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FANA-FI-GAIA
Imbolc 2022 - 2nd Quarterly from the
Ziraat Council
Note from the Council
Beloved Extended Family and Relations, 

Mid-winter greetings from the Northern Hemisphere, here in traditional Snoqualmie Territory, what is now known as Seattle, WA, USA. 

Peace be with you!

Have you ever imagined your heart as a garden and you the gardener? A place where your original instructions are simply to be a grateful gardener, tending beauty, sharing the harvests of your heart-garden to nourish the rest of life? 

Where I live, on a farmstead between a giant metropolis and vast wilderness, it is winter in the garden. Harvests of the fall are stored: boxed, cellared, canned, dried, fermented or frozen. Fallen leaves and manure heaped and tarped wait in stillness for spring sprouts. Ponds and rain barrels fill and freeze and thaw. Full woodsheds feed home fires. When sun shines through the winter rains, the light is long and low and golden. 

Yet, there is still work to be done! It looks different than the work of any other season. 

Choose the seeds. Prune the perennials. Cover the soil. Compost the rotten. Share the harvest. Keep us all alive. Is it any different in the garden of the heart?

What seeds of practice ask to be (re)planted in your heart-garden? What deep-rooted tree of practice calls to be pruned and reshaped for a fuller harvest next season? What inner bounty offers itself to be shared with others who need your light and warmth and guidance through the winter season?

Whether Mureed or Murshid, I offer you this winter reminder: Tend the garden of your heart with well-chosen, soul-infused practice. Energize your practice with the power of your mind’s attention and nourish it with the sincerity of your heart.

Bowing with gratitude,
 
Hamid, on behalf of the Ziraat Council
Excerpts from Ziraat Reader
Pir-o-Murshid by Pir Zia Inayat Khan

So the bridge of Ziraat -which connects the physical world with the spiritual world- relates to both spiritual enfoldment and physical purification. I know that were [Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan] alive today he would be a strong voice in the ecological movement; I know this just from reading his words on the intelligence behind nature. And if I may, I would like to read this beautiful passage on the intelligence behind nature which [Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan] found manifested not only in organic life but in rocks and the Earth itself:

“Intelligence in its most dense form appears in things and in beings as radiance. From a mystical point of view, it would not be wrong to say that the freshness of the leaf, the color of the flower, the brightness of precious stones, and the expression of man’s countenance are the light of intelligence in its dense form. No object can be visible without radiance. Although we need the light of the sun to make an object more visible to our sight, every object is radiant in itself. It cannot exist, it cannot be visible if it is not radiant. If we made a synthesis of all the things in the world which we have separat-ed by analysis and called by various names, we could safely and rightly say that all things and beings are made of light, or that all things and beings are the manifestation of the light of intelligence….”

So perhaps if we came to recognize the intelligent being of the planet on which we live, we will hear her desperate cry for help. [Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan] heard this and he says: “My deep sigh arises above as a cry from the Earth, and an answer comes from within as a message.”                                           

From Our Ziraat Website
By Betty Lou Chaika

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer says, “One of our responsibilities as human people is to find ways to enter into reciprocity with the more-than-human world. We can do it through gratitude, through ceremony, through land stewardship, science, art, and in everyday acts of practical reverence.” 
Keeping Up
All Our Relations – Centering Indigenous Voices

From the 10 Principal Sufi Thoughts of Inayat Khan: “There is One Law, the law of reciprocity which can be observed by a selfless conscience together with a sense of awakened justice.”
Check out the teachings of Mother, Professor, Author, Speaker, Robin Wall Kimmerer of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a living example of the law of reciprocity. Speaking clearly as a modern scientist and directly from her indigenous roots into the predicament and possibilities of this moment in the human story, she revitalizes age-old original wisdom for how we can live in reciprocity with all our relations.
Practice
Expressing Gratitude is one of the simplest and most universal rituals. It is a profound way to reach across “the distinctions and differences which divide” and meet people in a shared Remembrance. Being here on Earth and alive is a gift. In what ways do you consciously give thanks as a daily practice?

Try this, if you’re not already doing it. Begin everyday events with an invocation of gratitude. When you rise in the morning, when you take a drink of water or begin a meal, when you meet someone (anyone!), let the first words you speak be of appreciation.

“I am grateful to have woken up this day, safe and well.”

“I give thanks for this clean water I drink, for these plants and animals I eat, who give their lives that I might continue living this day.”

“I appreciate your taking some time to sit together and talk about what’s important to both of us.”

Thanks Life!
Hamid
photo by Hamid