y godmother/mother-in-law and I went to see Eckhart Tolle tonight, yes the same one of Oprah fame. We got the tickets last month before I knew he would be catapulted to stardom, which is sort of amusing. Actually everything is amusing after experiencing Eckhart Tolle. He's the fulfillment of the expression "it's so true it's funny" except it's also tragic that it's so difficult to really be here for the present moment, when that's all that ever was and will be. Everything one hopes and dreams for, to recognize us and exalt us with happiness and joy - we miss the whole thing.

Of course it's ridiculous to try to talk about it, and mad props to Eckhart for actually being able to. His complete lack of any apparent personality probably makes this so. In any case it's useless to speculate. I'm busy now breathing in and out. There are peanut M&M's on my desk. In an attempt to inject some beauty in this office where I miserably try to perform my duties, I purchased flowers yesterday at the farmer's market, and they've drunk half their water and some have opened from buds without me even seeing. But that's okay, because I'm watching now. And I'll watch and watch some more, for as long as I can until my thinking motor kicks in. There will be several more attempts for me to get this, I'm sure. But the less I think about it, the better.

y husband and my dog both share a wonderful quality: they are overlookers. Well, actually my dog doesn't really notice faults in the first place, but it's still an incredible feeling to walk around all flawed and damaged and imperfect, and receive pure love nonetheless.

It's something though, to notice fault and overlook it. Murshid talks about this in his writings, but it's one of those states I'm aware of and yet struggle to make real. Even though I know pointing out a flaw won't help the situation, I can't let go sometimes of the need to be right. My poor little self is somewhere in there, crying out to be acknowledged and elevated in the state of public correctness.

From the Gayan:
By accusing anyone of his fault,
you only make him firm in it.

The reason I want to get better at this is because I've experienced the love and good feeling that grows when I know I've been wrong, and yet my husband (or others I know who practice this) did not expose me and shame me. I want to return the favor. And also, in the fake it till you make it approach, I feel the less I give weight to criticisms by voicing them, the less they will bother me in the first place. This applies to self-criticism as well.

I've asked my husband how he can be so good at this, and he replied (in my own words, as I'm sure he would express this differently) that small little personal matters, the minor creaks and groans of everyday living, just aren't that big a deal to him within the larger context of one's long life. It's quite true - traffic and lines and annoyances don't really get under his skin. He's got his eye on the prize, the big prize. And that's the one I want to eye as well.

he invocation is the beginning. It goes like this:

Toward the One,
the perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty.
The Only Being
United with all the Illuminated Souls
Who form the embodiement of the Master,
the Spirit of Guidance.

Whenever I say it I close my eyes as if making a wish. I bring the invocation down through the act of invoking. It is a chivalric tool, a magic spell. Then, when I open my eyes, I see it happen.

It doesn't always happen that moment. It doesn't always happen that day or year. But later, in a mysterious fashion, I see how the sun caused a lemon tree in town to bear fruit, so much that the branches sag with the weight. The branches drape across the fence like a friendly neighbor's elbow. And there it is.

appy New Year! I was so happy to be home this year for New Year's Eve, instead of rushing off to the Abode right after Christmas for the Suluk winter session. Although there is something entrancingly beautiful about spending New Year's Day in silence, in the snow. This year I was mostly silent anyway, and spent the day walking and sleeping and contemplating. Then M. came home with a group of hungry friends as they had been hiking on Mount Tamalpais all day, and we all had dinner together here at home.

And speaking of dinner, I'm launching a new section of Toasted Spiral focused on food: Repast. I have long felt that food and hospitality are gold mines for spiritual practice, and when I cook and bake it is scarcely different from prayer. Repast is just a fun little blog that will have quicker entries (with pictures), links, and recipes. Since it's faster-moving I hope I'll be posting more often there, which inshallah will lead me to write here a bit more while I'm at it.

Please stop by and feel free to post your comments or email me with your feedback, recipes, and ideas!

arried life is great, but I've been struggling with work lately. A combination of feeling ambivalent about what I've been doing and the unstructured environment of working for myself has led to a lot of disorganization, procrastination, and stress. I got a much-needed wake-up call from a client so I've been getting it together this week - it's amazing how productive I can be when I put my nose to the grindstone. I'm so much happier overall when I don't torture myself with work hanging over my head. I'm my own worst enemy sometimes.

M. said he thought part of it was that I'm always here in the house. I get into a rut sometimes where I seldom get out and interact with other human beings. M. prescribed a daily morning walk with Virgil down to the coffee hut in town - everyone around here knows it as the Butt Hut because it's constantly staffed by an ever-changing stream of young girls...with shapely derrieres I suppose. Virgil loves it because they fawn over him and give him cookies. I love it because it gets me out into the world first thing in the morning, which makes it easier to sit down and get right to work with a clear and energized mind when I come home. I see my neighbors picking up their papers, entire pelotons of cyclists (a very popular activity around here), and I forgot how much I enjoy the time of morning when everyone is bustling about - the day is just getting started and is full of potential.

It's been so cold here lately that it's hard to bundle up and go outside first thing. We live amongst the trees in the shady hills, and the temperature always drops when you head up our street. But after I get my coffee after descending into town, my frosty fingers being warmed by the hot cup at last, I turn home and the Eastern sun beams down fully upon me. It starts to melt my stiff muscles and soften my creaky joints. Help is around in so many ways, if only you seek it a little.

and I were married on November 3, 2007 in a traditional Sufi ceremony. It was beautiful and joyous and transformative. I came down sick the next day and lay in bed recuperating, then went into a three-day indescribable group session of sorts, which was also pretty incredible. Immediately after that M and I got on a plane to our small honeymoon and headed straight for the pool to relax. In short, a whirlwind.

I feel like I've been poured into a cocktail shaker and been shaken all around with some other things, about to emerge as a new substance. It's exciting and unknown. Who is this married lady becoming? Suddenly everything seems still familiar and yet brand new. I can feel the priorities in my life shifting and realigning. What does it mean to throw my lot in with another, to feed each other, to build something together larger and stranger than either one of us alone? What does it mean to take him, as the vows say, as my most sacred trust, given to me by God?

I can't wait to find out, both in this moment and continually, over and over, for years and years and years to come.

celebrated Eid, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, at a Bat Mitzvah of all places. The day was a whirlwind of transportation and logistics performed in various heights of high heels, but somewhere in there I managed to rejoin the living and eat lunch right there in public in the middle of the day, with everyone around me acting like it was completely normal. It's the small miracles that count the most.

At the reception, M. interrupted my conversation with my long lost relative, the Indian Chief, to guide me outside where the lawn overlooked the flat marsh. There in the distance, about to set behind a silhouetted hill, was the most perfect sliver of crescent moon hung in the inky pinky swath of dusk. In Islam one is encouraged to see for one's own eyes the changing of the months as signified by the new crescent moon, to personally engage with the cosmology of each event. And when one spies it, we can say what the Prophet (SAAS) said:

Ya Hilalun, Rabbee wa Rabbuka Allah — O Moon, my Lord and your Lord are God.

ust popping in to share an inspirational mastery link. It's about pizza!

A Pizza Odyssey

ight and I are not necessarily friends. The consistent blackness outside makes it hard for me to find my bearings. It's colder, and the glare of the lamps inside obstructs the world beyond the windows. And I am inside, because what business does a lady have out there when darkness falls? I heard someone's mother once say that nothing much good ever happens after midnight, and the squeaky clean part of myself tends to agree.

But we've formed an uneasy pact, night and I. Because it's prime time for productivity these days when I can have a full tummy and a hot cup of coffee. Otherwises I'm useless, listless, distracted. My work is suffering from lack of rhythm. I'm suffering from lack of rhythm. So I need the night to hold onto, to get a thing or two done, to tip the scales of the day back a little bit toward normalcy.

I don't like it, being a night person. But it's a temporary arrangement. Ramadan challenges me to probe around outside my comfort zone. Before it started I thought to myself, "I'll just keep on with my normal day, I'll just be hungry and thirsty — so what?" But it's not that simple. It's one month of submission, over and over. With every rakah I'm being kneaded. I wake when I do not want to. I fast when I do not want to. I work when I do not want to. It's a vulnerable state, being jostled outside of oneself. So I'll take what the night has to give.

2. The refreshing feeling of ablution first thing after sleep - the water tingles on my skin

3. The comforting burbling of the coffee pot being the only sound

4. The sense that all the world is asleep, the day full of possibility not yet begun

5. Getting back into bed afterwards!

onight M. and I had a party to attend in the city from six to eight, though I wasn't able to break the fast until 7:06. We timed it so we could pick up some dim sum from our favorite place on the way, and I could eat it in the car as soon as the sun set, at which point we'd be arriving at our destination. These are the types of mundane little things that suddenly become quite important when you haven't eaten for thirteen and a half hours.

By six forty-five we were headed south across the Golden Gate Bridge, with the sun taking its time to descend into the ocean. It was an exquisite paradox between wanting the sun to set so I could eat and drink, and enjoying the utter beauty of the moment. If you've never seen it, the approach into San Francisco from the north is incredible at sunset. You round a curve from the hills and suddenly the whole area is laid out before you: to your left, Alcatraz, with the Bay Bridge and the Berkeley hills beyond - the water between is dotted with white sailboats. To your right, the endless ocean, perhaps with a lumbering shipping liner bobbing its way to destinations unknown. And in the center is San Francisco, a sweeping view from the Transamerica Pyramid and the tall skyscrapers of downtown to the small little houses nestled on hillsides, separated by the green swath of Golden Gate Park. As the sun goes down it pours rosy gold on everything, and the sky is still blue to the east and a nearly full moon is becoming brighter and bolder.

The smell of dim sum nearly overpowered me, but the hunger is the important part. The empty belly, the dry mouth, and the tender spot on my forehead from prostration. They're the offering and I give them all willingly - to ask for a prayer to be answered, to acknowledge a gift received, or sometimes - most of the time - just to say hello.

he first week of Ramadan is almost over, and I'm settling in I think. This morning I cracked the face of my alarm clock by flinging it off the nightstand when it went off at five. Oops. There is a slight cottony film over everything - hard to tell if it's from a disrupted sleep schedule or the fast. Sometimes I'm on auto-pilot from one prayer to the next. At moments I'll feel such a strong need for something - a cup of coffee perhaps - that it's almost hard to bear. And then it passes. When I get lonely I think of anonymous Muslims in San Francisco fasting along with me. I think of them lining up at Gordo at sunset, timing their transaction with the very moment they will be able to chomp into a hot, cheesy burrito. The fact is, I believe in the work of the spiritual path, in drudgery and hunger and longing. It's all right with me if it's difficult. For some of us, it's supposed to be difficult.

ay one of Ramadan is in full effect. I guess "full" might be the wrong word, though, as I'll be fasting until sundown (at 7:23 PM here). I woke up at five for breakfast and fajr prayer, and it's only a couple hours later - just trying to get some work in before the hunger and thirst set in, and then I'll go back to bed until the next prayer time.

My complete disclosure is that I only pray five times a day when I'm observing Ramadan, which isn't every year - just when I feel compelled to do so. But when I am observing, the rhythm of the prayer cycle adds a lot to the experience for me. My day revolves around prayer, and the day is broken up into smaller segments instead of stretching out interminably. I also find that I have more mental space once the primal hunting and gathering instincts cease to rule during the day (okay, so I'm hunting in the snack drawer and gathering a handful of chips, but you get the idea).

This year I feel drawn to do it because it's such a huge time in my life. I turned 30, finished Suluk, and passed my first degree black belt test all in the span of a few months, and in one more give or take I'll be married. It's a good time in my life to enter a reflective and meditative state so that these changes don't pass me by in a blur of mundanity. And Ramadan, though difficult, is a good way to do that.

Read on if you'd like a more complete picture of what Ramadan entails.

heard about a certain man in India who has a good philosophy about paths that are blocked. While leading a circumnambulation around a certain tomb, a sweeper had propped a broom in such a way that the handle blocked his path. But rather than break the rhythm of his prayer by moving the broom or by finding someone to do so, he waited and he prayed, and in time another sweeper came by and picked it up, and he proceeded on his way.

Now if one were in a constant state of circumnambulation, as one might argue we are from a galactical viewpoint, at every blocked path one could wait, and one could pray, and in time the way would become clear. In fact I just heard someone else say that everything you wish will happen in life, you just must wait for it.

I've been noticing these last few days how ways become blocked. People who seem half-asleep amble into a doorway, and stay awhile. Lumbering trucks back out into the road, attempting to head in another direction. Sometimes, for a moment, the way is so blocked that it seems life has stopped entirely. But it moves on as a record does while reaching its correct speed, and the music begins to play again.

While tuning his guitar during the last session of Suluk, someone said if we felt like we were waiting instead of just being, we might need to repeat the four years. I think it's true but in my case at least, it won't be necessary.

ll the time I pray
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.

— Issa

This is my favorite haiku, and so apt at the moment.