My Visions, My Voice, My Magical Retirement of 2010/1431

20-29/9/1431 Al Aeitikaaf Feel Masjid Annoor 1431 Seclusion 2010

 

    In the past, I have focused on the theology and other aspects of Al Aeitikaaf.  For this years tale of seclusion in The Place of Prostration, I will tell of only of this years practices and experiences of it.

    I grabbed the last of what I needed to take and left for retreat 7:42 P.M. Monday, August 30, 2010.  I broke fast along the way with Yellow Gon Root Tea at 7:53 P.S.T.  I arrived at Masjid Annoor approximately twenty minutes later.  I sat my empty bottle down up front, wiped off my shoe with water, and joined those praying Magrib Salat for what was to be the next forty-two obligatory prayers.  As we don't fast out of self-mortification, we always went down stairs to eat and drink what we were to eat in the first half of the night.  The way we are taught is to pay extra attention to eating wholesome food.  I must admit, this is can be especially difficult in Ramadaan. 

    As dusk fell each night, the intial prayer call was sounded and we prayed Ishah Salah with a larger group than evening prayers, except the two dinners on the weekend.  The night of the twentieth felt like one of the last ten of Ramadaan, the most rewarding nights of the year.  It seems that I can always tell by the end of the twentieth night whether or not it will be of these most special nights.  After a couple recommended bows of prayer, by ourselves, it was time for Taraweeha Ssalah.  This extended prayer was set to be five sets of two bows each.  In Vancouver's most sacred spot, it has never been led by the same person all month, unless it was in the 90's.  The location of Vancouver's most sacred spot changed to about two miles west of the previous spot in 2007.  The first night of retreat included Al Qoor'aan 6.45-90.

    As it is the point to sleep right afterwards, I always tried to go to sleep then.  Reading or reciting appropriate verses, I slept as August 31st came around.  I had deeper psychedelic dreams then usual that night.  I saw myself deep inside vast places.  However, I in no way felt trapped.  I woke up in the last half of the night and found no one up for joining me in prayer.  I thereby sat to read God's word for this era.  I resolved to read four sorts of verses twenty times or so in the state of seclusion.  I achieved this goal of reading these sets, once in the night and once in the day, this time.  The set of twenty-two verses was read six times every twenty-four hours.  I was up that night for a third of the last half of the night between dusk and dawn.  I had a goal to use almost all of this last third of those nine night hours (12 hours night and 12 day as my way of division no matter the season) for extra prayer and Quranic study.  I was only allowed a few hours sleep early enough to do this this once, but of that I am grateful.  Time had come to say the prayer after sleep.  This Tahajjood Salat was led by me saying Al Qoor'aan 40.1-45.  The Soohr meal was the last activity before dawn these days.  We stayed up till after the sun was above the horizon in some state of remembrance of Allah.  After a Salatoo-DDoohaa prayer of two bows, each by themselves, it was time to sleep again.  This is how the collection of sleep in the night and the day played out during the retreat.  In total it was an average of over two hours less sleep a night, but I was no less energetic than usual.  I listened to Al Qoor'aan Soowrah 8, 9, 10, and 112-114 with the M.M. Pickthall translation that day.  All the Salat prayers of the days and nights of Retreat were said in the congregation.

    The Prayer of Pauses came in the twenty-first night of the sacred month.  Al Qoor'aan 6.91-146 is what was recited.  Something that occurs with the extended prayers is that everyone who does them right has some psychedelic experience.  Despite not saying extraoridinary long ones on a regular basis, such things have been on average more than daily for me.  I hardly see the point in sharing any more of them than is necessary to illustrate variety.

     September 1st came with a more vivid psychedelic dream than usual.  Like unto a ball of twine, there was a sphere of threads.  Each thread was a different color similar to a rainbow.  I had more vivid psychedelic dreams than usual and that was the one worth listing.

    The pre-dawn, Prayer after Sleep (Tahajjood) included from Soowrah 55 to 56.  I listened to the Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall Translation of Al Qoor'aan Soowrah 1 and 2 with Abdul Basit's recitatation, that day.

    The night of the twenty-second came with more joining in the seclusion efforts.  The Extended Prayer included Al Qoor'aan 6.147-7.51.  That was it with focusing on saying the chapters in order.  It was quite apparent that that we would not get through the first third of Al Qoor'aan as a group that month.  I don't mean to say we missed out on anything.  The efforts in time spent alone were likely equal to many groups who read all 114 Soowratayn that RamaDaan.  People seem to like the style of who currently is the usual RamaDaan Qaree (reciter).

    On September 2nd, clearer psychedelic dreams were had than usual.  A more important experience than any in months came upon me between 2:45 and 3:30 A.M.  Amoung woven hills, there was a tall and dark creature.  It was hominid with vents or gills upon its curved horned head.  The head was curvy, but the horns went up and out to the sides at 45 degree angles.  I was left with a curious feeling at the sight of this Jinn.  It was a feeling you'd have to experience to know what I mean.  However, such is the same of gnosis of any non-human metaphysical being.  I then prayed predawn voluntary prayers in a group with Al Qoor'aan Soowrah 59. 

    That day, I listened to Soowrah 3 from the M.M.P. Quran C.D.  The night of the twenty-third had Al Qoor'aan 62-67 in its voluntary (nafila) Prayer of Pauses (TaraweeHa SSalah). 

    September third brought wonders, I can hardly begin to describe.  In my soul travel (another way to describe a dream). I saw myself dressed in a green cloak (the color of the day on Friday) sitting upon a mountain.  Voices could be heard there.  I noticed where they were coming from shortly.  There was a row of seven light beings large in the sky.  They seemed as large as moons or suns in actual size.  The presence was a myriad's myriad.  Their light filled from horizon to horizon with blue and white light of a mundane nature.  However, their colors were curved and pointed bits like a rainbow of the Malakoowt (unfallen angel realm).

    That day I listened to Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall's translation of Al Qoor'aan with the recitation of Abdul Basit.  The passages covered were Soowratayn 18, 32, 50, 62, 76, 49, 51, and finally 77.

    The twenty-forth night of Ramadaan included the first sixty-six verses of Al Qoor'aan Soowrah 17 in its Prayer of Pauses (Taraweeha Ssalat).

    September 4th, 2010 included a dream of wearing a goat hair shirt amoungst bright luscious plants giving off perfumed smells between one and 2:45 A.M.  From around 3:15-4 A.M. I dreamt I was wearing the like and moving in the wind amoung bright plants.  I was only able to join the group for Witr (The odd numbered bow prayer is to be the last voluntary prayer before dawn.).  Bukharee 4.53.340 says Muhammad died wearing patched wool.

    That day the listening was with the Pickthall Quran Soowratayn 17 & 20.

    The twenty-fifth night came and we covered the first eighty-two verses of Al Qoor'aan Soowrah 18.

    From two till three something in the A.M. of September fifth, I perceived myself in a wide black space with no apparent edges,  I was immersed in pulses of light coming as if from a central point.

    At 11:10 A.M. I was in in a semi-awake state.  It seemed to be a Quranic reading/reciting that I was hearing.  By 11:15 A.M., I rose to the unknown voice and it changed into the music from the musician that is a neighbor to Masjid Al Noor.  That day I listened to the same folder with Al Qoor'aan Soowrah 19.

    The twenty-sixth night of Ramadaan had Al Qoor'aan 18.84-20.12 in its Extended Prayers (TaraweehaSsalat). 

    From 2:50-3:30 A.M. of September sixth, I saw the following: I was underwater, but not drowning.  Under the water, I swam vertically.  It was there that two fire beings came to me.  Their presence was as one to four hundred and fifty-six apiece.  Their form was like unto eels, but not so.  The color of one was like yellow, but not so.  The color of the other was as green, but not so.  They rotated about me clockwise as all three of us sang.  They kept their heads a hundred and eighty degrees apart at all times.  The circle they swam in was twenty-four feet in circumference.  They gave off visible charges of electricity.  As they looked at me with their peculiarly gentle faces, the pleasant charges went through me.  Their combined presence equaling 912 stayed with me until the vision ended.

    After waking for the final time that day, I listened to Al Qoor'aan Soowratayn 4 and 36 of the Pickthall translation with Quran.

    The twenty-seventh night of Ramadaan came with its post dusk Prayer of Pauses (Taraweeha Ssalat) including Al Qoor'aan 36-37.76.

    September seventh, 2010 had me dreaming of falling petals everywhere.  They were of the colors of the rainbow.  There perfumed scent wasn't all flowers.  I mean that in the sense that is seemed different smells were present.  This like all the listed visions were between dusk and dawn.

    The Prayer After Sleep (Tahajjood Ssalat) included Al Qoor'aan 40-41.6.  I missed the group for the final prayer before dawn.  After the final waking up, I listened to Al Qoor'aan Soowrah 5 of the aforementioned recording.  All these days had much discussion.  2009 was the first of two years where I was not able to finish Al Qoor'aan in entirety (forty some hours with English too) during the ten or eleven days.  I didn't miss out.  I gained thanks to the group activity, if God so wills it.

    The twenty-eighth night of Ramadaan had Al Qoor'aan 52.36-56.16 in its Extended Prayers (Taraweeha Ssalat) after dusk.

    The predawn dreams of September 8th, 2010 were full of toothpick like spokes of light.  They were together in a pattern as if cast in gel or bound as a fence tossed in a storm.  No constraint to these spokes was there.

    The Prayer of Rising After Sleep (Tahajjood Assalat) included Al Qoor'aan 33.1-38.  The day had me listening to Al Qoor'aan Soowratayn 6, 7, and 99 with the Pickthall translation.

    The twenty-ninth night of Ramadaan had Al Qoor'aan 56.76-59.9 in its Prayer of Pauses (TaraweehAssalat).

    From 11:55 P.M. till 12:30 A.M. the next day, I dreamt of cats upon a flat, glossy, and black surface.  There were three more periods of predawn sleep on September 9th, 2010.  12:30-1:30 A.M. had me dreaming the same as the first.  1:30-3 A.M. and 3-4:20 A.M. likewise had the same cat dream.  Only that forth period of sleep seemed like a really deep one.

    That final day of RamaDaan had me listening to the 8th Soowrah of Al Qoor'aan from the same folder.

    When the sunset, I really felt it like in some previous years.  I knew before it was announced that Ramadaan had ended.  I had hoped to gain the 5000 years of separation from the punishment of the afterlife that ten years worth of last third of Ramadaan fasting retreats can give.  Only God knows how much of this I am to have.  The opportunity in Ramadaan was over with.  However, this year I had a perception of a certain teaching.  "The fallen angels or fire beings who would tempt humans are chained  and the gates of the Hell realms are closed for the ninth month.  At the end of it these metaphysical devils are allowed to be free and the gates have been reopened."  It is said or something quite similar in effect. This perception was more than merely emotional.  It was like in Aleister Crowley's The Vision And The Voice.  In the chapter of The Tenth Aethyr, ZAX, the words of Choronzon to open the outermost abyss/outer darkness spoken by Adam was,  "ZAZAZ ZAZAZ NASATANADA ZASAS."  It was like such a dramatic call was being made without me hearing it.  The night rolled on like it does with the special greetings of Festivity Blessings (`iyd Moobarak) between us, Dusk Prayers (`Aaishah Assalat), and preparing Masjid Al Noor for the Holiday Prayer Service (`Iyd Assalat).  I returned to my abode at 10:15 P.M. on Thursday, the ninth of September 2010.