this beyond reality moment (as the many on this Hajj trip) will remain indelibly etched on my heart and soul. A reawakening of my essential blueprint. Of the true reality of the soul since time began. Just as the Almighty God in His infinite wisdom always intended.
I soon fell asleep again. To be awoken at 9am, stuck in traffic, a ten minute walk from our hotel in Azizya. Muzdalifah left far behind, a dreamlike memory. Distant in a time/space dimension. Relative to the psychology of crowds and their articulation. Teaching us how modern technologies cannot surpass the passionate draw of believing masses of people. Our many hours in the bus showed just this. And the windows of the bus also opened our eyes to the reality that many other's lived in order to fulfill the same dream of making the Journey of Love. I saw a man, an old man, cringing in pain, cramped and squashed up against the glass door of the bus he was travelling in because of how packed-in they were. I saw trucks used for transporting the goats and sheep for the Day of Sacrifice, with open loading racks, followed by the same kind of trucks loaded with men in their 2-cloth Ihram. Not in comfy air-conditioned luxury buses such as ours. I saw family cars and lorries broken down at the side of the road while the kids ran around in circles, oblivious to the urgency and importance of the pilgrimage, but in obvious glee at the prospect of this camp-style travel. I say numerous luggage racks atop buses, loaded with more men in Ihram, chanting their Talbiya/Labbaik. And I opened my eyes to the idea that life is far more than words can ever say.
Hajj, the peaceful Medinah, the bustling Mecca and the streaming crowds of pilgrims from the world over.. Arafaat. The five days. Words are insufficient. Vivid images flash through my mind. Like the night through Muzdalifah.. We were meant to pray maghreb and esha together. Discovered an island in the middle of the highway amid some crazy traffic and fumes at about 2am. Almost. Another jamaat (prayer congregation) was already in process. We spread out our mats, made a roadside óut-the-bottle' wudhu and proceeded with our salaah. Cars and 4x2's rambled on in front of trucks and lorries both a metre in front and a metre or two behind us. Hooting and fumes soon got blocked out of my mind as the peace descended on me. We also managed to collect our stones for the pelting. .. Then it was time to move on towards Mina. It took a further three hours before we got to a point where we could stop and pray Fajr. 2 Buses. We did the bottle wudhu again and salaah between these buses. My one straw mat. 3 ladies at a time. And some time for the Wuqoof. I had just woken a few minutes before that, having fallen asleep on the bus. Freezing from the cold/post-sleep and a fresh wudhu.. Elated and woken by the beauty of the moment in time completely unlike any other. Flanked by the buses. Salaah on the wet tarmac, glistening beneath the mat. Surrounded by a few similarly emotional muslimahs. A short space. A short time. An eternity in a moment. Alhamdulillah. I can still feel the morning breeze kiss my forehead as i raised my head from salaah. And this beyond reality moment (as the many on this Hajj trip) will remain indelibly etched on my heart and soul. A reawakening of my essential blueprint. Of the true reality of the soul since time began. Just as the Almighty God in His infinite wisdom always intended.
I soon fell asleep again. To be awoken at 9am, stuck in traffic, a ten minute walk from our hotel in Azizya. Muzdalifah left far behind, a dreamlike memory. Distant in a time/space dimension. Relative to the psychology of crowds and their articulation. Teaching us how modern technologies cannot surpass the passionate draw of believing masses of people. Our many hours in the bus showed just this. And the windows of the bus also opened our eyes to the reality that many other's lived in order to fulfill the same dream of making the Journey of Love. I saw a man, an old man, cringing in pain, cramped and squashed up against the glass door of the bus he was travelling in because of how packed-in they were. I saw trucks used for transporting the goats and sheep for the Day of Sacrifice, with open loading racks, followed by the same kind of trucks loaded with men in their 2-cloth Ihram. Not in comfy air-conditioned luxury buses such as ours. I saw family cars and lorries broken down at the side of the road while the kids ran around in circles, oblivious to the urgency and importance of the pilgrimage, but in obvious glee at the prospect of this camp-style travel. I say numerous luggage racks atop buses, loaded with more men in Ihram, chanting their Talbiya/Labbaik. And I opened my eyes to the idea that life is far more than words can ever say.
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My heart so yearns...
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