Moonbeams 🌕

& the cycles of receiving and giving.

In yoga study, we are learning about anahata - the heart chakra - the energy center that unsurprisingly governs our relationship to all forms of love including and beyond romance: compassionate love, universal love, divine love, self love. Love is often described as a ‘give and take’ type of act. My classmate offered an alternative view of love, one of a ‘give and receive.’ His comment resonated deeply within me. It stirred an awakening for a hope that lives in me - one in which the love I give is received rather than taken from me. And likewise, a hope to be a receiver rather than a taker of love. Taking feels like plundering; it commodifies love into something transactional. Receiving honors love as a reciprocal energy with integrative properties, like nutrients that get absorbed by the bloodstream. 

I once read a quote that went something like: What is healing but a shift in perspective? It’s fascinating to me how even subtle revisions in the language we use with ourselves can fundamentally reorient perspective. 

my family collects dervish art.

As part of our contemplation of the heart chakra, we are learning about philosophies that shape yoga, such as Sufism, the mystical practice and understanding of Islam. I’ve always intuitively felt my practice of Islam and practice of yoga to be deeply intertwined. So much so that I designate the same space in my room for my prayer mat as I do my yoga mat. It’s inspiring to learn of yoga and Islam’s commingling. It affirms my intuition that it’s not mere coincidence that both practices lead us to press third eye to earth as a means to commune with something higher. It reminds me of the adage that there is one truth, but infinite ways to explain it. 

I’ve always been fascinated by Sufism. As a kid, my parents once took me to witness whirling dervishes. I was mesmerized by their meditation, how it conjured both awe and calm concurrently. Lightning rods between heaven and earth. 

Sufism emphasizes the importance of receiving. Sufi poets like Hafiz and Rumi often reference the sun and the moon as an example of this imperative. The moon produces no light of its own, but as a receiver of the sun’s light, it radiates. By receiving, it gives the world moonbeams. 

I’ve been struggling lately with my book writing endeavor. Though I am certain of my idea and intention, I have a tough time showing up to write something that feels so massive and insurmountable. When I do get myself to show up, the words don’t come. These moments stoke my capitalist conditioning, leading me to chastise myself for not being motivated or focused enough on this project. I worry that I’m not working hard enough and this dream will slip through the cracks. 

I look to what I’m learning in yoga as a means to dig deeper into what this struggle is trying to tell me. I wonder what this moment is nudging me to receive. In the midst of floundering in writer’s block, I opened to a random page of a book I keep on my desk entitled The Sufi Book of Life, short texts that explore the 99 names of Allah, or 99 qualities of divinity. This is what I receive:

Is there a word for hearing exactly what you need to hear at the moment you need to hear it? 

A few days later, in my writing class, we’re joined by Hanif Abdurraqib, a brilliant writer who delivered a guest lecture for us. Hanif’s message centered around emotional research, and how so much of writing happens off the page. Writing, he explained, is merely a transcription of an idea that forms out of an abundance of emotional research - receiving imagery, thoughts, and language from the world that we sculpt into our own pieces. When writer’s block strikes, receive it as a sign to step away from the page and into the world. Hanif made many incredible points in his meandering sermon, ones that I managed to scribble down include: Your task is to understand the expansiveness the ‘aboutness’ your book can contain. It takes time for the layers to form. The universe has already written the poem.

I guess you could say I’m experiencing a bit of a rebirth when it comes to this book I’m writing. I see now that I need to loosen my attachment to production and timelines, and avail myself to receiving. To let my thoughts gestate and integrate with images, textures, ideas, and language given to me by virtue of being alive, curious, and obsessed with telling the story that only I can tell. To trust that when the time comes to write, it will flow, as if I’m transcribing. In order to give this book to the world, I need to receive it first myself, and giving and receiving happens in cycles. In giving the earth its light, the moon moves through many phases of receiving.

What is healing but a shift in perspective?

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If you made it this far, thank you for staying with me and being a receiver of my thoughts. I gift you this poem put to song and dance. The art that Sufism inspires is majestic.