Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 15:47:14 -0500
From: Sandi & Scott Spaeth <vespass-AT-swbell.net>
Subject: Re: Daily Bleed: 10/28 JALALODDIN RUMI


At 01:07 PM 10/28/00 -0700, Dave, Recollection Books wrote:

>OCTOBER 28   --     JALALODDIN RUMI
>
>                Look at your eyes. They are small,
>
>                but they see enormous things.
>
>Major Persian poet & Sufi mystic, Whirling Dervish.
>http://www.armory.com/~thrace/sufi/
>http://www.indranet.com/potpourri/poetry/rumi/rumi.html


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.




Rumi was (in the colloquial of our time) a bad-ass, mo-fo.  I'd put him at 
the top of my list of favorite poets, slightly ahead of Walt Whitman.



Solomon was busy judging others,
when it was his personal thoughts
that were disrupting the community.

His crown slid crooked on his head.
He put it straight, but the crown went
awry again.  Eight times this happened.

Finally he began to talk to his headpiece.
"Why do you keep tilting over my eyes?"

"I have to.  When your power loses compassion,
I have to show what such a condition looks like."

Immediately Solomon recognized the truth.
He knelt and asked forgiveness.
The crown centered itself on his crown.

When something goes wrong, accuse yourself first.
Even the wisdom of Plato or Solomon
can wobble and go blind.

LISTEN when your crown reminds you
of what makes you cold towards others,
as you pamper the greedy energy inside.


cheers,
scott

ps-these were translations from Coleman Barks "the Essential Rumi"
--------------------------------------------------------------
"...and I discovered watching him that anarchy is not a noun,
but an adjective.  It describes the tension between moral
autonomy and political authority, especially in the area of
combinations, whether they're going to be voluntary or coercive.
The most destructive, coercive combinations are arrived at
through force.  Like Ammon said, force is the weapon of the weak."

                                         -Utah Phillips
                                         (about Ammon Hennacy)

Piston Ported Vespas:
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