Poetry Chaikhana Blog

The Vast Man
by Kahlil Gibran

But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me.
It was the boundless in you;
The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews;
He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless throbbing.
It is in the vast man that you are vast,
And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you.
For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere?
What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight?
Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.
His might binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.

— from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

/ Image by Joshua Earle /

I know the poem emails have been irregular in recent months. My work as a computer programmer has been especially busy this year, and I am still figuring out how to balance that with my poetry work. So, since I missed the last few Fridays, I thought I’d send a rare Monday poem to you. And, as I was somewhat randomly going through my library, I was reminded of this treasure by the great Kahlil Gibran.

It is in the vast man that you are vast

I can write a long commentary, line by line, about how this lovely poem maps beautifully to the deep experiences of stillness and settling into the true Self. But I feel inclined to let the poem sing to us instead — quietly, yet the melody comes through.

This is the way, the stillness that leads us to the vast man — or woman — the vast self. This is the immense being we all are, all-encompassing, all-embracing, in which the little self is made whole and more than whole in the grand unity that is the web of which we are a part. Through this one we know ourselves as we come to know ourselves in others and in all that surrounds us and all that lives and breathes and aspires and grows.

Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.
His might binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet	The Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart	Broken Wings	Jesus the Son of Man	Kahlil Gibran: His Life & World
More Books >>

Kahlil Gibran Lebanon/US (1883 – 1931) Timeline Christian Secular or Eclectic

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I’m ceded–I’ve stopped being Theirs
by Emily Dickinson

I’m ceded–I’ve stopped being Theirs–
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading–too–

My second Rank–too small the first–
Crowned–Crowing–on my Father’s breast–
A half unconscious Queen–
But this time–Adequate–Erect,
With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose–just a Crown–

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

/ Image by live-showtime /

I believe this poem belongs among the great enlightenment poems. At the same time its words pointedly cut at religious convention.

Something has happened. Something that makes Emily Dickinson erupt from the opening lines, fiercely asserting that she is “ceded,” that she has “stopped being Theirs.” This is a proclamation of supreme yielding or dying to oneself that is also her escape into freedom.

She no longer has use for “The name They dropped upon my face” when she was baptized. That name is now something that she has set aside with other childish things. Not just set aside, it has fallen away. Her social identity, the person “They” call Emily has ceased to exist. She has discovered herself to be something larger, more essential, more true. She has exploded into an identity so immense and all-encompassing that it is the “supremest name” — the Ultimate, the Absolute. She has been “Called to my full,” a state of awareness in which “Existence’s whole Arc” is “filled up.”

But also notice the iconoclastic way she refers to baptism. The first baptism was a baptism given to her “without the choice” and imposes upon her a name that is “too small,” that must be grown out of and abandoned. She implies that that first baptism initiated her into the social world, not the spiritual one. That name that “They dropped upon my face” had trapped her, making her “Theirs,” somehow controlled and contained by societal conventions represented by the “country church.” She contrasts this with being “Crowned,” a second baptism, but one received inwardly, “consciously, of Grace.” She implies that this second baptism is the real anointing that gives true freedom, not the baptism she received as a child. For much of the Christian world that is a dangerous assertion even today, a century and a half later. Her words challenge fellow Christians to seek the inner anointing, of which the outer baptism is a reflection.

The last line particularly grabs my attention, “And I choose–just a Crown–” Rather than choosing (or rejecting) a new name or renewed social ego, she possesses the clarity and “Will” to choose instead to reside in the immensity of this “supremest name.” What else needs to be said?

Recommended Books: Emily Dickinson

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry
More Books >>

Emily Dickinson US (1830 – 1886) Timeline Secular or Eclectic Christian : Protestant

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Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Coleman Barks

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

— from Open Secret: Versions of Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks / Translated by John Moyne

/ Image by https://unsplash.com/@lovestephaniegreene /

Each time I come across this short selection by Rumi I read it slightly differently. It’s one of those magical, enigmatic poems that suggests something new each time your own perspective and circumstance change.

Every time we feel our lives or the world has become frightening, overwhelming, chaotic, it’s natural to want to reestablish control through thought, as if by getting just the right concepts and mental framing life will behave just as we think it should.

Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.

Or we can open. We can find a natural flow and discover the beauty that is right here regardless of the mess.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom
More Books >>

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 – 1273) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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The Real Work
by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

— from Standing by Words: Essays, by Wendell Berry

/ Image by myINQI /

I know the Poetry Chaikhana emails haven’t been keeping to their regular weekly schedule recently. My computer work has been especially active in the last few months. And, of course, the chaos playing out on the world stage cries out for a healing presence. So the poetry comes when the day allows. But you, and the world of poetry, are very much in my mind each week regardless.

Now to the poem…

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Oh, I just like this, don’t you? As I get older and encounter more of the world and more of myself, I grow increasingly wary of answers. It’s the questions that awaken the soul.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

Berry is reminding us that struggle and confusion — and wonder! — are signs that we are on a good path, that we are paying attention, that we are still seeking and discovering, that we are alive. The scariest people are those who’ve grown tired of questions and so brutalize the world with simple answers.

Okay, a poetic confession: This was not originally a poem in verse. I did a bit of research and found that this is actually an excerpt from one of Wendell Berry’s essays that someone later versified. It’s been circulating as a poem ever since. I guess you can’t trap a good poet in prose for long. My apologies to the poetry purists out there.

Now, let’s discover a new path through this magical, unknown day…

Recommended Books: Wendell Berry

The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982	Given: Poems	Selected Poems of Wendell Berry	A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997	The Mad Farmer Poems
More Books >>

Wendell Berry US (1934 – ) Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Wendell Berry

On the Pulse of Morning
by Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

— from The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, by Maya Angelou

/ Image by particlem /

I have been away from the Poetry Chaikhana for a few weeks. As I was considering which poem to send out, I came across this one by Maya Angelou. Reading it this morning, I had that special experience of reading a poem I’ve ready many times before, but it was as if for the first time. I found myself thinking, What a stunning poem! Why hasn’t this been in my mind and heart all along? I think the poem was just waiting for me to catch up and be ready to receive it.

So here it is for you. Perhaps it has been waiting for you too…

Our history is in the earth, in rock and tree, our shared home. We stand upon our past. And that past speaks to us, calling us back to ourselves. History’s tears and terrors turn our hearts back to the peace that is every soul’s true nature. Seeing the past, acknowledging and accepting all of it, with head and heart engaged, that courageous act unblinds us. Only then are we freed to see distant horizons, and witness new dawns.

When you feel stuck, when the world feels stuck around you, take a moment to sit upon a rock, listen to a tree. They are yourself, and the selves of all who have gone before. They carry the collective wisdom of the eons.

A few of the lines that particularly stand out to me:

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness…

…And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

Sending love to you all!

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.

Recommended Books: Maya Angelou

The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou	Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women	And Still I Rise	A Brave and Startling Truth	The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou
More Books >>

Maya Angelou US (1928 – 2014) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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Looking for Each Other
by Thich Nhat Hanh

I have been looking for you, World Honored One,
since I was a little child.
With my first breath, I heard your call,
and began to look for you, Blessed One.
I’ve walked so many perilous paths,
confronted so many dangers,
endured despair, fear, hopes, and memories.
I’ve trekked to the farthest regions, immense and wild,
sailed the vast oceans,
traversed the highest summits, lost among the clouds.
I’ve lain dead, utterly alone,
on the sands of ancient deserts.
I’ve held in my heart so many tears of stone.

The deep blue sky,
the snow-capped mountains painted against the horizon,
and the shining red sun sing with joy.
You, Blessed One, are my first love.
The love that is always present, always pure, and freshly new.
And I shall never need a love that will be called “last.”
You are the source of well-being flowing through numberless troubled lives,
the water from your spiritual stream always pure, as it was in the beginning.
You are the source of peace,
solidity, and inner freedom.
You are the Buddha, the Tathagata.
With my one-pointed mind
I vow to nourish your solidity and freedom in myself
so I can offer solidity and freedom to countless others,
now and forever.

— from Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, by Thich Nhat Hanh

/ Image by Jan Canty /

It seems that the Trump and Netanyahu regimes have initiated war on the global stage. There are, of course, several reasons why such a move has come about, from elites making what they perceive as endgame moves for essential resources to national pride, with a large dose of profoundly misguided ideas about what their religion teaches them.

Since we regularly look at what healthy religion and spirituality is, I wanted to take a moment to explore with you that aspect of this worsening situation. I hope this discussion provides some helpful context for your own spiritual and religious understanding.

The figure of Trump himself seems to have no real ideology or belief system, but his administration has placed several people in positions of authority who hold imbalanced ideas of Christianity.

A bit of religious history for a moment… American evangelical Christianity in the 19th century was rigid by modern standards, but had genuine spiritual depths and a commitment to social justice. This is often surprising for people to hear today, but it’s true. In the 20th century, however, American evangelicalism became increasingly lost, clinging to racist ideas and fixed notions of gender roles while pushing back its historical compassion and engagement with the changes happening in society. Also, as the 20th century progressed, mainstream American politics of both parties essentially abandoned the poor and working classes, who largely belonged to evangelical churches, leaving them reasonably feeling betrayed while their suffering went unacknowledged.

That combination has been toxic, making evangelical groups vulnerable to takeover by some rather bizarre Christian cults, a process that really ramped up in the 1980’s. Many evangelical churches began to embrace fantastical ideas, like dispensationalism, which selectively reads sections of the Bible as a roadmap of events and actions (or “dispensations”) that must happen in order to bring about Armageddon, along with the Second Coming. It lays out an imagined map of what needs to be done to bring Jesus back to earth. Needless to say, it involves a huge war and a reshaping of the Middle East.

While dispensationalism has become less prominent in the last decade or so, its worldview still permeates the minds of a large portion (but not all!) of American evangelicals — many of whom now serve in government and the military. This is why we get unembarrassed statements from generals and key leaders about how these attacks will bring Jesus back.

So what do we do with all that?

First, we need to recognize that extremist, destructive religious belief does not just exist on “the other side.” It is very much present in the US, as well.

Next, it is important that open-hearted Christian groups do not cede the definition of Christianity over to those imbalanced, frankly cruel expressions of Christianity. Too often these days, people imagine that those extremist forms of Christianity are all that Christianity or any religion ever has been, and therefore reject all religion as obviously absurd and harmful. There has been a collective assumption that those new, cult-like forms of contemporary American fundamentalist Christianity is what Christianity always has been — and it’s just not so. It’s worth rediscovering the depths and beauty that have been a part of many of these churches in the past and finding ways to bring that memory back into society.

And then we can reconnect with the gentle, elevating wisdom of true spiritual leaders, such as the wonderful Thich Nhat Hanh.

I have been looking for you, World Honored One,
since I was a little child.

Mostly– mostly, we need to discover the wellspring of profound compassion at the core of our own being and allow it to naturally flow out into the world.

Looking into the mirror of the moon, suddenly
I saw myself,
and I saw you smiling, Blessed One.
How strange!

That will work its own quiet healing in ways that other activity can only aspire to.

The moon of freedom has returned to me,
everything I thought I had lost.
From that moment on,
and in each moment that followed,
I saw that nothing had gone.

We must do that while recognizing that suffering in the world is unavoidably increasing. The task is not to prevent all pain and evil in the world. We want to minimize it when we can, while understanding that the suffering is still going to happen. The real healing for suffering is not to end the suffering, but to connect with the lonely soul going through the suffering. That’s the real pain beneath the pain. Work to heal that and you heal the world.

Every flower, every stone, and every leaf recognize me.
Wherever I turn, I see you smiling
the smile of no-birth and no-death.

We are on this journey together. We enter, we engage in the drama for a number of years, and we exit again. The only net gain is spiritual gain. So we may as well be kind and helpful where we can. as we return to that radiant core at the center of who we are.

At last I have found you, Blessed One,
and I have found myself.
There I sit.

Recommended Books: Thich Nhat Hanh

Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh	The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering Into Peace, Joy & Liberation

Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnam/France/US (1926 – 2022) Timeline Buddhist : Zen / Chan

More poetry by Thich Nhat Hanh

With Us
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Nevit Ergin with Camille Helminski

Even if you’re not a seeker,
still, follow us, keep searching with us.
Even if you don’t know how
to play and sing,
you’ll become like us;
with us you’ll start singing and dancing.

God’s Shams of Tabriz says
to the heart’s bud,
“If your eyes are opened,
you’ll see the things worth seeing.”

— from The Rumi Collection (Shambhala Library), by Kabir Helminski / Nevit Ergin

/ Image by Fahaz Ahanin /

It has been too long since we last enjoyed a poem by Rumi together. To call his material “poems” sometimes sounds overly formal to my ears. Rumi didn’t sit at a table with a pen and inkpot composing poetry. According to tradition, he would walk round and round a column or tent pole — and the words just poured out of him. These are utterances, revelations, The words of Rumi should sing in the heart and speak directly to the soul.

Even if you’re not a seeker,
still, follow us, keep searching with us.

What I like about this opening phrase is how it immediately short circuits spiritual inertia, not by exhorting us to renewed effort, but simply by participation — and by ignoring our self labels. We don’t have to be a “seeker,” we just have to seek.

The seeking itself is really a celebration:

Even if you don’t know how
to play and sing,
you’ll become like us;
with us you’ll start singing and dancing.

It’s a popup rave, and you only know it exists once you show up and start dancing!

when you fall in love,
you’ll become a beggar.

We spend so much of our lives in pretense, in constructing a presentation of who we are that we show to the world. But when we encounter real love, all of that falls away, and we gladly follow love’s caravan, living happily on whatever gets tossed our way.

You’ll come back to life with us.

New life is found this way. An amazing thing! We thought we were alive, but were not. When that false self “dies,” that’s when we truly understand what life is.

Unbind your feet.

Rumi tells us twice to unbind our feet. Why do we want to unbind our feet? What is important about going barefoot? The feet can be awkward, embarassing, vulnerable, to some even shameful. To unbind them is to reveal them, to be naked, to be honest — and to be present on the living earth.

Show the rose garden —
start laughing with your whole body,
like a rose, like us.

The rose is an important symbol that keeps coming up in Sufi poetry. I think of it as representing the awakened heart, the way it buds and blossoms circling in toward an infinitely layered center, offering its wine-like perfume to the world. So when we laugh with our whole body “like a rose” we experience the full-bodied, full-reality delight that is only possible through the awakened heart. All of the imperfections, all of the terrors of the world, and all of the beauties and simple joys too are all somehow reconciled in the heart, the rose. That’s when we start laughing with our whole body.

“If your eyes are opened,
you’ll see the things worth seeing.”

Recommended Books: Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom
More Books >>

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 – 1273) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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My heart wears all forms
by Muhyiddin ibn Arabi

English version by Ivan M. Granger

My heart wears all forms:

Whichever path Love’s caravan takes,
      that is my road and my religion.

/ Image by bachmont /

These lines from The Interpreter of Desires are probably Ibn ‘Arabi’s most famous. The entire work is a multi-layered love poem that, like The Song of Solomon in the Bible, can be read as an exploration of the soul’s yearning for God. Ibn ‘Arabi’s poem tells of a pilgrimage to Mecca in which he meets a beautiful young woman named Nizham (Harmony). The ardor awakened by this encounter inspires a quest for the eternal harmony she embodies. Her earthly beauty and grace awakens a yearning for the true Beloved, for God.

My heart wears all forms.

The heart, in this sense, is not just how we feel love, it is the center of our awareness. It is the mirror that reflects whatever we focus on. In other words, the heart, the core of awareness, doesn’t just feel, it takes on the form of what we love. This is why we ultimately become what we love or fixate on, for good and for bad.

When we fall silent, perhaps stunned into silence through a radical encounter with beauty and harmony, we find everything reflected within the heart. Every person. Every creature. Every object. Every thought. We find all of existence reflected within the heart.

And each reflection is recognized as an expression of the Beloved. While we ourselves become formless.

For gazelles it is an open field,
for monks a cloister.

It is the Torah’s tablets
and the pages of the Quran.

Can such an awakened heart then reject any school of awakening?

Love is the faith I follow.

Whichever path Love’s caravan takes,
that is my road and my religion.

But, of course, one must understand what real religion is. It is not stone walls or steeples. It is not crosses or crescents. It is neither creeds nor rituals nor books. Though any one of these, properly approached, can open the door.

Like all true masters, Ibn ‘Arabi reminds us that the true religion is nothing less than Divine Love.

This is an all-embracing vision of reality in which the heart has grown wide enough to recognize everyone and everything at rest within itself. An overwhelming, blissful experience of wholeness, interconnectedness, and joy. Words fail, but that pulse of the universal life does not.

That is what religion is. That is the road.

Recommended Books: Muhyiddin ibn Arabi

Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic and Theological Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality)	The Mystics of Islam	Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn ‘Arabi and New Poems	Perfect Harmony: (Calligrapher’s Notebooks)
More Books >>

Muhyiddin ibn Arabi Spain (1165 – 1240) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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The Garden
by Hafiz

English version by Rober Bly

The garden is breathing out the air of Paradise today,
Toward me, a friend with a sweet nature, and this wine.

When Hafez’s coffin comes by, it’ll be all right to follow behind.
Although he is a captive of sin, he is on his way to the Garden.

— from The Soul is Here for its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, Edited by Robert Bly

/ Image by Kylo /

How about something with a breath of spring today?

I know it’s easy to get swept up in the world’s dramas and suffering. And we should play a role in establishing a new sense of sanity and compassion. Most of us have a role on the world stage and we want that role to be that of healer, perhaps hero. But it is also important to remember that that role is what we do, not who we are. And we must remind ourselves that we take right action because it is right, not because it will necessarily win the day. So we do what we are called to do, we play our role, but the world goes its own way. Our well-being cannot be based on the world always showing us a smiling face.

Does that sound bleak? That depends on what we imagine the world to be. Most of us think the world is all there is, that it is reality itself. Not so. When we speak of the world, we are talking about the shared mental landscape in society — the human consensus reality. It is not what is actually real, just what most people silently agree to as the boundaries of possibility. Even when the world feels dark or thin on hope, what is actually real is vast, filled with life and possibility and… dare I say it? — Joy.

It is important for all of us, particularly at this time, to regularly step away from the world into the wider garden. We must breathe its air and replenish ourselves. We remind ourselves of what is really real and what is really possible beyond the false boundaries most people accept.

The world is a shared fantasy, not always a pleasant one. But the garden is alive and all around us, always whispering to us even when we dream.

The garden is breathing out the air of Paradise today…

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Hafiz

The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi	Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition	The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan
More Books >>

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Self-Knowledge
by Kahlil Gibran

And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

— from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

/ Image by jin.thai /

A chilly January morning. I’m sitting in bed, sick, but still gathering my energies for a day of work. In the background of my thoughts, I’m aware of events building in Minnesota, communities trying to find ways to push back against authoritarian aggressions, knowing that the current authoritarian wave will not dissipate soon. Tensions build, and I can feel it. I look for those tensions in my own body and try to unwind them, let the divine energy flow, rediscovering their pathways through me, through the world, allowing the sickness to be released from my body, from the world. Using the microcosm to heal the macrocosm…

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Each time I return to this poem and reread its lines, I feel as if I am greeting old friends in the phrases. They continue to stay with me.

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

Especially that middle section…

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea…

Gibran is giving us a tangible image of self as a sea of infinite depths. And it is our very nature to seek self-knowledge, ultimately to pour ourselves into it, to discover treasure within its depths.

I like his assertion that we should not attempt to weigh or measure what we discover.

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

It is as if when we measure, we think we have comprehended and possessed it, but we have in some way externalized it and defined artificial boundaries. By quantifying, we have limited what is, by nature, limitless.

For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

And his final lines–

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

Recommended Books: Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet	The Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart	Broken Wings	Jesus the Son of Man	Kahlil Gibran: His Life & World
More Books >>

Kahlil Gibran Lebanon/US (1883 – 1931) Timeline Christian Secular or Eclectic

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The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight
by Kamalakanta

The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight
To the blue lotus flower of Mother Shyama’s feet,
The blue flower of the feet of Kali, Shiva’s Consort;
Tasteless, to the bee, are the blossoms of desire.
My Mother’s feet are black, and black, too, is the bee;
Black is made one with black! This much of the mystery
My mortal eyes behold, then hastily retreat.
But Kamalakanta’s hopes are answered in the end;
He swims in the Sea of Bliss, unmoved by joy or pain.

— from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding

/ Image by Marjan Taghipour /

A blessed new year, everyone!

In this new year, I have been thinking of the rising turmoil and cruelty being exhibited in the country and in the world. And my thoughts turn to the Bengali goddess Kali.

Kali is the all-loving Mother, yet she can be terrifying. That tension has always fascinated me and given me courage, especially in my moments of fear.

In Hindu tradition, the Goddess can represent Mother, the Great Source, the Void/Womb from which all are born, Manifestation, Creation, Vibration, Speech, Song, the Arts, Beauty, Darkness, Mystery, all of the World (and all its Illusions). But with birth, also comes death, with manifestation, also comes dissolution; anything with a beginning also has an end. Only the eternal is eternal. So the Goddess, Mother and Manifestor, is also sometimes portrayed as Destroyer. She is Life and Death both. She is the Power that brings all into being, animates and enlivens the universe, and also draws it back into non-being. But even in Her fiercest aspect, the Mother Goddess is loving. For Her, death is merely the death of illusion and the return to Self.

And that is Kali’s gift, the truest expression of her compassion for the universe: She loves her children too much to let them remain stuck in illusion, even when they want to. Stated in the most shocking language possible, she kills her children repeatedly, until they realize they cannot die. By confronting the terrors of the manifest world, we eventually discover our inherent immortality and feel profound compassion for our brothers and sisters swept caught in its dramas.

Many Westerners at first find the iconography associated with the goddess Kali unsettling and can’t understand why so many beloved saints, like the gentle Ramakrishna, were so deeply devoted to her. Let’s spend a few moments contemplating this powerful representation of the Divine Feminine…

Kali (Shyama) is black, which is the Divine Mother’s color, for it is the color of mystery, of the night, that which is beyond knowing, the color that swallows all other colors.

My Mother’s feet are black, and black, too, is the bee…

With devotion, the busy bee of the mind becomes quiet and “black” like the vast, still mystery of God (or, rather, Goddess). Drawn to the center of awareness, it loses itself in the blissful nectar’s sweetness, until…

Black is made one with black!

Beautiful!

–

Kali is sometimes called the Dark Mother: beautiful, wild, and terrible. She is depicted dancing in ecstasy upon a battle field, slaying demons in her fierce bliss.

Kali is often depicted wearing a garland of severed heads, a startling image, but one of deep spiritual significance. These are the heads of slain demons, each a spiritual impediment that she has removed. In slaying the demons, she has freed them, so that now their heads rest in bliss upon her breast.

Further, each head, severed at the neck, represents a specific sound; collectively, the heads represent the sound of divine speech, the foundational vibration or Eternal Word, through which the universe is manifested.

So Kali’s destruction is also new creation.

I have always considered this one of the most powerful elements of Kali’s iconography. When Kali steps upon the world stage, she is mighty and terrible. The more we cling to what is other than divine, the more terrifying she is — for she is quick to slay all that is an impediment to divine manifestation. When we identify with anything less than our full divine Self, Kali appears as Death, ready to sever the comforts and assumptions that keep us small. But, at the overwhelming sight of her, if we instead let go of our false ego identity — allowing the demon head to be severed — we come to rest in bliss within the Mother’s embrace. We become an ornament to the Goddess. We become one with her action, lending our voice to Her ecstatic work, which clears the way for the Divine to manifest anew in the world.

Many of you have expressed serious concerns and fears to me about the state of the world in recent weeks. Worldly problems need to be confronted and addressed on the practical level at which they exist, but if they are addressed only at that level, the underlying problems are never resolved or even fully recognized. I personally believe that the ideal is an integrated approach in which we cultivate deep quiet, and then combine that with vigorous action. What that looks like in each individual life is different, unique to our own strengths and circumstances.

This approach creates a dilemma, no doubt about it. It is very difficult to spend the day dealing with the intense, constant specificity of a busy life engaged with the challenges of the world, sometimes even having to navigate the psychic extremes of conflict and confrontation, yet returning again and again to meditation and prayerful quiet. What is the solution? Practice. Dedication. Acceptance of the difficulties that arise in a life lived with heart and compassion. But also, we can draw strength from recognizing how the active and the inner feed each other. When we tap into those moments of deep peace, we can discover in ourselves a clarity and purpose which strengthen our actions, while daily action and service in the world reinforce the deepest values of the heart. Whatever we do in the world becomes a ritual of sorts, an embodied affirmation through interaction, validating what we have learned, highlighting where we yet need strengthening and refinement.

I encourage each of us, each in our own unique way, to reach out and work for a better, kinder, safer, more just world. What we do can be small or it can be grand. It doesn’t have to be what other people expect or recognize as “service.” It just has to fulfill the heart’s instinct to help. And then support that with whatever creative or quiet pursuits feed the spirit — meditation, prayer, poetry, play.

Me, personally, I’m pretty good, if erratic, at the internal life, but too fiery and easily stressed with the outer stuff, especially when I witness cruelty. That’s the balance I work at, learning steadiness and patience in my worldly activity, while not letting that draw too much energy away from my internal, creative life. Add chronic fatigue syndrome to the mix and I have a rich practice that keeps me challenged and engaged. What is the particular balance you work at?

Sending love to everyone.

Recommended Books: Kamalakanta

Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal	Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar

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Buddha’s body
by Kobayashi Issa

English version by David G. Lanoue

Buddha’s body
accepts it…
winter rain

— from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by piddy77 /

On this winter day with rain falling outside, I found myself speaking this poem aloud with appreciation…

I could just live on the nourishment of haiku every day. A few lines, so short they’re almost incoherent… the way they teeter on the edge of meaning and occasionally slip into the void… Something about that desperate line dares the mind to burst open with insight.

This haiku, for example — I don’t read it as being about enduring uncomfortable weather. There is more than that here. There is acceptance, a quiet contentment, even a welcoming. It is about the recognition of the rightness of things in their season. And that touches the eternal. The Buddha is simply here, always here, always present, and we feel the winter rain is simply passing by for its short moment. The rain touches the Buddha’s face, and then moves on. So too the wind, the sun, the rising of grasses, the blooming of flowers. They come. The Buddha sits, smiles, accepts. And the world moves along again in its cycles of life, becoming and unbecoming, while the Buddha remains.

And what is the Buddha’s body but us, our very nature? The body arises, the seasons of the self blossom and turn inward again, and through it all there is a still point within us quietly watching, and accepting, and smiling.

=

I recently recorded a dialog with Dr. Laurel Trujillo of The Yoga Hour podcast . We had a lovely conversation about poetry, the changing of the seasons — turning inward in the winter, the rediscovering of light and life within — and the way different spiritual traditions speak similarly of love, light and renewal. A sweet way to wrap up the year.

May we all discover light even in dark times!

Recommended Books: Kobayashi Issa

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	Haiku Enlightenment: New Expanded Edition
More Books >>

Kobayashi Issa Japan (1763 – 1828) Timeline Buddhist : Zen / Chan

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My heart searched for your fragrance
by Sarmad

English version by Isaac A. Ezekiel

My heart searched for your fragrance
      in the breeze moving at dawn,
      my eyes searched for the flower of your face
      in the garden of creation.
Neither could lead me to your abode —
      contemplation alone showed me the way.

— from Sarmad: Martyr to Love Divine, by Isaac A. Ezekiel

/ Image by Huy Binh /

Reading this lovely poem by Sarmad, I can honestly embrace either side of its point. He is saying that, no matter how beautiful and uplifting the world around us may be, the Eternal is only found within the inner space of deep contemplation. And that is such an important reminder for the human world that is perpetually hooked by the senses and the desire to comprehend everything in terms of material reality. Even the purest appreciation of the most stunning panorama does not hold God. Always, always, the Eternal is found within.

And yet– physical reality, especially the natural world in all its life and beauty, reveals something to us of the deeper Reality. In the sunrise, in a flower, we do not see the face of God… but, when we learn to look, we can see there a suggestion of a smile. Spirit playfully hides just behind the physical. Grasping at the physical world leads to failure and blindness, but recognizing its beauty can lead us to inner stillness and true seeing.

So, should we agree with Sarmad, or disagree? Both, I think.

Recommended Books: Sarmad

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey	The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry	Sarmad: Martyr to Love Divine	Sarmad: Jewish Saint of India
More Books >>

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The Poet’s Obligation
by Pablo Neruda

English version by Alistair Reed

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

— from On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea, by Pablo Neruda / Translated by Alastair Reid

/ Image by Nina Stawski /

The poet is telling us that it is time for a prison break!

Neruda is reminding us that poetry is an act of rebellion. The most binding chains are the hidden ones we forge ourselves. Poetry frees the mind and the heart. Poetry — and, by extension, all art — is a revolutionary act, a declaration of psychic freedom. More than a declaration, it is a remembrance, a recollection of the wider, untamed life that awaits us.

All freedoms we strive for in the troubled world around us must first be imagined and felt. Through poetry and art, we shift and reawaken. That is the real freedom regardless of outer circumstance. When enough people carry within themselves that inner freedom, how can it be stopped in the world?

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

Recommended Books: Pablo Neruda

The Book of Questions	Neruda: Selected Poems	On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea	Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems	Extravagaria: A Bilingual Edition
More Books >>

Pablo Neruda Chile (1904 – 1973) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Pablo Neruda

What I Have Learned So Far
by Mary Oliver

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

Be ignited, or be gone.

— from New and Selected Poems, by Mary Oliver

/ Image by Hamed Saber /

This, to me, is an interesting poem, the way it wrestles with that age-old question of spirituality: faith or works, jnana or karma… or, as she bluntly frames it, indolence or action.

Does the seeking of wisdom lead one into such an internalized state that one abandons the world to its confusion and suffering? Even when we awaken profound compassion within ourselves, is compassion enough without action to back it up? Ultimately the question boils down to, is enlightenment a good in and of itself, or does it only fulfill itself through service?

Different traditions and teachers give us different answers. Many teachers will say that trying to “do good” without first achieving some measure of inner clarity cannot achieve its full potential. Some even say that spiritual opening has a natural resonance; the enlightened are like radio transmitters, apparently doing little, apparently silent, they broadcasting powerful waves into the world. There is even an argument that action, no matter how well intentioned, is empty and unstable without true insight, while there can be seeming inaction that shakes the universe.

Others say that spirituality and compassion without heartful action is anemic at best, that the physical and social world are themselves part of our spiritual landscape, that we must embody our spirituality on that level too. This criticism can go so far as to say that spirituality in a cave is easy, spirituality in the world is hard; that’s where we truly prove our awakening love. They argue that action always exists, even the avoidance of action is action. One must always seek to express the inner state with outer action. And for the spiritually minded, that action must be in the form of compassionate service to a struggling world.

Mary Oliver seems to finally favor the latter philosophy:

Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

Me? I have a fiery nature, and I like a statement like Mary Oliver’s. I see too much passivity in good-hearted people, myself included sometimes.

But I don’t ultimately see a great conflict with any of these philosophies. The universe is a big universe, with endless pathways for the human spirit to travel. The more we unfetter our enlightened selves, the more we naturally embody the fullness of who we are.

For some, that resolves itself into a profound stillness that is outer as well as inner. And do they not ring out from their mountaintops and closets? Do we not, on some level, hear them and ring out a little more ourselves?

For others, stillness and love seeks a pathway of expression through action and service. The healing way they use their hands, the same two hands we all possess — doesn’t it make our own fingers itch for movement?

Recommended Books: Mary Oliver

New and Selected Poems	Why I Wake Early	Dream Work	House of Light	Thirst: Poems
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Mary Oliver US (1935 – 2019) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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Primary Wonder
by Denise Levertov

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.

— from Denise Levertov: Selected Poems, by Denise Levertov

/ Image by ryoung /

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions…

We all wrestle with this, the demands of daily life, of work and family, all our plans and hopes and fears, the need to order everything every moment. In the midst of it all we struggle to remember that “quiet mystery.” Balancing a life in this world with that wide open wonder, it can feel like too much to achieve at times. The demands of the day sometimes demand our all. Yet it is the wonder and the mystery that fills our our lives and gives them meaning.

When “problems” fill the day, then those problems are the day’s worship. The most mundane and seemingly meaningless effort, when approached with a sense of service and a questing heart, becomes an act of beauty. And when we finally come exhausted to a quiet moment, we are ready to fall silent before the mystery. Too tired to maintain our pretenses, we rest in awe.

And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me…

Recommended Books: Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov: Selected Poems	Poems of Denise Levertov: 1960-1967	Breathing the Water	The Great Unknowing: Last Poems	Candles in Babylon
More Books >>

Denise Levertov US (1923 – 1997) Timeline Secular or Eclectic : Beat Jewish

More poetry by Denise Levertov

Medusa
by Ivan M. Granger

Medusa says –

I still wait
for some bold, tired
      wild child of mine,
determined to die
seeing what’s reflected
in my unblinking eye.

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

/ Image by Emanuello Brigant /

Something to honor the Divine Goddess (and Halloween!) today–

Every now and then I awake early, before the sun. Observing the nighttime before dawn, its embodiment of mystery, the unknown, vastness. Night brings both peace and fear. It does not distract us from ourselves. Whatever we bring with us into the night we must confront…

I read a lot of Greek mythology in my childhood. I loved the fantastical adventures, the heroes, the monsters, the convoluted relationships of the gods. I was fascinated that so many common words and phrases have their origins in the names and stories of Greek myths. It connected me with the Greek ancestry I have through my father.

And I also had the vague, semi-formed idea that there was something deeper being said in these myth stories.

I discovered something several years back that struck me: Medusa, the quintessential monster of Greek mythology, was originally a much loved Goddess. Her name comes from the Greek word “metis” (related to the Sanskrit “medha”) meaning “wisdom.” Her worship is thought to have originated in North Africa and been imported into early Greek culture. She was black-skinned, wore wild, matted hair (with, of course, snakes), stood naked, wide-eyed, and embodied the mystery of woman, the wisdom of the night, the truths too profound or terrible to face in the daylight.

Medusa is, in effect, a Mediterranean version of the Bengali Goddess Kali.

Medusa was eventually subsumed into the safer, patriarchal worship of Athena, who carries Medusa’s head upon her shield.

This discovery inspired me to look at the figure of Medusa more deeply, more reverently. What is the wisdom that terrifies? Why the snakes? Why the petrifying open-eyed stare? And how does such a bringer of terrible wisdom feel about being rejected by her children as a “monster”?

So I hide
Behind this hissing curtain
Of hair.

One way to understand the snakes about Medusa’s head is as the awakened Kundalini energy, having risen from the base of the spine to the skull — something well-understood in the Mediterranean mystery schools of the ancient world. This vital, snake-like energy is the Goddess energy. Medusa, the Goddess, is the Snake Mother.

(The more monstrous aspect of Medusa can also be understood as a rageful expression of the Kundalini, the Divine Feminine energy, when it is repressed in society. A society that does not respect the strength and mystery of Woman, that does not allow the feminine energy to move freely, that society is lost in a state of calcifying fear. Too many societies see only the terrible Gorgon when looking at the Divine Mother.)

In my poem, Medusa has formed of this feminine life-energy a curtain, a veil that hides Her Face from a world not ready to bear witness to Her. This curtain is the veil of illusion that creates an artificial sense of separation between the world and the Divine.

And the curtain does indeed hiss. When you are quiet and your thoughts settle, we begin to hear a soft sound seeming to issue from the base of the skull. Initially, it sounds like a creaking or crackling noise, a white noise, a sort of a hissing. The deeper we go into silence, the more the sound resolves itself. Eventually, we recognize it permeating our whole body and all things.

We must pass through this hissing curtain in order to meet the deep truth waiting for us on the other side.

I still wait
For some bold, tired
      Wild child of mine,
Determined to die
Seeing what’s reflected
In my unblinking eye.

Medusa’s eye does not blink. This is partly what is so terrifying about her gaze. She stares boldly out and sees Reality as it is. She sees it plainly, fearlessly, and without interruption. There is no pause for interpretation or “filtering.” Medusa’s truth is raw. She is the Divine Mother who sees all of Her Creation in every living instant.

Looking in Medusa’s eye, what is it that we see reflected? Our own self, of course. And this truly is shattering, for we see the truth about ourselves. We see the unreality of the little self, the social self, the ego self we imagine ourselves to be. That little self is a phantom, a mental creation only.

Medusa, in her shattering wisdom, does not protect us from this realization. Her love will not allow us to struggle on with such a false notion holding us back from our true nature.

Seeing this truth, we die. The little self dies.

But, in dying to the little self, our true nature suddenly shines forth. The real Self, which is one with the Divine, emerges. Every aspect of ourselves that felt broken and that we labored so long to fix, is suddenly made whole. In fact, we realize that nothing was ever broken in the first place. That sense of incompleteness was the result of denying the vastness we already are while clinging to the illusion of the little self.

This is Medusa’s gift to Her children. This is Her terrible wisdom. It is the truth that blesses us through death, and then gives us greater life than we had previously imagined possible.

–

Halloween, Samhain, el Dia de los Muertos. The ancestors speak to us at this time, as do our fears. In this season we face the darkness, the unknown. We rediscover the hard truths we’ve exiled and encounter the possibilities we haven’t yet dreamed.

As a child, Halloween was always one of my favorite holidays. I loved the masks and costumes, toying with notions of self and identity, a game of hide-and-seek with the world. I loved the season, the chill breeze and thick sweaters, bare branches with a few bright leaves, the brilliant daylight, bold and brief, streaming through. And, I have to admit, I loved the giddy, creeping sense of death… along with the whispered question of what might lay beyond it.

Spirits, magic, monsters, and nighttime, they evoked in me a childish delight in the sense that there was something more to the world than seen in the daylight, something hidden, secret, another reality in the shadows. I felt the holiday tugging at me, my goosebumps an invitation into secret worlds…

It is said that at this time of year the veil between this world and the Otherworld thins, when we can reconnect with the spirits of our forerunners, when we can gain unexpected insight. It is a time of magic and reconnection and stepping into the unknown.

This is the time of year when the light of summer and the harvest season recedes, the days grow shorter, and the darkness of winter takes ascendance. This is the good darkness that balances the year. With darker, shorter, colder days, we are less active and turn inward. It summons us back to the cave of the self. In this internal, inturning time we gain insight and strength and, through endurance, find ourselves renewed and ready for the new light to come in springtime. This darkness is the time of spiritual practice that prepares us for the renewed light and life of springtime. For only in darkness does new life gestate. Only in darkness do our eyes learn to see.

Let’s honor those who came before us and made a way for us in the world. Let’s discover the unknown possibilities yet available to us. And let’s celebrate the good darkness — along with the hidden light and life we discover there!

Recommended Books: Ivan M. Granger

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey	For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics	Diamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania
More Books >>

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

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