Monthly Archives: January 2023

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Where Everything is Music

This week I have struggled a little bit with some of the Rumi that I’ve read. Here are a range of my journal notes: Reading Rumi’s poems, I wonder what it must have been like for him to try to portray through his words what his revelations were. How do you describe the sky to a blind person? It’s always there but it has it’s moods and is always changing. Even in the moment of describing the sky it may change before your eyes. On another day I wrote: I think Rumi is telling us we try too hard. Even if we do nothing we will reap the rewards of the harvest. And one day I questioned who actually wrote the poem (Only Breath) or who was it who inspired Rumi to write the words he did?

Today “Where Everything is Music” resonates with me. In 2015, as an adult with no musical background, I decided to learn to play cello.(Seen in the above photo!) I have loved every minute of the journey. It has been challenging for sure but it has opened my eyes to a world I had been on the periphery of before. I feel I have “opened a window” as Rumi suggests in his final stanza of this poem.

“We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the center of your chest,

and let the spirits fly in and out.” ~ Rumi

Rumi compares love, his passion for life and living, to the intoxicating effect of music, with its enlivening effect on the soul.

Throughout the day today I see references to Bach and to Nietzsche, “Without music life would be a mistake.” Reminders of Rumi’s words are everywhere. A quote from Virginia Woolf falls open, “That is the quality which dance music has – no other: it stirs some barbaric instinct – lulled asleep in our sober lives – you forget centuries of civilization in a second and yield to that strange passion which sends you whirling round the room – oblivious of everything save that you must keep swaying with the music -” I listen to my favorite songs and I know that Rumi’s assessment of music will resonate with many!

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Craftsmanship and Emptiness

Today I felt I was sitting at Rumi’s feet listening to him teach. His calm, gentle demeanor radiated out to create a calm, gentle atmosphere in the circle of his teaching.

“I’ve said before that every craftsman

searches for what’s not there

to practice his craft.”

Rumi goes on to say how a builder notices a hole in a roof, a water carrier notices an empty jug, a carpenter notices a house without a door. Each craftsman is looking for something that isn’t there so they can then practice their craft, have something to do. But then Rumi states:

“Their hope, though,

is for emptiness, so don’t think

you must avoid it. It contains

what you need!”

The poem continues with a teaching frm another Sufi mystic, Attar. As always, I am left with a hint of knowing but still not 100% sure of Rumi’s message. I am left with more of a feeling than actual knowing. But I believe from this hint of knowledge, great knowing can be acquired if I am patient.

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Quietness

Rumi’s intense directive to make change in one’s life continues. This poem feels like it carries an assurance, a confidence, that we have everything we need to make this change, within us. All we have to do is slow down, quiet our lives and allow the change to show itself.

Your old life was a frantic running

from silence.

The speechless full moon

comes out now. ~ Rumi

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The Reed Flute’s Song

“Language and music are possible only because we’re empty, hollow, and separated from the source. All language is a longing for home.” ~ Coleman Barks

The Reed Flute’s Song

Stay where you are

inside such a pure, hollow note. ~ Rumi

The last few years, perhaps because of Covid and the enforced isolation, each time I say good-bye when family leaves after a visit, I am filled with sadness. The scale of the sadness is in direct proportion to the joy I just shared while we were visiting. There are no words to convey the depth of my feeling. There are no words to hold all the love I wish to pour onto my loved ones. Although I have just spent a wonderful afternoon or evening with my children, or siblings, or cousins, I immediately long for more time with them once the door is closed and they are on their way. Is this even close to the longing Rumi is expressing?

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Starting the year with Rumi

On December 30, 2022 I decided to read a Rumi poem each day. 365 days with Rumi. I have been wanting to do this project for some time; waiting for the “right” book, the right journal – maybe a lightning bolt for guidance. I realize I have everything I need. I just have to take the plunge and commit. No more dipping my toe and pulling back. I’m going in. I am excited to be surrounded by Rumi, to bathe in the waters of his teachings. I’m not sure what to expect. I look forward to the journy, the paddling about, maybe gasping for breath as I go under but knowing I will surface again. Maybe I will be able to look at life from a new direction, breathe more deeply.

Yesterday I was clever, so I

wanted to change the world.

Today I am wise, so I am

changing myself. ~ Rumi

Each day I have been faithfully reading a Rumi poem and writing in my journal. Today I have taken another leap of faith and come back to my ScribbleDarts to share my thoughts with who ever may care to read them.

January 13, 2023

The Fragile Vial (from The Essential Rumi translations by Coleman Barks)

Each poem of Rumi’s that I read is filled with an intense longing – for answers? – about life? love? Shams? He doesn’t tell us directly. We have to feel some of the unease that he does. Maybe then we will receive some of the answers he did. Reading Rumi’s poems leaves me feeling sometimes more than a little uncomfortable. Almost like I’m a voyeur witnessing an intensel personal experience. I’m not quite sure where to look or sit. Do I interact? Do I call bullshit? Or do I seek reverence? Seek answers, too? Or do I turn the page to a new poem? Rumi is feeling a little bit intangible to me.

Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it.

Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing,

where something might be planted,

a seed, possibly from the Absolute. ~ Rumi