Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World
Search the Poetry Chaikhana site:
|
Poetry Chaikhana
|
Search the Poetry Chaikhana site: |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Today is the equinox, when the length of day and night become equal, when summer gives way to fall (or winter to spring, for you southerners). It is a global transition point. A threshold. A time to release the old and welcome the new.
More than any other time of the year, we are reminded to stand centered on this very moment, neither leaning back nor tipping forward, and feel how memory reweaves itself into new possibility. It is during the equinox that a new dream is formed, a new vision of ourself, a new vision of the world. What new dream waits inside you?
look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox
As the equinox joins the past with the future, we have a greater opportunity to see how all things that seem separate, distant, in conflict are really a continual union.
the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together
Even life and death we imagine to be incompatible opposites, when the two flow naturally together, making them one.
why think separately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last
It is this recognition of unity everywhere that makes the mystic's journey possible.
the known and the unknown
see how the unknown merges into the known
A journey within the known is no journey at all. But a journey entirely in the unknown leads to disorientation and confusion. A mystic learns to recognize that indistinct threshold, where the known and the unknown merge. We start from there, take attentive steps, and discover that the borderland moves with us into new territories. The meeting point becomes internalized until we recognize that every hill and hollow of the unknown is secretly bordering the known, allowing the mystic to continually reorient and journey on.
This teaches us two things: When we feel lost in the unknown, all we must do is stop, grow still, and see once again familiar territory nearby. The other lesson is that when we feel stuck in the known, we don't need an elaborate escape to exotic corners of the world; wherever we are, we just need to take the unexpected step, and a new path opens up before us.
But no path leads from A to B. A path is not an inconvenient distance that allows us to escape from one place and rush to another. Every path is ultimately a reminder that A and B are joined. Properly understood, every journey recalls the awareness of union to the heart.
my beloved grows right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be
Have a wonderful equinox weekend!
|
|
| Please support the Poetry Chaikhana, as well as the authors and publishers of sacred poetry, by purchasing some of the recommended books through the links on this site. Thank you! |
Ivan
M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright ©
2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or
publishers.
![Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi poetry, Muslim / Sufi, Muslim / Sufi poetry, poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry](images/RumiMevla_sm.jpg)
