Yemen: On the Permaculture Map

What more can I say...Geoff & his wife Nadia making it happen. Beyond talk there are actions.

Yemen: On the Permaculture Map

Zaytuna Summer Arabic Language Intensive--Berkeley CA

Hiking in the Berkeley Hills ZSAI 2008

Sakina Grome

Bismillah Ar-rahman Ar-raheem

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Merciful

As part of the first Zaytuna Summer Arabic Intensive program held this year in Berkeley, California, students had the opportunity to participate in many local activities and gatherings. Besides attending classes and regular lectures, students were invited to local mosques, lectures, gatherings and other events taking place within the local Muslim community.

Throughout the program, our teachers encouraged us to become actively involved in our communities on all levels, to engage with whichever environment we find ourselves in, and to find solutions to the problems around us. There were many ways, they stated, that we could get involved, and they taught us that we are all leaders in one sense or another.

Our teacher and imam, Dawood Yasin, offered to lead us on a hike after the morning prayer on a Saturday morning in the Berkeley Hills. Many of us were already waking up to perform prayer and to recite a daily litany in congregation. We performed our prayer as usual, but instead of reciting the litany inside, we decided to read it as a group at the top of Strawberry Canyon after hiking up.

The hike occurred early into the course and I remember that it brought many of us together for the first time. It was a great outlet to the week of studying and working hard, while still giving us healthy motivation to keep focusing our attention and efforts towards striving to please Allah.

It was extremely pleasant to be in such a beautiful natural environment, and the experience even served to reawaken some of us to the bounty of Allah’s creation and our responsibility to care for it. The light that morning was stunning, and the collective witnessing of such a scene served to bring our hearts together and renew our spirits.

By the time we reached the top, pushing to get through the last stretch, the fog that had previously settled on the hilltops had cleared and as we sat in the remembrance of God under the shade of the trees, we could see all the way out to the bay. When we came down later that morning, there was a definite shift in our awareness and a contentment that filled our hearts.

Reading The Sands

In 2004 I read an article called Reading the Sands, and was glad to see something positive coming out of the Gulf region regarding the environment and the outdoors.  Here is a brief section of the article.


When I mention that tracking schools have been established in the United States in recent years that keep alive some of the knowledge developed by Native Americans, Abdulhadi Saleh notes the decline of tracking skills in his own country, without any such schools on the horizon as yet. Other than his own thesis, he cannot recall a single recent book in Arabic on the subject of tracking or desert guiding: In Saudi Arabia, he says, there are only living practitioners, and their numbers are declining.

“In the past, trackers emerged and were picked for their specific skills as well as for their character. It was a big responsibility and an honorable status within any tribe and clan. Trackers were decision-makers and often leaders,” he explains. “You’ll see their ability today.” Click here to read the entire article...

I connected a lot the material in the article with a book I am reading by Tom Brown  in his book, Tom Browns Field Guide: Nature Observation & Tracking he says, "Nature is far more colorful and fascinating than most of us can imagine. But our minds are so clouded by modern thought patterns ans stimuli that we do not perceive the pure and natural except through a distorting lens."