Into The Mystic
Enter
And accept the changes that will come.
From here on out,
There are no more limits
To what your heart might do!
You might even wake up some morning
To find the entire Universe
Spinning wildly in Love
Within the contours of your beating Heart...
All because you opened this door
And crossed the threshold
Of your infinite possibilities...
,
This Breath, Borrowed
This breath, borrowed
from the passing wind...
this body, borrowed
from the essential elements...
this soul -- Only an aspect of the One...
these thoughts, nothing original...
but this humble bow in adoration:
a perfect return of the favor...
Shh... There Is A Beauty
Shh...there is a beauty
in your reclining figure
that has never been touched
by either words or tongue...
there is a silence within the silence
that I am calling you into,
not for my pleasure, but
for your engagement with your own splendor...
there is even a union of opposites
where Light trembles
when enfolded by Darkness...
and there is a Kiss approaching you
from behind the veil of your own Mystery...
shh... hush... rest now... there is still time:
but tomorrow you are the Scripture you must read...
The Wild Rose Opens
sitting by, in the endless dream
of the Great River flowing, flowing, endlessly flowing --
sky earth water in harmonic being --
giving, endlessly giving, this:
a slow settling down into essence, this:
body and soul finally, an end to difference,
eyes and mind, waking into no difference,
and illumination giving birth to the Mother...
look! the hummingbird motions into still perfection
and the deep water turns into the brown-red wine
of peace: bluffs and clouds shape-shift, each
into the other, and the wild rose opens
into the emptiness of perfect form, before form...
and in the silence there is only the Return -- again --
and again into Only One, flowing, endlessly flowing...
The Tears of Allah
(A Devout Meditation in Homage to the Women of Afghanistan)
Evermore, the tears of Allah
dripping off my ceiling
running down the walls
bleeding from my eyes
gathering into pools
around my baby on the floor --
evermore, i shall pray to forget:
but i know i never will.
i will remember every day
and in that remembering i swear:
one day, every woman will rise up
for all of our babies
for all of the dead
and for the tears of Allah...
we will remember
and we will all rise up together,
and we will put an end to domination
and to killing -- evermore...
evermore...
This Moment Only
not worthy, not unworthy
this moment only:
the full moon rises in the eastern sky.
your hand held in mine,
our faces in hallowed light.
Tao Gita Torah Gospel Quran, Sometimes
Tao Gita Torah Gospel Quran, sometimes
One person or another tries to close
And lock the window of their view. But look!
In Rumi's House of Ruin,
There is no door! So walk right in!
If your bad behavior includes
Saying, "There is no separation",
Come in!
If your one aspiration is "Nothing",
Come in!
If doubt is your "Cherished Companion",
We have a Place for you here!
If Love is all you have left to do,
Come and practice here!
And if you've already grown a "Breast of God",
Then come and suckle the Universe here --
We've got rocking chairs by the fireplace!
And if none of this interests or applies to you,
You can still slip in through the back
And shout "Ruin! Ruin! Ruin!" all you want.
We'll all quite agree...
Our Green Desires
The road to Rumi's ruin
is just beyond your latest insight.
Here, there are no signposts,
just a few hints:
If you take your eyes off your feet
you are sure to fall.
Clouds hang low, some even dangle
from the gray branches of the cypress.
Shams of Tabriz,
his red hat is the pomegranate
of all our green desires...
It Is Not Yet Safe To Say
it is not yet safe to say
"Forget your Houses of Worship".
so instead,
you can read it here...
but that is not all!
if it is the One whom you seek,
if it is Love that you desire,
if it is Liberation that you want,
they can all be found
at Road's End, in the Deep Green
that hides the Tavern of One Delight: just
look for the sign with a Broken Heart...
Sutra of Possibility
In your imagination
can your heart embrace all of creation?
Now can you imagine
new universes besides?
In your imagination
can you touch the cause of the hummingbird's
beating heart?
Now, can you imagine
the atom's secret attraction besides?
Truth
is the possibility that you can.
Old Lovers
i heard Love's call, and many times
i ran the wrong way.
i thought only by mistake
would i stumble upon the Way...
but as soon as "i" disappeared
into You -- just as you promised,
there was no one left
but Us... now We are Old Lovers,
really just mirrors for the other, each
taking her turn calling out "gotcha"...
Poetry occupies a very special place in the heart of sufism -- in both "big sufism" (official) and "little sufism" (wild and unaffiliated). Rumi (the best selling poet in America -- though a contemporary of St. Francis) and Hafiz are the two best known sufi poet-mystics. Others well worth reading and studying include Ibn 'Arabi, Kabir, Attar, and Rabi'ah. Coleman Barks translating Rumi, and Daniel Ladinsky translating Hafiz, have opened wide the doors of sufi poetry -- such a luscious splendor awaits all those who cross this blessed threshold! The "little sufism" of my practice finds an occasional avenue of expression in poetry -- this "Into The Mystic" page will continue to share some of those poems... but the point of sharing is not the poetry, but rather the invitation from Beauty for you to engage in the Way... to recognize your beauty within the Beautiful One and then to serve that very same beauty in everyone through action for justice and peace. The times in which we live require of us to become both mystics and activists -- and then to share our stories, lessons learned, prayers and blessings, fears and failures -- all of the "bread and roses" of lives well-lived...
Recommended Reading:
The Illuminated Rumi, Coleman Barks and Michael Green
One Song, Michael Green
The Sufi Book of Life, Neil Douglas-Klotz
The Drunken Universe, Peter Lamborn Wilson and Nasrollah Pourjavady
And if you intend, or think it likely, to read only one more book for the rest of your life, make it this one:
Rumi: The Big Red Book, Coleman Barks
