Silent nights have come
To sit still and greet the heart.
Please forgive me, Love.
——————————————
Ramadhan month is almost over. Many Muslim will spend the last 10 days of Ramadhan in the mosques. They focus on the zikr (remembrance) by enchanting attributes of God and reciting the Quran. They call it i’tikaf— literally meaning staying put or sitting still, commonly understood as retreat in the mosque to worship the God recommended at the last 10 days of Ramadhan. How beautiful those nights are!
How lucky people who have the time to spend with themselves and look in to their own inner journey.
I’m not a devoted one so I don’t do the i’tikaf anymore. For retreat I prefer attending discussion or meditation session or just being alone contemplating or just wandering at the nature.
I feel lucky that this past one year has been a kind of long retreat through the working from home during pandemic. I’ve got sufficient time to do what I missed doing for almost the past 12 years in which back to back trips were a cup of tea, and do it slowly with (sometimes not full) awareness.
Cooking own food, washing own clothes, cleaning the whole house alone, running or walking at the river bank, biking around midnight time, painting, singing out loud at lunch time, writing journals and blog, watering my plants and talking to them, and so on…. All thanks to working from home—
Thanks to Life for all those. Thanks for everything.
At the same time I made a series of mistakes to someone. Some things are misunderstood naturally. It’s gonna be ok. I hope Life forgives me and lets my journey be easier.
Almost given up:
Milestones to reach the final.
Language of dreams
—
Japanese is almost as difficult as Arabic but I didn’t find hard time learning Arabic as the brain was much fresher with more time to focus on lessons by then. I almost gave up this Japanese lesson as I felt too slow. Until today mixing up between シ and ツ still happens again and again. Different forms of adjective and noun when tenses change still confuse me. The crazy kanji has also tortured me. Why did I even learn this language? 🤪 Drama! 🥰
But hey! I won’t stop until I can read and compose beautiful poems in Japanese. Too much a dream? Ok, I won’t stop until I can present the company’s Code of Conduct in Japanese! Making more sense! 😁
If the teacher isn’t this good, I might have given up earlier. The Sensei is such an expert of Japanese language and culture that she can make me understand why those Japanese I’ve met have behaved so strangely not as I expected Japanese I thought would be. 😝
Some people are just so “like that” regardless they are Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Singaporean or any other….. Life is so interesting, take it easy!
God bless all….
One of the easy thing I was frustrated of….! What a stupid me! Look at the ugly frustrated hand writing! 🥶
Flow, Beloved. Flow.
Be a river whose stream knows
Its gravity. Yours
Is me? Making it flow back
To where a home is. Within—
—
A river is a river only when the stream is moving to a point of a pulling force. Don’t get stuck or blocked because that is when you lose your being as a river.
Urip iku sawang-sinawang is another Javanese wisdom that I’ve learnt. It simply means life is looking at each other, looking at something.
When feeling unfortunate, many will see others as luckier than them. Comparison is an immediate expression to show their frustration. Why are those people getting that but I’m not? Why does life give the blessings to them but not to me? Why are they married but I’m not? Why do they have good jobs but I don’t? Blahblahblah!
Let’s call them “these angry children”. When these angry children happen to consult to Javanese elderly, they will softly say “Ngger, urip kuwi mung sawang-sinawang….”
“Ngger” is equivalent with “My child”.
Many can only see what they are exposed to. Others have better job while these angry children don’t; and that makes these children angrier. They think that having particular jobs will make those people happier.
People are married and being married is considered happier and that makes these angry children sad or even angrier.
People travel to many places and these angry children think they are luckier; and that makes these children envy.
Some colleagues are able to deliver the speech better than these angry children and they think the colleagues perform better; and that makes these angry children feel as worst employees.
Are all those truly as these angry children think? No. Or at least not always. Or let’s say not exactly like what you expect. Or maybe not at all!
They have good jobs but they might have a lot of pressure or feel less appreciated. Whereas having (what you consider) less fortunate jobs is blessings for becoming less risky against integrity issues and less pressure.
They are married and these angry children never know what kind of spouse those people have. These children should be thankful for not being in a marriage this time and see that those married people are struggling financially or romantically or sexually or spiritually or socially or all…. Whereas the unmarried are free to be their own selves and getting more training from Life to be better and readier human beings.
People travel to many different countries while these angry children can only jump out to other districts in their province. These angry children think that makes those people better human beings. Yes, they have more photo albums and memories of what they have seen and more information; but they don’t automatically become wiser than whoever mostly stay home but are able to process the life experiences into true wisdom to address this humble life.
And colleagues speaking more sophisticatedly? Bloody hell! Those who talk talk, but not always walk the talk. What’s more important is how what aren’t even spoken or talked have helped people around them.
So, life is only how we are looking at each other, looking at something. We can look at them and get offended. We can look at them and digest what we see into a wisdom to be better living being without judging ourselves of being bad or unlucky.
That’s a simple Javanese philosophy that might be also taught in other cultures.
Accept who we are and process our own facts to mould the shape of love in us. Others are not always our mirror, they might be magnifying glass.
In fact, all of us deserve to be these angry children while growing to be the wise.
Thanks for the simple chats with some good friends and my own self.
You look perfect, Love
Mechanically living.
I can’t reach you, Love.
You’re deadly cold snow— heartless
Pushing me farther away.
—
Some work of art is precisely designed, formulated and worked by robot. Accuracy, precision, flawless
Some is beautifully designed, measured and worked by living artist whose movement is built through heart and soul. Relatively beautiful with direct human touch
Each prefers one with some price
A robot carving accurately on the door panel
An artist carving Jepara style design on the door panel
Some human beings are so mechanical, they don’t know how to respond others humanely. They simply see things through a flow chart. Hope that this group extinct soon.
These two sisters are best friends. True friendship is precious and beautiful: relaxing, joking and teasing around, no prejudice, no pretension, agreement, disagreement, entertaining, no gaslighting, at the same time enlightening.
They talked about regret to let go, connection among all things, the death, relationship with parents and siblings, misunderstood religiosity, God’s love, being stupid, making mistakes and so on and so forth.
God bless these two sisters and true friendship on earth.
You’re a paradox.
Close but distant; tangibly
Impalpable sphere—
—
I know you’re around. I just know. I trust you, Beloved. You smell like mid spring, sound like jazz, taste like sugar cane, feel like breeze, but not sure look like what….
Is it love or pride
To push through? Fortunately
Engineerable—
—
Some choose love over pride, some pride over love. No one can truly win over either because love and pride can be carved on to two faces of a coin. Ones need to toss the coin and get any appearance of one face not by luck. It is well designed, constructed and furnished.
How?
Culturally obviously….
True, Love. As long as you are being human, you can never absolutely win over one over another (the other?). It’s about how you grow through all dimensions in which you are: physically, mentally, spiritually, socially, economically, politically.
What is after this?
What shall we be transformed, Love?
Trust me, Beloved.
—
Trust is my key. It is with what I address what I can’t see behind the curtains. Be it good or bad, the journey is ahead. God bless each breath I take and the air I release….
Cold weary corner
Keeps things alive. It’s a choice
To put some colours.
—
Often time one puts everything in one place and let the other space vacant because it is easier to get whatever within reach. It is good, yet sometimes one should follow the heart to reach out those beyond spatiality.
Re-arrange and better manage one’s self.
The right side of my table is always packed with everything. The left side is almost empty….
Where are you now, Love?
Home is around the corner.
Turn right and be there.
—
One of good friends sent her work of art, compiling her memories of Sulawesi trips into a sweet calling-home clip.
Thank you, Mbak Adek for reminding me that I’ve got home, a beautiful one. A beautiful home is a heaven on earth and in heart.
Home is where heaven is. Good friends make you realise that it’s real!
Salaam.
This video was produced by Adek Azhar. She is a cat lover, a happy mother and grandmother, a good friend, a crazy traveler, a senior journalist as best description of her. Can’t wait to travel with her after pandemic in our small group of awkward travelers! 💞
What’s being neighbours?
Readily help and share with;
Willing to be, too—
—
My homebase starts materializing. Yay! It is in Yogyakarta, a small city that is socio-culturally integrated (different ethnic, religion and political groups are well blended), not so crowded and modern (sayonara, Jakarta!), with existing international airport, etc, etc, etc. And one most important thing is good friends are living there.
I always love to be and to have good and reliable neighbour(s). Those good friends will be my neighbours from whom I will get help and support when needed and who are willing to get helps and supports from me. They are not in the same housing complex but still in the same city.
For the past four days my menu has been all about banana. Banana for breakfast. Banana for lunch. Banana for dinner. Banana either cooked or just eaten not cooked. How much ever I felt bored with banana, I had to finish the banana because neighbours confirmed of not liking and wanting banana. Their expressions of “oh that banana?”, “banana hahaha”, “ummm banana but…” left a tiny puncture on my poverty pride. Maybe next time I’ll share gold or cash and see if the puncture moves to another point hahaha…
My “active neighbours” said to me it is not so common to share food with “any neighbours” nowadays. Or, they want to give but they don’t want to accept. Yes, yes, they are so right. I learnt another lesson about this people.
My so called “active neighbours” nowadays are the cleaning services and security guards with whom I can share food and wishes freely. Hey, hey I never share left over, all food is either cooked by me or packed from stores/restaurants purposefully for them. Respect to all my active neighbours. 🙏🏼
When I shared the pictures of those cooked banana in the Instagram and how much I’d love to share the banana (cooked or not cooked) with neighbours, my neighbours-will-be in Yogyakarta gave welcoming comments including they would love to share their cookings too, and that alone has made me confident of moving to that city and hopefully living comfortably there in the (not so near) future.
Sometimes I feel that I don’t belong to this place. Yet I know I have to be here for some time before leaving these things behind and enjoy being a human living side by side with others without other temporary identity; just being me, being human.
I know it will happen, not very soon; but it will happen. Now I am happy with this temporary identity and want to be a good neighbour for anyone who is willing to be my neighbour.
One more thing: I’ll grow banana in the future homebase and cook the best banana recipe and share it with neighbours there! 😂
May all beings be happy.
second day of cooked banana – the first day was banana cake but not so nice to take picture of, I also took my vitamin with un-cooked banana on those two days 😩third day of banana; aside from this I took my vitamin with un-cooked banana and ate one after the main course at lunchlast batch of banana on fourth day; I also took my vitamin with an un-cooked banana and ate the last one un-cooked and celebrated my freedom from banana! 🤩
Defined with honour,
Integrated in mindset:
Sublime happiness—
Having beautiful dreams everyday for one week is blessings in a row. The best of mine recently was finding so many ruby stones while walking home. When waking up, sense of calmness and relief were present yet at the same time a question of whether happiness was here. In the dream I still had to polish the ruby to shine, but at least those stones were given to me.
A couple of years ago I joined a noble silence in Bali, a one-week-no-gadgets-no-books-no-media-no-talk-just-be-with-yourself-although-living-in-a-dorm-with-other-people-and-be-vegetarian-plus-meditation-almost-the-whole-day. A top luxury for someone like me
Not about the noble silence, but a lot of things came back to me especially on how happiness is perceived by different people with different social, cultural, economical backgrounds.
In that noble silence there attended many different people from all walks of life: someone working in a prominent firm in NYC, fashion designer from Paris with one’s daughter, a family from Australia, a rich flight attendant of one of the best airline on earth, a rich person naming himself a party animal, a young start up owner who once talked in front of a president of the super power, an entrepreneur from Spain with one’s daughter, all others I can’t remember who because we practically didn’t introduce each other further. We stared and smiled with each other maybe once for that one week because each was simply busy with one’s self.
I was surprised that those who appeared so proud and happy and unshakeable finally shared in the closing ceremony how they struggled in life and how the noble silence brought realisation to them — simply by befriending with themselves. We were broken with different reasons: family matters, public cases, friendship, romance, work, trauma, fear of things and so on and so forth.
One more thing, struggling is not about how big the problem is but it is about how something disturbs the state of one’s clear mind. Nothing is defined too small when it shakes the boat.
I miss another noble silence, one of the biggest luxuries of life.
May all beings be happy.
my humble ruby stone found in a small shop in Kuching
This silence is so eloquent,
But still needs clarification.
What did you just say?
That love is blind?
That love is dumb?
That love is numb?
What did you just say,
Beloved?
Silence weeps bitterly.
Love is candid.
Love is painful.
Love is funny.
Love is simple
As simple as none....
Love is—
Hush!
Don’t trick me with words
Or numbers.
The beauty of silence shouts more loudly than what you’ve uttered.
Bluff with verbs, not adjectives.
Walking hand in hand is more beautiful than telling me beautiful.
Not to be a grammarian, Beloved.
Use the grammar well.
Someday you’ll receive an unwritten book of love with which thousands of poems are softly breathed to survive this pain.
Do you mind whispering an address, Beloved?
This silence is dramatically eloquent but indeed much better than Korean drama.
—
reading grammar book is fun but practicing the grammar is like falling in love—nervous and excited.
An old man’s waiting
For the sun to rise. He moans
At the moon. “Dark night,
Pull away. You block me from
Beauty.” — Life’s a mentalist.
—
Who is the true beauty? The moon or the sun? Debatable! It’s a matter of played tricks of layered lights— light upon light with darkness in between. How would it be not cozy hiding under a cool calm night while patiently welcoming morning? How would it be not fun playing in a warm radiant day while cheerfully welcoming dusk?
Ah…. Why should one be getting old while constantly denying what is….
What’s life, Beloved?
Contribution, not duration—
How much not how long.
Once an engineer working in a battery manufacturing asked me why my mobile phone battery was almost always fully charged. I didn’t know people observed my mobile carefully.
He said “I don’t see many applications in your phone so the battery might not get drained quickly, Rijk.”
“You’re right, Sir. The activities I do in those few applications already take a lot of energy. More apps, more energy, yet mostly those apps are not used often. So….”
“Ahhh! A good choice to contribute better than to be a jack of all trade eh? Try this trick!” He told me some secret of how to keep phone battery live longer. “…. That way battery will stay strong, live a little longer than expected plus you’ve got the endurance you wish. Tell me if it works.”
He also said that it doesn’t apply only to battery. It is about how life is dedicated for. Some people feel satisfied with having a lot and enjoying long life in luxury. In fact, some people live to contribute more to their surrounding, not having so much —just enough to stay content and happy— and die meaningfully.
I don’t know if that senior citizen is still alive. If he died, I’m sure he died happy. Once his colleagues said his life was blessed because of his kindness and generosity.
Alas! I still want to live longer contributing more. Oh, greedy self me! 🤪
Rolled dice, Beloved
Can cheat or give you luck. Choose
When to stop or lose.
Pandhawa Lima (5 brothers of Pandhawa) and the Kurawa (100 = 99 male and 1 female, all born from one time pregnancy), both were since childhood to maturity in a forever competition, rivalry and finally Kurusetra war!
I first read Mahabharata, Baratayudha when I was 10 years old. Comic series by R.A. Kosasih. I bet you’ll like them – unfortunately only in Bahasa Indonesia.
I always interpreted the rivalry between those two clans as a battle between good and evil. That everything happening between them was because Pandhawa wanted to eradicate evil, celebrated the good, wanted to make sure the kingdom was well governed, people were well protected with good welfare. Hmm…. I mean yes it was…. But is that the only angle to picture the stories? What was the cause of the war?
Until one day…. My brain was twisted and started to re-read between the lines. Since then I have agreed with those thinking that what Pandhawa had done was to fight for the right of one beloved woman, Drupadi. In Javanese culture Drupadi was the dear wife of Yudhistira (the oldest of the five) and the sister in law of the four (Bima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sadewa).
Drupadi was harassed by Dursasana in a betting party where Yudhistira let her the ultimate bet after he had spent everything the kingdom had in the game. Yudhistira was a highly respected king yet his weakness was one of them his liking to betting and gambling.
So, the epic war between the good Pandhawa and the evil Kurawa is to show how men respect and defend the women around them.
How would those who have read this epic story can’t see this significant line?!
I’m blessed to be a woman. And I hope someday I’ll be with a man who has the dignity to take a side of me when I have no one to defend, has the courage to respect a “weaker creature” when he has other options not to.
Happy International Women’s Day
It is not a one-day holiday or celebration, it is an everyday celebration to stay dignified and loving at the same time as a woman.
Not my job to preach;
Simply sharing what is sensed.
Don’t get it wrong.
No, no…. If people think what writers write is only about themselves, that’s not the case. The writers are just like us, human beings who get inspired by everything they sense.
😌
who bites the donuts – one person or five or how many of them?
rike jokanan 
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