yes, I am still blogging… but I switched places and you can find me now over there:
Itto’s Blog: https://ittosblog.wordpress.com/
so I invite you to come with me and would love to meet you on my new blog, inchaallah
– new style, fresh thoughts, but always authentically me…
at the bottom over there, you can subscribe to get news and always stay updated.
Salaam aleikoum and happy summertime!
Dear friends and readers, salaam aleikoum,
first of all, I wish you “Ramadan moubarak said” (albeit a bit late, ’cause half of the sacred month is already over).
It took me some time to read, to reflect, to think about all and to decide whats next, after this blog- and I would like to thank you all for the lovely comments and thoughts you left on my last post here. They moved me sometimes to tears and touched my heart. Your reactions were so honest and deep, and I didn’t expect to hear from so many lovely people, some whom I knew for years but haven’t seen in a long time, and others whom I never met in real life, but feel a connection through the ether…
and exactly this connection is one of the many reasons that inspired me to continue blogging.
I decided to create a new blog, with a simple and easy-to-remember-name, in a new form and style, but still a classic blog, a place where I can share my thoughts, leave a trace, dig deeper, pause, reflect, and connect indirectly with you.
so, welcome from now on, to my new online space over here:
I would love to meet you there! thank you so much for the energy you spread through reading me… may Allah bless you.
This blog remains, as a source and a footprint of so many wonderful years of growth, alhamdulillah.
Thank you so much for the time you’ve spent here with me
see you soon, inchaallah xxx
dear fellow-bloggers, dear friends and readers,
can you believe it???
It’s 15 years now that this blog exists!
Go, see my first entry here, September 2008, Ramadan, after I switched from the “my minaret”-host to “wordpress”.
Oh my, what has happened since then!
And how did I, but also this blog and my whole life change over the years…
Mashaallah, now I’m a grandma in blogging and I often think about “the how”, “the why” and the ways this blog took.
I do not blog as often as before and I do not entertain online-relationships as I did in the first years.
In times of quick-social-media-postings with fast-digesting-consumers, I wonder if a blog still is up-to-date?
Is it still worth writing texts and sharing long thoughts?
I wonder if there are still people reading and looking for deeper information and shared experience?
When I began blogging, I was a stay-at-home mom of two, living remotely in a foreign country, looking for other women in same situations, starving for inspiration and needing space to express myself.
Beginning to read and write in English opened up a whole new world then. I was so extremely touched by many wonderful mothers from all over the world, inspired and encouraged to get creative, to sew, to homeschool/unschool, to get greener, to care for myself and my family, to live according to my values and dreams, to become a better mother and part of society, to lead and to empower others.
Subhanallah, what a gift blogging was and still is to my life!
Some of the women who deeply touched and inspired me then, are still online and continue to gift the world:
Thank you, Amanda in the U.S.,: https://www.instagram.com/soulemama/
Thank you, Melissa in New Zealand,: https://www.instagram.com/melissa.wastney/
But just in time for this blogiversary, my storage space here on wordpress is nearly used up now, and I have to decide whether to continue blogging here with a paid version, to end blogging altogether or to start on a new place…
What do you think, dear readers?
I know, there are still some of you visiting this place from time to time, although I nearly never react to your comments… thank you for your loyalty.
One of the goals of a blog is to provide useful content and information. So, do you find reading here useful? Do my musings gift you in any way?
After 15 years, the statement, which you can find on my “About-page”, puts my intentions still quite well:
“This blog is a journal of my personal development and the many different fields of my action and interest. I started it in 2008 to connect with others, to keep in touch with far-away friends and family, to inspire and to tell about the beauty of Islam and about my life in Morocco, in a rammed earth house and amongst a still very traditional Berber-tribe, the Ait Bouguemez-Imazighen-people.
But since then, this blog has changed a lot, just as my life and myself did, alhamdulillah.
I write now mostly to reflect myself and to get a more distant view on my own way – Putting thoughts into written words helps me to process things.
Sometimes it’s also like following an inner call, when I feel that I have to share something with the world.
Therefore, my musings are random snapshots of my personal evolution and glimpses in parts of my every-day-life. I also hope to encourage, with my writing, interreligious dialogue and cross-cultural respect, inchaallah and God willingly, because I believe that we can create and maintain peace only by explaining, sharing and informing, and by focusing on what unites us all.”
I wonder …are there still people interested in all of this?
How do you think, dear readers, this blog should and could change and adapt to the development of social-media and internet-use in 2023? Do we, do you, still need written content? or are square-sized-aesthetic-pictures with a little text on Instagram enough?
I wonder what you think?
Please share your opinion in the comments-section below.
And feel free to scroll through my archive (right side bar on the bottom) of fifteen years of blogging.
Thank you for stepping by, every now and then,
love and light to all of you, connected through the ether, xxxx
Itto
Some online-thoughts on the relevance of blogging in 2023:
dear Arabic and French-speaking friends, I proudly and humbly present you here the link to a documentary film about our work and togetherness at the campus vivant’e.
This film was shot here last year in several stages. It is less an educational film, but rather a portrait of different people and their stories intertwined around our school – touching, real, deeply human.
We will subtitle it also in English and German – I will let you know as soon as the work is finished, inchaallah.
Ce film a été tourné ici l’année dernière en plusieurs étapes. Il s’agit moins d’un film pédagogique que d’un portrait de différentes personnes et de leurs histoires entremêlées autour de notre école – touchant, réel, profondément humain.
Nous le sous-titrerons également en Anglais et en Allemand – je vous tiendrai au courant dès que le travail sera terminé, inchaallah.
Dieser Film wurde hier letztes Jahr in mehreren Etappen gedreht. Es ist weniger ein pädagogischer Film, sondern eher ein Porträt verschiedener Menschen und ihrer Geschichten, die sich um unsere Schule drehen – berührend, real, zutiefst menschlich.
Wir werden ihn auch auf Englisch und Deutsch untertiteln – ich werde euch informieren, sobald die Arbeit abgeschlossen ist, inchaallah.
We are entering a new year, with blank and fresh pages in the calendar to fill.
Yes, oh my, there are many things to planify for this year, inchaallah:
travels to look forward to, visits of friends to get excited about, Ramadan to come very soon already, and there is the one thing that is totally new to me as a mother: the letting go of one of our children.
After growing into maturity, having gotten the high-school degree, and recently even his drivers-license, our first born is now ready to leave the nest.
I was aware of this moment to come since quiet a time already. I went through inner sorrow, fear and insecurity. The hardest thing is working on my own inner feelings without putting a burden on the child. I am convinced that he is ready, that he will manage well, wherever he will go, with God’s will, mashaallah. But am I?
Ready to let go and let God.
I grow a lot in this. Alhamdulillah. I can empathize now much better with my own mother, with all mothers – we all have to go through this – natural change. I try to learn from others, how they manage this, and I observe the animals treating that moment: to let go, to set free, to trust.
And I rejoice now much more in the moments when all of us gather together as a family of seven, when all five of our kids sit around the table, when they still go with us on holidays or watch a family movie in group – these moments became more and more special to me, knowing that each one grows into his and her own taste and rhythm, wanting freedom and maybe preferring time with peers and outside the home…
So I try to enjoy now more consciously the time with the smaller ones, sometimes even a bit more me-time, but I also try to find new (or old and forgotten) hobbies to fill my leisure-times.
I begin to define how I intend our future-family-gatherings to be,
I am thankful for what we have been blessed with for two decades now,
and I start observing the fruits of what we had the chance to sow over the last 19 years, subhanallah.
Full of humble gratitude, alhamdulillah.
Full of love and reminded by these words,
may you fly, dear son, blessed and divinely guided, into your promising future:
« Mes chers parents, je pars
Je vous aime mais je pars
Vous n’aurez plus d’enfant
Ce soir
Je ne m’enfuis pas je vole
Comprenez bien, je vole
Sans fumée, sans alcool
Je vole, je vole… »
(Lyrics of the song in the movie « la famille Bélier », by Louane / Michel Sardou)
Blessed new year 2023 to all – full of ease and joy and glory!
Sometimes it doesn’t need much words.
that’s why I chose to also go on Instagram. Capturing beauty with a lense
@ittosjournal https://instagram.com/ittosjournal/
Reading soul-ful books on transformational-daring & caring leadership,
while taking last warm sun-baths, watching pigeon-shaped clouds in the sky or sitting near the already heated-up chimney…
“the soul of leadership” from Deepak Chopra and “Strengthening the soul of your leadership” by Ruth Haley Barton
sometimes it doesn’t need much … good company, something nice to eat and drink and a beautiful place in nature …. Autumn bliss on a sunday afternoon, alhamdulillah!
Golden autumn-times are just perfect for “golden milk”.
An old ajurvedic recipe that makes a warming, calming, relaxing cup for late afternoons, when the days get shorter and the air a bit cooler.
1 teaspoon of turmeric heated in a
1 glass of milk,
With a pinch of cloves, cardamom and cinnamon (all optional) and a shot of honey.
I often put some steamed milk on top – bliss!
itto's journal 