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Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
Deep Straight Dope
1
Tag Archives: Faith
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
In a Nutshell
“The foolish among the people will say, “What has turned them away from their qiblah (direction), which they used to face?”
Say,
“To Allah belongs the east and the west.
He guides whom He wills to a straight path.”
[Qur’an 2:142 ]
😀
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
God
Standing the Test of Time
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
Are We True to Our Religions?
I found this simple and to the point article on a website, but alas, there was no reblog facility, so here’s the link. Check it out.
Are We True To Our Religions?: http://imtiazmuhsin.com/article/9-are-we-true-to-our-religions.html
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
Allahu Allah
Ya Allah!
Guide
me
to
be
a
guide.
Ameen
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
A Friend is a …
…
Two heads are better than one
😀
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
Launching Toodle Oo Doodles
Maasha Allah, alhamdulillah
The First WordPress.com Doodle Site!
My doodle Spot
The view from the top is the same
-– I Thought I’d Strip for My 45th Birthday -–
My Arangetram
The Open Kimono
Free Show
Peep Show
Lifting and showing what’s within veils of darkness
Soft launch of weblogs
Reaching Out
The Unlettered Bard
A growing collection exceeding the span of a decade.
Hand drawn and computer generated pictures of poignant moments in my life
after seeing the
sunrise atop Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka
and performing
my
Hajj Pilgrimage
to Mecca.
My View
upon
Seeing
the
Light
Background music MUST:
Play
-– The Maha Sona Collection -–
Details of each artwork to follow in posts
in sha Allah
More views here:
Reaching Out
The Unlettered Bard
Adam’s Peak
the mountain in Sri Lanka
My homeland
My terrain
My views.
The view from the top…
View original post 75 more words
The Stirring
Maha Sona Collection
Flutter by Butterfly
Listen to The Verve and read on:
The Stirring
Maha Sona the Disturbing Collection
A collection of
Short Stories
By
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
October 2013
Cometh the Moment Cometh the Woman
Warning: Not Suitable for those Over the Age of Six
About Me
The Man Who Set the Devil on Me and Made Me Find God
Armageddon: Enter the Maha Sona – Trumpeting Exorcism Ruqya into Cyberspace
The Artists Eye
The Barred Cacofonix
Patience – the Room of Requirement
Hail Hitler!
River of Fire
In Another World – On Casual Terms with Bruce Lee
Most Wanted – Unwanted Thing
Small Things Go a Long Way
The Strangled Squawk
A growing collection
I Thought I’d Strip for My 45th Birthday
The soft launch of my weblogs
Reaching Out
The Unlettered Bard
Toodle Oo Doodles
Rather than finish the sculpture behind curtains, I’m inviting you to share the crafting process.
Watch me err, till I get it right.
I don’t mind.
Peep.
Schedules and Deadlines
When will I lift and show live – such as a food and beverage social function to launch my first hard publication?
I don’t know.
In musician parlance, I’m jamming with schedules and deadlines at the moment.
Let the composition rise out of the jam.
Dangerous… but necessary
I want it to make people
feel
not
think
…
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Let the river take its course
😀
Flutter by Butterfly
Although I knew it would happen overnight, I didn’t know when exactly. So I was prepared to be
unprepared.
I was feeling warm and cosy in the cocoon and thought – what a nice way to die…
But, it seems, I have to first fly.
Oops!
So flutter by butterfly
Butterflies!
The Stirring
From early on, people kept telling me – ‘Someone should write a book about you!’
It then became – ‘Why don’t you write a book…?’
They mellowed, and asked kindly and nicely…
I was also tired of repeating the story.
Sure, repetition was the purifying process.
Yet, boredom set in. It’s old hat to me, so what – it happened…
But people found it inspiring.
It became a burden.
I made it a duty.
I can’t write a regular biography. That would cramp my style. I don’t function well when I’m out of my style. So I don’t go there.
No – once upon a time and happily ever after – storybook.
I’ll give you a selection of short stories:
You put the pieces together and as the Doobie Brothers sang:
Listen to the Music
OMG!
The making of my magnum opus!!!
Enjoy the dance with me
😉
But, never forget:
you are dancing
with
Enter Maha Sona
the Punk
@ 16-years
https://middlepathofmoderation.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/the-stirring/
😉
Dedication
This collection is for all those wonderful people along the way, who wanted nothing short of the book from me.
You wanted the book, so here’s the book!
I suppose, I wasn’t joking, when I quipped – If ever I do, I’ll give you the Dhammapada, the Bible, and the Kama Sutra, Sona style!
I remember with fondness and respect my leading friend, Karen De Jacolyn Seneviratne:
the first to inform me that I could write, therefore, I should.
Karen also introduced me to Scrabble.
May Allah bless her!
Karen bags ‘Most Outstanding Friend Award’, hands down, maasha Allah.
😀
Yes, Carotene, you do.
You saved my life,
but that’s another story.
No, I never forget.
May be
that’s
me…
My first short story collection is dedicated to you Karen.
May Allah bless you and your family for giving me confidence in myself.
How the verve song and all?
Enjoy the glow.
You deserve it.
😀
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
Small Things Go a Long Way
I’m posting this because, when I was 11-years-old and my formal education ended at grade-five, my mother ground her teeth and snarled:
‘God does not exist!’
She then whacked me with her umbrella at the main gates of what had just become my alma-mater – Ladies’ College Colombo 7– in front of everybody: parents, teachers, passersby and peers…
I was brought home pronto and thrust naked under the shower for a second thrashing.
This time – the toilet eekle broom and her fingernails… 
- Eekle Broom
Mom hissed: ‘All my hopes are dashed’ and turned away from me in disgust and returned to her hole beneath a stone.
Stinging welts sprang up on my bare skin…
I wasn’t a child.
I had attained puberty one-month prior to my ninth birthday.
I had been a young woman for two years.
It was an epic performance on the part of my mother.
“Those, whom Allah guides, none can lead astray.
Those, whom Allah leaves astray, none can guide”
All praise to God, I always wanted to be a genius. Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Only a Hatter would choose that. I am the Sona Talking Hat. It’s ‘Simon row the boat ashore’, I said. I made the Right Effort and eventually reached enlightenment through Right Understanding of the meaning of love and compassion.
I forgave myself, by the Mercy of Allah.
Allah is the light of the stratospheres
[Qur’an 24:35]
I understood why mom had tied her hopes to me.
I began forgiving my mother in my late twenties and declared the job more or less done a few months ago, in my mid forties.
It was a tedious process:
I sang the blues…
I wrote and composed my first song – Don’t Steal My Thunder – a rock blues ballad on
9 February 2004. It’s a Janis Joplin guttural wail against a backup of solid, smooth and soothing harmonies. A laid-back swinging rock blues on D 7th. More accurately, a drag back from D# 7th.
Yeah… that’s exactly how I felt.
I was wailing in great harmony.
I was 35-years-old.
By the way, I will be saying hi to the beginning of my 45th year on 24 October. Please drop by. I may have some sort of food-for-thought cake going around, in sha Allah, considering the ingredients at hand.
As Big Ben said to the Learning Tower of Pisa:
“If you have the inclination, I have the time.”
😉
Why did my schooling end?
The teacher abused me in racist language. She said she didn’t want an English-speaking shit-Burgher in her class. I should stand naked at the top of my road for not knowing the Tamil language.
I responded that it was she who should be standing naked at the top of the road.
She blew her top like Harry Potter’s aunt Marjorie Dursley.
I was ordered out of class to stand in the midday sun. I observed her for a while – studying the pattern of her security glances in my direction and crouched and ran out of her vision and climbed a tree on the grounds and shared very intimate moments with that tree.
We couldn’t study in the English medium, because racism is prevalent in Sri Lanka. Only Moors, Malays, Burghers and mixed breeds and so on could join the English medium. The rest had to study in their own language – the great divide – Sinhala or Tamil.
Dad was an *LBW Burgher case who bore the name of his stepfather – Barnes, registered in Paradise Island Sri Lanka as Tamils.
*LBW – cricket – leg before wicket: out of wedlock.
We spoke English at home. Likewise, our relatives.
No school would accept me into the English medium.
I was clueless about the Tamil language and developed a dislike for certain aspects of its culture and traditions.
False values.
My aversion to false deities was always high, maasha Allah.
A few months ago, mom cried over the phone and asked if I could forgive her.
I said: – Already done.
She said: – I’m proud of you.
I said: – All praise to God Almighty – Allah!
She said: – Yes. I now know: God exists. My prayers were answered.
I said: – I know why I was born to you.
We burst out laughing…
Mom became the first patron and donor of my blog Reaching Out 
Why Am I Tickled Pink?
After a period of no less than 3-4-years, I was accepted as a student by Sheikh Imran Nasr Hossein last month, alhamdulillah.
Sheikh Imran Nasr Hossein
http://www.imranhosein.org/
Yes, maasha Allah – my very own darling Guru Pathik! He has an established unbroken chain of narration that traces back to the Last Messenger of Allah, Prophet Muhammad. Allah’s peace, mercy and blessing be upon all Allah’s Messengers and those rightly guided.
I emailed my Sheikh yesterday 14 October 2013:
Assalaamu alaikum sheikh,
RE: Lessons Learnt From Khidr By Sheikh Imran Hosein (Youtube)
Why a fish?
What about fish having sixth sense – Ampullae of Lorenzini
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampullae_of_Lorenzini
Just a suggestion.
Salaams,
Sona
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
ABOUT: http://about.me/sonabarnes
WEBLOG: https://middlepathofmoderation.wordpress.com/
He responded:
wa ‘alaiki assalaam!
Excellent insight. The Khidr of this age must develop that 6th sense (of the fish) which we know as INSIGHT.
We need to pay adequate attention to the life-style, diet, attachment to the earth and to water etc, constant recitation of the Qur’an, etc. necessary for the development of INSIGHT.
Thank you very much. May Allah bless you with continued insight. Ameen!
with love,
INH
Website: http://www.imranhosein.org
Ameen, all praise is due to Allah. Tell me about being tickled pink!
😀
When mom thrashed me and turned away, I stepped out the following year in 1981 to set my own record in Sri Lanka. I was the New Kid in Town and soared like an eagle:
I became the first 12-year-old professional female Lead/Rhythm Guitarist with the rock band Bishop. It remains unchallenged.
BISHOP: June 1981 (L-R)
Ravi Barnes (Bass Guitar),
Sona Barnes (Rhythm Guitar),
Michael Selverajah (Vocals/Keyboards),
Rifaai Thowfeek (Drums),
Lakshman Gamage (Lead Guitar)
I did other things too. A few years later, I fell in love with Stan the Bus Conductor – the leader of the band.
Why?
He was the Knight Bus blessing in disguise and this was his song –
Listen:
Pink Floyd – Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Mine was Stairway to Heaven – Led Zeppelin
“To be a rock and not to roll”
It made sense.
Sixth sense.
My mother hardly reacted when I took a man ten-years my senior.
Yep, things were seriously Topsy-turvy.
I felt my may through life.
I didn’t think it through…
I took it as it came.
Head on.
Heart beating.
Life surging.
Night and day.
The only way.
Braggart?
I don’t walk my talk. I talk my walk.
I don’t have posh academic qualifications and letters before and after my name.
I am The Unlettered Bard!
I’m formally uneducated.
All I have are these small things…
… that have gone a long way…
I hope the message reaches you:
Believe in yourself, despite other’s opinions
If you can believe it, you can achieve it.
Before believing in God, you must first believe in yourself.
That’s the science of it.
Listen: Stardust
Small things go a long way, isn’t it?
😉 May Allah bless you!
😀
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
Most Wanted
Unwanted Thing
Reaching Out –
Exploring Beyond the Senses
https://middlepathofmoderation.wordpress.com/
‘Wait a minute… don’t make me open my mouth and wave my wand’, was my response, when the war on Islam washed up on the exquisitely beautiful, yet, filthy shores of the land of my birth – Paradise Island – Sri Lanka.
Swine cast before the Pearl of the Indian Ocean
Trash washed up.
View Sri Lanka through the eyes of Duran Duran
Save a Prayer
This was seriously dangerous trash.
A poisonous, ruthless, monolithic monster had leaped out of the carved stone with finicky tastes and ravenous appetite:
It salivated at the succulent tender flesh of Muslims:
Those who isolate Allah alone for worship.
It liked me.
Yikes…
Eek!
The Gog and Magog – Ya’jooj and Ma’jooj – Death Eaters had arrived.
Tom Riddle alias Lord Voldemort – the Antichrist Dajjal – was on his way.
OMG – I WAS Harry Potter!
I had the heritage:
I had pottered with all sorts of things…
I came from the land of Adam’s Peak!
I had the Celestine Prophecy
I had the biography.
I couldn’t avoid it.
Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t
I had the scar of the childhood hex, thanks to my family.
I was the mystical Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child – Stone Free, Manic Depression, in a Purple Haze, but Hey Joe, there was a Red House on the yonder – where my baby stayed…
I was experienced.
I was a Punk:
I was the Deep Purple Child in Time:
I knew the Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven.
I was Leonard Cohen – Suzanne.
I was the Best Creative Head Hairdresser of the Year – the Cutting Crew barber of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
I knew barbershop harmony.
I was Cat Stevens – Yusuf Islam – Sitting and singing Where Are You, Peace Train – in Kathmandu…
In the Garden of Gethsemane,
I was the definition of genius:
1% inspiration
99% perspiration –
I was Jesus!
Jesus Christ Superstar – as the Andrew Lyod Webber opera had taught me;
I was Cassias Clay – Muhammad Ali
Simon and Garfunkle – The Boxer…
The famous Bridge Over troubled Waters – as love gave birth to me…
I was Bruce Lee – as my father had taught me.
Red Hot Chillie Pepper – as my mother, described me.
Muhammad Ali – Black Superman Song
I was Ishmaeel – the answer to (my great-grandfather’s) prayer – as my noble grandma had reminded me.
My father had sacrificed me to God and my life had been spared – to serve a higher purpose:
I was Shine On You Crazy Diamond – Pink Floyd
the unlettered bard – the ummi!
I had to rise like a prophet –
as my eldest brother had noted, with dark irritation towards me…
and shine like a Grand Vizier, as he’d quip, when his mood was bright and chirpy.
I was the curse
born after the eclipse baby
– the middle child –
my other brother.
I was the youngest,
the holy ghost
of the Barnes sibling trinity!
So bless my soul,
I was Spooky –
as friends and colleagues identified me.
In the Interview with the Vampire; I was the ghost of Cathy haunting Heathcliff –
in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights classic:
I am Heathcliff.
You’ll have to wait weight
Hajiani Sara – Prophet Abraham’ first wife –
mother of the Christian branch!
I am the enlightened one –
the golden (child)
– Sona
One of Sri Lanka’s Ten Giants – the legendary hero devil
Maha Sona.
The sack ghost phantom of lore – the fabled gonibilla.
My ship had arrived – I was in the Tri-wizard Tournament – Armageddon
OMG war!
Outcome: the wand
Bismillah,
In the name of God,
it was my turn to lead solo!
Outcome: the guitar
serenade the event, Santana,
Oya Como Wa
Easy, Lional Ritchie:
Enter the Dragon:
Be like water, Bruce Lee –
God, is your friend.
I was an element bending avatar – the bloodbending Avatar Maha Sona – a most dreadful thing!
I was the big mouth Sona, the proverbial Cacofonix – The Unlettered Bard, Reaching Out
with musical string…
I had a song to sing.
I was indeed,
in deed –
the most unwanted
wanted thing.
‘Believe in the unseen to see’ – Sona-ism
Reaching Out
https://middlepathofmoderation.wordpress.com/
The weblog Reaching Out is a five-month-old baby, with three-month-old younger sibling,
The Unlettered Bard
The Unlettered Bard
http://theunletteredbard.wordpress.com/about/
Thank You
You, dear reader are not a statistic to me, but a real, living, breathing, human being – with thoughts and feelings.
My sincere thanks to each and every one of you – need I say why?
Lovely people; for caring enough to share this very personal journey with me.
🙂
I opened the door to my heart and soul on the internet, and YOU walked in.
Of course, you are very special to me.
I can’t help it –
I’ll Have To Say I Love You
Enjoy the song!
😀
Reaching Out – Exploring Beyond the Senses
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Please follow and share.
🙂
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
Religion of Kindness
Hajiani Sara Sona (Brock) Barnes
Reaching Out 