Rumi

Rumi gave birth to such wonderful words, thoughts conveyed with such a simplicity, deftness, and power that had nothing at all to do with how so many often think of the word.  For a long time I have wanted to plant some Rumi here, a man who puts my own efforts to shame.  But I love him for it....


I think I love Rumi so because his turn of words feel like my own, his effort, his passion, some twinkling of grace, his subject matter, his grey matter, his red matter, his matter....all matter to me.  And so for you, Rumi:

The minute I heard my first love story,

I started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,

they're in each other all along.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

With the Beloved's water of life, no illness remains

In the Beloved's rose garden of union, no thorn remains.

They say there is a window from one heart to another

How can there be a window where no wall remains?

From Thief of Sleep

by Shahram Shiva

 When your chest is free of your limiting ego,

Then you will see the ageless Beloved.

You can not see yourself without a mirror;

Look at the Beloved, He is the brightest mirror.

From Thief of Sleep

by Shahram Shiva

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,

absentminded. Someone sober

will worry about things going badly.

Let the lover be.

From Essential Rumi

The Freshness

When it's cold and raining,

you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me

even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,

you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,

or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again.

Inside the majesty.

From Soul of Rumi

by Coleman Barks

The Self We Share 

Thirst is angry with water. Hunger bitter 

with bread.The cave wants nothing to do

 with the sun. This is dumb, the self- 

defeating way we've been. A gold mine is

calling us into its temple. Instead, we

bend and keep picking up rocks from the

ground. Every thing has a shine like gold,

but we should turn to the source! The

origin is what we truly are. I add a little

vinegar to the honey I give. The bite of

scolding makes ecstasy more familiar. But

look, fish, you're already in the ocean:

just swimming there makes you friends with

glory. What are these grudges about? You

are Benjamin. Joseph has put a gold cup

in your grain sack and accused you of being

a thief. Now he draws you aside and says,

"You are my brother. I am a prayer. You're 

the amen." We move in eternal regions, yet

worry about property here. This is the

prayer of each: You are the source of my

life. You separate essence from mud. You

honor my soul. You bring rivers from the 

mountain springs. You brighten my eyes. The

wine you offer takes me out of myself into

the self we share. Doing that is religion.

From The Glance

by Coleman Barks

The Dream That Must Be Interpreted

This place is a dream.

Only a sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,

and you wake up laughing

at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.

Everything cruel and unconscious

done in the illusion of the present world,

all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays,

and it must be interpreted.

All the mean laughing,

all the quick, sexual wanting,

those torn coats of Joseph,

they change into powerful wolves

that you must face.

The retaliation that sometimes comes now,

the swift, payback hit,

is just a boy's game

to what the other will be.

You know about circumcision here.

It's full castration there!

And this groggy time we live,

this is what it's like:

                               A man goes to sleep in the town

where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living

in another town.

                            In the dream, he doesn't remember

the town he's sleeping in his bed in.  He believes

the reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

The dust of many crumbled cities

settles over us like a forgetful doze,

but we are older than those cities.

                                                    We began

as a mineral.  We emerged into plant life

and into the animal state, and then into being human,

and always we have forgotten our former states,

except in early spring when we slightly recall

being green again.

                             That's how a young person turns

toward a teacher.  That's how a baby leans

toward the breast, without knowing the secret

of its desire, yet turning instinctively.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,

through this migration of intelligences,

and though we seem to be sleeping,

there is an inner wakefulness

that directs the dream,

and that will eventually startle us back

to the truth of who we are.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

The Seed Market

Can you find another market like this?

Where,

with your one rose

you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?

Where,

for one seed

get a whole wilderness?

For one weak breath,

a divine wind?

You've been fearful

of being absorbed in the ground,

or drawn up by the air.

Now, your waterbead lets go

and drops into the ocean,

where it came from.

It no longer has the form it had,

but it's still water

The essence is the same.

This giving up is not a repenting.

It's a deep honoring of yourself.

When the ocean comes to you as a lover,

marry at once, quickly,

for God's sake!

Don't postpone it!

Existence has no better gift. 

No amount of searching 

will find this. 

A perfect falcon, for no reason 

has landed on your shoulder,

and become yours.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

     The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Bark