Thursday, October 21, 2010

Listen Well to your heart and Read Signs...

Mirdad, 
By Mikael Naimy


To be a conduit for Truth the tongue must never be a flail, a fang, a weather-vane , an acrobat, or a scavenger. Speak to relieve the speechless. Be speechless to relieve yourselves. Words are vessels that ply the seas of Space and touch at many ports. Take care as to what you load them with; for having run their course, they shall ultimately discharge their cargo at your gate. What the broom is to the house, self-searching is to the heart. Sweep well your hearts. A well-swept heart is a fortress unassailable. As you feed on men and things so they feed on you. Be wholesome food to others if you would not be poisoned. When in doubt about the next step, stand still. What you dislike dislikes you; like it and let it be, thus removing an obstacle from your path. The most unendurable nuisance is to consider anything a nuisance. Take your choice: either to won all things, or nothing at all. No middle course is possible. Every stumbling block is a warning. Read the warning well, and the stumbling block shall become a beacon. The straight is the brother of the crooked. The one is a short cut; and the other, a roundabout way. Have patience with the crooked. Patience is health when leaning upon Faith. When unaccompanied by Faith it is paralysis. To be, to feel, to think, to imagine, to know - behold the order of the main stages in the circuit of human life.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Spring Giddiness (RUMI)

Spring Giddiness

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.


The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.


I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.


Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?


All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.