2 Ahau
Yellow Lunar Sun
Prior to Sight comes Sound
Hoof Beats like Heart-beats on Blacktop –
Horse and Rider bound
For Work or Home
Seeking Sustenance as the Sun
Reaches Zenith – sere and severe
Clip-clop/ clip-clop / clip-clop –
A Brown sorrel Mare moves into View
With a side-saddled Shepherd shouting, “Yasu!”
“Yasu! Πώς είσαι?” I respond –
He tips his Hat to me
Finally, bringing up the Rear
In this Ionian Cavalcade
A creamy Labrador Retriever
Panting in Anticipation and Thirst
She knows that in the final Reckoning –
The Last shall be the First.
©Kleomichele Leeds
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur is an author and activist (faith-based initiatives and gender equality in Islam). She works with Malaria No More, a leading non-profit formed to advance the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by ending malaria-related deaths. She also consults on a variety of interfaith projects and volunteerism efforts.
Career
In April 2008, the US State Department hosted Abdul-Ghafur on an eight-city speaking tour of the United Kingdom to cultivate a conversation about Muslims in the West. On this tour, Abdul-Ghafur spoke at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom and Oxford University. She has accepted invitations to speak at a host of educational institutions including Harvard University, Emory University, and Yale University. She has been a guest on CNN and National Public Radio. Her work has been featured in The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The New York Times.
In addition to work on behalf of women, Abdul-Ghafur's was the Associate Director of Corporate Volunteerism at Hands On Atlanta, a multimillion-dollar non-profit service provider in the southeast. She has been responsible for sourcing nation's largest service day, Hands On Atlanta Day, which hosted 17,000 volunteers in 250 unique service projects.
Abdul-Ghafur came to Atlanta in 2003 to join the team that produced Azizah magazine, the first and only magazine for American Muslim women. Prior to Abdul-Ghafur's work with Azizah, she was a program officer for Victoria Foundation. Victoria Foundation is among the oldest and largest private foundations and Abdul-Ghafur oversaw $12 million in grants to non-profits.
Activism
Abdul-Ghafur was selected to participate in the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow retreat hosted by the World Economic Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2006. The Forum convened thirty Muslims leaders from the United States along with their counterparts in Western Europe to strategize about the future of Islam and Muslims in the West. Out of this retreat came a commitment to address gender issues within Muslim communities in the West.
Abdul-Ghafur participated in the seminal events challenging the role of Muslim women in contemporary society. In 2005, she took on establishing women as prayer leaders, a concept that is unprecedented in the American Muslim community and co-organized the historic woman-led prayer in New York City. In 2004, she participated in a civil action in Morgantown, West Virginia to give women space and voice in American mosques where they have traditionally been banned. To varying degrees, subsequent to these actions Muslim communities throughout the United States and the West have reexamined the ways Muslim women participate in community life. Mosques in San Francisco, New York City and Chicago are among those that actively develop programming for women, have taken down barriers between women and men and allow women to sit on mosque boards.
Works
Abdul-Ghafur is the editor for Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Beacon Press), the first anthology collecting the voices of American Muslim women. The book presents American Muslim women dealing with the complexity of forging their own identities while contributing powerfully to public life. Contributors include poet and author Suheir Hammad, and journalist Asra Nomani. Living Islam Out Loud has received attention from both the mainstream and Muslim press. She has attracted controversy for publicizing in The New York Times her marriage to the man she later accused of being abusive in her book.
Abdul-Ghafur presents frequently at workshops, seminars, and conferences about popular culture, Islam and women. She contributed to the coming of age anthology, What Your Mama Never Told You: True Stories about Sex and Love (Graphia 2007). Abdul-Ghafur also contributes to online ezines and blogs. A recent piece, "A Hajj for the Children of Mali", described a historic delegation's pilgrimage to Mali to save the lives of African children and appeared on Beacon Press' blog, Beacon Broadside. Other online pieces include "Holla if you Hear Me", (Naseeb.com) a look at ethnic divisions in the American Muslim community and "Preach from the Ashes," (pmuna.org) her personal account of the historic woman-led prayer.
Affiliations
Abdul-Ghafur was a board member of the Progressive Muslim Union of North America. She is a member of Atlanta Habitat for Humanity's advisory board and the WOMENBUILD steering committee. Abdul-Ghafur serves on the Atlanta Women's Foundation's Faith, Feminism and Philanthropy steering committee. This committee is the Atlanta-based representation of the national conversation to bridge the divide between faithful and secular feminists around a common agenda of women's empowerment. Saleemah has been a guest on CNN and NPR and her work has been featured in The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New York Times. In May 2007 Abdul-Ghafur received the Kent Place School alumna achievement award. Abdul-Ghafur is a graduate of Columbia University.*
AHAU
Kin 80: Yellow Lunar Sun
I polarize in order to enlighten
Stabilizing life
I seal the matrix of universal fire
With the lunar tone of challenge
I am guided by the power of free will.
That which is hidden or non-manifest exists in a world beyond human perceptions, which we know as the imaginal world.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Svadhistana Chakra (Kali Plasma)
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