The Essential Rumi

A rainy, cold night--a perfect time to go into Rumi...For the personal exploration of Rumi I selected three poems that spoke of unexpected gifts: "Quietness" (p. 22), "As Ripeness Comes" (p. 290) and "Refuse the First Plate" (p. 336).


Quietness

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe 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 like was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.


I fought becoming quiet. Fought it tooth and nail. Fought it for several years. And then one day I gave up. I realized the quiet was not going to go away and I was the one who had to acquiesce. This is the "die" Rumi speaks of. It's a letting go of old ways that don't work anymore. But you don't know they don't work anymore--that is what you discover when you are quiet. This poem makes me think of being out on the water in my kayak. I love to paddle under open skies. I go by myself or with a close friend who is as quiet as I am in our paddling. We move out from the shore and warm up our stiff shoulders After a bit our bodies fall into a rhythm--paddling is done with your whole body, not just your arms. We move steady and fast and silent for the first 15-20 minutes. Then we stop and see where we are. We do not like to talk, we watch instead. And we breathe. And we dip our fingers into the water to see how warm it is that day.

I have paddled under a full moon on an otherwise dark night. It is an act of trust, of faith. I have come still in the middle of a lake on the dark night and looked up to the moon. There is nothing between us. I am there because I choose it. That was the odd thing about surrendering. I now choose quiet as much as I can. I crave it. I came to like myself in the quiet. I am myself in the quiet.

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As Ripeness Comes

What souls desire arrives.
We are standing up to our necks
in the sacred pool. Majesty is here.

The grains of the earth take in something
they do not understand.

Where did this come from?
It comes from where your longing comes.

From which direction?
As ripeness comes to fruit.

This answer lights a candle
in the chest of anyone who hears.

Most people only look for the way when they hurt.
Pain is a fine path to the unknowable.

But today is different.
Today the quality we call splendor
puts on human clothes, walks through in the door,
closed it behind, and sits down with us
in this companionship.


There is a saying I have learned over the last few years that comes back to me every now and then: "Suffering is optional." Now when you are in the middle of a really crappy time, that edict sounds trite and condescending and you want to smack the person who presents it to you. However, as hard as it is to believe, it is true. I wished I'd gotten that one earlier...

"Majesty is here" is a beautiful line. Majesty is always here. That which is royal, that which stands above, that which makes us small--a towering tree for example.

Ripeness is a natural progression. This makes me think of old bananas that are sweet. Their outside skin looks brown and bruised, but inside is at its peak. Banana bread and banana pudding can only be made with ripe fruit. The fruit starts bitter and becomes sweet over time. Aging is bitter-sweet.

Gifts are everywhere. Acknowledgement of a gift is as much a prayer as pleading is.

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Refuse the First Plate

There is a deliverance that comes
when you move from eating greasy scraps
to more beautiful, noble food.

One kind of food gives you flatulence
and diarrhea, a heaviness in your stomach.

The other keeps you light
as you ride the ocean.

Fast, and watch what arrives.
A materially full person is not alert
for dishes that descend.

Don't always eat what's offered.
Be lordly. Refuse the first plate.
Wait, and the host will send out better food.

Lift your head like the tallest mountain in the dark
that the dawn turns red, then gold.


More words (like "majesty") that allude to a kingdom: noble food, dishes that descend (from above?). Be lordly. Lift your head. Be shown as gold.

One of the hardest things to do is to put yourself first. Do you take scraps because it is offered and you do not want to hurt someone's feelings? No, you say "thank you, but no" and smile with kindness. But it is rude to turn down what others offer! No, it's not. This is one of the unexpected gifts of becoming quiet. You learn to hear and listen to your own voice. You learn to trust your own voice. You learn to be still and watch and wait and see what happens. You float for a while and see what happens. And you do this because you honor yourself. To allow yourself to be shown as gold is hard. We want to deflect and turn our eyes downward. Rumi said to stand in your place, and allow yourself to be shown as gold. Because when you do, the one next to you will want the same for themselves. It's how we feast at the table together...