Thirty Things

another edition, to make up for the lag

Hello!

I’ve had a lot of new readers subscribe to this newsletter in the last few months, welcome, I’m grateful you’re here.

Though my attention has largely been on Palestine and the multiple genocides occurring from Congo to Sudan since October, my writing traverses the poetic to the personal to the political all the time. I exist between many states and writing becomes an extension of these places for me.

Twenty Things (or like today’s special, Thirty Things) was borne out of a need to discuss and document joyful, beautiful, moving things. So much of what I write about encounters and speaks to pain and grief - I mean, How To Cure A Ghost (both my book of the same title and this newsletter) was a place for me to start processing my childhood sexual trauma and immense sadness over being an abused and neglected child, a feeling that has trickled into many of my relationships. Writing is the place I first came to understand myself, largely because the world failed to provide me with the reflections I needed. The only choice I had as a very young person was to either kill myself… or find a way to survive and live with my reality. You can’t escape the remnants of abuse, sadly. But you can face them.

But facing also means there needs to be a reprieve from the work. One of my favorite things to do since I was a child is find weird cool things on the internet, in libraries, at thrift stores. I’m a discoverer of sorts, and I miss the good old days of searching the web to find treasures and strange findings - objects, furniture, homes you’d want to live in, songs from your favorite band you’d never heard before, evocative film stills and quotes that move you. These are all things that I decided I wanted to start cataloging, almost like a digital scrapbook, and that’s why I first started this column. Now, despite the current planetary darkness, I look forward to writing these up.

In the last four years, I’ve been moved by this robust community of readers who engage with my work, potentially you have also longed for a place where you can be seen and heard. So many of my readers are other CSA survivors, and I love you all so much. Knowing how hard it has been to find real, true comrades or spaces of care where people understand what you’ve been through, and therefore treat you with the bare minimum respect anyone deserves… has been hard for me to find… but (and this is why I love touring) my readers become these reflections that are hard to find in my everyday relationships. This is all to say thank you. Thank you for reading me. Thank you for connecting with my work. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for believing me. Thank you for seeing me. May my words continue to help and aid you. If you’re another CSA survivor, may my words make you feel less alone.

The world is so desperately beyond trash. The darkness is all-consuming sometimes, but I also know how temporary life is, and how quickly things can change. I don’t usually fall into despair (though there are times that I feel helpless) because I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know many of us fear wondering whether or not the world will tilt towards good or bad — will we go completely extinct or will we find a way to make long, lasting solutions to revolutionize this world? What I will say, is the more people commit to the latter… the easier it will be to create and initiate a new world... people power is everything here.

Astrologers have been telling us for many years that we are in some of the hardest years of our planetary evolution, but that this time is for our evolution. We are moving towards deep societal shifts, we see it every day. Yes, there is a lot to be angry about - what is happening on college campuses across the United States should make us mad. Philosophy department heads, Economics professors and students from every major ivy League getting arrested for protesting genocide! Wild. State Troopers and the pigs bashing TEENAGERS to the ground and tasing Black STUDENTS… all the while Cop City continues to churn… This is what they’ve been doing for a long time, militarizing the US. This should make us angry, but what’s after that? We should be WAY ANGRIER that there are genocides in the Congo (to mine for our “green energy”) and that 6,000,000 people have been displaced Sudan (and according to Yassmin Abdel-Magied, there’s imminent death for millions of Sudanese folks on the horizon) and that Palestine (alongside their ongoing annihilation) has been occupied for 76 years by a country that continues to kill with no remorse. We should be mad that the US manufactures war and manipulates foreign economies, enforcing military dictatorships and killing true democratic leaders throughout the last century. We should be mad about Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq… Puerto Rico, Cuba, Libya, Yemen… I mean the list goes on.

My dad keeps talking to me about the failures of the Arab Spring. In fact, most revolutionary groups throughout the world, have failed due to many things - a collective of masculinity, ego, infighting, jealousy, manipulation, coercion etc, etc but all this stems from a lack of direction. Anger must be directed, especially in revolution. Especially if you want to change the world.

Ask all your Astrology girlies (the ones that actually know things) how they feel about these times, and I think most of them will tell you, all of this needed to happen. Civilizations always collapse. Empires always fall. The Tower card disintegrates not to create havoc but to destroy what is so something else can be born and can grow from the fertile ashes. This time, much like the time of pandemic, is asking us to destroy what no longer serves us and resurrect into our new selves, into a new spiritual dimension. This means shattering shadows, it means looking at the muck, it means releasing all that does not serve greater humanity. It means refocusing on the goal at hand. It means sharpening our focus.

Two days ago I was at USC, reading at the Liberated Zone with my comrades from WAWOG. It was electrifying. A few months ago I started randomly writing poems again. So I read one of these new poems. As I looked at the crowd, a mix of people of all genders, ages, faiths, and ethnicities… something clicked. There was a group seder for Passover alongside our reading and everyday there are five prayers for Muslims or anyone else who wants to pray. This is a possibility, our ancestors once lived like this, in togetherness, in communion, with a shared desire to know and understand and sanctify one another’s lives and faiths. We don’t have to bully each other into submission. We can just be and give the respect we crave to have and give it to each other.

When I was 19, I did a spiritual pilgrimage. I went from the Alhambra in Spain, to the tomb of Rumi in Turkey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia where I performed Umrah. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life, and what struck me was the togetherness of people wherever I went - I didn’t just encounter Muslims but people from all walks of life, existing alongside each other. We thrive when we can be interdependent. When many of us, diverse and complex, can be together, but we can be strong in ourselves, in our own traditions, and our own cultures and not subsume to a more dominant culture. We are more connected than we ever have been. I feel excited about what this time is brewing.

Here are some Thirty Things to excite, inspire and motivate you towards the future.

with love,

fariha

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