Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Ivan M. Granger March 19th, 2010

My body is flooded
by Kabir

English version by Andrew Harvey

My body is flooded
With the flame of Love.
My soul lives in
A furnace of bliss.

Love’s fragrance
Fills my mouth,
And fans through all things
With each outbreath.

— from Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from the Sufi Wisdom, by Andrew Harvey / Eryk Hanut

/ Photo by superde1uxe /

This brief, beautiful poem by Kabir feels like it should be repeated during meditation. At first it is a sort of affirmation; it becomes a map, then it becomes actual experience.

My body is flooded
With the flame of Love.

With deep opening, there is a sense of being flooded or even overwhelmed by waves of heat, like flames or a fever. This is felt both on physical and subtle levels. These are the “flames of Love” that flood the body. When you relax into this awareness, the experience is not painful but one of indescribably peaceful delight. This is Kabir’s “furnace of bliss.”

My soul lives in
A furnace of bliss.

And it is in this furnace, this divine alchemical fire, where the “soul lives.” It takes deep stillness and clarity to recognize it, but the soul is always at home within this warm embrace. This is where the soul is seated in perpetual rest, in this sacred, transformative warmth — whether or not we are too distracted to notice.

Love’s fragrance
Fills my mouth

Often accompanying the awareness of blissful heat is a sense of a very subtle, wonderfully sweet flavor in the mouth, at the back of the throat. This taste is so subtle that it could be described as a “fragrance,” something just barely tasted, yet imprinting itself indelibly upon the awareness.

And fans through all things
With each outbreath.

In this state, when the awareness is turned inward, it is in bliss; when turned outward, there is only the unifying awareness of love. This is what Kabir means when he says, “Love’s fragrance… fans through all things / with each outbreath.” When we breathe out, when we turn the unified awareness outward, then the perfume of that bliss is carried outward and seen to permeate everything one’s perception touches. This leads to a sort of supreme Self-recognition in all things: There is bliss within and bliss without, there is only bliss flowing everywhere, through everything. You yourself are not separate from That. This recognition is the mystic’s Love. It is the recognition of unity, the “fanning” of one’s identity, the pouring of oneself, one’s breath and presence, into all things, with an unhindered and equal flow in return.

Kabir is giving us a map, a grand path of Love that endlessly circles between the inner and outer:

Love (outer) — flood, flame — Bliss (inner) — flavor, fan — Love (outer)

Kabir India (15th Century) Timeline Muslim / Sufi Yoga / Hindu

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Ivan M. Granger March 19th, 2010

The map of the human soul
is a topographical map, with mountains
and valleys, and rivers of life everywhere.

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Ivan M. Granger March 17th, 2010

On Waking
by John O’Donohue

I give thanks for arriving
Safely in a new dawn,
For the gift of eyes
To see the world,
The gift of mind
To feel at home
In my life,
The waves of possibility
Breaking on the shore of dawn,
The harvest of the past
That awaits my hunger,
And all the furtherings
This new day will bring.

— from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, by John O’Donohue

/ Photo by itulu26 /

This poem for today…

If you like, consider it a St. Patrick’s Day poem, given John O’Donohue’s Irish heritage.

I give thanks for arriving
Safely in a new dawn

Or it can be a poem to welcome the dawning of Spring.

For the gift of eyes
To see the world

Or thankfulness for vision and presence in the world.

The gift of mind
To feel at home
In my life.

Or appreciation for self and self-awareness.

The waves of possibility
Breaking on the shore of dawn

Open-hearted anticipation of how each day magically unfolds possibility into reality.

The harvest of the past
That awaits my hunger

And how the past offers itself up to feed the soul that seeks fullness by continuously reclaiming itself.

And all the furtherings
This new day will bring.

For all these reasons, for the advancing stories of our lives, rise each dawn with a smile, with strength, and with thanks!

Have a beautiful day today!

John O’Donohue Ireland (1954 - 2008) Timeline Christian : Catholic Secular or Eclectic

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Ivan M. Granger March 15th, 2010

Three Lakota Songs
by Lakota (Anonymous)

English version by Frances Densmore & Brian Swann

May the sun rise in splendor
May the earth appear in light

Everybody
sees me
coming

— from Song of the Sky: Versions of Native American Song-Poems, by Brian Swann

/ Photo by mamnaimie /

May the sun rise in splendor
May the earth appear in light

Pause from the daily rush for a moment in order to recognize what a truly breathtaking place it is we all inhabit. Each and every day begins with such shining majesty, and you and I are given the great gift of being witness to it. We didn’t have to do something special to earn this privilege other than be born.

It’s easy to confuse priorities in the midst of daily pressures. But we all need to periodically remind ourselves to stop and honor that unearned gift by actually noticing it.

Awe at what we encounter daily can feel exhausting… at first. But the quieter we become, the more we recognize it as our true state of being.

“A wind wears me… A rainbow hoop wears me…” I love these lines. The “me” could be the light of the sun, or it could be us. Heard this way, it is the proper recognition that we are ornamentation for the living world. We are accents upon the beautiful face of creation.

As humans we tend to take ourselves so seriously that we forget that we do not exist for ourselves; we are expressions of the living whole. And that particular sparkle of witnessing awareness we carry, that does not belong to us, but it is there to reflect the countless colors of existence back upon itself so that the living world may know itself more fully.

Look

It is
sacred

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Ivan M. Granger March 15th, 2010

Gather silence.

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Ivan M. Granger March 12th, 2010

Effortlessly
by Mechthild of Magdeburg

English version by Jane Hirshfield

Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.
Thus we move in His world
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note,
Humanity sings –
The Holy Spirit is our harpist,
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.

— from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell

/ Photo by ac4photos /

Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.

Isn’t that image wonderful? The words themselves flow through us, like gentle music. That opening affirmation is so lovely that it’s easy to miss importance of the next few lines:

Thus we move in His world
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.

This statement could just as easily have come from the Zen tradition. When we discover that total integration of self, when every aspect of body and soul recognizes itself as a harmonious unity, the sense of the effortful self disappears. Our actions and movement through the world flow without friction. We normally take it for granted, the presence of a constant resistance in every action. What is that resistance? It is the fingerprint of the ego as it declares through each effort, “I am here! I did this! I!” It is a declaration of separation. But instead, when we are overcome with love and wholeness, the ego fades, no separation is seen, and we, in turn, flow.

Think of it this way: Just as swimmers shave their bodies to eliminate the constant drag of body hair in order to glide through the water, shedding the ego with love allows us to glide with surprising ease through the world. This is how saints and masters manage to act with such natural grace of spirit.

And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.

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Ivan M. Granger March 12th, 2010

Each step
is part of the journey.

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Ivan M. Granger March 10th, 2010

I am a fountain, You are my water
by Zeynep Hatun

English version by Murat Yagan

I am a fountain, You are my water.
I flow from You to You.

I am a traveler, You are my road.
I go from You to You.

— from Women in Sufism: A Hidden Treasure - Writings and Stories of Mystics Poets, Scholars & Saints, Edited by Camille Adams Helminski

/ Photo by daveeedo6 /

Don’t these lines just bring a smile to your face?

I flow from You to You.

==

Today we reached another milestone with the Poetry Chaikhana: As of this morning, there are now more than 6,000 people on the Poetry Chaikhana email list. Amazing!

People are reading this email on every continent (except for Antarctica… as far as I know and nearly every country, state, province, and principality. Think how wide-reaching the Poetry Chaikhana community has become.

I encourage you to take a moment and read a note I posted about a year ago on the Poetry Chaikhana Around the World. It can give a deeper sense of whom you are sharing these poems with.

Many blessings!

I am a traveler, You are my road.
I go from You to You.

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Ivan M. Granger March 10th, 2010

Take no one for granted.

Every single person
is a universe of being.

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Ivan M. Granger March 8th, 2010

(81) On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time (from Gitanjali)
by Rabindranath Tagore

English version by Rabindranath Tagore

On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands.
      Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.
      I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers.

— from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore

/ Photo by juicyverve /

This chapter from Tagore’s Gitanjali, like most of the book, is addressed directly to God as a sort of a prayer. But Tagore is not asking for something. He is acknowledging a surprising truth, he is proclaiming to God the dawning realization that growth is taking place in his “garden” of spiritual awareness always, secretly, quietly, even when he despairs of his own efforts. He “imagined all work had ceased” — he felt his own spiritual work had come to nothing and his deflated spirit temporarily gives up — but he wakes up surprised to find his “garden full with wonders of flowers.” This happens all the time for those striving spiritually, but why?

The metaphor of a garden to represent one’s spiritual awareness is an ancient one used throughout the world, and it is perfect for what is being said here. Think about a garden for a moment. What is it? First, it is a place where things grow, a place of life. It is the opposite of death, which is the state of nonspirituality. The plants of the garden are rooted in the earth, yet they reach upward toward the light of the sun. On an even subtler level, a garden is a place of nourishment and of beauty. What grows in our spiritual gardens feeds us through its “fruitfulness,” and it brings beauty, the awareness of harmony to our consciousness. The flowers of the garden represent the spiritual qualities that have opened within us, that in turn cause us to open to the Divine. The flowers are within us, and we are the flowers. From the yogic point of view, the flowers sometimes represent the chakras that open during spiritual awakening. Also, a garden is a place of contemplation and rest. It is a place where we give ourselves permission to simply be, to settle into the present moment. The garden represents the soul at rest in the living presence of the Divine.

But, returning to this verse from the Gitanjali, why is a garden such a perfect metaphor here? Because every plant of the garden grows with a life of its own. The gardener, the spiritual aspirant, may need to till the ground and plant the seeds, water them regularly, keep them free from encroaching weeds — but for all that work, the gardener does not actually make the seeds grow and flower. The gardener just prepares the environment, but it is the divine spark of life “Hidden in the heart of all things” that nourishes “seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.”

Tagore is surprised to realize that his only job is to prepare the garden bed and keep it ready, but the growth of the seeds is effortless, for the seeds are alive with the vitality of God. Even when he can conceive of no further effort, the seeds still grow. The seeds WANT to grow. And they will grow. It is their nature to grow once given the right environment. All we have to do is prepare ourselves, make ourselves ready. The spiritual growth will happen of its own accord. Then one morning we wake up surrounded by “wonders of flowers!”

Rabindranath Tagore India (1861 - 1941) Timeline Yoga / Hindu

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Ivan M. Granger March 8th, 2010

The ego is a personal myth,
a story we tell ourselves
about who we are.
That story can change, expand,
or grow silent.

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Ivan M. Granger March 5th, 2010

No tongue can tell Your secret
by Hakim Sanai

English version by Priya Hemenway

No tongue can tell Your secret
for the measure of the word obscures Your nature.
But the gift of the ear
is that it hears
what the tongue cannot tell.

— from The Book of Everything: Journey of the Heart’s Desire, by Hakim Sanai Al-Ghaznavi / Translated by Priya Hemenway

/ Photo by jordanfischer /

This verse has an elegant subtlety, and trimmed with a thin edge of wit. Here Sanai is playing with the mystic’s dilemma of words.

“No tongue can tell Your secret / for the measure of the word obscures Your nature.” The direct encounter with the Divine can’t truly be put into words. Words are a creation of the limited mind, powerful, certainly, but limited. Words, even when masterfully wielded, can only describe limited aspects of limited reality. Words imply a fracturing of reality into countless objects, an impassible duality of observer and observed, describer and described. How can words properly convey the undivided Wholeness?

(There is really no ‘encounter’ the way I just phrased it, because that implies two separates meeting, when there is really only the profound recognition of unity. Words fail the Wholeness.)

Seeing this limitation, some teachers construct complex frameworks of descriptions. Some hint and suggest and riddle. Some fall silent. What is said and what is left unsaid… a fascinating game. But it is only the encounter (which is not really an encounter) that conveys the truth of all this.

The “tongue cannot tell” these things properly. “But the gift of the ear / is that it hears” anyway. That is, when we truly and openly listen, an inner whisper begins to draw the awareness beyond the descriptions, the suggestions, the silences. And suddenly there we stand, outside of all words and concepts that obscure while they define. There we stand, witnessing, participating in the living Wholeness that is the divine nature of undivided Reality.

I like the game of words, perhaps too much. But it is time for my tongue to rest and let the ear enjoy its gift…

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Ivan M. Granger March 3rd, 2010

Dove that ventured outside
by Rainer Maria Rilke

English version by Stephen Mitchell

(To Erika, for the festival of praise)

Being arches itself      over the vast abyss.
Ah the ball that we dared,      that we hurled into infinite space,
doesn’t it fill our hands      differently with its return:
heavier by the weight      of where it has been.

— from Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

/ Photo by quinet /

The great German poet Rilke has reminds us to engage in the wondrous and terrible adventure of our lives. The dove “knows what serenity is, for she has felt her wings / pass through all distance and fear.”

I love the line:

only the won-back heart      can ever be satisfied

And that closing verse…

Being arches itself      over the vast abyss.
Ah the ball that we dared,      that we hurled into infinite space,
doesn’t it fill our hands      differently with its return:
heavier by the weight      of where it has been.

Wonderful!

I hear that line chanting itself through my mind…

Being arches itself      over the vast abyss.
Being arches itself      over the vast abyss…

Have a beautiful day!

Rainer Maria Rilke Germany (1875 - 1926) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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Ivan M. Granger March 3rd, 2010

A master is simply good
at getting out of the way.

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Ivan M. Granger March 1st, 2010

to fully explore
by Gabriel Rosenstock

to fully explore
      a rustic rose
            the frantic bee disappears

— from Haiku: The Gentle Art of Disappearing, by Gabriel Rosenstock

/ Photo by Berverly & Pack /

It’s been too long since we last featured a haiku by the contemporary Irish poet Gabriel Rosenstock. I had planned to select a haiku of his on the moon — in honor of this past weekend’s full moon — but this meditation on the bee’s journey into the heart of the rose just grabbed me. Perhaps I’m getting impatient for warmer weather and the warm scent of roses.

I just love the layers of meaning we can read into these three lines. The more deeply we explore this haiku, the frantic mind, like the bee, disappears…

Gabriel Rosenstock Ireland (1949 - ) Secular or Eclectic Primal/Tribal/Shamanic : Celtic

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Ivan M. Granger March 1st, 2010

Find the joy
that quietly glows in your chest,
the joy that glows with brazen disregard
for your lurching tears and laughter.

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Ivan M. Granger February 26th, 2010

Sabbaths 1999, VII
by Wendell Berry

Again I resume the long
lesson: how small a thing
can be pleasing, how little
in this hard world it takes
to satisfy the mind
and bring it to its rest.

What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be. Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest, even
to the slightest of His works,
a yellow leaf slowly
falling, and is pleased.

— from Given: Poems, by Wendell Berry

/ Photo by Jonathan Gill /

It’s been a while since we’ve had a poem by Wendell Berry. And, yes, maybe this poem is for a misty autumn morning, but it suits a crisp late winter day too…

Again I resume the long
lesson: how small a thing
can be pleasing…

That’s the “long lesson,” the slow realization of a lifetime lived with attention: the deep satisfaction of simple moments. Grand experiences may serve as important punctuation marks to life, but it is only when we deeply engage with the gentle flow of small events that we come to know our lives. Remember, real magic is hidden; it is hidden in those quiet moments.

how little
in this hard world it takes
to satisfy the mind
and bring it to its rest.

And nature is our constant teacher and guide, again and again bringing us back to ourselves.

With the ongoing havoc
the woods this morning is
almost unnaturally still.

When we walk well among the woods, with the quiet attention that comes only when self is left behind, we glide through the eternal moment.

What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be.

And we just might come to recognize the Source of “all this” — right here, within this moment, within our own breast.

Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest…

Berry’s title tells us this poem is about the Sabbath. He understands the real meaning of the Sabbath. It is not the one day out of seven when one goes to church or synagogue. Sabbath is the living moment of sacred rest. It isn’t a question of how often we sit within a steepled hall. Until the mind quiets and comes to rest in the heart, we have not yet honored the Sabbath.

Have a beautiful Sabbath day!

Wendell Berry US (1934 - ) Secular or Eclectic

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