Right now… I am

 

- counting weeks and days until the school year’s end and due date.
- nesting around, making the house a home.
- washing clothes and cleaning rooms for baby’s arrival, inchallah.
- finishing the birth kit and bag with all essential things for birth and baby, etc.
- planning the nearer future and some important changes about our living, inchallah.
- dreaming about all the next happenings.
- enjoying the independence of our older children and the free time that I have sometimes (knowing that all of that will change soon again, inchallah).
- inhaling the beauty of my little garden, subhanallah.
- being thankful for all we got, all we have and all we are expecting, alhamdulillah.

peaceful moments – a snow day

 
 

Winter came quickly this year, with a heavy thunderstorm, temperatures below minus ten (we still have no fluent water at home) and a lot of snow (in Morocco a 20cm is a lot of snow already).
This is early and not usual for our area as we have only a few days like these mostly in january and february.
But alhamduillah, the wood for the chimney was piled in front of the door and the woolen and warm clothes ready for snow – so this welcoming winter weekend was a cold but joyful one, subhanallah, a constant shift from inside to out, from fire to ice, from activity to rest, and back, all day long. This is the rhythm of winter, I guess, a joyful dance between contrasts and a lot of gratitude for the little things that provide comfort. Alhamdulillah.

Happy December, friends !

 
 

Winter reads

 

Late autumn and winter: a time to return inside, to gather at home, to cuddle and to snuggle.

I love this time of the year, when the skies are ice-blue, the air crispy cold and when home becomes a real castle against the harshness of the season, subhanallah.

For me this is always the time to get out special books for read-aloud in front of the chimney, it is the time for hot drinks, dimmed light and candles. And it is also the time for redecorating spaces and making everything a bit more cosy and comfortable.

While reading our favourite books, I love indulging in childhood memories and to wander into my special girly land of dreams. I love to share these stories with my children and to wave such beautiful tales about our own life.

Our most beloved winter reads are mainly old classics that have snowy themes, like many of Swedish author’s Astrid Lindgren books, such as “Guck mal Madita, es schneit”, the books from Elsa Beskow, from Lena Anderson and other stories with magical drawings about heal worlds full of harmony.

In the early mornings, before working on my laptop an when having the precious chance to have some me-time, I always and still love learning more about child-education but also about how to heal with the herbs we’ve recently collected and about gardening in general. I enjoy dreaming about what to plant in spring and how to develop our farming skills, inchaallah.

My actual favourite books are:

Wolf-Dieter Storl “Der Kosmos im Garten” and “Kräuterkunde”
Rebeca Wild „Genügend gute Eltern“
Christian Signol „Marie des Brébis“ (wonderful biography of a simple shepherdess),
Lena Anderson/Christina Björk „Linnéas Jahrbuch“

What are your preferred winter-reads?

 

wintry

  

we’re going right into winter, early this year:
with first snow, a deep deep cold, cut-off electricity, frozen pipes and all the harshness of the cold season.

But thanks God for hot water, fire in the chimney, warm clothes and some sweets with tea – the simple blessings of a cosy wintry home, alhamdulillah.

wishing you warmth and the bliss of finding comfort in the everyday! love.

blissful treat

 

 

We went for holidays to northern Italy where we spent beautiful days in miraculous surroundings with my parents. A wonderful gift they offered us. A real treat being pampered in their love and care. Autumn on a lake near the Swiss Alps. Bliss after such a long time away from them. Alhamdulillah!
Now we’re back. Full of nice memories, filled with good food and ready to resume daily life with all its gifts and challenges.

 

Liebe Mama und Papa, Oma und Opa: Wir danken euch und behalten die Erinnerungen an die schönen Tage in unseren Herzen! Bis zum nächsten Wiedersehen, inchaallah.

greetings from the heavens

 

having a lot to do, alhamdulillah, not much time to be on this space here,
but thinking of you out there and sending you greetings of peace and a lovely gift from the heavens…
xxx

ingredients for happiness

 
 
 

What do one need to be happy?

Not much, I believe, subhanallah.

Sometimes it is as simple as:
a short break and blue sky,
a sweet berry picked, some pebbles thrown,
a lovely word, a good book, a cup of tea,
children’s laughter, naked feet in the grass,
enjoying the first goods of harvesting …
and plum cake. Bliss!
Autumn, we love you, Alhamdulillah!

 

 

late summer days

 

We cherish, value and embrace the last days of this year’s summer holidays, with peaceful moments to remember and many preparations to be done before a new school year begins, inchaallah.

Alhamdulillah and thanks God for all the blessings around us, for friends, for love, for new chances and new challenges.

 

Wishing you and yours beautiful and blessed late summer days! Salam aleikoum.

The blessed Nights

We’ve just entered the last ten days of Ramadan – those days which are known to be the most blessed days of the entire year.

It’s the time when the night gets more important than the day, and when worship, prayer and repentance become more intense then ever.

It is the time when most Muslims feel a bit dizzy, tired and fuzzy during day but much more energized and motivated by night. It is now that we feel the deepest need and wish to observe voluntary night-prayers, to do extra-worship, to recite and read the Qur’an, to humiliate ourselves, to ask for forgiveness, guidance and His mercy.
These nights are the time when the gates of the heavens are opened, when the angels come down, and when Allah is more willing than ever to listen and to respond to His servant’s invocations, inchaallah.

In these ten days there is one night, the night of decree and power, Al-Qadr’, the most blessed night, which is better than a thousand months, the night when archangel Gabriel came to prophet Mohammed (sas) with God’s first revelation of the Qur’an, the night when God, Allah, decrees every matter of ordainments for the coming year and wherein is peace and blessing until dawn.

Many Muslims now take vacation and spend the whole ten days in the mosque, in submission, remembrance and prayer. It is comparable to the kind of retreat some Christians take when they go visiting a monastery to gain personal insight, to take time for meditation, to experience silence and a deep connection to their creator.
Those who are not able to spend the whole time in mosque (like me), we spend our nights at home in devotion and prayer, reading Qur’an, pondering and reflecting upon its meanings and trying to put worship over everything else.

I ask Allah to give us sincerity, strength and energy to make the most out of these coming nights. I ask Allah to accept all our worship, to accept all our good intentions, all our repentance and to forgive us all our sins. I ask Him for guidance, for His mercy, for protection from our own ego, from shaytan (Satan) and every evil, and I ask Him for rescue from the torment of hellfire.

I pray that we Muslims might be able to carry the piety, the peace and beauty of these precious nights into our everyday-life long after Ramadan is gone. I hope that we might be able to live and to spread around us the message of love and peace that Islam is. And I hope that the entire humanity will be able to experience the beauty and blessing of the glorious night of Al-Qadr, inchallah.

Allahumma taqqabbil minni oua minkoum. Ameen. Salamou aleikoum and may peace be with the worlds!

Xxx

By the way: Nora wrote about some great advice for Non-Muslims visiting or dealing with Muslims during Ramadan-time.  

Ramadan – some fundamentals of faith

 
 

“Why do Muslims fast?” – you might ask.

“Why do Muslims restrain the whole day from food and drink?”

“Why do Muslims do this for one whole month?”

“And why do they seem to even like this torture??” 

 

Well, you know, we do this because we are Muslims.
And being a Muslim means to submit oneself totally under the will of God, Allah, the Almighty, who says in the noble Qur’an:
“Oh you who belief, observing the fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become pious” (2:183)
So before explaining some things about Ramadan I should maybe explain some essentials of our faith that build the basis of all our actions:

We as Muslims believe in only one God, Allah, the One Who created us, the One Who causes everything and to Who’s will we totally submit.

We absolutely believe in His wisdom, in His preordainment and we want to obey only Him to gain His pleasure.
This submission gives us the maximum of freedom possible, because we are only responsible to Him and nobody else.
We blindly trust in Him, and we also belief in all of His prophets and messengers (beginning with Adam, Abraham, Moses, Noah, Joseph, David, etc…, to Jesus and Mohammed, peace be upon them) who all brought the eternal message of monotheistic faith.
We belief in the day of resurrection and in God’s final judgment.
We belief in the reality of a hereafter with either the beautiful gardens of paradise or the horrible fires of hell, not only as parables but as a fact.
We belief in God’s angels and in His books (the torah, the psalms, the gospel, and the Qur’an).
We belief that the Holy Qur’an was the last book sent by God to humanity as a mercy, as a reminder and for guidance, because all the other scriptures were changed and falsified over time.
We belief that the Qur’an was revealed to prophet Mohammed (sas) by archangel Gabriel, and that everything written in the Qur’an is the true word of God, valid for all human beings at any time.
So, we accept everything in the Qur’an as a fact and we try to follow all the given orders, which are always based on mercy, justice, peace and the universal good for humanity.
We are absolutely sure that God’s commands lead to the best for everybody.

We belief that this present life is only a quick passage full of tests and mere play and that the only way to succeed in this reality here is by following God’s guidance.
We belief that we are only here to be tested and to worship Him.
We know that life after death will be the real and eternal life, so we strive to gain His pleasure now to deserve a place in paradise then, inchaallah.

So, this absolute and total belief makes us fear only God and it leads us to the wish to respond to all of his commands.
In fact, the wish to please only Him becomes so essential and serious to Muslims, that we put worship over everything else – so, everything worldly and even our own desires become negligible.

This total obedience makes us become aware of our collective responsibility and it gives us the strength to discipline and to sometimes even deny our own ego – because we absolutely trust that all sacrifice and abstain for God’s sake leads us to something better in the end.

So this is why we are able to restrain from food and drink even in the heat of summer (by nearly 50°C in Marrakech), alhamdulillah.
This is why we feel light and pure, refreshed and blessed even after 16 hours of fasting:
Because He makes things easy for us, if we really trust in Him, alhamdulillah.
Because there are many worldly benefits in fasting for the human being, even though God tells us that fasting is the only thing we really do just to please Him.

We can feel the benefits of Ramadan and we understand that there is always something good in His commands, even if we are not able to explain it with our limited human nature, subhanallah. And that’s why we love this Holy month of fasting!

“Verily my prayer, my sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, the Lord of the worlds” (6:162) – So please, oh Allah, accept my worship and lead me on Your path.

Allahumma taqqabbil minni oua minkoum. Ameen.

03.48 a.m., right before sunrise; the last meal before 16 hours of fasting.