Just Listen, or You Will Stumble After Praying

I always meditate in the mornings and nights. I try to be as consistent with this as possible, although sometimes life has other plans in mind so I keep a flexible practice as well. After taking a few moments for me, I pray and honor the spirits I work with, first my ancestors of blood and their beliefs, although I don’t share them, and then the spirits, energies, and beliefs I work with. However, I recently had a courtesy call, let’s say.

My most important times are at night, when everyone is either sleeping already or is about to. I’ve always been a night owl and thrive at night time. I’m my more creative, receptive, and focused self when the Sun sets, and try to take as much advantage of it as possible because I’m still human and humans have this funny need to sleep a healthy amount of eight hours per day.

One night, while I was finishing my meditation and prayers to my ancestors, I literally fell from the chair. I tried to stand up, but my legs and the chair didn’t get along in that moment and I was on the floor right away, not knowing whatever happened to me. I had no bruises, no marks, not a scratch or anything, just a bit of pain, and, quite remarkably, didn’t feel any anger, just the surprise, and small adrenaline after it. I paid no attention, did the rest of my meditations and prayers, and went to bed.

The next night, right when I thought I was done with my ancestors, something called me to stay still, just to be there for a bit more. Then I thought “What? I can’t. I have things to do and I really want to sleep tonight. I already did what I’m supposed to do.” But I decided to do as I was told, and stay still, breathing, forgetting about whatever it was I had to do then. For a while, nothing happened, and then I felt someone’s presence.

I was told that I had been focusing on what I wanted to say and hear, but not what they wanted to tell, and it was in a soft, calm voice. When trying to put a face to that energy, I got a picture of my maternal grandmother’s mother. When I looked at her picture, that woman always seemed so calm, although she endured a horrible cancer that deformed her head and kept coming back no matter how many times she got surgery. There came a point when all she could say was ‘Oh, God’ because of the pain. However, I saw her happy and calm.

I realized she was saying the truth, and that I had felt that need more than once but quickly dismissed it because I was “too busy” with other things. If I was done with the structure and script I created, then it was time to move to the next step, then the next, and so on until I was ‘free’ to get back to what I was doing before. Not surprisingly, she told me it had been them, my ancestors, who made me stumble and hit the ground. No wonder I wasn’t angry. I guess it was an urgent call to pay more attention, and she told me exactly that, that I had to be open and see if there was anything they wanted to tell or ask.

That same night, after I was done, I went to the kitchen for a mundane glass of water. I was still thinking about what my great-grandmother told me when I felt the need to stop and listen. Just listen. I stopped right away, focused on my breathing, and waited. I didn’t know what for until I started getting words in my head. For the sake of simplicity, and because Arabic changes a little from country to country, here’s the version in English of what I was told: “Five, five, five. Five, five, with you, your house, and your ground.”

It reminded me of the hatif, a type of jinn which cannot be seen but only heard, a voice that seems to come out of nowhere, and I certainly have a respect for those beings. I repeated the phrase several times, getting the feeling that it was a kind of blessing, something to say to call for good energies and to wish someone good luck, or more than good luck because I also got the image of the Hamsa, the Hand of Fatima, an Arabic symbol of protection I like a lot and will speak more about in the future.

I will certainly not wait to fall again like I was drunk to pay attention and remember I’m not the center of the Universe.