The Pickaxe by Rumi

The Pickaxe

tear down this house. A hundred thousand new houses can be built from the transparent yellow carnelian buried beneath it, and the only way to get to that is to do the work of demolishing and then digging under the foundations. With that value in hand all the new construction will be done without effort. And anyway, sooner or later this house will fall on its own. The jewel treasure will be uncovered, but it won't be yours then. The buried wealth is your pay for doing the demolition, the pick and shovel work. If you wait and just let it happen, you'd bite your hand and say, "I didn't do as I knew I should have." This is a rented house. You don't own the deed. You have a lease, and you've set up a little shop, where you barely make a living sewing patches on torn clothing. Yet only a few feet underneath are two veins, pure red and bright gold carnelian. Quick! Take the pickaxe and pry the foundation. You've got to quit this seamstress work. What does the patch-sewing mean, you ask. Eating and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body is always getting torn. You patch it with food, and other restless ego-satisfactions. Rip up one board from the shop floor and look into the basement. You'll see two glints in the dirt.

Rumi

It's All Temporary

The Guest House by Rumi

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

It's All Temporary

Book Beauty by Rumi

BOOK BEAUTY by Rumi (transl. Coleman Barks)

Here’s the end of that story about the old woman who wanted
to lure a man with strange


cosmetics. She made a paste of pages from the Qu’ran to fill
the deep creases on her face and


neck with. This is not about an old woman, dear reader. It’s
about you, or anyone who tries


to use books to make themselves attractive. There she is,
sticking scripture, thick with


saliva, on her face. Of course, the bits keep falling off.
“The devil,” she yells, and


he appears! “This is a trick I’ve never seen. You don’t need
me. You are yourself a troop


of demons!” So people steal inspired words to get compliments.
Don’t bother. Death comes


and all talking, stolen or not, stops. Pity anyone unfamiliar
with silence when that happens.


Polish your heart with meditation and quietness. Let the inner
life grow generous and handsome


like Joseph. Zuleikha did that and her “old woman’s spring
cold snap” turned to mid-July. Dry


lips wet from within. Ink is not rouge. Let language lie
bygone. Now is where love breathes.


It's All Temporary

The Road Home

An ant hurries along a threshing floor
with its wheat grain, moving
between huge stacks
of wheat, not knowing the
abundance
all around.  It thinks its one
grain
is all there is to love.

So we choose a tiny seed to
be devoted to.
This body, one path or one
teacher.
Look wider and farther.

The essence of every human
being can see,
and what that essence - eye
takes in,
the being becomes. Saturn
Solomon!

The ocean pours through a
jar,
and you might say it swims
inside
the fish! This mystery gives
peace to
your longing and makes the
road home home.

Rumi


It's All Temporary

Noah's Ark

“Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.” 
― Rumi

What a great quote!  I love Rumi.  If and when you are feeling down, google Rumi quotes, and you are bound to find at least one that will cheer you up. I love projects, especially huge, foolish ones.  Rumi was so prolific. Although his poems were hardly foolish, he never gave a fig about what people thought of him, he could have cared less. In that respect, he was a bit like Woody Allen. Woody never read his reviews.  When a movie was "in the can," he put it aside and started another one. If the critics liked it, fine, if the critics didn't like it, fine. 

My puppets are the same way.  They may be small, but they are very self-assured.  I wouldn't go so far as to call them egotistical, but they are no dopes.  Sometimes size matters, sometimes not. Soon I shall be off to Germany to visit "the German Contingent." It will be very good for me to unplug, to forget about the upcoming election, Obamacare, and more importantly, what happened to the cat who sat by his window opposite mine every morning for three years and said good morning.  He is gone, and my world is a lesser place.  I hope he, too, is only off on vacation and will return some day soon.

It's All Temporary

Quietness by Rumi

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an ax to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

Rumi

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It's All Temporary

The Indian Parrot by Rumi

The Indian Parrot, by Rumi

There was a merchant setting out for India.

He asked each male and female servant
what they wanted to be brought as a gift.

Each told him a different exotic object:
A piece of silk, a brass figurine,
a pearl necklace.

Then he asked his beautiful caged parrot,
the one with such a lovely voice,
and she said,
"When you see the Indian parrots,
describe my cage. Say that I need guidance
here in my separation from them. Ask how
our friendship can continue with me so confined
and them flying about freely in the meadow mist.

Tell them that I remember well our mornings
moving together from tree to tree.

Tell them to drink one cup of ecstatic wine
in honor of me here in the dregs of my life.

Tell them that the sound of their quarrelling
high in the trees would be sweeter
to hear than any music."

This parrot is the spirit-bird in all of us,
that part that wants to return to freedom,
and is the freedom. What she wants
from India is herself!

So this parrot gave her message to the merchant,
and when he reached India, he saw a field
full of parrots. He stopped
and called out what she had told him.

One of the nearest parrots shivered
and stiffened and fell down dead.

The merchant said, "This one is surely kin
to my parrot. I shouldn't have spoken."

He finished his trading and returned home
with the presents for his workers.

When he got to the parrot, she demanded her gift.
"What happened when you told my story
to the Indian parrots?"

"I'm afraid to say."
"Master, you must!"

"When I spoke your complaint to the field
of chattering parrots, it broke
one of their hearts.

She must have been a close companion,
or a relative, for when she heard about you
she grew quiet and trembled, and died."

As the caged parrot heard this, she herself
quivered and sank to the cage floor.

This merchant was a good man.
He grieved deeply for his parrot, murmuring
distracted phrases, self-contradictory -
cold, then loving - clear, then
murky with symbolism.

A drowning man reaches for anything!
The Friend loves this flailing about
better than any lying still.

The One who lives inside existence
stays constantly in motion,
and whatever you do, that king
watches through the window.

When the merchant threw the "dead" parrot
out of the cage, it spread its wings
and glided to a nearby tree!

The merchant suddenly understood the mystery.
"Sweet singer, what was in the message
that taught you this trick?"

"She told me that it was the charm
of my voice that kept me caged.
Give it up, and be released!"

The parrot told the merchant one or two more
spiritual truths. Then a tender goodbye.

"God protect you," said the merchant
"as you go on your new way.
I hope to follow you!"

It's All Temporary

Shadow and Light Source Both by Rumi

How does a part of the world leave the world?

How does wetness leave water? Don't try to

put out a fire by throwing on more fire! Don't

wash a wound with blood.  No matter how fast

you run, your shadow keeps up.  Sometimes it's

in front!  Only full overhead sun diminishes

your shadow.  But that shadow has been serving

you.  What hurts you blesses you.  Darkness is 

                                                     

your candle.  Your boundaries are your quest.

I could explain this, but it will break the

glass cover on your heart and there's no

fixing that.  You must have shadow and light

source both.  Listen, and lay your head under

the tree of awe.  When from that tree feathers

and wings sprout on you, be quieter than

a dove.  Don't open your mouth for even a coo

Rumi

"I could explain this, but it will break the glass cover on your heart and there's no fixing that."  Isn't that a beautiful line? And then the last four lines, Don't open your mouth for even a coo. When I am feeling down I read Rumi who never fails to tell me what I need to hear.

It's All Temporary

How Attraction Happens by Rumi

Moses is talking to someone drunk with worshipping the golden
calf.  What happened to your

doubt?  You used to be so skeptical of me. The Red Sea parted.
Food came every day in the

wilderness for forty years.  A fountain sprang out of a rock.
You saw these things

and still reject the idea of prophethood.  Then the magician
Samiri does a trick to make

the metal cow low, and immediately you kneel!  What did that
hollow statue say?  Have you

heard a dullness like your own?  This is how attraction
happens: people with nothing

they value delight in worthlessness.  Someone who thinks
there's no meaning or purpose

feels drawn to images of futility.  Each moves to be with
its own.  The ox does not turn

toward a lion.  Wolves have no interest in Joseph, unless
to devour him.  But if a wolf

is cured of wolfishness, it will sleep close by Joseph,
like a dog in the presence of

meditators.  Soul companionship gives safety and light
to a cave full of friends.

Rumi

It's All Temporary