Rumi
I survived. Wednesday is now over. Why, you ask?
I woke up Monday morning with my head full of thoughts about planning my week. I need to take my car in the shop. I need to make sure my bed gets here okay. I need groceries (trash bags particularly) — ooh, how will I make it to the store by Wednesday if my car is in the shop? And that's how it all started.
For 24 hours of my life, from Monday until Tuesday morning, I was frantically planning my life to get everything I could done before Wednesday afternoon. Finally, just before lunch on Tuesday, I paused to ask myself What's happening on Wednesday, anyway? I couldn't answer it. I'd been operating under some kind of assumption all week, and couldn't figure out why.
On the way you may want to look back, or not,
but if you can say There's nothing ahead,
there will be nothing there.
Of course, then the second guesses started. Is it some sort of premonition? Am I going on a trip? No. Oh God, maybe I'm supposed to die or something. While the realization that if I were to die no one would care whether my car were fixed or not placated me somewhat, the anxiety still wouldn't completely go away.
All day long I've been knocking on wood for something I can't even identify.
The need to leave work early to go mattress shopping for my new bed was a welcome circumstance. When I found out the mattress I need won't be in until Friday, I skipped over to the bookstore, grabbed a cup of coffee, and began wandering the store, like a spontaneous vacationer with his finger poised over a spinning globe. In the "Eastern Thought" section (which always struck me as odd, a more appropriate label for why New Englanders don't enjoy spicy food than for Asian Philosophy), skipping over my standard well-perused sections on Taoism, Hinduism, and Zen, I pulled a compilation of the poetry of Rumi out of the Sufism section.
I know a respectable little bit about Sufism in general, being that the owner of one of my favorite restaurants claims it as his faith of choice — a mystical branch of Islam which includes whirling dervishes, etc. However, I'd never seen the source material, so to speak.
Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
or things that have happened to you
There's no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
It's amazing. For writing done in the 13th century, the tone is surprisingly modern. For someone who was the founder of a religious movement, it's surprisingly non-judgmental, self-aware, and "real". And for Islamic thought, it's amazingly close to home for me.
I bought the book and took it home with me (after a brief stop by the grocery store for those trash bags, of course), and between that, a comfy pile of pillows on the floor, and the start of a bottle of shiraz, the rest of Wednesday disappeared before I realized it.
This is how it always is
when I finish a poem.
A great silence overcomes me,
and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.
I'm almost wondering what climactic event I missed now. Almost.
I woke up Monday morning with my head full of thoughts about planning my week. I need to take my car in the shop. I need to make sure my bed gets here okay. I need groceries (trash bags particularly) — ooh, how will I make it to the store by Wednesday if my car is in the shop? And that's how it all started.
For 24 hours of my life, from Monday until Tuesday morning, I was frantically planning my life to get everything I could done before Wednesday afternoon. Finally, just before lunch on Tuesday, I paused to ask myself What's happening on Wednesday, anyway? I couldn't answer it. I'd been operating under some kind of assumption all week, and couldn't figure out why.
On the way you may want to look back, or not,
but if you can say There's nothing ahead,
there will be nothing there.
Of course, then the second guesses started. Is it some sort of premonition? Am I going on a trip? No. Oh God, maybe I'm supposed to die or something. While the realization that if I were to die no one would care whether my car were fixed or not placated me somewhat, the anxiety still wouldn't completely go away.
All day long I've been knocking on wood for something I can't even identify.
The need to leave work early to go mattress shopping for my new bed was a welcome circumstance. When I found out the mattress I need won't be in until Friday, I skipped over to the bookstore, grabbed a cup of coffee, and began wandering the store, like a spontaneous vacationer with his finger poised over a spinning globe. In the "Eastern Thought" section (which always struck me as odd, a more appropriate label for why New Englanders don't enjoy spicy food than for Asian Philosophy), skipping over my standard well-perused sections on Taoism, Hinduism, and Zen, I pulled a compilation of the poetry of Rumi out of the Sufism section.
I know a respectable little bit about Sufism in general, being that the owner of one of my favorite restaurants claims it as his faith of choice — a mystical branch of Islam which includes whirling dervishes, etc. However, I'd never seen the source material, so to speak.
Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
or things that have happened to you
There's no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
It's amazing. For writing done in the 13th century, the tone is surprisingly modern. For someone who was the founder of a religious movement, it's surprisingly non-judgmental, self-aware, and "real". And for Islamic thought, it's amazingly close to home for me.
I bought the book and took it home with me (after a brief stop by the grocery store for those trash bags, of course), and between that, a comfy pile of pillows on the floor, and the start of a bottle of shiraz, the rest of Wednesday disappeared before I realized it.
This is how it always is
when I finish a poem.
A great silence overcomes me,
and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.
I'm almost wondering what climactic event I missed now. Almost.