It seems at the souk, everything’s for sale-often in duplicates –although different parts of the Souk have their specialties. Here seems a world where there’s enough for everyone, it seems.
So if you really don’t like a price, you might get a better one elsewhere.
Broad tables loaded with foods fresh and dried, mounds of spice heaped in baskets nestled on the ground, create colorful spectacles with their piles of red chilies and neon orange saffron, corianders, and ground turmeric. You might catch whiffs of cardamom, clove, and stick cinnamon (even with a mask on- though the fragrance may be attenuated).
(Don’t forget the little blown glass gift jars, gold bangles and sweet myrrh incense. These are present year round. If your in the mood for a delectable, they can be seasonal –fresh apricot leathers, honey, and halvah pastries!)
To bring goodies home, there are all manner of baskets and tote devices.
The souk experience is unlike most American and European shopping experiences. Here in the U.S., the experience couldn’t be more different- mostly ‘colder’. Typically one traverses down long aisles of like – organized objects with a cage-like metal cart. I get to steer it’s bar handle under my palm -vibrating like a little machine as wheels roll click-clacking atop smooth shiny floors.
As I peruse the store looking for groceries (which apparently get rearranged, almost every other month- anything to keep us patrons in store longer), I don’t need to look at any body except the ones oncoming. And even then, with our ‘left-right’ etiquette, there’s no need to negotiate; it’s easy to ignore others.
And when in Rome, I do as the Romans do – I don’t always accost with a smile; mostly they feel awkward.
I pick what I want from a shelf and carry on. Though there might be, especially on a Monday, when shelves are barren after a busy weekend, lots of restocking.
Then I might get to smile at an employee – or ask them for help, if I’ve not found some thing I’m seeking. (Even though I’m wearing a mask, smiles come from the eyes – is a thing I’ve noticed.)
Once in a while, since carts don’t all go the same direction, you’ll run into someone repeatedly. Usually after a couple of times, I nod extra – you know at the rate you’re going, you’ll keep on bumping into them.
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This is unlike any situation in the souk– perhaps like having the same teacher (or student) for a bunch of classes – you see might them again after a few summers. In some cases each student’s idiosyncrasies come flooding back to you –and you’re waiting for them to be triggered. In the souk, it seems it would be exceptional to see the same person again and again> (You’d think something was going on…)
But if your a teacher and you’re seeing them after sending for some further ed-u-cation,- you might find a whole new student in front of you!
*****
I’ve been to fixed markets in India, Nepal, France, Equador, and Peru, and while they may have similar bustle, Cairo’s is unique in that it sits on the edge of Her Highness, the Sahara- a 2000 mile wide desert and is an important stop at the heart of crossroads. In this case at the intersection of traffic from Nile with barges and river craft laden from Africa’s interior en route to the Mediterranean going south to north, and with pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem and Mecca to the east.
As such, Cairo’s souk can be particularly dry and dusty- especially midwinter (Dec – Feb).
Caravans could arrive (or used to), effaced from experience of prolonged desert immersion; 40- 60 days of heat and wind and gray-scape. (No wonder they see so many illusions and hallucinations.
Then, the only colors visible to a man’s eye might be in the cloths they are wearing- aside from those rare oases palm, cacti and gray sages compared to lush rainforest greens.
(You can see how imaginations and story telling became so complex and vivid- they went inside themselves and made a whole new worlds up! That,…and the desert does ‘talk’ to those who listen.)
*****
I’d imagine the first few times coming from the desert, one’s eyeballs are ~struck, even shocked, corporeally. For some, feel jolted to life again (whether they like it, or not). But after being out in all that sand[1], dust and wind, or crewing intensely, going into the souk is just what soma needs to return to more nuanced hu(e)-manity- (and less mission-oriented.)
Today, it’s not uncommon, even for a woman with a ‘body guard’ (but I think for men too) to get a pinch on butt or shoulder. (I got one- even with my garb.) Receiving that sort of attention never fails to rouse e-motions. A body isn’t numb.
With, “don’t touch me,”, she (your inner corpus) wakes up and is focused on oneself (me, in this case.) Call being immersed in a hu(e)-man sea “restoration”. You could think of it as a form of “Me-di-care”.
Me–di-care~for my deity’s (my Dalet of self) I (surrender and) care for myself- do what must be done to honor inner self’s healing in the midst of changes- to regain at-one-ment.
Honoring her, I give her what she needs- food, love, water, and rest.
This is not the same as of Me-di-na(h)~for my deity’s self, ‘I surrender’- to Na(h)- nothingness from which all comes.
(Those I suppose you could roll it, ‘Me-di-nah’, into ‘Me-di-care’ too -observing the quality of one’s spirit is as necessary as brushing teeth).
Focusing on our Divine impermanence, whether we do it at Medina or other place, might be considered an essential to our soma self.
Visitng a “holy” place could be regular like a trip to the dentist (couple of times a year- with periods when you might go more often), or you can visit Inana (Queen of nothingness and death)-which we all feel we do- when hubris catches up with us. Remodeling is in one’s cards when we become undone (and energies of our 12th house ‘work’- get triggered).
You might schedule for the dentist, wait and pay for–and get clean teeth. Perhaps a bit more often if your gums are receding- and you don’t floss that often.
Meeting Inana is often free- but when you meet Her, your waking life isn’t the same. The former leaves you feeling clean; the latter refocuses. Dreams shift along with timelines.
WHile you do need to go to the dentist if you want scale removed, you don’t need to meet or see Inana to shift your timeline. You can be proactive by practicing more of what you want, rather than focusing on not wants. Talk about you small victories with your kids for example.
Whatever you keep naming, and talking about, you will receive more of.
Instead of complaining about a funny taste in the water – ask, “how can we make it sweeter?”
Either one, Medi-care and Medi-na(h), is better than Me-di-a. (media)[2]– for entertainment. (Media is entrainment with Tau’s tangible results – as in the advertisers’ success).
Though the first two, Medi-care and Medi-na(h) are important- as in we might well be reminded of them as we honor our diurnal clocks, giving about 8% each of the waking day, month or year to each of them-(or aim to.)
Once restored, relationships are next. Honor our immediate family of loved ones, by listening, playing and doing helpful chores. This calls for a balancing act but one that can be done gracefully- again with practice; it helps to have little schedule.
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And truthfully – all the jostles, bumps, and pinches – are what the Souk’s there for -to wake us up to the present here-and-now. Especially after being lost for long stretches of desert (time) in personal ponderings and immersed in one’s own (little) pool of reality’s container.
No wonder Bedouin’s stories are so richly imaginative- to keep each other hearts and minds active!
(After sensory deprivation, all the “beauty of nature” can wait, lol, first you need being with hu(e)-man’s to rekindle spirit. Remind your sensorium[3]you are still flesh form. Though in the absence of hu(e)-man warmth and bustle, cats or fresh color of living green, are a close second.)
The scrum of individuals is remarkable- each with their own (it seems) sense of mission. You won’t last too long if you’re not on your toes. So the souk is a good place to wake up.
*****
As an aside, you could think of Cairo as being the ‘eye’ of the Holy One –as in where ‘they’[4] first ‘touched down’ – and pyramids ~self-assembled (with man’s ‘help’)[5] as Her fovea- and inspired by dreams in the hearts of (hu(e)-) men. The fovea is where our perceptions are made[6]. Here’s a place for Him to test.
The pyramids[7] were built not to celebrate unity – like a ring of standing stones or circle, but as focus to conquer- as each man does his version of, “do as thy will”.
As Binah (in Kabbalah) is a ‘city of pyramids’, pyramids are (crystalline) fovea of Holy One’s ‘eyes’ in/on the world.
While to the Holy One, we are all of Him, until now, man’s ‘eye’ has treated “outsiders” with impunity- arming against those who don’t share a lineage of belief (bee-leaf(s )– disagreeing on how we stay ‘busy’). [8]
The sphinx is not a totem pole; it is not meant to be encircled by a group of like hearts and minds.
Though both sphinx and totem pole are forms of gargoyle- statues representing (a) man’s dream for protecting and focusing his tribe using animals, not typically plants, to further inspire.
Would that it be so, they were one day joined- rings and eyes (“I”s). together they create Phi
– for fidelity.
*****
Souk, compared to school, is open-ended by design – there are many paths into and out.
With is “K” or Kaph, at the end of souk as a word – the Souk is in service to the “One”, providing a palm-sized amount of help and sustenance – at the same time setting off and/or putting into action- a new cycle. (Kaph, with it’s lunar shape, is of Her liminal lightbody- its energies we are (inexorably) lightening, little by little, bit by bit, each time the wheel turns). With maturity, we become less reactive and more focused. This impacts our value to humanity (K is also 11th house energy).
Because we get individual lessons which are finite in time, and by us are eventually measurable, it is well the tarot card for Kaph’s path, is the Wheel of (karma and) Fortune.
So for G-d’s [9] work, as we are enhanced by both souk or school, we must but balanced. Learning to navigate either souk or school well, makes life (much) easier.
Riches earned are from one’s handiworks- and amplified when you go out to your beyond.
When Kaph, כ, is of G-d’s will, not man’s, it’s dagesh makes it sound like Khaf, (a softer sound with “h”, , added which then sounds like Cheth, ח, as in loch. Then the “ch” is a fricative sound that is drawn out, not plosive (abrupt).Heh, ה, is when G-d’s breath Aleph, א, is let in by the open window.
Of course, school, has the same Kaph, כ, sound too – with Samech’s as “s” or “o”, (As Samech is alchemical union of two very unlike things to create a new wonderful third, by both patience is introduced early.
With school, unlike souk, the emphasis is not on “u”- where two “I’s (or Yod’s, ׳,) meet and entities join- to create anew, but the embodiment of maintenance.
(Double “O” is a derivative dimension from a whole- as in a subset of itself. With “oo” there forms no stars.
“O” by it’s shape, carries energy of Teth, ט, and Samech, ס, even though in Hebrew “O” is derived from Vau, ו.
Ultimately reminding of receptive obedience to energy of His Will is necessary for both. But please don’t be confused, this is not the same thing at all of free will- manifest[10].
Here, with school, we are talking about Dad’s will, (since G-d’s will can’t be known, as in, finitely described, but we experience it wwhen we do with our hands, what we love.
As we create experiences, we get to describe our work in the first person, especially if using multi-recorder – then it stays (and stays) with us, until we learn its lessons well).
Whereas learning catechism of Dad’s will, we stay in our clans- and closed like clams -at least until now.
With “L” at the end of the word school, you’re judged at the end – L is Lamed,, ל, and you also have a groove of your own- your records and portfolio.
A groove is but a starting point and there’s beauty in that. As our vessel must learn first to hold water (emotions) before it can support flowers.
Just like Chairman Mao said, ‘May a thousand flowers bloom’- in each of us. (Blessings for his intentions, and may he R.I.P.) .
[1] Sand, angulated shards of more-silica-than-clay-carbon, tends to have more surface area per particle – and multiple sides. Grains of sand are not spherical- though may act like a weighted ‘ball’ for calculations. Sand can absorb oily dirt on each surface. Therefore, sand is a most efficient cleaner -though using sand leaves behind grit on surface scrubbed, it can be brushed or rinsed off. No soap is necessary.
[2] Me-di-a is nonstop waterfall of non-sense focusing hearts on dr-amas and events not in one’s personal reality. Stories often elicit (for teenage boys adrenaline -vicariously with exposure to (actors) actions. (The actor playing the role, is affected as well. )
Art imitates life and vice-versa, life imitates art. Study your clues well- take time to notice them.
[3] For my hu(e)-man immersion, instead of “Freddies” with it’s long sterile aisles, I sometimes go to Met market- it is set up like a crowded European market with lots of aisle-way-blocking stands- forcing customers to slow and go around.
Here is inevitable opportunity where you might interact with another hu(e)-man– unlike Safeway or Fred Meyer. But going to the Met is a treat, and I appreciate it, so I don’t go often. Going rarely is like adding a little spice.
[4] “they’ as in the Holy ones guiding the earth’s “evolution” by coaxing with power, l’ove, and beauty. Since man ‘fell’ from grace – he now experiences all three as hardship – at least until now, forcing evolution.
[6] ‘Perception’ entails use of our inherited operating system- and thus forms our reality. When told or witnessed a thing repeatedly, whether in real life or TV, our soma doesn’t know the difference. Whether real or virtual, you are immersed in a world of lies and delusions – on which everyone agrees -but time will prove false- and unnecessary.
Even the worst of situations and events will have their silver linings revealed, as being essential to (and essence of) hu(e)-man’s creative evolution.
***But you also can evolve without so much dr-ama (I like to think of drama as ‘Dr. Ama to the rescue’). As each generation gets closer to understanding consciously how we are light matter – affecting each other by the power of energetic coherence, may it be so we learn better to manage ourselves- to lift each other up. Dr-Ama, keeps us sticking. (see my essay on Ama AMA – a mystical perspective (Ayurveda part 3), for further elaboration.)***
[7] Whether the pyramids came before the standing ring stones, may well be debated. The reality is – the world needs both. What they stand for Will and L’ove. Without both, the world cannot grow and thrive.
[8][8] Impunity – to do without punishment –or not to thought of as puny, for doing it. (As opposed to “punitive” – implies creating puniness). See here, my essay on ‘”im-punity, Imp-unity or Im-punity –”. To call a thing puny, is to make small and cartoonish- as in reducing to (and focusing on) an outline of a form. Not necessarily undignifying, but can be.
[9] For all practical purposes, the will of G-d might look like, as manifest by you, the “highest and greatest good for all beings including me down to my toes (nails)”.
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