Poetry Chaikhana Blog

The Lover
by Farid ud-Din Attar

English version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

‘A lover’, said the hoopoe, now their guide,
‘Is one in whom all thoughts of self have died;
Those who renounce the self deserve that name;
Righteous or sinful, they are all the same!
Your heart is thwarted by the self’s control;
Destroy its hold on you and reach your goal.
Give up this hindrance, give up mortal sight,
For only then can you approach the light.
If you are told: “Renounce our Faith,” obey!
The self and Faith must both be tossed away;
Blasphemers call such action blasphemy –
Tell them that love exceeds mere piety.
Love has no time for blasphemy or faith,
Nor lovers for the self, that feeble wraith.

— from The Conference of the Birds, Translated by Afkham Darbandi / Translated by Dick Davis

/ Photo by Infinite705 /

Here Attar’s spiritual guide, the hoopoe, tells us how to become a true lover of God, that we may successfully journey along the spiritual path.

“A lover,” he tells us, “Is one in whom all thoughts of self have died.” Often statements like this by spiritual teachers are interpreted as meaning that we should think of the well-being of others before our own. That can be a profound approach to life, one that awakens both compassion and lessens the stranglehold of the little self, but there is more to be understood…

The start is to challenge the small self’s hold upon the awareness (“Your heart is thwarted by the self’s control; / Destroy its hold on you and reach your goal.”), but the end is when we see there has never been anything there to struggle against (“Give up this hindrance, give up mortal sight, / For only then can you approach the light.”)

When we can truly say that “all thoughts of self have died,” it is not that we work hard to control the self, it is when the very notion of a self is seen to be illusory (a “feeble wraith”) and not a real or lasting thing at all.

Attar’s hoopoe proclaims something even more shocking: “If you are told: ‘Renounce our Faith,’ obey!” For traditionalist societies, this sounds like blasphemy. How then can Attar throw the accusation back in his critics’ faces by stating, “Blasphemers call such action blasphemy”?

For Attar and most deep mystics, “love exceeds mere piety.” In other words, when, naked, free from self, we truly encounter Love, that is the heart of all religion. Theologies, rituals, and traditions are meant to lead us to that foundational ground, that encounter with Love. Would you give up the destination for the map? Nonsense! Merely following the rules of religion without understanding their purpose only leads to rigidity and a hard heart. People who do so, imagining themselves pious, are the true blasphemers.

Love simply is. And It is everywhere, encompassing all opposites. It is not concerned with the religious dualities of “blasphemy or faith,” “righteous or sinful.” These are human distinctions. When we carefully examine them, we discover that at a certain point in spiritual development these distinctions can reinforce the ego-self. Don’t misunderstand me: They help along the way, by strengthening those essential aspects of the self required for the journey. But they too eventually become traps for the ego, allowing you to assert, “I am righteous and others are not.” It becomes a form of pride, a buttress for the false vision of separation, a way to reinforce the blocks to all-embracing Love.

When we excavate beneath piety and spiritual practice, in the process losing separation and self, that’s when we may just discover the secret wellspring of Love. Returning to those rising waters again and again, we finally know what real worship is. Then we can truly say we have become “a lover.”

Farid ud-Din Attar Iran/Persia (1120? – 1220?) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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Pax
by D. H. Lawrence

All that matters is to be at one with the living God
to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.

Sleeping on the hearth of the living world
yawning at home before the fire of life
feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart
a presence
as of the master sitting at the board
in his own and greater being,
in the house of life.

— from The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence, by D. H. Lawrence

/ Photo by Dee.Dee.M /

All that matters is to be at one with the living God
to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.

I had a couple of very good friends in childhood, but in many ways my closest companion was a calico cat named, Kitty Kumbah (a singsong name made up by a four-year-old me). She saw me through my parents’ divorce, through a disorienting move from Oregon to Southern California, and along the bumpy road into adolescence. She sat patiently listening to my talking and tantrums. She slept on my bed each night and, one year, gave birth to a litter of kittens on my belly while I was asleep. When I was 16, Kitty Kumbah died in my arms, having carried me safely through my childhood.

feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart

What I remember most was how she taught me meditation, stillness, poise, contentment, and the importance of a well-chosen seat. She taught me pax… peace. That cat was my first spiritual teacher.

Like a cat asleep on a chair
at peace, in peace

PS – My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Oklahoma.

D. H. Lawrence England (1885 – 1930) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by D. H. Lawrence

Love came and emptied me of self
by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir

English version by Vraje Abramian

Love came and emptied me of self,
every vein and every pore,
made into a container to be filled by the Beloved.
Of me, only a name is left,
the rest is You my Friend, my Beloved.

— from Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir, Translated by Vraje Abramian

/ Photo by Christine Muraton /

As part of my chronic fatigue/ME patterns, I sometimes have an intense sensation of tremors, even though my body is still. Sitting on the couch with my wife, I turn to see if she is shaking her foot, causing the whole couch to vibrate, but she is just quietly sitting there. Each time it happens I’m surprised to find that it is simply my own body buzzing with some unknown charge.

At such times I don’t quite have the energy to do a full day’s work, yet my body isn’t at rest enough to enter deeply into meditation either. What is a person to do who strives to be a meditator engaged with the world when he can neither meditate nor take action? Interesting things happen at such moments, if we let them.

When the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves can no long be sustained, one option is to tenaciously cling to the crumbling edifice and be injured by the collapse. Another option is to construct a new story. Or we can let all stories fall away. We can stop struggling to be either this or that, we can step beyond our stories. That is when we rediscover what we actually are. That is when hidden doorways open.

The little self is simply the sum total of all the stories we tell ourselves. When those stories fall away, the self becomes empty of itself. We then become a cup, empty and ready to be filled by something outside our stories — let’s call it wine.

Of me, only a name is left,
the rest is You my Friend, my Beloved.

This is the hard wisdom that chronic illness teaches — yielding into fulness. Any life struggle — really any experience, pleasant or unpleasant — can be transformed into a teacher of wisdom when we stop taking it personally, when we keep our hearts engaged and our eyes open in the midst of our crumbling and changing self-stories.

What can one do but stand in silent awe of the vision that emerges, showing us how much bigger we are than even our best stories?

Sending love!

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Looking for your light
by Allama Prabhu

English version by A. K. Ramanujan

Looking for your light,
I went out:

      O Lord of Caves,
      if you are light,
      there can be no metaphor.

— from Speaking of Siva, by A K Ramanujan

/ Photo by Aah-Yeah /

We’re back. (Okay, I know– You were here waiting patiently for the next poem email. I guess I should say, I’m back.) Now, on with the poetry…

–

I was surprised to realize that I haven’t featured this poem in several years. It is one of my favorite poems to emerge from the Virasaiva poet-saints in India. It is so short, sharp, like a lightning strike, yet the phrasing suggests recollection, giving it also a dreamy, musing quality, as if recalling that first blinding kiss from the beloved.

Light is a central image in sacred poetry, suggesting the Divine not framed within a mental concept. But for genuine mystics, this light is no mere concept; it is directly experienced…

This sense of light is more than a brightness one might experience on a sunny afternoon. This light is perceived as being a living radiance that permeates everything, everywhere, always. It is a radiance that outshines everything–

like the sudden dawn
of a million million suns.

This light is immediately understood to be the true source of all things, the foundation on which the physicality of the material world is built.

The sense of boundaries and separation, long taken for granted by the mind as the fundamental nature of existence, suddenly seems illusory, for this light shines through all people and things. It has no edges, and the light of one is the light of another.

Looking for your light,
I went out.

Seeing yourself and the entire world radiant with this light, the old notion of a separate self is lost. Only the light truly exists. Everything else is a shifting game of light.

Seeing this light, “there can be no metaphor.” Nothing can be compared to anything else, for everything is recognized as being that light. In this divine light, it is all one already.

Allama Prabhu India (12th Century) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Shaivite (Shiva)

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The Union of Shiva and Shakti (from Amritanubhav)
by Jnanadev

English version by S. Abhyayananda

I offer obeisance to the God and Goddess,
The limitless primal parents of the universe.

When salt dissolves,
It becomes one with the ocean;
When my ego dissolved,
I became one with Shiva and Shakti.

— from Jnaneshvar: The Life and Works of the Celebrated Thirteenth Century Indian Mystic-Poet, Translated by Swami Abhyayananda

/ Photo by isvaracandra /

A beautiful meditation on the dynamic play between duality and nonduality.

I offer obeisance to the God and Goddess,
The limitless primal parents of the universe.

In Hindu metaphysics, the primal duality is between the God and the Goddess, in this case Shiva and Shakti. The God, Shiva, represents the eternal, transcendent aspect of the Divine Reality. The Goddess is Shakti, that is, power or manifestation. Shakti is the Divine Reality in movement, expressing Itself as all of Creation.

On an individual level, Shiva is experienced as resting in the energy center of the crown, and Shakti is the Kundalini force that typically lies dormant at the base of the spine. When the latent Kundalini Shakti is awakened, She rises to the crown and joins in union with Shiva. This is the ‘spiritual marriage’ that initiates enlightenment and bliss–

How sweet is their union!

This is the dance of duality and nonduality that occurs throughout the universe, among galaxies, within individuals, even within the particles of the atom. Everything has its essence and its expression, and its expression is always seeking to reunite with its essence. Matter, manifestation is always seeking union with Spirit. But… on careful examination, one recognizes that the two, in fact, have never been separate. There is no dividing line; the one emanates from the other, like a fire and the heat it radiates.

Understanding this, the poem opens up into a precise description of the subtle nature of reality. “They are not entirely the same,” because distinctions can be made between these two aspects of the Divine, “Nor are they not the same,” because these distinctions are somewhat artificial, mental constructions. (Does fire exist without heat? Does heat exist without its source? Can we truly speak of fire apart from heat? We should more accurately speak of fire-heat as a single thing. The distinction is an artificial separation.) “We cannot say exactly what they are,” because the truth is beyond the ability of the intellect to formulate into words; it can only be perceived directly.

When He awakes, the whole house disappears,
And nothing at all is left.

That is, when we completely reside in our true essence, everything we see and touch and taste and hear and smell is recognized as being part of that same essence. The distinction between things is lost. Form and space may still be perceived, but they are seen as empty, illusory. The ‘thingness’ of things is lost… “nothing at all is left.” You lose even yourself, your identity as a being who is separate from that all-pervading living essence:

They are like a stream of knowledge
From which the knower cannot drink
Unless he gives up himself.

This perception of the ‘thingless’ nature of reality leads some masters speak of being blind or of not seeing the world. “In unity there is little to behold…” Which leads to the reason for the existence of duality in the first place, so the Eternal can come to know itself better: “He takes the role of Witness / Out of love of watching Her.” It is a game, a form of love play, a sort of hide-and-seek the Divine plays with itself. Instead of pure Being, the Divine One pretends to be two, perceiver and perceived, in order to observe Its own nature. And we are a living part of that play of self-consciousness.

But, ultimately, the game of duality, of actor and witness, collapses in on itself, and the truth of unity can be denied no longer. Shiva and Shakti are “inseparable;” they are not two, but one. The crown and the Kundalini are not separated by some distance of space along the spine; they are two poles of the same being (you!). How can the Self be separate from its own self-expression? How can the fire be separate from its heat?

When we stop fighting so hard to perpetuate the game of duality, through the constant assertion of the ego and the endless chatter of the mind, then we are finally able to settle into the awareness that there is only unity and nothing else.

So, along with Jnanadev, to the divine game of duality, I bow. And to the fundamental unity that underlies it, I bow.

It is in this manner I bow
To the inseparable Shiva and Shakti.

Jnanadev India (1275 – 1296) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Advaita / Non-Dualist

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Ivan M. Granger Book Signing 5/4/13

Thank you to everyone who came by for the Real Thirst Book Signing event yesterday. Since I do most of my work over the Internet, I often have wonderful conversations with people via email, but I rarely get the chance to meet readers of the Poetry Chaikhana in person. So it was a special treat to meet several of you and share smiles face-to-face. I signed books, read a few poems, answered a few questions. But I especially enjoyed the conversations and (thanks to Roger’s suggestion) the opportunity to hear everyone read a short stanza from my translation of Antonio Machado’s “Songs.”

Thank you also to the folks at La Vita Bella Coffee for generously hosting the event. A good cozy, community environment, well-suited to discussion and the poetic spirit…

The Real Thirst Fellowship

Bent
by Ivan M. Granger

Yes, seekers, do
sit up,
stand tall.

Effort clears the way,
but the steps
are already taken.

— from Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey, by Ivan M. Granger

/ Photo by Demi Brooke /

Since I am doing a public book signing tomorrow, I thought I would share one of my own poems with you today.

So many straight spines and rigorous strivings in the spiritual game. All valuable in the right context. But, you know, at some point you just lean into that divine embrace and finally find what all that effort failed to attain.

I like the image of a slingshot. You and I, we are the pebbles. We pull and strain; we fast and meditate, pray and breathe, turn inward, reach outward to help how we can… and yet all we feel is tension. Then, unexpectedly, we surrender, perhaps we stumble, we let go. The slingshot snaps back; that’s when we soar!

Letting go doesn’t mean much if we haven’t first created the proper dynamic tension and focus through spiritual effort. But ceaseless tugging only leads to rigidity and strain. Effort is required, but it is only through yielding that we reach the goal.

Another way to understand this is that enlightenment, salvation, liberation, the true Self, these are not attained through effort. They are not attained at all. They simply are. They are already our nature. Effort is necessary, yes, but only to clear away the delusion that they are not already who we are. Effort clears the way, but the steps are already taken.

So, yes, seekers, do sit up, stand tall. But, with the reclining saints, we slouch our way into heaven. Resting in that recognition, we let the years pass…

A good weekend to go outside, lean back into the earth, look up, let go, and soar!

(And, if you are in Colorado, swing by La Vita Bella Coffeeshop in downtown Longmont this Saturday, between 1:00 and 3:00 pm. I’ll be there, signing books and chatting. I might even be coaxed to read a few poems, if you like.)

Ivan M. Granger US (1969 – ) Secular or Eclectic Yoga / Hindu : Advaita / Non-Dualist

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The moths and the flame
by Farid ud-Din Attar

English version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle light,
And they decided one of them should go
To gather news of the elusive glow.
One flew till in the distance he discerned
A palace window where a candle burned –
And went no nearer: back again he flew
To tell the others what he thought he knew.
The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,
Remarking: “He knows nothing of the flame.”
A moth more eager than the one before
Set out and passed beyond the palace door.
He hovered in the aura of the fire,
A trembling blur of timorous desire,
Then headed back to say how far he’d been,
And how much he had undergone and seen.
The mentor said: “You do not bear the signs
Of one who’s fathomed how the candle shines.”
Another moth flew out — his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both self and fire were mingled by his dance –
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head,
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,
The moth’s form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: “He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak.”
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
Will drag you back and plunge you in despair –
No creature’s self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.

— from The Conference of the Birds, Translated by Afkham Darbandi / Translated by Dick Davis

/ Photo by ruslik /

I don’t feature selections from it often enough, but Attar’s Mantic at-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds) is a long-time favorite of mine. The English language version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis is good, but I still hope to read a truly great English translation someday.

This version maintains the two-line rhyme scheme. So read it out loud and feel the play of the rhyming couplets. Some are, admittedly, forced in English translation, but they bring a playfulness to the piece.

Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle light…

This is really a story in poetic form, an expansion on the ancient spiritual metaphor of the moth and the flame. We have a small community of moths gathered together at night. One moth flies off, sees a palace with a candle burning in the window. The moth returns and tells the other moths of the wondrous sight he has just witnessed. The “mentor of the moths” (the sheikh, their spiritual leader) states flatly, “He knows nothing of the flame.”

Another moth flies out to see the candle, flies close enough to feel the heat and the strange fluttering desire it awakens in him, and returns. Again, the mentor moth says that he clearly hasn’t understood the nature of the flame.

Finally, a moth truly overcome with love for the flame flies right into it, merges with it, and is utterly consumed. The leader of the moths approvingly says that one knows the truth.

So many things we can understand from this image. The flame, of course, is God, the Eternal One. And the moths are individual souls, spiritual seekers, lovers of God. We are the moths.

Attar is reminding us of one of the core truths only mystics seem to remember: It is not enough to think about God, or theorize about God, or pray to God, or read about God, or subscribe to the right faith in God, or even catch glimpses of God. Regardless of one’s religion or rectitude, the Divine is only ever known through direct encounter. Even the word “encounter” implies two who meet. No, the moth knows the real truth, one knows the brilliant light through merging, and in merging, letting go of any sense of self that is separate.

The only way to know is to be so enamored with that fiery, entrancing Beauty that we recklessly abandon the nafs, the little self, in order to merge with that dancing light.

That fluttering, moth-like self we all think we are — it has no substance anyway. The flame teaches us this.

Words fail, concepts fail, but we come to know in a greater, deeper way when we allow ourselves to be consumed.

“He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak.”

Farid ud-Din Attar Iran/Persia (1120? – 1220?) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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The pot is a God
by Basava

English version by A. K. Ramanujan

The pot is a God. The winnowing
fan is a God. The stone in the
street is a God. The comb is a
God. The bowstring is also a
God. The bushel is a God and the
spouted cup is a God.

Gods, gods, there are so many
there’s no place left
for a foot.
      There is only
one God. He is our Lord
of the Meeting Rivers.

— from Speaking of Siva, by A K Ramanujan

/ Photo by Chor Ip /

I love this poem. I first found it in Georg Feuerstein’s mammoth book on The Yoga Tradition, and then later in A. K. Ramanujan’s Speaking of Siva. It’s one of those simple, yet powerful poems that rings in the back of my mind.

Gods, gods, there are so many
there’s no place left
for a foot.

Makes you want to take every step carefully.

We can read the meaning of this in several ways. The perspective that comes to me first is that the Divine is everywhere, in every object and every encounter.

Another way to read these lines is that the foot is specific to the individual, and an expression of the ego. With gods, gods everywhere, there is no place left for the ego to stand.

And how about one more take on this? Basava might also be teasingly critical of the vast multiplicity of gods worshipped throughout the land, when all he sees is the supreme unity of Shiva as “our Lord of the Meeting Rivers.” It could be that he is reminding us not to project the multiplicity and endless separations of the manifest creation onto the unity of the Divine.

However we choose to read these lines, they are a reminder that each footfall contacts the eternal, there is no place else. Each step is union.

Basava India (1134 – 1196) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Shaivite (Shiva)

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How should I tell of the feeling that reigns
by Darshan Singh

English version by Barry Lerner and Harbans Singh Bedi

How should I tell of the feeling that reigns in the court of the friend?
Dancing light is my beloved’s face, cup and carafe are ecstatic!

What can I say of the grace he showers on me within?
Darshan, the moment I close my eyes, the beloved’s light begins.

— from Love’s Last Madness: Poems on a Spiritual Path by Darshan Singh, Translated by Barry Lerner / Translated by Harbans Singh Bedi

/ Photo by sophiaazhou /

Just a few observations with this poem…

I love the references to light, light and the beloved’s face–

Every nook and cranny is effulgent with his light;
Every mote and grain celebrates the beloved’s face.

A light that is everywhere, that not only inspires ecstasy, but is the medium of ecstasy. But to see this vision of beauty, we must learn to see with the heart into the heart of things:

Seeker banished from the beatific vision, look through the eyes of your heart!
How can you see the beloved’s light with eyes of flesh and blood?

This vision of beatific light can be so fleeting, especially when we try to grasp it. It is a fluid, living thing, to be witnessed and not held. It teases, like the morning breeze…

Brushing past me, it stirred my heart and was gone:
God! The morning breeze has learned to tease from my friend.

This luminous, living presence, do we find it in church and temple and mosque? Yes, but not only there. It is everywhere, within everything to one who looks.

Let them try to imprison him in temple, mosque and church!
The seeing eye finds the beloved’s signs in every mote.

Darshan Singh India (1921 – 1989) Timeline Sikh

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Good Medicine
by Andrew Colliver

Unbelief is good medicine, undoing belief
      better:
all beings free to leave their being
      and enter silence.

- From the unpublished manuscript A Day of Light, by Andrew Colliver

/ Photo by kim-e-sens /

The rebel in me really likes this poem, especially its opening line–

Unbelief is good medicine, undoing belief
      better:

I don’t take this as a commentary on belief vs. athiesm or agnosticism or any of those artificial dichotomies of thought. This is a commentary on thought itself, our perception of reality, our relationship to reality.

All belief, whether good or bad, orthodox or unorthodox, is a window we set in the mind. Its frame defines the boundaries of what we perceive and what we are blind to; its tinted glass colors what we see and how we understand it. That window of belief often serves the important purpose of helping us to focus, training us to see what is not commonly recognized. But, at a certain point in our self-awakening process, the very notion of belief becomes a problem. All belief, no matter how elevated or pure or accurate, is only a thought about reality. What the soul ultimately craves is direct perception of reality — which requires dropping all perceptual filters, including belief itself.

This is how we get to the poet’s second line:

all beings free to leave their being
      and enter silence.

To enter that state of direct perception requires deep silence. The distorting vibrations of mind must quiet. Get quiet enough and even the sense of ego fades, along with all its demands that it be seen as the center of existence.

The various tugging and tremors of awareness melt away and finally, finally we see things as they are, without labels, without artificial separations:

The nameless tree with its forest
      of green…

Seeing clearly, we see that everything flows into one another, and it is all filled with a living, glistening light — even within ourselves. Seeing this light, feeling it flow, feeling the heart overflow, we are filled with a quiet glee. The very sense of who and what we really are is transformed. We feel alive for the first time…

all around, the light that sets the vital body
      to humming

That is when new possibilities emerge, the promises within the ourselves, within our interrelationship with reality are freed to find fulfillment. For that to happen, we must first move beyond belief and free ourselves from the filter of the chattering mind.

the world held for us in promise
until it is loosened from
      our thinking.

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All things
by Hadewijch

English version by Jane Hirshfield

All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast

You know this well,
you who are also there

— from Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, Edited by Jane Hirshfield

/ Photo by Alice Popkorn /

This is the mystical recognition: the realization that in your Self of selves you are immense!

All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast

Just read those lines again.

Everything that can be called a “thing,” each item of perception and thought is just a glimmering sliver of the whole Being we inherently are. No body, no name, no job, no history can truly contain what we are. A glass of water can suggest the lake, give us a taste of it, but not contain it.

The middle section of this poem is almost erotic in its naked yielding to “the Uncreated,” in the recognition of how that “touch” completely “undoes” us. That too is the mystical recognition. As we finally realize that we are not contained by the body or the social roles we play, where then is the boundary of identity? Where do you say, Here I stop and beyond is not-me? That point no longer exists. We are “In the Infinite;” our source is “the Uncreated.” Those old, limited identities are undone, they fall away, and the inner core of the Self, the Heart, is spread “wider than wide.”

But why bother with explanations? You already “know this well, / you who are also there.”

Hadewijch Belgium (13th Century) Timeline Christian : Catholic

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Star Teachers
by AE (George William Russell)

Even as a bird sprays many-coloured fires,
The plumes of paradise, the dying light
Rays through the fevered air in misty spires
      That vanish in the heights.

For this, for this the lights innumerable
As symbols shine that we the true light win:
For every star and every deep they fill     
      Are stars and deeps within.

— from Wild Poets of Ecstasy: An Anthology of Ecstatic Verse, Edited by D. J. Moores

/ Photo by SeanC90 /

The stars spread across the night sky have fascinated humans since we first thought to look up. The illuminated night sky is the first campfire, the first kiva, the first movie theater, the first tabernacle. It is the first place of initiation and of awakening self-awareness. Since ancient days, the stars have spoken to us, conjuring stories from our psyches; thus, they teach us of our deep selves.

These myriad eyes that look on me are mine…

These eyes in the night sky that look down upon us, watching the human drama and the unfolding of the human spirit, they are our own eyes. In seeing these heavenly witnesses, we begin to see as they see. Seeing the stars spread across the immense night sky, we know ourselves better, and our minds expand to take in a wider reality.

Wandering beneath them I have found again
The ancient ample moment, the divine,
      The God-root within men.

I love that phrase — “the ancient ample moment.” In the silence beneath the stars, the mind settles, the self-centered self fades, and we enter the present moment. We discover that this moment — right now — is immense, and encompasses the whole universe and the full stretch of time from the long forgotten past to the unknown future. And it all meets here, in the present moment, centered in you. Such a profoundly peaceful meeting of all that is brings us into the awareness of the Divine, the God-root within.

For this, for this the lights innumerable
As symbols shine that we the true light win…

From the esoteric point of view, the light the eyes see, the light of the stars in the night sky, is not the real light. No matter how intensely bright and clear, it is a reflection of the eternal light of consciousness that shines just beneath the surface of all existence. The stars themselves become symbols, representatives, embodying a fragment of that “true light,” reminding the vastness of creation to look within for the real radiance.

For every star and every deep they fill     
      Are stars and deeps within.

Finding that light, we discover that we too shine like the stars within the deep mystery.

AE (George William Russell) Ireland (1867 – 1935) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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Yes! No!
by Mary Oliver

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout
lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I
think serenity is not something you just find in the world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants
only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier
is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy
rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better
than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless
and proper work.

— from White Pine: Poems and Prose Poems, by Mary Oliver

/ Photo by David Paul Ohmer /

There is so much I like about this poem.

I’m not so certain myself how necessary it is to have opinions. Perhaps Mary Oliver’s opinions and her Yesses and Noes are really about being present, making a choice to be there, to be aware.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,
looking at everything and calling out

Yes! No!

And that’s what I really like about the poem, the sense that the supreme act of a conscious being is to be aware, and to be here, alive and quiet in the undefined moment.

The

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants
only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond.

The “nameless pond.” To that, I definitely say, Yes! That single phrase nails me to the spot each time I read it. The thinking mind reflexively wants to name everything it sees, and in naming it, claiming it, defining it. Labeling a thing or place, we then think we have seen it, and so ignore it in order to move on to the next thing to be named. Naming is a way of protecting ourselves from direct encounter.

What is it like to encounter a pond with no name? Not even called “pond”? A landscape without labels is a wide open, mysterious, magical realm. The swan glides through that world every day and needs no names to make it real. In some sense, naming the pond diminishes it, even for the swan, since it has then been claimed as human territory. This is why we need those wild places, unnamed spaces, where the swan can float and the thrush can dance in the unfenced mystery. Where we, wild seekers, can wander in wordless witness.

To pay attention, this is our endless
and proper work.

Mary Oliver US (1935 – ) Secular or Eclectic

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In memory of the beloved (from The Wine Ode (al-Khamriyah))
by Umar Ibn al-Farid

English version by Th. Emil Homerin

In memory of the beloved
      we drank a wine;
            we were drunk with it
      before creation of the vine.

But if it is recalled among the tribe,
      the worthy ones
            are drunk by morn
      without shame or sin.

— from Umar Ibn al-Farid: Sufi Verses, Saintly Life, Translated by Th. Emil Homerin

/ Photo by quacktaculous /

Mystics of every tradition use the language of wine and drunkenness to describe states of enlightenment. It sounds like a taunting, illicit metaphor, and it is. But it is more than that. This wine, though subtle, is real, and can be experienced in a profound, very physical manner.

In memory of the beloved
      we drank a wine;
            we were drunk with it
      before creation of the vine.

A flowing substance is felt upon the palette, with a taste of ethereal sweetness that can be compared with wine or honey. There is a sensation of drinking and a warming of the heart. The attention blissfully turns inward, the eyelids grow pleasantly heavy and the gaze may become unfocused. A giddy smile naturally blooms for no apparent reason. When the ecstasy comes on strongly, the body can tremble, sometimes the consciousness even leaves the body.

With these experiences, it not only makes sense for mystics to use the language of wine, observers sometimes mistake this state for actual drunkenness.

The full moon its glass, the wine
      a sun circled by a crescent;
            when it is mixed,
      how many stars appear!

In just these few lines, Umar ibn al-Farid implies layers of meaning. Let’s build the image in our minds, layer by layer.

How, and in what way, is the full moon like a wine glass? In esoteric language, the full moon is often used as a symbol for the awakened awareness, the awakened heart, the awakened soul. That is the only suitable container for this sacred wine.

Next, even more surprisingly, he describes the wine as “a sun.” That suggests wine is made of fire, a source of light, the opposite of the dark liquid image we normally associate with wine. Wine is closer to water than fire in our normal conception. Not so for the mystic. The wine is the marriage of water and fire. It is the water transformed by fire into something wholly new.

We can think of the water is the psyche, the individual awareness. The fire is the fermentation. Neither water nor juice alone make men drunk. You need the fermentation. You need the hidden alchemical work of the bacteria. You need life! Wine is alive, and it is the fermentation process that infuses it with life. Fermentation is the working of spiritual practice until the psyche sparks into life.

When the still water is lit up by that initiating fire or fermentation, the heavenly night sky is reflected upon its calm face. When the mind is utterly still and lit with the fire of illumination, then the awareness reflects the heavenly expanse — and you find yourself imbibing the Celestial Drink! You find that the water of the normal psyche has been miraculously transformed into the glowing, life-filled wine!

What is important in the wine is its fire!

When we put these two images together — a moon glass holding the sun wine — we have an evocation of the Muslim symbol of the star and crescent. Picture in your mind the rim of a glass catching the light — that is the crescent — and within it is held the star or sun. One way Sufis understand this symbol is that the star is the dawning light of enlightenment, and the crescent is the rim of the glass of bliss-bestowing wine. The crescent is the rim of the sky, the open boundaries of the awakened mind, the open heart… giving us enlightenment within the individual soul and within the world of being. And reflected on the surface of this enlightenment, the illuminated night sky; we see all of creation as a map of light.

If not for its bouquet,
      I would not have found its tavern;
            if not for its flashing gleam,
      how could imagination picture it?

In addition to a nectar-like sweetness, many mystics experience a scent that can be rapturously overwhelming or tantalizingly subtle. The aroma is the intoxicating scent of the wine. But this blissful scent can also be understood as the perfume worn by the Beloved that awakens sacred ardor upon the spiritual journey.

And, of course, perfume is scented oil, oil being the substance used to anoint and initiate.

Time preserved nothing of it
      save one last breath,
            concealed like a secret
      in the breasts of wise men.

This circles back to the opening verse. Umar ibn al-Farid is saying we were all drunk on the sacred drink “before the creation of the vine,” that is, before the manifestation of the physical universe. That drunkenness, that ecstasy of spiritual union, is the primordial state… our natural state.

But now, the world of physical being, only “one last breath” of that primordial wine is preserved “like a secret / in the breasts of wise men.” In the midst of the bewildering kaleidoscope of manifest reality, this eternal drink is no longer apparent. One must go to the wise to find it to find out if it is real or not. Better yet, become one of the wise and erase all doubt.

But if it is recalled among the tribe,
      the worthy ones
            are drunk by morn
      without shame or sin.

The drunkenness of the wise has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with the giddy, fiery touch of the Beloved.

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The fire rises in me
by Symeon the New Theologian

English version by Ivan M. Granger

The fire rises in me,
      and lights up my heart.
Like the sun!
Like the golden disk!
Opening, expanding, radiant –
      Yes!
      — a flame!

urging me
      to summon words
      from my silence.

— from Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey, by Ivan M. Granger

/ Photo by ImagineAMatrix /

This is a poem of fire and silence.

Why fire? In ecstasy, there is often a sense of heat — filled with immense love — that permeates the body. This warmth seems to emerge from the seat, flares in the belly, and rises upward, fanning out at the heart.

The fire rises in me,
and lights up my heart.

As this fire moves through the body, it also moves through the awareness, consuming all thoughts (or, more accurately, the tremors from which thoughts emerge).

I say again:
      I don’t know
      what to say!

This fire burns away even the thought of “I” — only the sense of this living flame remains.

it leaves me open mouthed
      like a fool…

But the heart, giddy with the expanding vista of bliss, nonetheless wants to share its joy. Though it has no words left, it still wishes to speak of “this marvel,”

urging me
      to summon words
      from my silence.

Have a day of bliss, fire and silence!

Symeon the New Theologian Turkey (949 – 1032) Timeline Christian : Eastern Orthodox

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Ecstasy
by Solomon ibn Gabirol

English version by Israel Zangwill

My thoughts astounded asked me why
Towards the whirling wheels on high
In ecstasy I rush and fly.

Shall song with all its loveliness
Submerge my soul with happiness
Before the God of Gods it bless?

/ Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerryjohn/ /

Something today in honor of Passover by one of the greatest Medieval Jewish poets and philosophers, Solomon ibn Gabirol…

(I’m still looking for a truly excellent translation of his poetry in English. This poem today, for example– I think with a more elegant translation it could soar in the mind and open the heart. But there is enough left to us in this translation that, with a little attention, we can touch its secret effervescence. So spend a few moments rereading this poem; find the spaces between the words and meanings, and let the magic rush in!)

Solomon ibn Gabirol Spain (1021? – 1058) Timeline Jewish

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