Tired of Speaking Sweetly

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth
That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear
He is in such a "playful drunken mood"
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.

Rumi from 'The Gift'
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

I looked for myself

I looked for my self,
but my self, but my self was gone.
The boundaries of my being
had disappeared in the sea.
Waves broke. Awareness rose again,
And a voice returned me to myself
It always happens like this.
Sea turns on itself and foams,
and with every foaming bit
another body, another being takes form.
And when the sea sends word,
each foaming body
melts back to ocean-breath.

~Jelaluddin Rumi

Being Human

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival …
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, …
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~Rumi

The morning wind spreads its fresh smell.
We must get up and take that in,
that wind that lets us live.
Breathe before it's gone.

~Rumi

The Hunter and the Bird

A hunter once caught a small bird. "Master," said the bird, "you have eaten so many animals bigger than I without assuaging your appetite. How can the flesh of my tiny body satisfy you? If you let me go, I will give you three counsels: one while I am still in your hand, the second when I am on your roof, and the third from the top of a tree. When you have heard all three, you will consider yourself the most fortunate of men.

The hunter agreed. "The first counsel is this," said the bird. "Do not believe the foolish pronouncements of others." The bird then flew onto the roof, from where it gave the second counsel, "Have no regrets for what is past."

"Concealed in my body is a precious pearl weighing 5 ounces. It was yours by right, and now it is gone." Hearing this, the man began to bewail his misfortune.

"Why are you so upset?" asked the bird. "Did I not say, Have no regrets for what is past? Are you deaf, or did you not understand what I told you? I also said, Do not believe the foolish pronouncements of others. I weigh less than two ounces, so how could I possibly conceal a pearl weighing five? "

Coming to his senses, the hunter asked for the third counsel. "Seeing how much you heeded the first two, why should I waste the third?" replied the bird.

~Rumi
image by Gina Mikel

Let the waters settle

 

Let the waters settle
you will see stars and moon
mirrored in your Being.

~Rumi

When grapes turn

When grapes turn
to wine, they long for our ability to change.

When stars wheel
around the North Pole,
they are longing for our growing consciousness.

Wine got drunk with us,
not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.

We are bees,
and our body is a honeycomb.
We made
the body, cell by cell we made it.

~Rumi