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In my view, if you want to understand salat it is of central importance that you understand that the whole universe is always praying.

Do you not realize [Prophet] that everything in the heavens & earth submits to God: the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, & the animals?

Surat al-Hajj ayat 18, (transl. M.A.S. Abdel Haleem)

Islam, submission to God, is the natural state of the creation. Humans & jinn are unique in being the only part of creation endowed with free will & capable of disobedience: we are not always engaged in prayer & remembrance, but the rest of the world is. This means that not only are we alienated from God, we are also alienated from the rest of creation, from the ceaseless prayer which reverberates through the universe.

Salat is the manner in which we attune ourselves to the melody of the worshiping world & momentarily return to our natural state of submission. I think salat in its movement has a rhythmical quality involving the whole body. It is our gate into the universal dance and song of worship.

In salah, we are first & foremost praising & pleasing God. But the manner in which we do that is by uniting ourselves to the whole creation. I believe this is why prayer times change with the seasons; I believe this is why the most intimate & sacred position, sujud, is the one which makes us closest to the earth; & I believe this is why the tradition of the Prophet (s) urges us to prostrate on clay or another natural material. Salat is an acknowledgement of the supremacy of God, & in being that it is also an acknowledgement of the unity of all creation, an acknowledgement that we too are clay (15:26), dust (22:5), & water (24:45).

Sujud is making yourself low so that you may come to reflect the Most High. Through salah, we mend our alienation from the world, & in rejoining the rest of the worshiping world we are connected to God & transformed by Him. It is a means by which we can be made whole.

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How do people live, honestly? I used to be able to, maybe it's just that we were two so I didn't need to work full-time. Everybody is working too much at jobs that stress them out and drain the life out of them and studying isn't much better is my impression. Every career is evil. Meanwhile everything gets worse and rich people are burning up the whole world and selling weapons to aid a genocide. How the fuck do we keep living like this? Is it me who is insane?

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They hate me for my ugly swag and abstract effeminate sex appeal. but i do remain funny with it

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The cumber: 🥒. And yes, I'm cuing it

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Just a friendly reminder that if you don't think this or that sanctimonious vaguery about such and such obscure internet phenomenon then you are a morally abhorrent and impure scoundrel who ought be drawn and quartered in the street

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"Everything is fine" (minutes later: leaves town never to return without saying a word to anyone, head to a different city and wander the streets without sleeping for three days straight)

"I've absolutely had it I'm not being funny it's time for me to go proper wild" (minutes later: pan fries store bought mozzarella sticks in a generous amount of rapeseed oil for dinner)

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I get why sex is the subject of so much poetry. It's an important part of many people's lives, obviously, and humanity wouldn't exist without it. But I also think it's just symbolically versatile. Stating the obvious once again, it's so very intimately tied to both love and violence, and as you know love and violence are themselves intimately tied to (or is?) everything. So it's sort of innately poetic, ripe for exploring the human condition in the mode of analogy.

But it's also extremely challenging to write good sexual poetry. For the same reasons, but also for others.

It's intimate, yes. By necessity, it exposes the author to the reader, and that nakedness is scary I think even to the most seasoned poet. When you read a poem of that kind you are sharing a sort of time-delayed erotic event with the author, that's quite tricky to navigate.

It's also trite, of course. Incredibly so. A lot of it is made hollow by the alienating, commodifying pressures of capitalist society, or else made rotten by the cancer of oppression which springs forth from that aforementioned well. Would you pick sexless sex or sexed inhumanity? How about plague or cholera?

I was going to say something else here towards the climax of the post but I'm afraid I misplaced my mood somewhere. Sorry to call quits on our hike before reaching the peak, but I've got caverns tucked away in the mountainside up ahead that I can't bring myself to show you yet. Maybe you could write an ending for yourself in the bathroom. No? Sorry. Would you like to watch a movie or something?

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The ads with worm-infested rotten fruit has made the tumblr mobile app unusable 😞

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I haven't been doing too well

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Isn't life enough of that already

Also . The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

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It's all really quite profoundly terrible

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People who hate Avery Brooks' theatricality are insane I still think his performance as Ben Sisko is one of the most iconic ever played by anybody. Like you might not like Sisko's personality but dear God you can't deny that Brooks' portrayal gives him such an incredibly strong personality even down to his intonation and his body language and gesturism

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Girls will say so and so and do this and that

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Do you think that Ishaq cried out on the day of the sacrifice: Oh Isma'il, let me take your place! Oh God, let me take his place!

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You know I am like the reverse of picky when it comes to coffee I'll drink practically anything. But this one I got most recently was really phenomenally bad. Quite acidic with a grainy texture, unsalvageably so I fear. Thankfully it was only a small packet so it is gone now