The Yellow Cow

Tags

apostasy, baqarah, marriage, prophecy, Reason, Shekhinah, yellow cow

Yellow Cow on Blue Background.

The largest surah in the Quran is, of course, the second in order, Al-Baqarah, containing many important commandments of the shariah, fasting and hajj and narrations relating the preceeding prophets to the Seal of the Prophets. It also contains the verse of the throne.

In particular, the surah narrates key two incidents in the relationship between Moses and the Israelites: their fall into idolatry and the cryptic commandment to sacrifice a “perfect” cow (found in Numbers 19 of the Torah). In the Qur’an, the Israelites are reluctant to sacrifice the cow at first, and proceed through three questions before they are satisfied with the “Truth” of what Moses speaks. Once satisfied, they sacrifice they cow, which is then used to awaken a murdered man from the grave.

The entire second surah is named Al-Baqarah — “The Cow” — not after the story of the Golden Calf, but after this perfect cow.

The question is — why is this Cow so important? What is it, precisely? And why does Israel require three moments of elucidation before they decide that Musa speaks the truth?

We can answer in three ways, of increasing detail.

First, we can say that Musa instructed Israel to sacrifice a Pefect, Yellow Cow to “clean up” the damage that was done by the worship of the golden calf. But to say this is simply to lay the signs before you: their Truth in relationship to you is not yet apparent.

In a second attempt, we might clarify and say: the Yellow Cow is exactly the Surah itself. Al-Baqarah is al-Baqarah. Its reading is its sacrifice. This does begin to involve you more — after all, reading is conducted by a reading subject. But, as the caterpillar inquired of Alice, who are you?

A third clarification is necessary.

Safiyya

Tags

judgement, Kabbalah, Shekhinah, slaves, Sufism

Anas, reported: Safiyya fell to the lot of Dihya in the spoils of war, and they praised her in the presence of Allah’s Messenger and said: We have not seen the like of her among the captives of war. (Sahih Muslim Book 8, 3329)

The Feminine and the Fire

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Islam, Lilith, Shekhinah, Sophia, women

The Prophet (the blessing and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “I saw paradise and stretched my hands towards a bunch (of its fruits) and had I taken it, you would have eaten from it as long as the world remains. I also saw the Hell-fire and I had never seen such a horrible sight. I saw that most of the inhabitants were women.” The people asked: “O Allah’s Apostle! Why is it so?” The Prophet said: “Because of their ungratefulness.” It was asked whether they are ungrateful to Allah. The Prophet said: “They are ungrateful to their companions of life and ungrateful to good deeds.” (Sahih Bukhari)”

Lilith is a danger to all subjects, physically male and physically female alike.

What Wisdom exists within such a story? Like all Prophetic hadiths, it refers to our potential reading of its own constituent signs. It communicates through Time. For there is a reading of the story that displays ingratitude to the Companions of Life, and leads our Feminine aspect to manifest the Lilith: this is the reading of hatred to our sisters, our mothers, our wives and daughters. The reading of the Lilith, in the fire! And there is a reading of the story where Sophia is manifest, and a foretaste of the food of the new is present in the Bride: this is the reading of grateful reception, of full and dutiful reception to the Light. A comfortable reading, a reading of restfulness, a foretaste of the garden.

Grace as a gate: a vision in 2nd person

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grace, navigation, Shekhinah, the gate

You are now suspended in space.

A frightful feeling forms.

A neon judgement to the left.

A kiss beckons from the right.

Woman and Sakina – the parable of Umm Waraqah

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house, Islam, Shekhinah, waraqah, women

The people debate the hadith relating to Umm Waraqah. But none of them understand. If they could taste this fruit, their thirst might be quenched for a moment this jummah. But their debates never break the skin.

Seekers read the narration and wear my garment to the masjid:

The Shekhina-Sophia’s relation to the Father and the Son

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catholicism, Christianity, filioque, Kabbalah, Logos, orthodox christianity, Shekhinah, Sufism, Trinity

Our variant of the Orthodox Trinity

The Trinity of Eastern Orthodoxy: the Holy Spirit flows from Father eternally. This is in contrast to the Catholic filioque, in which Son and Father are at the same horizontal level, from which the Holy Spirit flows, forming a triangle.

Orthodoxy prevails here, for the Trinity is a line, not a triangle.

The Father is Love, the Loving Beloved whose Love breathes a  cosmos in loving submission. The Son is the Logos of Truth. The Son follows from the Father because Love is relational, Love has a direction: Love entails a Lover and a Beloved. So Love entails that God should breath the cosmos. The Son is Truth because only Truth can be come from the ruh (breath) of God.  This action of breathing is the relationship of Holy Spirit from the Loving Beloved to the Loving Son. God’s most beloved lover is the Logos of Truth that God breathes in love.

But in turn, from our fallen perspective, the Beloved Truth is buried within us, sublimated within us, forms a body of difference, a logic of life upon which we can strive to attain Love in Cosmic Romance. (We sometimes call this sublimated body the Gifted Body, but more on that another time.) It is this Romance that makes our life into a journey, but also makes our love the strongest above that of other, immediately submissive entities.

That original breathed Word is still within us, but sublimated, so Truth walks with us, but we cannot see. Its sublimation makes our lives of difference possible.

So what does it mean to say the Spirit descends upon us? It is the mechanism of Truth. The Spirit descends upon us and Truth is breathed into us. Wisdom, Sophia, emerges.

The lover’s gift, inscriptions upon the body and individual returns

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Body, Body without Organs, Deleuze, Gnosticism, Guattari, Kabbalah, Logos, Luria, New Body, Ressurection, Shekhinah, Sophia, Sparks, Sufism

Inscription upon the body: the artist almost got it right.

The professor and the builder were visiting a gallery. They went to see a controversial retrospective of a Somalian born Dutch national artist called Ayaan van de Paddo. The exhibition was controversial amongst the Muslims of the city, because her oeuvre tended to follow a consistent theme: naked female bodies, painted, as if tattooed, with words of the Quran. Her message was in some way political, relating to the treatment of women in the Islamic world. The juxtaposition was too much for some of the believers. The outside courtyard of gallery was subject to constant noisy protest, a sea of brown and black voices crying out, sounding inside the gallery like waves of an angry post-colonial ocean about to break, or perhaps already broken, up on the shore of this strange Albion. The protest came courtesy of the local university’s Islamic Union, with much flag and effigy burning, angry sheikh speeches and quivering voiced sister vox-pops to the media. The outrage was not confined to this country, having spread as far south as South Africa and as far east as Indonesia, where the Dutch embassy suffered a bomb attack the previous day (no one serious injured, but the West now panicked and outraged). Of course, like other similar mass hysterics, there was a deeper religio-political wound at the heart of all this.