(Chapter Three) Our Life begins in California - A Shocking Diary Entry - Our Son is Born in Jerusalem - Relationship Troubles

 Aisha was conflicted between wanting a family and wanting to be a solitary religious person. She totally admitted to that. 

St. Teresa of Avila.
An Important Catholic Mystic.

Much like 'Maria,' the main character in the musical The Sound of Music.'

For example, she often expressed frustration with fashion and wanted nothing more than to wear a nun's habit, which she gradually did!  

Only it was her own Middle-Eastern version.

It was not a traditional Catholic nun's habit but more of an Islamic Lady Saint's bulky, non-complimentary affair.  

As the years wore on, it seemed like she kept adding layers.  Was this signaling her increasing rejection of 'The World?'

It's not easy to reveal my struggles with this woman with whom I shared my life for 14 years.  I loved her or thought I did...No, I did...Only she CHANGED...

She started out as someone whose roots reached out in many directions. 

In her earlier days, before she met Sidi,  she had made some connections with many spiritual sources.

Lama Foundation, NM
Where Ram Dass Wrote Be Here Now

She'd been at the San Francisco Zen Center   She's been at the Lama Foundation (and little Teresa had taken saunas/sweat lodges with Ram Dass).  

She'd had connections with Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, an endearing Sufi Saint from Sri Lanka, and Rashad Feild, who was the first Westerner to receive the rank of Sheikh in the Mevlevi Order under Suleiman Dede, an essential figure in the Turkish lineage tracing its way all the way back to Rumi himself.

These were important and impressive bone fides, but I somehow felt she was ambivalent about them.  Perhaps she thought she needed to find a focus with one Guide and just stick with Him.

I don't know what happened to her. Did she find settling down with someone she barely knew in a foreign country fundamentally too jarring?

If so, why did she continue with it?  Why not 'get out while the goings good?' 

Why did she get pregnant right away? 

Okay, I realize I had a LITTLE BIT to do with that, but I would have been okay to wait  Or agreeing the whole dance of 'Marriage as Ego Deflation' was just too painful, and throwing in the towel.

In my imagination, I guessed she felt overwhelmed by too many options and took the path of least resistance.  Me!

Bawa Muhiyadin, Sufi Mystic

She is still my children's mother, and I hope shares with me some happy memories of their early days. 

If so, she doesn't seem interested in trying to bridge the gap that's been created. I don't know why.

Yet her unknown emotional wounds made her vulnerable to the worst of Sidi's impulses - those of trying to obtain control of other people's minds - for their own good, of course.  

She was a victim of him as well as me.  

She seemed to have developed the same mania for conversion as Sidi. She suppressed her humanity and cared only for preparing Sidi's books, her children, and very little else.

We begin life in America.

After our marriage in 1979 in Winnipeg, we got off to a reasonably good start. I found us a sweet, airy Eichler home in Walnut Creek. (I had always wanted to live in an Eichler!  Walnut Creek?  Not so much. But I knew the area from my graduate school days.)

It was also the home city of another Sufi group, Sufism Reoriented.  This group was built around the teachings of Meher Baba, who was more of an Indian-styled Guru of Universal Love than an Islamic Sufi.  In any case, he presented a multi-religious teaching.  I even followed him and hung out with fellow 'Baba Lovers' while attending UCSB.

Our daughter Teresa attended the White Pony School, which the 'Reoriented' Sufis ran.  Initially, it seemed an incredible gift to be among fellow Sufis.  However, as has become the case throughout our marriage, Aisha couldn't help but try to convert people to her own way of thinking. 

Her desire to share in her deep sense of peace and intimacy with the Divine, if that was her feeling, perhaps motivated her ceaseless trolling for newcomers.  

As Ram Dass has suggested, 'proselytizing 'is a gesture of INSUFFICIENT PERSONAL FAITH that motivates someone to always seek out future believers for whatever warm feelings watching the growth of THEIR faith might engender in one's heart.

I also noticed how frequently Aisha participated in IN-FIGHTING with other established members of Sidi's fuqara.  I can recall at least TWO episodes of this.  In one, we were visiting a couple in Freiburg, Germany.  

It was at Christmastime, and the medieval university town was beautifully decorated and full of brightly lit nighttime markets.

It was all going well until she and our female hostess 'got into it' over a relatively minor disagreement about some abstract Sufi principle.  Aisha was so incensed that she clammed up and refused to say "Goodbye" to our lovely Anglo-German hostess.

I tried to resolve the situation, but the spectacle mightily embarrassed me.  As I recall, the grudge held for a long time.

The second incident occurred with one of Sidi's eldest and most loyal devotees, Maryam Tyrell, who had overstayed her visa and secretly lived in the Jerusalem zawiya for many years.  She was the other woman mentioned in my story about my meeting with Sidi.

Maryam was well-educated and cultured, and had taught English in local schools.  

She spoke French and a little Arabic and was beloved by all.  She was also a mature woman who had been married twice. 

Thus, she was the logical candidate for the Secretary-General of the Fuqara position.

She accompanied Sidi on his second visit to America. I can't remember whether she stayed in my bachelor apartment or the apartment below where Teresa and her husband lived.

In any case, Aisha again fought with Maryam over a trivial matter.  I interpreted this as a power struggle over who would be Sidi's literature's designated editor and publisher.

The argument was rather fierce, even though, as I recall, Sidi was present.  Aisha walked out and did not speak with Maryam again—ever.  Or so I remember.

 Later, I drove Maryam to the airport and tried to apologize for my wife's behavior.  It seemed so antithetical to the 'Deep Love and Peace' we were all supposed to be striving for.  

Aisha seemed to always have some axe to grind with other Old Timers over some point in the teachings.  She was also setting herself up to be the Secretary-General of the Fuqara and making all the crucial decisions about which of his Teachings to publish and when.

"NO!  It's 'Beloved,' with a CAPITAL 'B,' my BELOVED!!!"

Aisha did get what she wanted.  Whether with Sidi's explicit agreement or not, she began publishing his books in 1995, and they've been published at least yearly ever since.  

The total number is over 40. It's an impressive body of work. She's smart and certainly not lazy. In my opinion, she's also using the books to give her life meaning and purpose. She may well have some joy and something like a spiritual experience, approaching the editorial process as a spiritual program in itself.  

Hence the otherwise-incomprehensible number of books produced.  It was for her OWN satisfaction as much as for the necessary conversion of others. In my opinion, of course.

Also, perhaps, a job in which she could side-step the usual fuqara job of marrying the NEXT guy showing up in Sidi's space.

These somewhat humorous examples of Aisha's personality defects are meant not to DEMONIZE her, but to indicate that, despite her spiritual impulses, she still had an ego and INSISTED on GETTING HER OWN WAY in almost every aspect of her life.  

Certainly that was true in the case of spirituality.  But she also resisted compromise and power sharing in many other areas--selection of schools for the children, for example.

I was intimidated by her, and rarely put MY foot down.  Except in the case of our move back from the UK to the US.  And it took me months and months of pleading to accomplish that.

Anyway, back to Walnut Creek,

The Guide of the Sufism Reoriented apparently became annoyed at Aisha's ' poaching' amongst his flock.  We were ostracized, and their disciples were discouraged from socializing with us.  

I had friends in the area, my best one being a former roommate, Gail, whom I loved like a sister but had no romantic inclinations toward.  However, it was apparent that my single woman friend was so intimate with me that she threatened Aisha, who complained to me after our first meeting.  So, to please Aisha, I dropped my friend.

It seemed like I did that a lot.  I let her run the family in the exterior, but I 'got back at her' with a secret life that began after the dissolution of our first home--at her instigation.  

(Of course, I'm not BLAMING HER for my very poor choice of using addictions to neutralize the fear, anger, and frustration I began to feel towards her and her evident dissatisfaction with the life I tried to provide for her and Teresa in California.   

I judged that my spiritual pratice was not up to par with hers.  It didn't occur to me that there were vast areas of her own psychology that refused to yield to HER practices.  That she had her own 'addictions' to believing there were magical, rather than practical solutions to human problems.

One day, we were shocked when Aisha read Teresa's diary. 

It included some rather difficult details about our little girl's anger at her mother and her unlikely infatuation with another 5th grader at the public school she attended.

I remember being angry at this as well. Although I never expected Aisha's proposed solution.

Though already several months pregnant, she quickly dropped the 'H-bomb' that she no longer wanted to live at this place, maybe not in California again, EVER!! 

And that she wanted to go to Jerusalem to deliver our coupleship's first child.  

It's fair to say that before this bombshell announcement, I thought we had been doing okay as a couple and had begun to naturally develop love for each other on our own terms—without Sidi's assistance.

 Although she chronically talked with him on the phone about every minute aspect of our life together--even what she should wear to bed! (I had put in a request for something a bit more risqué than she was comfortable with!)

 On my way home from work, I often picked up flowers for Aisha from a favorite flower stand and made up silly little love songs to amuse her.

The ability to love a new person in one's life is perhaps an evolutionary, adaptive impulse.  In other contexts, I have been thrust into a relationship with someone, (a male roommate comes to mind),  I initially disliked and later learned to accept and perhaps love.

I was so taken aback by her determination to leave the country that I didn't know how to say no.  I also didn't know how to earn money to feed and house our family; the only job I'd had in my life so far that had met with success was as a traveling salesman in an industry that didn't exist outside of America.

Aisha proposed we take off for Jerusalem again and be with Sidi and his family until the baby was born.  After that, who knows what would happen?

She was not to be deterred.  I was torn between practicality and (cultic) spirituality.  I kind of WANTED to believe Aisha's confidence that Allah would show us how to uproot and move halfway around the world with no income, no schools, no healthcare, and no legal status.

This was the first of many such Aisha-generated 'breaking camps'  in one location and starting over in another.  

This happened so many times I have to assume that it became part of her psychology to endure as long as she could in one spot until she experienced some sort of internal collapse and sought refuge in a new place.

Surprisingly, I never concluded that she was perhaps unhappy with me or had some fundamental psychological issues.

Or that there was an inherent contradiction between being an extreme religious zealot and also being a wife and mother in Northern California.

If Aisha had not been pregnant at that moment, I think it might have been the last straw for me.  It was too much--this vagabonding all over the world to chase the illusion of some kind of paradisical spirituality!!

In my heart, I began to think of Aisha not as my partner but as an adversary.

The fact that she was pregnant with our son was huge, however.  So I just numbly followed along.  Both of our sets of parents, I am sure, thought us insane. I would have agreed with them.

We shared a tendency toward reclusiveness. However, as time passed, I realized that being a recluse was ironically a 'luxurious' way of life—not available to anyone who wasn't already wealthy or exceptionally renounced, like a Buddhist monk. 

It presupposed economic security, which we did NOT have--save for the intervention of my compassionate parents, who reached DEEPLY into their own savings to finance our spectacularly irresponsible and EXPENSIVE 'spiritual' lifestyle.  

Although I was responsible for all the financial aspects of the marriage, Aisha was determining where we would live. 

Like Aisha, I also pursued the ideal spiritual community earlier on.  After a life of alternating spiritual experimentation and hedonistic escapism in my youth, I really did find sustained peace in a Buddhist monastery in Ukiah.

That's me on the left with the mustache!  My Teacher, DM Hsuan Hua, is seated in white. (The noted English Buddhist Scholar, Prof. Edward Conze, is on the Master's right.)

As a layperson who spent many weekends living in the monks' quarters, I found a lot of peace there, although it was very spartan.  The Master, with whom I had taken refuge, was beyond reproach. He was the most scrupulously virtuous person you'd ever want to meet.

His life was dedicated to spreading the Dharma from an Orthodox Mahayana Ch'an (Zen) perspective. He also taught the popular 'Pure Land' Dharma alongside the more elusive Zen form, a coincident form of Buddhism for those perhaps unable to undertake the rigors of weeks-long meditative sessions.

He made some expeditious 'changes,' as the Buddha himself suggested be done when changing cultures.  This is one of the reasons people are attracted to Buddhism: It constantly changes form and meshes with local cultures while maintaining the same essential elements/instructions.

At its core, Buddhism has been seen as also an early form of psychological therapy. 

It's about facing the truth of old age, suffering, disease, and death HEAD ON rather than fearfully avoiding them.  

And turning those things into encouragements to cultivate Enlightenment while there is still the opportunity.

While I found many answers and a lot of comfort there,  I was restless in a certain way, too.  And even though I had, in one sense, the perfect spiritual home already,  I nevertheless was drawn back into the world because... I unconsciously thought I should have a career and a life in the World FIRST, and THEN take up spiritual cultivation.

I never anticipated ACTUALLY BECOMING a monk.  It was too bitterly ascetic for me.  And I couldn't shake off my upper-middle-class, white American 'bougie' Entitlement Complex!

But if I had stayed there, even as a layman, I would probably have learned excellent Mandarin and acquired a thorough knowledge of Chinese culture.  

Ironically, instead, I became the financier for ANOTHER person's  retreat from the 'real world' and into Sidi's unorthodox, if not actually corrupt, version of Islamic Sufism as it grew on American soil.

(Which also involved our sort of acting like Middle-Easterners. Especially for the Western women, who were now covering their heads and their legs when going out, and falling in line with the 'male first' conventions of Islamic life and prayer.)  

We packed up our sweet little home in the Walnut Creek house at all events, stored our belongings, and headed for Jerusalem again.

Looking back, I can now designate that momentsas when the 'honeymoon' ended. Now we had fundamental disagreements as to where we belonged.

Theve events happened during my 'off-season' , enabling me to take time off until our son was born in September 1983.  However, August was the usual beginning of my sales season, and my loyalties were torn.

 I waited to return to America until after Ibrahim was born in a charitable hospital on the Mount of Olives.  That, in itself, was a night to remember.

In the weeks prior to the birth, Aisha became very jaundiced, very ill, and had been diagnosed (inaccurately, as it was later discovered) with not just ONE but TWO major diseases.  One of which was typhoid fever.  I forget the other.

I was worried sick. But again, Sidi and Aisha retorted, 'Just trust Allah.'

Our doctor, whom we had met beforehand, admired both Sidi and Ayatollah Khomeini.  He taught his children verses about killing Israelis with guns from the Iranian Leader.  Sweet!

The day came when Aisha's contractions started. ad it seemed like they were far enough apart that we headed to the hospital in a rather leisurely fashion.

Suddenly, the time between the contractions shortened dramatically,  necessitating a frantic drive up the hill to the Doctor's house, who panicked as he discovered how far along she was.

"Ya Allah!  She's already FULLY DILATED," he exclaimed!

I didn't know exactly what that meant, but I knew time was short.  We sped to the hospital, and within MINUTES, I held my first-born son in my arms.

After the relatively quick birth process, Aisha was still so ill that she needed to stay in that hospital for an extra couple of days.  During this period, she never had the opportunity to bathe off the blood and fetal fluid from the birth.  

She was desperately unhappy about this, but the local nurses weren't much good for anything other than socializing among themselves. They didn't seem to want to risk getting their hands dirty.

We did appreciate the attention the doctor had given us throughout the earlier and birth stages.  I later learned he'd been arrested. No surprise there, unfortunately.  He was a good man.

The major "upside" of the experience, was the bill for the doctor visits and delivery services, as well as the two extra days of residence for the baby and Aisha in the hospital - - about $25, as I recall! 

At least their billing process was as screwed up as everything else! Subhan Allah! (Glory to God!)

What wasn't funny was the potential harm we subjected our baby to by putting him in the meagre capabilites of a charity hospital in an occupied territory.  What if there had been complications?

It was a ridiculous, uncessarily dramatic response to an entry in our daughter's diary that made life harder for all of us.

When the baby was finally brought home to our simple, rough apartment in Sidi's building, Ayisha still was not able to give milk, and the baby formula they sent home with us was for older babies, not newborns. And they had no other.

So what was to do?  The baby was desperately hungry, and Sidi's wife had no cow's milk,  so I pounded on the door of a neighbor who had a goat.  He obligingly milked her for us; that was our son's first meal!.

I began my first in a series of sad, lonely trips back to the Mid-Peninsula, where my parents lived. They offered me a place to stay so that I could continue my old work of travelling sales.

Unfortunately, it also enabled me to re-commence my habit of drinking in the evening and often to excess.  

My parents, perhaps sympathetic to my woes, didn't mention anything about my drinking at that time.  And I was careful to try to hide the extent of it from them.

And my addiction was amplified by  Aisha's refusal to grasp what I thought was the obvious necessity of our return to America.

Truth be told, I was angry with her as well.  Although we casually tried to find a school for Teresa in Jerusalem, Sidi himself soon realized we couldn't live there.

At that point, Aisha had a fallback plan.  We would go to the UK, where several English fuqara couples already lived, and attempt to live there.  We hoped, or maybe it was just her that hoped,  it would be a more pleasant and 'spiritual' alternative than California. 

At that point, the UK had 14% unemployment, and I had no visa allowing me to work.  A few months later, I did manage to secure an Irish passport based on my grandparents' birth records, but that still didn't solve my lack of skills to trade in the economically depressed UK.

So back and forth I went, my hidden alcoholism and my frustration growing all the time.  After six months in the UK,  where we mostly presumed the hospitality of the English fuqara, Aisha finally threw in the towel and returned with me to the US. 

It was a wasted six months, although it did give us the experience of living in a European country.

"Aisha Again Developed 'Tumbleweed Fever' "

We were lucky to almost immediately find an outstanding, nearly perfect girls' school run by Catholic nuns in Marin.

Teresa loved it and was an excellent student.  We invited two of her schoolmates to live with us, which, along with baby Ibrahim,  kept Aisha occupied for a while.  But as Teresa approached college age, Aisha same down with  Tumbleweed Fever again.

Now, her idea was that New England was more stable and 'moral' than California.  

So, Teresa and I initially visited potential colleges in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.   Later, Aisha and Ibrahim went on a similar trip, mainly through Vermont, which they both loved.  

Well, who doesn't like an all-expenses-paid summer vacation in New England?

Fortunately, this time I was able to put my foot down. I couldn't just move elsewhere and take up where I'd left off in California!

I tried to make Aisha understand this.  It didn't seem to be going well, Fortunately,  a couple of important factors intervened.

We sold our first-ever self-owned house because of increasing road noise and moved into a rental home.  Teresa went to the local junior college.  We were all pretty unhappy until a house on a hilltop in BEAUTIFUL West Marin almost magically became available to us!

The House Was Designed for Maximum Solar Heating.

It was a gorgeous wooden glass, built by an  architect as a family home, and which had energy-saving/solar  energy improvements throughout   

Though my parents, AGAIN, had to help us with the down payment, this was the most beautiful house I'd ever lived in--much less owned. 

Living in such a beautiful place, on a mountaintop, at least for a while, allowed us to smooth over our differences.  

Soon, Teresa's new husband from the Middle East also moved in with us and occupied an improved in-law space.  They were a pleasant diversion.  Until Aisha got mad at 'Zorba', (my alias for her new husband.

Zorba was so used to the multi-generational Arabic family setup that he couldn't understand why he was being asked to pay us rent to us.

And while I was willing to just let it go, Aisha, true to form, was not.  She fastened on Zorba to such an extend that his  Arab male pride was wounded.

So now, we still don't have the rent money, and our life has become that much smaller. Teresa, who had been with Aisha for her whole life, was leaving.   She and Zorba were such a big part of our family, especially as caregivers for our son.

We actually DID raise sheep here.

I couldn't believe Aisha wouldn't bend on THIS issue, as it is so close to home. But she didn't.  I was devastated about it.

We overcame our differences by mainly leading separate lives from then on.  I was often on the road while Aisha took care of the children and, in her spare time, sought to be a proselytizer for Sidi's community.

Oddly enough, our marital intimate encounters were excellent in terms of the ones I'd had earlier.  We didn't talk about it much. But, it turned out to be as crucial to holding the marriage together as it was in initiating it.

We didn't talk about ANYTHING PERSONAL very much.  It wasn't until my second marriage that I realized how cut off Aisha and I were from each other's interior lives.

But sex was one of the pillars of the relationship.  Sadly, I was the first to abandon it one night before the divorce was even a topic.

I don't know what I expected to happen.  I expected Aisha to read my mind about my anger with her that day.  

I don't even remember why I was angry.  I should have been pleased she had the temerity to want sex and indicate as much.  Somehow, I thought that refusing it would maybe lead us to some new kind of communication.

But I don't think we were ever intimate again after that pointless 'non-communication.' Both of us were too fearful of each other to break the ice.

Some parts of Aisha sseemed to have been shut down entirely long ago. ne night, I remember her crying by herself and, out of nowhere, saying, 'Honey, I'm so awful.'

I asked her to tell me what was wrong, but she couldn't or wouldn't.  

Our Living Room-The Scene of Much Joy and Heartbreak

She would occasionally find a new 'brother or sister' who came to our house, sometimes living there, and eventually was introduced to Sidi over the phone as a new prospect.

 He dutifully welcomed the prospect as a long-lost son or daughter would give them a new Arabic name.  I

t kept Aisha busy in our isolated, 'movie star' house-on-a-hill.  But I did not share her enthusiasm.

Part of the reason was that Sidi's sons kept showing up, and I would get an insider's view of his activities.  His sons were much less convinced of his infallibility than my wife was. 

"He Tells Them What They Want To Hear"

In fact, one of them even told me that, regarding their father's American disciples that,  "He tells them what they want to hear."

I understood the son's point, as I interpreted it.

Most people are less interested in doing spiritual work than being spiritually uplifted in the moment. Or, to be 'entertained.'  Sidi was provided that entertainment, and seemingly enjoyed being the center of attention at groups all over the US.

Once Sidi got started, he could talk engagingly for hours about the Beauty of God, the Love of God for His Creation.  How people should treat each other with kindness and respect.

Sidi could make people feel they were uniquely Special to an all Merciful, Loving God.  And there is no question that virtually everybody in the world with even a jot of belief is HAPPY to HEAR that!

I don't personally know if he actually believed it himself! 

Whether he did or not, most people come to see or hear a spiritual presenter for the MOMENTARY PLEASURE of it.  It is an EXPERIENCE rather than a constant state.

For a person to have a constant or at least RELIABLE state of happiness and/or joy, there usually must be a substantial period of spiritual practice or effort. (I'm guessing, since I have never quite been able to mock up 'permanent' happiness).

I did not feel, myself, any connection AT ALL between the practices Sidi gave us and any  kind of long-term personal growth.

In fact, mostly of the 'practice' was simply the performance of ordinary Islam.  Which in itself takes up quite a bit of time.  

And unless one feels a CONNECTION with the underlying RELIGION that Sufism sits on, I don't think a person can get very far.

I did not, admittantly, experience a connection with that particular 'revealed' religion.  I ALREADY HAD a childhood religion, Christianity, that incorporated unqustioned belief about such things as the Resurrection of Jesus and a lot of personal work.

I did not BELIEVE Islam had more to offer than Christianity.  And, moreover, I needed something simpler and more direct, that would reveal new layers of truth as I practiced it.  

Buddhism seemed much more practical for me than either of the other two.  I just couldn't accept that Muhammad, as great as a figure I am sure he was at the time, was MY Holy Prophet. Couldn't do it.

What remained was the outside possibility that whatever the Spiritual Power was that ran thru Sidi, that he represented, could somehow be CHANNELED and shown to us as a verifyable MIRACLE.

And I did not see him conjure up a so-called 'response' from God that was  more than a vague suggestion God was Near. 

SIDI PERFORMS AN 'ANTI-MIRACLE'

I don't believe I actually ever saw a miracle in his presence, although there was once a sort of 'Anti-Miracle' that took place.

Sidi came down to the zawiya one day very excited about a new divination idea he wanted to try.

 It involved mirrors and a lot of mystical prayers.  The object was to ACTUALLY SEE a REAL DISEMBODIED SPIRITUAL BEING in the mirror!

In Islamic cosmology, there exists, alongside the human realm, a realm of beings call 'Jinn'.  These are EXACTLY the same order of beings that Westerners may remember from the story of Aladdin and his Lamp.  The Lamp housed a 'Genie' who could be summoned to do the owner of the lamp's bidding.

I didn't know much about them, but they apparently have their own worlds, rulers, marriages and all the rest.  Sidi seemed to feel it would be possible to INVOKE , and ACTUALLY SEE one!

Or even better, he said,  we might actually be able to see an Angel!  I was a little scared, though, as Sidi seemed somewhat vague about whether a human being could actually SURVIVE the  psychological impact of  seeing a REAL ANGEL here in the human arena on Earth!

(Think about it for a minute. How a ghostly face from Another Dimension suddenly appearing in a mirror might impact one! I expect most would lose consciousness and would live in TERROR of similar sights showing up in mirrors for the rest of one's life!)

But, on we went.  We got all set up with the mirrors and Sidi started chanting.  It lasted a LONG TIME, until, FINALLY, I heard the Arabic words for something like, "Before us, I request You, Now APPEAR!"

He stopped, we looked in the mirror.  Nothing.  Then, again, Sidi went a little backward in the incantation and started up again, ending with the request to manifest.

After a slight pause, there was nobody, no Jinn, no Angel to be seen.

Finally we shut our eyes again along with Sidi and he went thru the routine again...

We opened our eyes and THERE, WRITHING HORRIBLY ON THE RUG next to Sidi was a GIANT JERUSALEM POISONOUS CENTIPEDE!  It was the BIGGEST one I had EVER SEEN!!   And it was an UGLY and OMINIOUS a CREATURE as I had ever seen.  

And it was so UNIMAGINABLY OUT OF CONTEXT in that hopeful gathering where we were expecting to see something of extraordinary wonder and beauty.

Sidi, ever the "Man of His Moment" instantly threw a rug over the thing and pounded the life out of it!

At the time, I thought maybe God was warning us about Sidi's Magic Tricks, but even THAT implies that Sidi had the Power to generate MONSTERS out of thin air!  Sidi took the opportunity to remind us to frequently move the rugs around so as not to accidentally sit or sleep near one of these creatures or the scorpions that also made the nearby desert their home.

II got the IMPRESSION that Sidi HONESTLY believed in the stories -- indicating these types of psychic phenomena, or 'miracles' did exist.  

Although we never tried to see a Jinn or Angle again, he did frequently invoke them via Automatic Writing to answer questions.  Some times it was just seemingly out of idle curiosity to see if it 'worked' by asking a questing it a question the medium/writer could not have known the answer to.

For example, one time when Maryam Tyrell was the wasid/medium, we asked her what city my father was born in.  She twice got the answer wrong, but the third time she said, with full confidence, "New York!"

I was somewhat impressed, although she must have known by then that I was Irish and it was not exactly a secret that New York was the main port-of-entry for all immigrants, particularly Irish ones.

Anyway, back to America. I enjoyed Sidi's sons and their easy honesty about their famous father.  

Still, it was hard to keep the fantasy of Sidis having extraordinary intimacy with the Divine as they shared his missteps and foibles as only one's family can.  

How they later worried, for example, that listeners would notice his progressing mental decline. And how relieved they were that Sidi's translator would leap into the breach and turn his ramblings into something coherent without the audience noticing it.

Sidi Provided Entertainment Across America

Because he thought he was doing a 'good thing' by converting North Americans and Europeans to Islam, he might have thought the fiction of "Twin Flames Marriages" was justified.

The only justification for THAT that I could think of was that it promoted a long-term commitment to the religion.

If TWO STRANGERS got married, and their ONLY connection was a mutual connection to the cult, they would probably feel motivated to do the mandated spiritual practices with MORE INTENSITY than they might otherwise.

And, depending on their degree of commitment to the cult, they would SEE those interpersonal difficulties as PERSONAL DEFECTS that they would try to perfect over time.  

Rather than seeing through the whole institution of 'Compelled Marriage' as a sham from the beginning!

Sidi himself also got a second, much younger American wife.  

He also seemed to feel obligated to favor his most loyal American disciples by endorsing whatever proposal they might bring before him.  

Including an utterly deceptive and transparent "Multi-level Marketing" Plan that was transparently nothing more than a Ponzi Scheme that lost money for practically EVERYBODY.  

Except for the people at the top, of course.  One of whom was presumably the 'follower' who brought it to Sidi.

I began to see this so-called Holy Man starting to perform more like an old-school swindler.  At some point, they sold miracle cures, including special Jerusalem holy oil, for some extravagant price.

In my own case, at this point 'worldliness' and/or substance addictions were constant and merciless companions.  

While I was still with Aisha, I sought oblivion in the vices rather than in the Spirit.  

Instead of pursuing my earlier interest in  Chinese/Zen Buddhism, I somehow allowed myself all the indulgences I could cram into my 'business trip bacchanals.'

The one element of non-Sufi spirituality I retained was my precious Ram Dass Tapes, which I took EVERYWHERE I went.  His light kept me going through some pretty miserable episodes on the road.

Of course, I was largely unaware of this "choice," I am sure that if I had asked Aisha which behavior she preferred, she would have probably chosen the Buddhist option.  

But would she want to stay married after that?  I was afraid that my actual renunciation of Islam/Sufism WOULD be the end.  Whereas my vices I still could hide, or so I thought, until I somehow came through them.

In retrospect, I should have taken that risk and revived my own dormant spiritual path.

What is also true is that part of me still enjoyed our frequent trips to Jerusalem and our participation in Dhikrs with other Sufis in our own tariqa and others,  in the US and Europe.

Aisha's parents were lovely, kind, ordinary, working-class people. They LOVED to feed us, and I enjoyed regular visits with them, though I wanted to be gentle with them, mindful of how bizarre much of the history I'd had with their daughter would seem to them.  

In sympathy with Aisha's own example, I only used Aisha's birth name and Teresa's birth name to avoid offending them.  The major fly in the ointment was that I had not told my parents of this momentous occasion.  Finally, a few days later, it was a shock that they initially refused to believe.

In Aisha's case, I confess I am largely ignorant of what was going on with her--especially during what must have been, for her, the brutal final years where my basest impulses were given free rein.  Though I carefully kept my activities hidden and don't believe I was ever discovered, I felt like a fraud.  It must have subtly shown up.

I believed that, in her case there was a perpetual internal conflict between her desire to 'leave the world' and remain perpetually with Sidi and/or in Jerusalem and her desire to raise a family and marry.  She resolved the conflict by hoping I would, with her help, become her Sufi Knight, her Divine Consort.

Sidi seemed to believe in this fairytale-like rendition of what a marriage between Sufi 'Beloveds' should be.  Aisha seemed to want to believe it.

But I didn't see why he put me with her or her with me other than that we were simultaneously in the same place at the same time.  

This was highly unorthodox.  If he had done it with an Arab woman, her father would be instantly licensed, if not expected, to KILL the perpetrator.

While she understood and, I believe, tried to be patient with my issues with Sidi and the Sufi path, she was unable to make peace with what I saw as the legitimate demands of living in the world, which more-or-less required us to live in California---NOT in Jerusalem, as she preferred, NOR in the UK, nor in Vermont or any other place she later imagined would be 'ideal' for us.

As a result, we could never fully resolve our married life.  Although we managed to forestall the ending for 14 years, the seeds of its destruction came early.

The beginning of the End came on the flight back to Jerusalem, just 18 months after our marriage. It was the first of many "breaking-of-camps" in one location and starting over in another that became a constant for us, usually at Aisha's instigation.

This happened so many times that I have to assume that it became part of her psychology to endure as long as she could in a specific spot, but only so long before something snapped.

The 'Gay' Episode

A couple of years after our breakup, long after Ali had moved on, I heard a rumor about Aisha possibly being involved in a Lesbian relationship.

We had a mutual friend in a rather 'butch' nurse who was had been recruited by Aisha, and given a Spiritual Name by Sidi.  She was either living in the same house or visiting Aisha when one of the children opened a door without knocking and supposedly found them in a romantic embrace.

It wasn't long before this same person dropped by to say 'goodbye' to me.  She was evasive as to the reasons why, but I was aware that she felt she was 'rejected' by Aisha. She seemed very sad about it, and I felt sorry for her.

By then, I was well accustomed to Aisha rejecting people after an initial 'Spiritual Honeymoon' period.

Whatever ACTUALLY happened, I'm in no position to judge. Bi-sexuality wasn't an aspect of Aisha's personality that I had seen before.

What I had seen before was Aisha's tendency to entice other people with the prospect of future love of God so temptingly that it took on a quasi-romantic tone, perhaps even for her.

I mean, after all, Sufism is all about the 'Secret' of the Love of God.

Maybe she was born a tumbleweed or a nun, or perhaps she never ultimately found the right guy or gal. But I hope she finds some peace today, in her mid-70s, surrounded by spiritual friends.

This includes an ex-husband, myself, and perhaps an earlier one, who are still curious about and waiting to hear her story.  I wish, for once, she would share with the world the story of her own life and not just someone else's.  There's nothing like a first-person narrative.  Why doesn't she want to tell it?

She's not ventured out much after the 'Ali Affair'. I don't know why. I don't know if that was even a real thing. or just a cynical use of another person set up to be her agent--much as Sidi seems to have used others to be the agent of his family's escape from the confines of the West Bank.

I've decided to withdraw some previously-included chapters that dealt with the ultimate disintegration of our marriage. At this late date, it seems irrelevant. The end came as I fell back into substance addiction and she into cultic addiction and our lives together no longer made sense or had any hope of re-integration on any new basis.