Tomorrow, I go on retreat for five days at a retreat conference center near Columbus Ohio. Birthed by tomorrow’s New Moon in Scorpio, and centered in the culmination of the (Calleman version of) the Mayan Calendar on Friday, October 28, I will move deep into Zikr meditation with a Sufi group guided by Neil Douglas Klotz.
Zikr, the holy of holies within the Sufi mystical tradition, means, “Remembrance of God.” Of the sacred essence of the cosmos.
Below, on youtube, is the translation into English from the original Aramaic of “The Lord’s Prayer” by Neil Douglas Klotz that begins, “O Birther, Mother/Father of the cosmos . . .” It was his translation of that prayer that made me realize that, had I known about this way of feeling one’s way linguistically into the mystery, I would never have had to leave my childhood home in Catholicism. This prayer circles me back to my origins.
When I signed up for the retreat a year ago, I didn’t connect it to the Mayan Calendar. I don’t know if the retreat was deliberately set up to coincide with the end of the Mayan Calendar. I doubt it. To me, it feels exquisitely appropriate to be chanting and swaying and swirling with a group of Sufi mureeds during this holy time. Together, we spiral into the One.
I return to this life and this blog on Monday.
