last breath

I'm possessive about myself now

Seeing that last breath drawing close

Not giving away my peace of mind

Introducing

Tasnim Sheikh is my original name. 

I found myself born in a gorgeous place on Earth. 

I grew up running and biking in freedom and in song. 

I have lost my way many times along the way to here. 

I've been loved and I have been hated in many a turn. 

There's a job that I landed in the aviation industry. 

Where scratches and stretches of my personality happened. 

And in the hardest of times I earned my greatest gifts which made me more and more human. 

I met a guy who taught me love, he gave me a package deal that broke me and made me whole, made me a woman out of my childhood world. 

I've had three tough, unbending teachers who pressed and pushed every ounce of me.

They came at the best of times and the worst of times, my teachers did come, each one emerging from me - miracle babies.

Who was I to teach them anything, when I was just a naive flibbertygibbet lost in my own world. 

We packed. We packed and came to Canada. And that's when my story takes a turn, or maybe we just stayed in the same dance.

Until now, when I'm facing retirement, soon, soon. 

Soon I'll be aging, I'll say,  I'm sage-ing. A sage looking for her campfire, to sit down waiting for her crowd to hear her tell her stories.

You say you have no time

This human for whom you have no time.

Has not worked the two days since I've been well.

Cleaning up your house.

Your work is more substantial than mine is, right?

You do this and that little bits and then you say you're tired and you go to bed.

You say you have no time for me. 

You say you have no time.

You left this house for me to do because your work is more substantial than mine and I can do it, because I have so much time?

You,  for whom I have all my time.

You,  you have time for your games,  and for me - you have no time.

I'm done giving you mine.

Maintenance

Why do I wake up thinking there will be word from my companion? It's a set up to look for only to find the disconnection and get my heart broken once again and torpedo my mind.
In this nest only one does the maintenance, the other does the sustenance.

All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not filled. The Book of Ecclesiastes.

Your soul is calling you. 
You've been seeking the reason and meaning of your life for many decades and it boils down to Self.
Self is made into a dirty 4 letter word.
Yet, everyone is seeking their Self.
Some people wrote about their lessons others didn't.
When wading out of all that, the Soul is what's left, still, very still, still inside you, still waiting to be heard. 

Friends in the Camino

On the streets of Matosinhos
There couldn't have been more to ask for
And here where we began our Camino
We came together with new friends
Angels live where we live
Because we are God's beings.

March 3rd, 2018

Elephants Slip Sliding Away

My life has reached a place in the way
Where not a turning point or a curve ball ahead lay
If I were a fledgling bird, I'd fly
But from here, I can't even see the sky
So at the last tree I smear my mark
And slide into my life's next part.
March 25th, 2018

Getting the Lion's Share

Her scars tell quite a story
Each one singing her glory
For when you live in the wild
Every reflection seems mild
Only now matters here
Breath mingles with fear
Everyone has a killing bite
And everything else is life
March 30th, 2018

Natural wonder

Nature doesn't wait for coaches and mentors and validations in order to step into her power -  she does what she does and the world gasps in awe.

And in the big picture, things aren't exactly 'un-chaotic' or 'set up' perfectly, yet She just goes on about her stuff and in the grand scheme of things She becomes the icon!

Hey Status Quo!

I feel I have woken up the keepers of the Status Quo. They are the Dwellers at Square 1. I am so fed up of knocking on their door until I have become that nuisance in the neighbourhood who hears other people's disgruntled shouting to 'keep it down' and telling me things like 'do not come back here!', when it is I who is tired and now bored of the assaults I have made in getting this door to open. So now I have meaningfully bashed it down. And there is unrest here, and my heart is reeling, or is it just that my heart is like the Sun that is within my Universe and it looks like it is flinging but is really magnificently, steadily holding my Space.

Feb 23rd, 2018

Human life jungle

Living, being a human in this world today, means we forever forget that there's much more to life than the jungle we live in.

And if we want to go back to being part of that life that lives in nature, than we first of all need to be awakened in the sleepiness of the moment.

In the just being, is the living.

Tasnim Jivaji
July 30th, 2018

Now is all.

I'm tired of fluttering about in this cage.
My wings are broken and my face is sore.
And it's all because you keep beckoning me in that loving voice.
You whisper, ever so softly.
You speak in my breath.
And I get very excited again.
Each time to know you're calling me to be what you made me.
And that the cage I'm in isn't even real.
That what is real is just being.
Tasnim Jivaji
April 12th, 2018

Failure is....

Failure
is the crack
when an angel is
about to come into my life.

Empty feeling

Whenever you ask yourself, "Why am I feeling so empty?" Do you ever hear the answer saying what you want to be full of?
May 8th, 2018

Moment

Now and there.
That's all for now.
Then is not here.

Tjivaji
July 4th, 2018

Internal Stories

When I fell down - they kept telling me to get up! I'd never fallen down like this before so how was I to know how to get up? Seeing all the things that lay strewn around me - they tell me to pick myself up NOW! So I have a tantrum, because I am overwhelmed by this unknown place of being where I've never been, flat on my face.  Eventually, I get up, pick up my broken spirits and shuffle along. I can feel my inner child holding my hand, helping me balance to walk my talk. I turn around to look at the heap that my inner child has pulled out of my things because she didn't know what they were and therefore to her these things were absolutely useless. Vehemently refusing to help me carry them she threw them away near the garbage pile. I saw my stiff blanket, the one I got from my youthful escapades, the manufacturer's label still showing - Ego. A custom-made chocker, which surely weighs a ton, that one which I had collected from the Shame Game. And a whole bunch of braids of rastafarian-like strands falling all over the arena about which the janitor was angrily scolding me for leaving all over the place, "Hey you! Take your stupid stories away, they're not wanted here!" he shouted.

Written by Tasnim Jivaji
July 20th, 2018

A door handle on a church in praia de ancora on the camino