There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of
spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At
night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language-door and
open the love-window. The moon
won’t use the door only the window.
Rumi
transl. by Coleman Barks
Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you are bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here’s the joyful face you have been waiting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small
contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.
Rumi
catching the Ox
blossoms of desire
brew a strong tea
~ firing separation
to be intimate
~ we struggle
mirrored and reflecting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Ox and I dance. He turns the horns of delusion towards me and the ferocity of wanting overwhelms me. Infused with my desires, he reflects what I believe will make me whole; blinded by the need to fulfill my desires, true intimacy eludes me. I cannot see with my whole body and mind. This is the karma of desire: I see in the Other what I believe will make me whole. This is the nature of spiritual infatuation which, as with lust, will fail me consistently and inevitably. Driven only by the heat of longing, the faith beyond labels evaporates and my spiritual practice becomes calcified – rigid and girdled by form. Already, I long for the early days of heady excitement, the mystery that fired the search. I mistake this for intimacy and the longing makes our dance a ritual of possession. Slowly, in the space between steps, I see how the illusion of ownership is protective – surely against loss but inexorably against love.
If I can let go of these shields – the acquired knowledge, the labels, the constructed self – there’s a chance to connect with true intimacy. Something may come of this dance as the Ox and I create each other. In each moment we can embrace each other. Or, we can battle for domination over each other.
I see my illusions fused to the Ox and he catches me in his gaze. “The most living moment,” Rumi says, “comes when those who love each other meet each other’s eyes and in what flows between them then.” We become transparent to each other and dance as one.
At this stage, still pendulating between desire and intimacy, the connection cannot last. The Ox pulls off into the mountains of intellectualizing and vanishes into the mists of doubt and ignorance. It doesn’t matter. We are caught now, tied by the same love for connection.
Thank you for practicing,
Genju
For this second week of my journey, I’ve prepared a few poems and what-nots I hope you will enjoy. I wonder if this will also reflect my process over this week?
A Necessary Autumn Inside Each
You and I have spoken all these words, but as for the way
we have to go, words
are no preparation. There is no getting ready, other than
grace. My faults
have stayed hidden. One might call that a preparation!
I have one small drop
of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.
There are so many threats to it.
Inside each of us, there’s continual autumn. Our leaves
fall and are blown out
over the water. A crow sits in the blackened limbs and talks
about what’s gone. Then
your generosity returns: spring, moisture, intelligence, the
scent of hyacinth and rose
and cypress. Joseph is back! And if you don’t feel in
yourself the freshness of
Joseph, be Jacob! Weep and then smile. Don’t pretend to know
something you haven’t experienced.
There’s a necessary dying, and then Jesus is breathing again.
Very little grows on jagged
rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up
where you are. You’ve been
stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.
Rumi
From The Soul of Rumi translated by Coleman Barks
If I flinched at every grief, I
would be an intelligent idiot. IfI were not the sun, I’d ebb and
flow like sadness. If you were notmy guide, I’d wander lost in Sanai.
If there were no light, I’d keepopening and closing the door. If
there were no rose garden, wherewould the morning breezes go? If
love did not want music and laughterand poetry, what would I say? If
you were not medicine, I would looksick and skinny. If there were no
leafy limbs in the air, there wouldbe no wet roots. If no giftes were
given, I’d grow arrogant and cruel.If there were no way into God, I
would not have lain in the grave ofthis body so long. If there were no
way from left to right, I could notbe swaying with the grasses. If
there were no grace and no kindness,conversation would be useless, and
nothing we do would matter. Listento the new stories that begin every
day. If light were not beginningagain in the east, I would not now
wake and walk out inside this dawn.Rumi
(from The Soul of Rumi: a new collection of ecstatic poems
translated by Coleman Barks)
