"Blessed is the man who knows his own weakness, because this knowledge becomes to him the foundation, root and beginning of all goodness."

Isaac the Syrian, Mystic Treatises

#Ethics #Theology #Mysticism #Philosophy

Ahmed Khaled Towfik is known as the first Arabic writer of horror and SciFi. This novel, Utopia, is a SciFi depicting a future in Egypt where the rich took refuge in a secluded guarded area protected by hired ex-marines, while the "Others" are left to rot in a post-apocalyptic city. It is told from the point of view of a bored Utopian and an Other, and how their path would cross. Towfik was a Lovecraftian, even in his SciFi. The ending literally broke me.

#CurrentlyReading #scifi #Egypt #Marx

Happy Amazigh New Year 2973!

Amazigh people , the indigenous inhabitants of Morocco and North Africa, are celebrating the Amazigh new year, Yennayer, today. It is celebrated with parades and festive meals. It is a good time to remember the rich pre-islamic and pre-arabic history of the region.

#Morocco #Algeria #History #Amazigh #Indigenous #Yennayer

Found in a traditional Moroccan shop of oils, herbs and spices.

#Caturday #CatsOfMastodon #Morocco

I don't think of myself as a religious person, but something led me to pick up Prayer in the Night. Maybe it's a form of longing, curiosity, or just my many sleepless nights. The book has a keen understanding of the human condition, and serves me as a companion when having "one of those nights". I love the idea of prayer as a longing to place your own crises in some larger narrative. Prayer offers the distance, and place from which to heal.

@bookstodon #Reading #Christianity #Healing #Theology

In the past few months, my reading diet has consisted mainly of philosophy and politics, and I've unintentionally left my passion for poetry at the threshold of starvation. But when I opened "View with a Grain of Sand" by Wislawa Szymborska, I've found myself reading these verses repeatedly. Only then, having been nourished, I realized the extent of my prior starvation.

#CurrentlyReading #Poetry #literature #books @bookstodon

"All made me believe that before the end of winter with the ethereal silhouettes of the boats, and their sudden breakthroughs in the sky, with the lovers along the promenade, in the declining sun, and the hypocritical promise of the spring, all made me believe that before the end of winter... My only regret, Anna... - but is it only one? - ...is not to have finished anything. I left all as a draft, shattered words here and there."

🎞️| Eternity and a Day (1998)

#filmphotography #literaure

"I’m dreaming of another
Soul dressed in strange attire.
It darts ablaze, untethered
From coyness to desire;
As flames of spirit light-like
It swiftly travels the land,
And leaves behind fresh lilac —
Sweet musing at the end."

~Arseny Tarkovsky

#poetry #filmphotography #tarkovsky