Showing posts with label Rumi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rumi. Show all posts

Thursday, April 25, 2019

To Sit Apart


“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers
within yourself that you have built against it.”



"What I most want
is to spring out of this personality,
then to sit apart from that leaping.
I’ve lived too long where I can be reached."


~ Both by Rumi (1207 - 1273) ~


~ And this from Kabir (1440 - 1518) ~

"If you circumambulated every holy shrine
in the world ten times,
it would not get you to heaven
as quick as controlling your anger."


Notre-Dame de Paris ~ 2002

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Piano Bar

Piano Bar & Poem
"We must admit there will be music despite everything."

So pleasant to sit here,
listening to the pianist at the big white piano . . .

and taking afternoon tea!

"Love perfected and whole, you arrive."
~ Rumi ~

"Those who bind to themselves a joy
Do the wingèd life destroy;
But those who kiss the joy as it flies
Live in eternity's sunrise. ~
~ William Blake ~


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Previous March First Posts


2010: Kiss Me & Kiss Today & Dear March

2011: My Vegetable Love

2012: Love However Brief

2013: Beyond Ideas

2014: The First [Mild] Day of March

2015: Wind from a Leaf

2016: Reading the Obituaries

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Getting Ready

The week before Thanksgiving, Unlce Al sent us
an update from the Garden of Paradise:
"Lovely autumnal day.
Apple tree is a bit pitiful though."


The pumpkin, however, is brilliant!
Welcome Autumn! Welcome Guests!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Guest House ~ Rumi

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.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Hebrews 13:2 (KJV)

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Your House, Of Course

Hanging House ~ Stanford University Outdoor Art

Where am I going on this glorious journey?

To your house,

of course.


Rumi (1207 - 1273)

Persian Spiritual Sage

When recalling her first visit to New York City,
American essayist Anna Quindlen writes,
Something deep inside me just said "Yes."

from "City Kid" in Living Out Loud, 227

Some houses can make you feel the same!

Monday, July 21, 2014

Water Jar

Woman with Jar by He Qi
[artist's bio / previous post / fortnightly]

*****

We are the sweet cold water,
and the jar that pours. . . .

Those who don’t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don’t want to change,
let them sleep

Rumi (1207 - 1273)
Persian Spiritual Sage


*****

Bedouin Women Carrying Water Jars
by John Singer Sargent, 1891

P.S.
Not forgetting Water Jar Boy!
I have loved this story ever since I first read it, many years
ago in Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

A Hold On Me

Our West Lafayette Renovation Project
in the Lafayette Journal and Courier ~ March 26th 2005
More about this house on my
CURRENT FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST:
~ House With a Past ~

Our West Philly Renovation Project
in The Philadelphia Inquirer ~ March 27th, 1994
More about this house on my
RECENT FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST:
~ House Sisters ~

*******************

You're in my eyes.
How else could I see light?

You're in my brain
This wild joy.

If love did not live in matter,
how would any place have
any hold on anyone?

Rumi (1207 - 1273)

Persian Spiritual Sage*

Unusually Snowy Day in April

*As with the proverbs quoted on the above posts
for April 7th & April 10th,
these lines from Rumi can be found in
Mala of the Heart: 108 Sacred Poems
edited by Ravi Nathwani & Kate Vogt
Thanks to my friend Lani for her
generous gift of this lovely inspirational book!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Beyond Ideas

My favorite Rumi of all:


Wheat Fields at Auvres, 1890
~ Vincent Van Gogh ~

Out beyond ideas of rightness and wrongness,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.


~ Rumi ~

P.S.


Note & pictures from my friend George Sfedu:

"March 1st is MARTISOR DAY in Romania, a hugely popular day, when boys and men buy martisor miniatures tied with the traditional red and white string, which girls and women wear pinned to their outfits for, at least, one day. Often, Snowdrops are also given to the girls. The photograph you see here is of a Snowdrop flower from my terrace. Happy Martisor to all the women friends reading this post!"



Thanks George!

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Wine the Magi Brought

A range of reds from Ben McCartney's Wine Tasting Album

As the Season of Epiphany comes to a close, what a comfort to think that the magi brought not just gold, frankincense and myrrh but also wine.

And how fitting to encounter ~ courtesty of my friend Eileen ~ these words from Rumi: "in that moment, you will know."

Birdcatcher, the birds you want are thirsty,
so you open the wine vat and let the fragrance draw us.
This is the wine the magi brought as a gift,
and the wine musk that led them.

There are certain night-wanderers
that you especially want. Not the drunkards,
and not the ones who just carry cups to others.

This is how it is to come near you.
A wave of light builds in the black pupil
of the eye. The old become young.

The opening lines of the Qur'an open still more.
Inside every human chest is a hand, but it has nothing
to write with. Love moves further in where
language turns to fresh cream on the tongue.

Every accident, and the essence of every being,
is a bud, a blanket
tucked into a cradle, a closed mouth.

All these buds will blossom.
In that moment you will know what your grief was,
and how the seed you planted has been miraculously growing.





I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow
and called out,
It tastes sweet, does it not?

You have caught me, grief answered,
and you have ruined my business.

How can I sell sorrow,
when you know it's a blessing?


~ Rumi ~



"An unoaked French Chardonnay
from the Louis Jadot Macon Villages.
It smelled grassy and citrusy
and tasted the same.
I have problems describing the
gentler wines, but this one
finished warm and wine-y."
~ Ben McCartney ~

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Love & Justice, Both Blind

The arc of history is long
but it tends toward justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.



Look what happens to the scale
when love holds it:
it stops working.

Kabir


Full Quotation:

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe;
the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways;
I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure
by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience.
And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

Theodore Parker


PS. If only justice were as plentiful as beauty:

FAIR AND UNFAIR

The beautiful is fair. The just is fair.
Yet one is commonplace and one is rare,
One everywhere, one scarcely anywhere.

So fair unfair a world. Had we the wit
To use the surplus for the deficit,
We'd make a fairer fairer world of it.

Robert Francis, 1901 - 1987

Sunday, February 19, 2012

The Other Vision

Marie Therese Accoundee
by Picasso

**********

For a day, just for one day,
Talk about that which disturbs no one
And bring some peace into your
Beautiful eyes. *


Hafiz (1325 – 1389)
14th - Century Persian poet
popular, proverbial, profound


**********

Marie Therese avec une Guirlande
by Picasso


**********

from "Your First Eyes"

A lover has four streams inside,
of water, wine, honey, and milk.
Find those in yourself and pay no attention
to what so-and-so says about such-and-such.

The rose does not care
if someone calls it a thorn, or a jasmine.
Ordinary eyes categorize human beings.
That one is a Zoroastrian. This one is a Muslim.

Walk instead with the other vision given you,
your first eyes.*
Bow to the essence
in a human being. Do not be content
with judging people good and bad.
Grow out of that. . . .


Rumi (1297 - 1273)
13th - century Persian poet
philosopher & mystic


**********

*emphasis added

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Say Snow Moon



Rumi writes of the moon:

As everything changes overnight,
I praise the breaking of promises. . . .

I swear by the one who never says tomorrow,
as the circle of the moon never agrees
to sell installments of light.
It gives all it has.


See complete poem: "The Polisher"


Maury Yeston writes:

See how round
Like a cookie
See how white, as white as milk
Call it the "moon" my son
Say "moon"
Sounds like your spoon, my son
Can you say it?
New word today, say "moon"


See complete song: "Say Moon"


Vachel Lindsay writes:

The Moon's the North Wind's cooky.
He bites it, day by day,
Until there's but a rim of scraps
That crumble all away.
The South Wind is a baker.
He kneads clouds in his den,
And bakes a crisp new moon that . . .
greedy
North . . . Wind . . . eats . . . again!

See more
Moon Poems by Lindsay
and photo comments

Friday, January 27, 2012

No End

We will say this poem again and again . . .
there is no end to anything round."


These words of wisdom from Rumi
& my friend Eileen S. H.
appear on my latest fortnightly post
"This Year's Words"

Read more on
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony


NEW POST TOMORROW
"SAY MOON"

Saturday, December 10, 2011

The Full Truce Moon

Okay, I admit, this is not Venus!
It is the Moon!
But it's still a truce between Heaven and Earth!
And it's still autumn!

Truce for a Moment

Truce for a moment between Earth and Ether
Slackens the mind's allegiance to despair:
Shyly confer earth, water, fire and air
With the fifth essence.

For the duration, if the mind require it,
Trigged is the wheel of Time against the slope;
Infinite space lies curved with the scope
Of the hand's cradle.

Thus between day and evening in the autumn,
High in the west alone and burning bright,
Venus has hung, the earliest riding-light
In the calm harbor.


by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1901)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923

P.S.
"There is a moon inside every human being." ~ Rumi ~

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Full Moon, Full Heart

Maybe this month's Mourning Moon won't seem so sad if you open your heart to the magic and share it with someone else.

Your body is away from me
But there is a window open
from my ♥ heart ♥ to yours.
From this window, like the moon
I keep sending news secretly.


Rumi, 1207 - 1273
13th-century Persian poet
Philosopher, scholar, mystic

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)


E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962
Very popular American poet
Somewhat unconventional,
sometimes eccentric









# VIII from The Black Rider and Other Lines

I looked here;
I looked there;
Nowhere could I see my love.
And -- this time --
She was in my heart.
Truly, then, I have no complaint,
For though she be fair and fairer,
She is none so fair as she
In my heart.


Stephen Crane, 1871 - 1900
Influential, innovative American author
Journalist, novelist, poet

Free Valentine Picture of a Blue Heart Clipart Image. Click Here to Get Free Images at Valentine-Clipart.com
[click ♥ for ♥-clipart.com]

Saturday, May 1, 2010

May Day

Come to the orchard in Spring
There is light and wine
And sweethearts
In the pomegranate flowers
If you do not come
These do not matter
If you do come
These do not matter


Rumi (1207 - 1273)
13th-century Persian poet, philosopher, mystic