Category Archives: creativity

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A Mouse and A Frog

This week has been very interesting. Coleman Barks introduces Sohbet. “Sohbet has no English equivalent. It means something like mystical conversation on mystical subjects.” Barks continues his introduction to this chapter by discussing an experience many of us may have felt, the sensation of hearing ourselves speaking from habit. Then there are other times where we might say or write something that seems incredibly wise and wonder where the thought or idea came from.

Barks own words are best to portray how he feels this applies to Rumi: “Sometims that presence, amazingly, speaks to Rumi through the poetry; voices slide back and forth within the same short poem! Often the poem serves as a slippery doorsill place between the two…voices coming from a between-place. This expanding and contracting of identity is one of the exciting aspects of Rumi’s art. Everything is in conversation.”

Today’s poem paints a beautiful picture of an open, carefree, joyous relationship between a mouse and a frog. They understand each other and immediately know what the other is thinking;

“Bitterness doesn’t have a chance

with these two.”

After Rumi paints this lovely picture, he changes the metaphor to drive home his point:

“Do camel bells say, Let’s meet back here Thursday night?

Ridiculous. They jingle

together continuously,

talking while the camel walks.”

To be sure we get the point, Rumi asks:

“Do you pay regular visits to yourself?”

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The Dog in the Doorway

Rumi:

“This is how it is when your animal energies,

the nafs, dominate your soul:

…you’ve seen a nomad’s dog

lying at the tent entrance, with his head

on the threshold and his eyes closed.

…Now, what if that dog’s owner

were not able to control it?

…Just as you can’t come close,

he can’t go out!”

We must be aware of our animal energies, our nafs, and we must learn to control them or they will control us.

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Brother, stand the pain

This week Rumi shared about a man asking to have a tattoo of lion on his shoulder but once the tattooing began, the man couldn’t stand the pain. The story reveals the man complains throughout the ordeal. First he requests the lion have no tail, then no head and finally no belly. The tattoo artist becomes exasperated because the tattoo doesn’t resemble anything. Rumi advises:

Turn away from your cave of sleeping.

What is it to know soemthing of God?

Burn inside that presence. Burn up.

The next poetic story was titled, The Center of the Fire. Two friends argue throughout the story about having too much wine, who can draw and strike their blade first, who can come up with the best argument against the other. Rumi’s conclusion:

We must drown, away from heroism,

and descriptions of heroism.

The mystery does not get clearer by

repeating the question,

nor is it bought with going to amazing

places.

I finished the week with reading about Muhammad and The Huge Eater. The title is pretty straightforward as to what the story is about. Muhammad invites a man into his home who is a glutton. Many in Muhammad’s house were furious with the amount of food the man consumed. A maid locks the man in his room once he has fallen asleep. When the man wakes during the night needing to go to the bathroom he cannot leave the room. As soon as his door is opened in the morning, he flees the house. He returns later for an amulet he has forgotten and when the man sees Muhammad, “the hands of God” washing his soiled bed clothes he is devastated, then a great love enters him. The man feels unworthy and prostrates himself before Muhammad. Muhammad holds him and opens the man’s inner knowing.

When the body empties and stays empty,

God fills it with musk and mother-of-pearl.

That way a man gives his dung and gets purity.

Stay with friends who support you.

Talk with them about sacred texts,

and how you’re doing, and how they’re doing,

and keep your practices together.

Rumi is very direct with letting his listeners know exactly what he is trying to say with this story. We will succeed on our journey if we are not alone. We need community.

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Musings

This week with Rumi has been unsettling. On Monday I read what seemed to be a parable about a man and a woman arguing that left me feeling a little bit sad. I recognized parts of me in the woman and parts of me in the man. I think Rumi is sharing the wisdom of compromise. He takes three pages to share this story. What is he really trying to tell us? He concludes his writing with these words:

“A night full of talking that hurts,

my worst held-back secrets. Everything

has to do with loving and not loving.

This night will pass.

Then we have work to do”.

Tuesday’s Poem was titled, An Empty Garlic; Wednesday’s was The Diver’s Clothes Lying Empty. The poetry seemed to be more random than what I have been reading so far. Yet, through it all there is the thread that we have all we need within us.

Today’s is titled, Dissolver of Sugar. It felt like a request for gentleness in a poem of yearning.

“You keep me away with your arm,

but the keeping away is pulling me in”.

and

“I need more grace

than I thought”.

I can relate to the final two lines!

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Not A Day On Any Calendar

Sometimes it feels like Rumi is playing with us, maybe to see if we’re paying attention. The poem I read today feels very playful. He says,

“We’re drinking wine, but not through lips.

We’re sleeping it off, but not in bed.”

“Thoughts take form with words,

but this daylight is beyond and before

thinking and imagining.”

Then he finishes the poem with these lines:

“The rest of the poem is too blurry

for them to read.”

Are we so caught up in the busy-ness of our lives that we cannot see the poetry of the world around us? The beautiful mystery that we call heaven is already here around us but we have complicated our vision and forgotten how to see? Today’s poem doesn’t feel like a reprimand or encouragement – it feels like Rumi is teasing a bit, saying to us, look, see how absurd we can sometimes be.

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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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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

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Truth Stranger Than Fiction!

(photo credit: NASA)

A well summarized version of 2020 so far (credits to whoever wrote this, not me)

Dear Diary 2020 Edition,

In January, Australia caught on fire. I don’t even know if that fire was put out, because we straight up almost went to war with Iran. We might actually still be almost at war with them. I don’t know, because Jen Aniston and Brad Pitt spoke to one another at an awards show and everyone flipped the f— out, but then there was this thing happening in China, then Prince Harry and Meghan peaced out of the Royal family, and there was the whole impeachment trial, and then corona virus showed up in the US “officially,” but then Kobe died and UK peaced out of the European Union.

In February, Iowa crapped itself with the caucus results and the president was acquitted and the Speaker of the House took ten years to rip up a speech, but then WHO decided to give this virus a name COVID-19, which confused some really important people in charge of, like, our lives, into thinking there were 18 other versions before it, but then Harvey Weinstein was found guilty, and Americans started asking if Corona beer was safe to drink, and everyone on Facebook became a doctor who just knew the flu like killed way more people than COVID 1 through 18.

In March, shit hit the fan. Warren dropped out of the presidential race and Sanders was like Bernie or Bust, but then Italy shut its whole ass down, and then COVID Not 1 through 18 officially become what everyone already realized, a pandemic, and then a nationwide state of emergency was declared in the US, but it didn’t really change anything, so everyone was confused or thought it was still just a flu, but then COVID Not 18 was like ya’ll not taking me seriously? I’m gonna infect the one celebrity everyone loves and totally infected Tom Hanks, but then the DOW took a shit on itself, and most of us still don’t understand why the stock market is so important or even a thing (I still don’t), but then we were all introduced to Tiger King. (Carol totally killed her husband), and Netflix was like you’re welcome, and we all realized there was no way we were washing our hands enough in the first place because all of our hands are now dry and gross.

In April, Bernie finally busted himself out of the presidential race, but then NYC became the set of The Walking Dead and we learned that no one has face masks, ventilators, or toilet paper, or THE FREAKING SWIFFER WET JET LIQUID, but then Kim Jong-Un died, but then he came back to life … or did he? Who knows, because then the Pentagon released videos of UFOs and nobody cared, and we were like man, it’s only April …

In May, the biblical end times kicked off historical locust swarms and then we learned of murder hornets and realized that 2020 was the start of the Hunger Games but people forgot to let us know, but then people legit protested lockdown measures with AR-15s, and then sports events were cancelled everywhere. But then people all over America finally reached a breaking point with race issues and violence. There were protests in every city, but then people forgot about the pandemic called COVID Not One Through 18. Media struggled with how to focus on two important things at once, but then people in general struggle to focus on more than one important thing, and a dead whale was found in the middle of the Amazon rain forest after monkeys stole COVID 1 Through 19 from a lab and ran off with them, and either in May or April (no one is keeping track of time now) that a giant asteroid narrowly missed Earth.

In June, science and common sense just got thrown straight out the window and somehow wearing masks became a political thing, but then a whole lot of people realized the South was actually the most unpatriotic thing ever and actually lost the Civil War, and there are a large amount of people who feel that statues they don’t even know the name of are needed for … history reasons … but then everyone sort of remembered there was a pandemic, but then decided that not wearing a mask was somehow a God-given right (still haven’t found that part in the bible or even in the constitution), but then scientists announced they found a mysterious undiscovered mass at the center of the earth, and everyone was like DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH IT, but then everyone took a pause to realize that people actually believed Gone With the Wind was like non-fiction, but then it was also announced that there is a strange radio signal coming from somewhere in the universe that repeats itself every so many days, and everyone was like DON’T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT, but then America reopened from the shut down that actually wasn’t even a shut down, and so far, things have gone spectacularly not that great, but everyone is on Facebook arguing that masks kill because no one knows how breathing works, but then Florida was like hold my beer and let me show you how we’re number one in all things, including new Not Corona Beer Corona Virus. Trump decides now is a good time to ask the Supreme Court to shut down Obama Care because what better time to do so than in the middle of a pandemic, but then we learned there was a massive dust cloud coming straight at us from the Sahara Desert, which is totally normal, but this is 2020, so the ghost mummy thing is most likely in that dust cloud, but then I learned of meth-gators, and I’m like that is so not on my f-ing 2020 Bingo card, but then we learned that the Congo’s worst ever Ebola outbreak is over, and we were all like, there was an Ebola outbreak that was the worst ever?

In July … Aliens? Zeus? Asteroids? Artificial Intelligence becomes self-aware?

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Sharing A Beautiful Artist

(The following article is from thisiscolossal.com a wonderful site of all things to do with art)

In The Redemption, photography-based artist Tawny Chatmon celebrates the beauty of Black hair through a series of arresting portraits superimposed with 24 karat gold flourishes. Each photograph features a solemn child who’s dressed in hand-painted ornate, gilt garments that are inspired by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt’s Golden Phase. “These portraits are meant to act as a counter-narrative and redemptive measure to uplift and elevate Black hair, tradition, and culture freeing us from negative stereotypes,” Chatmon says in a statement. “An intent, not to be confused with seeking validation, but rather an unyielding affirmation of Black beauty.”

By evoking Klimt, the Maryland-based artist hopes to elicit similar feelings as when considering some of the painter’s pieces like “The Kiss,” for example. “I remember being drawn to the details, the poses, of course, the gold, and the grace,” she says of her initial reaction to his pieces. The ornamental additions immediately signal beauty, which has many different meanings for Chatmon.

Beauty is every child in these portraits. Beauty is individuality and nonconformity. Beauty is something that you saw, that you can’t stop thinking about because it made such a good impression on you. Beauty is the way I felt when I got to hold each of my babies after giving birth to them. Beauty is motherhood. Beauty is when my 15-year-old son makes it a point to hug me every night and tells me he loves me. Beauty is goodness. Beauty is knowing you’re beautiful even in a world hellbent on making you think otherwise.

To explore more of the artist’s layered photographs that consider both personal and cultural conceptions of allure, grace, and strength, head to her site and Instagram.