Waking The Dead

Rumi writes: "Those of you whose work it is to wake the dead, get up, this is a work day." (Pg.106, A Year With Rumi)

Me: We're up and out of bed. My son and I will be reading "My Ishmael" to each other in a few minutes. Doing what we can do to step out of the Great Forgetting into the The Great Remembering, Rumi.

Impatience

It's 20 below zero before the sunrise on this Thursday morning. Despite the frigidly cold weather I noticed a couple signs of spring on the mail route yesterday. Saw two eagles sitting together on the branch of an oak tree over looking a farmer's pasture. From the looks of them I got the impression they could be thinking about having little ones together. Also noticed a lot of oak leaves blowing around on top of the waste-high snow in my front yard. Perhaps the oaks have gotten impatient. They're decided to start pushing their new buds out and shedding the old, brown, shriveled up leaves that've hung on all winter.

These two lines from Rumi keep running through me head:

"My worst habit is I get so tired of winter
I become a torture to those I'm with."

Off to unexpectedly deliver mail again this morning.

Mysteries Are Not To Be Solved

Reading Rumi before heading off to carry mail this morning. I really like these two lines out his poem titled: "Someone Digging in the Ground." I've heard Robert Bly quote the "eye goes blind" in at least one of his talks.

"Mysteries are not to be solved. The eyes goes blind when it only wants to see why."--Rumi

A Subtle Truth

If you want money more than anything,
you will be bought and sold.

If you have a greed for food,
you will become a loaf of bread.

This is a subtle truth.
Whatever you love, you are. --Rumi

What Makes You A Man?

Having lived with my grandparents in my late-teens and early-twenties, and now watching my son board the train of adolescence, this poem by Rumi has a lot of wisdom in it, I think.

The Core of Masculinity

The core of masculinity does not derive
from being male,
nor friendliness from those who console.

Your old grandmother says
“Maybe you shouldn’t go to school, you look a little pale”

Run when you hear that.
A fathers stern slaps are better.

Your bodily soul wants comforting.
The severe father wants clarity.

He scolds but eventually
leads you into the open.

Pray for a tough instructor
to hear and act and stay within you.

We have been busy accumulating solace
Make us afraid of how we were.--Rumi

Mind Over Body

Two women talking at work yesterday. One of them mentions to the other that her knee has been hurting her lately. The other relates with her own knee pain story then concludes jokingly saying, "It's all about mind over body." I smiled and thought of this poem by Rumi that I heard the other day:

On Resurrection Day

On Resurrection Day your body testifies against you.
Your hand says, I stole money.
Your lips, I said meanness.
Your feet, I went where I shouldn't.
Your genitals, me too.

They will make your praying sound hypocritical.
Let the body's doings speak openly now,
without your saying a word

as a student's walking behind a teacher
says, This one knows more clearly
than I the way. --Rumi

Our Name

"No one knows our name until our last breath goes out."--Rumi

Some Rumi On A Sunday Morning

I haven't cracked open my daily readings of Rumi in awhile. I decided to this Sunday morning. Yesterday's poem resonates.

Now I return to the text.

And He is with you,
wherever you are.
(Qur'an 57:4)

But when have I ever left it?

Ignorance is God's prison.
Knowing is God's palace.

We sleep in God's unconsciousness
We wake in God's open hand.

We weep God's rain.
We laugh God's lightning.

Fighting and peacefulness
both take place within God.

Who are we then
in this complicated world-tangle,
that is really just the single straight line
down at the beginning of Allah?

Nothing.
We are emptiness.--Rumi (Pg. 216, A Year With Rumi, Coleman Barks translator)

The Golden Rule

The way you make love
is the way God will be with you.-- Rumi

(Coleman Barks says this is Rumi's variation on the golden rule.)

Spring?

We began as a mineral.
We emerged into plant life and into
the animal state, and then to being human.

And always we have forgotten our former states,
except in early spring,
when we dimly recall being green again.~Rumi

Not recalling "being green again" today, Rumi. Snow is falling. There is well over two inches of fresh snow on the ground, and we're closing in on 10 days of no sunshine here in northwestern Wisconsin.

Oh how different it is from last year at this time.

Rumi on Blindness

"The eye goes blind when it only wants to see why."--Rumi

My First Book Of Rumi

My first book of Rumi fell into my hands on February, 20th. It's title: A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings. This book was given to President Obama as a gift from the author during the beginning of his first term as President. Rumi is the President's favorite poet. The poem on the day I received the book knocked my socks off and made me laugh at the same time.

Imagining is Like

Imagining is like feeling around
in a dark lane, or washing
your eyes with blood.

You are the truth
from foot foot to brow, Now,
what else would you like to know?

Rumi, Robert Bly, and Manners

We had a homeschooling moment this morning. My 13 year old son and I were talking about manners so I pulled out this poem by Rumi. I read it and played the Robert Bly reading. It's worth taking the 3 minutes to watch him read it. He's an amazing man.

It's also interesting to note that Rumi is President Obama's favorite poet. To me, that says a lot about the man and his faith. And I'm not implying that President Obama is a closet Muslim. My thinking is that he is a devoted Christian that enjoys reading ecstatic poetry because it's not available to him through his faith. Robert Bly claims that Christianity threw out its ecstatic tradition close 1500 years ago. That's also why Rumi is the most popular poet in America. It's just not available to us anywhere else.

One Reason Why

One of the main reasons I broke down and bought The Maiden King was to have this poem by Rumi, and Robert Bly's commentary on it.

We should ask God
to help us toward manners. Inner gifts
do no find their way
to creatures without just respect.

If a man or woman flails about, he not only
smashes his house,
he burns the world down.

Your depression is connected to your insolence
and refusal to praise. Whoever feels himself walking
on the path, and refuses to praise--that man or woman
steals from others every day--is a shoplifter!

The sun became full of light when it got hold of itself.
Angels only began shining when they achieved discipline.
The sun goes out whenever the cloud of not-praising comes near.

The moment the foolish angel felt insolent, he heard the door close.--Rumi

Last Breath

One of my favorite Rumi poems:

It's important to pay attention to the name the
Holy One has for things.
We name everything according to the number of
legs it has
But the Holy One names it according to what is
inside.
Moses had a rod. He thought its name was "staff";
But inside its name was "dragonish snake."
We thought the name "Omar" meant agitator
against priests,
But in eternity his name was "The One Who
Believes."
No one knows our name until our last breath goes out.

Your Own Myth

Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. Rumi