“This is giving your life to the one within that you know as Lord, which is a totally private matter. No one except you can judge how that is going. But if you’re not doing it, Rumi says, you are wasting your time here.” Coleman Barks. Preface, pg xv

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The Way of Love is:

  • the path of annihilation – die before you die
  • not religious
  • escaping into silence

Love writes a transparent calligraphy, so on
the empty page my soul can read and recollect.

  •  a mystical conversation or shobet
  • is learning through grief

My work is to carry this love
As comfort for those that long for you,
To go everywhere you’ve walked
And gaze at the pressed down dirt.

  •  discipline – polishing the mirror

 Rumi says an ecstatic human being is a polished mirror that cannot help reflecting. What we love, we are. As the heart becomes cleaner, we see the kingdom as it is. We become reflected light. The polishing may be related to practices, a devotion we do everyday that is an emptying out…

 What does it look like to remember who we are (our best selves) and acting from there?

What practices could we engage in that help us remember?

Drowning

What can I say to someone so curled up
with wanting, so constricted
in his love? Break your pitcher

against a rock. We don’t need any longer
to haul pieces of the ocean around.

we must drown, away from heroism,
and descriptions of heroism.

Like a pure spirit lying down, pulling
its body over it, like a bride her husband
for a cover to keep her warm.

Longing

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, suffer the pain.

Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.