Penetralium

Becoming restless serves you not. A fierce tornado of emotions that overwhelms all senses is only the aftermath of agitation. Desperation then engulfs you entirely. The whirling mind, steeped in contemplations and what-if scenarios, repeatedly pushes you to escape, to embark on a formidable, solitary voyage to the vast ocean. To find your Eden!

When you leap and sail, nothing, not even your breathing, feels automatic or regular anymore! What you persistently think about is getting somewhere. Think about getting to your Shangri-La, and pray to get where you are going. A question unseats your fragile sanity: Is the ship okay? Is everything working precisely? Could there be a leak somewhere that you do not know about? You double-check. You triple-check every inch of the boat. Day in and day out, you are obsessed to the point of paranoia with investigating.

In the never-ending expanse that is empty of objects you are used to seeing from afar, your closest company becomes the sound of your thoughts. To make things dire, the person you fear most to engage with—yourself—is the only one by your side, straining you out. A persistent howling from the kafila of waves crashing over each other surrounds you. The deafening roars consume all other sounds in your surroundings. The surges neither listen to your begging, nor can you respond to their yells. Your voice is no match for the strong winds and loud noise. Words only turn into mists of sound. The blue haze and brume that envelop every direction of your gaze muffles the echo.

Starting a conversation or taking a countermeasure against risks fades quickly. Instead, a rhythm, even a melody, emerges, and you hum to the pounding surf. You notice your wind-whipped skin has wrinkled considerably since you started your voyage. But the vast emptiness of the sea blooms into an arresting truth in your awareness. Nowhere to hide, if you must! Still amid your melancholy, the setting sun conceals the horizon daily, and the stars are born only for hours and then perish by the dawn’s light. When the night’s twinkling stars leave, they do not leave behind blemishes for their exit wounds on the blue, velvety muslin sky. Instead, they offer unspoken assurance to return if you are mindful.

One night, after many of you prevailed, you find the brilliant star cluster “Ath-Thuraya,” known today as the Pleiades in modern English. The annual, recurring heliacal rising of these stars happens just before dawn. They remain hidden for a season while orbiting the Earth. After their seasonal “hibernation,” they emerge from behind the behemoth sun. Ancient Arab navigators and nomads honored the Pleiades as the bride’s first look from the veil of her sari. For the first time in a long while, the star at sunrise invites sailors to begin the sailing and travel seasons. In absolute awe, you, too, wonder about the strict boundaries all celestial trajectories obey! It is unsettling to uncover yourself in that backdrop. You never considered your connection with this world, with this universe. A concession, reluctantly or not, sinks into your heart: you and the boat are in the embrace of this improbable world, not quite the gentleness. 

The ship glides, and it must do so until its fixed time runs out! Under the persistent battering of waves, the unyielding slaps of wind, the bone-shattering bites of cold at night, blinding light, and the scalding heat of the sun during the day, it glides. You, too, outlive your pains merely by a wink, by a knot-no more, no less. Unknowingly, you devote yourself to anchoring your heart in faith and becoming vigilant to elude drowning, only for the moment, letting go of your vocation if there is still anything left. Truth boldly announces the lack of your prospect to negotiate at any instant with anything. Going back to the berth or moving onward to the shore becomes interchangeable. Staying alive is somewhere between minor certainty and colossal instability. The anatomical reflex to defy or oppose the moments you find yourself in is not what you do to stay afloat. Offering enough of you, from every cell to the eternal, is most beneficial as long as your vessel floats and you pilot it to the best of your ability. Until everything evaporates without animosity, like the bubbles of the sea. An inevitability that awaits all.

Extreme exhaustion sneaks up on you. Bones and muscles only feel frail. In your hypnagogic state, the silhouette of your Eden suddenly flashes into your imagination to surprise you spectacularly! You feel nostalgic. The images are familiar monikers from the places and moments you have been to! You could have been the hoarder of métiers and moments of life that seemed mundane in passing. A long, audible sigh escapes you while searching for clarity. Finding a weakness is an improvement. That is how you feel. Yet, skepticism is a thorn in your heart while you embrace the “Kiswa,” the unending, vast, unseen universe. In your half-open eyes, the sea and the sky gradually emerge, magnificently. You feel the inaudible heartbeat for the first time since you exited the womb. Thankful for how far you’ve come. On the sea, in your life, you say goodbye with immense gratitude. And fall into a deep rest, feeling genuinely content, perhaps for the first time.