Dear Simone,

Do you think God was created to unite people? I'm beginning to feel that God is simply a concept created to unify our species. Animals do not focus on a God; they exist in the primal brain and its eat or be eaten.

Are we humans that much different?

Ganesha is my God and sits on top of the small wooden dresser surrounded by orange flowers and candles. I put out a small lime green bowl of cashews as an offering and placed my three tarot cards along the ledge at the wall.

Aberrahmane says I don't need all of this to connect to God.

I know I don't. I have an alter for the sake of beauty; for the sake of creating and taking something private and internal into the outer world.

Isn't that art is? The act of manifesting the unseen to form? Formlessness into being?

I like having something concrete in front of me to remind me that there is hope. The orange flowers symbolize my passion. The gold Ganesha is the anchor- some one is listening and He has very large ears to whisper into. The candles are for the shadows. The cards I drew when I considered the people in my heart.

I pulled the hawk for Abderhamane and the hawk eats the rabbit and the rabbit I drew for myself.

The irony of these affairs are not lost on me.

My heart challenges me today. I am in anguish. I feel lackluster, like a star without its pointed tips.

The reality of the situation is, stars have no tipped edges. We created the form of the star - but a star is a ball of fire. It is a glowing orb of light and the points are manmade.

Like my alter, someone wanted something to gaze upon, perhaps, and so the star was born to the page.

If I drew my heart right now it would be a metal chamber of valves and grease. The edges would creak and the ceiling would be dripping. It would be cold. I see two pairs of wet shoes in the chamber. One dark pair of heels studded with grass and another pair of white running shoes without shoelaces. Both are damp and smell like wet dog hair.

I once said my heart was a lofty room with mirrored walls and curtains that blew with the breeze.

I do not feel like that today, Simone.

Not even Ganesha cannot save me.

I have little faith in humanity right. The only person I can rely upon is myself and I am easily swayed by my surroundings.

What do you reach out and grab when the space is coated by slime? I don't want the pretty trinkets and trivialties - give me something gritty and coarse! I want a long rope thats been braided and burns my hands when I pull. I want to bleed.

I want that sharp scent of iron, metal on my teeth, to tell me I am alive and in this merry-go-round of desire and duty.

Eat or be eaten - who is in charge?

I believe that God was created for unity's sake and the intention was pure but the outcome is muddled. It is dark and wet in Morocco and the tea doesn't taste like it did when we boiled the water on the beach. Everything tastes better when it's blended with sunlight.

The salt won't pour from the two shakers in the home I am renting and I took it as a sign of bad luck.

The cat without an eye is also a bad omen.

And the brown umbrella with the white trim.

Brown umbrellas are ugly and yet it was the only one I could find!

It's been raining here for days and days and days. On end. Endless. Infinity and beyond.

My heart thunders like the sky and it opened the other night and the cold rushed into the bedroom and I couldn't remember where I was or who was breathing beside me.

Photo source.