Poetry Chaikhana Blog

At the Nachi Kan’non Hall
by Muso Soseki

English version by W. S. Merwin

The Milky Way
      pours waterfalls
            over this human world
the cold
      rushing tumbling sounds
            echo through the blue sky
Veneration
      to the Great Compassionate
            Avilokiteshvara
How lucky I am
      to have no trouble
            hearing

— from Sun at Midnight: Muso Soseki – Poems and Sermons, Translated by W. S. Merwin / Translated by Soiku Shigematsu

/ Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski /

I love that opening phase–

The Milky Way
      pours waterfalls
            over this human world

I imagine stepping outside after a long day, standing beneath the night sky, and letting the waters of the universe wash over me. It’s a cleansing image, purifying, healing to the wearied spirit.

the cold
      rushing tumbling sounds
            echo through the blue sky

Soseki emphasizes sound, the waterfall-like sound of the night. Try it sometime to remind yourself. Late at night, step outside, or just open the window and lean your head out. Close your eyes. Listen. Do you hear it? In the absence of all other noise, with no movement around and with thoughts at rest… a soft sound is heard. At first it might be like the quiet chirping of crickets in the night, the hum of beesong, or the flowing of gentle stream. It is heard as a random, soothing “white noise” that seems to emanate from the base of the skull.

As we quiet more, the sound grows into a rushing sound, like a waterfall. Sometimes this sound resolves into a clear pitch that can resemble the pure note of a flute or the ringing of a bell.

First it is heard and, finally, felt throughout the body.

This sound is Krishna’s flute calling his devotees to him. It is the ringing of the bells of paradise. It is Soseki’s heavenly waterfall.

This sound signals the beginning of deep meditation. The more we sit with this sound, the more the awareness expands and the heart naturally opens with inherent compassion, as the universal waters pour over us, refreshing us, revitalizing, awakening.

How lucky I am
      to have no trouble
            hearing

Recommended Books: Muso Soseki

Sun at Midnight: Muso Soseki – Poems and Sermons	East Window: Poems from Asia	Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader

Muso Soseki Japan (1275 – 1351) Timeline Buddhist : Zen / Chan

Musō Soseki was a Japanese Zen master of the fourteenth century, and today he is best remembered for his gardens. The gardens of Saihō-ji, the “Moss Temple,” and of Tenryū-ji in Kyoto still draw visitors from all over the world. Behind the art of gardening was a quiet man, a monk who longed for solitude, wrote poems of mountain stillness, but who kept being called back into the world to work for peace and reconciliation in a time of war. Continue Reading »

The Drop and the Sea
by Kabir

English version by Andrew Harvey

I went looking for Him
And lost myself;
The drop merged with the Sea —
Who can find it now?

Looking and looking for Him
I lost myself;
The Sea merged with the drop —
Who can find it now?

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

/ Image by Mark Harpur /

The drop and the sea — this is a classic spiritual metaphor used by many teachers in several traditions. We can think of the Sea as a metaphor for God, the vast reality which includes each of us as individual drops.

Kabir says, “I went looking for Him…” The drop went looking for the Sea. There is an absurdity in that. How can a drop go looking for the Sea? The drop is already IN the Sea, part of it. In discovering the Sea, the drop recognizes that the Sea is water, just as the drop itself is water. Water within water. Finally recognizing this, how can the drop maintain the illusion of separation? There is no dividing line between water and water — no skin, no barrier, no separation. The drop loses its false sense of being a drop. It loses itself, it loses its ‘dropness,’ and merges with the immense continuity of the Sea.

At that point there is no separate self, no one to go seeking. “Who can find it now?” There is only the Sea and no one to go looking for it.

Recommended Books: Kabir

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom	Songs of the Saints of India
More Books >>

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

Continue Reading »

Listen, can you hear it? (from The Lover of God)
by Rabindranath Tagore

English version by Tony Stewart and Chase Twitchell

Listen, can you hear it?
His bamboo flute speaks
the pure language of love.
The moon enlightens the trees,
the path, the sinuous Yamuna.
Oblivious of the jasmine’s scent
I stagger around,
disheveled heart bereft of modesty,
eyes wet with nerves and delight.
Tell me, dear friend, say it aloud:
is he not my own Dark Lord Syama?
Is it not my name his flute pours
into the empty evening?

Go to her, Lord, go now.
What’s stopping you?
The earth drowns in sleep.
Let’s go. I’ll walk with you.

— from The Lover of God, by Rabindranath Tagore / Translated by Tony Stewart

/ Image by Rajesh Nagulakond /

There is a fascinating story behind this poem and the other poems of Tagore’s The Lover of God… In the late 19th century, a respected Bengali journal published a newly discovered collection poems by a previously unknown 17th century poet, Bhanusimha, or Sun Lion. The critics celebrated these newly unearthed bhakti masterpieces.

The problem was that Bhanusimha never actually existed. Bhanisimha was the pseudonym used by a brilliant 14-year-old boy — the young Rabindranath Tagore.

He of course matured into one of the greatest poets of modern India.

Tagore continued to edit and refine these poems over his lifetime, leaving us with a collection of modern bhakti masterpieces.

Just a few notes about this selection:

As with many bhakti poems, this is, on the surface, a poem of love and longing. Radha pines for her beloved, Krishna. But these are usually understood to reflect deeper truths. It’s always fascinating the response I notice when I recite a bhakti poem aloud — with emotion, with passion, but also with a sense of the deep spiritual longing that imbues the phrases. It evokes a direct, intimate form of worship and connection to the Divine.

Radha (the poem’s speaker) is the soul, the lover of God, the spiritual seeker. Krishna (Syama) is God, the Beloved.

Krishna plays a flute, an enchanting melody that calls all souls to himself. The sound of his flute is the hum that underlies all creation, the soft sound heard in the silence of meditation.

His beauty is often compared with the moon. This moon is also the luminescence of enlightenment.

The Yamuna is one of the great rivers of India, feeding into the mighty Ganges, but she is also a goddess who fell in love with Krishna. So the reference to the sinuous Yamuna is meant to evoke both an erotic femininity and also emphasize that love for Krishna. To dissolve in the Yamuna is to disappear into eternal love for God/Krishna.

The final verse switches from Radha’s voice to the poet’s, encouraging Krishna to respond to the longing of the soul. Something quite playful in that…

Go to her, Lord, go now.
What’s stopping you?
The earth drowns in sleep.
Let’s go. I’ll walk with you.

Recommended Books: Rabindranath Tagore

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Gitanjali	The Lover of God	The Fugitive	Lover’s Gift and Crossing
More Books >>

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

Rabindranath Tagore wrote the national anthems of two countries, founded a university, and in 1913 became the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. It is easy to let all of that stand in front of the poems. But the work readers actually love him for — the Gitanjali songs above all — came out of something much quieter: a dawn on a Calcutta veranda when he was twenty-one, when the world briefly came unveiled, and then a lifetime of learning how to live in the light of what he had seen. He spent that life refusing to keep God in a temple. He looked instead in the river, in the human face, in the man breaking stones by the roadside.

Continue Reading »

A Spiritual Journey
by Wendell Berry

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.

— from The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982, by Wendell Berry

/ Image by LittleLottexo /

The poet Wendell Berry passed away earlier this week, and I’ve been returning to his poems all week, his quiet voice speaking to me as I go about my work day and find silent moments amidst my activity.

Several of his poems have become part of my interior space. The Peace of Wild Things, The Real Work, How to Be a Poet, The Wild Geese, his Sabbath poems. But I chose to feature this one today. It’s short. It feels almost like a Zen koan. Yet it is speaking to me. I hope it says something to you too.

—

Few writers these days are truly willing to be still and to befriend the world of growing things outside the city limits. In the modern world, that’s practically blasphemy. Writers like that get labeled “poet” and “crank” so they can be safely ignored — unless their writing is unavoidably good. Unfortunately for the hyperactive world, Wendell Berry’s poetry is filled with the presence and heart secretly craved by us all, making his words difficult to ignore.

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long…

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 – 2026) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

Wendell Berry spent nearly sixty years on a hillside farm above the Kentucky River, writing poems, novels, and essays that circled back again and again to a single conviction: the world is holy, it has been given to us rather than owned by us, and how we treat a field, a creek, or a neighbor is a spiritual act. He became one of America’s great dissenting voices — a patient, unyielding critic of industrial agriculture and extraction. But beneath the argument was something quieter: a lifelong practice of attention and reverence, carried out mostly on foot, in the woods, on Sunday mornings. He died at home in Port Royal, Kentucky, on August 31, 2026.

—

Life

He was born in Louisville on August 5, 1934, and raised in Henry County, Kentucky, on land his family had farmed for generations on both sides. That inheritance became the whole subject of his life’s work.

He was a gifted young writer. He took degrees at the University of Kentucky, went to Stanford on a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in 1958 (Ken Kesey, Larry McMurtry, and Ernest Gaines were among his classmates), traveled to Italy and France on a Guggenheim, and taught at New York University in the early sixties. He was on the path a promising American writer was supposed to take.

Then, on the Fourth of July in 1965, Continue Reading »

Why do you roam the jungles?
by Baba Sheikh Farid

Says Farid,
Why do you roam the jungles with thorns pricking your feet?
Your Lord dwells in your heart.
And you wander about in search of Him.

/ Image by That Guy Who’s Going Places /

The poem today is a short one. Simple. We might almost be tempted to rush past it because it seems too simple and rather obvious. But I would encourage all of us, myself included, to pause for an extra moment and just contemplate these few lines.

That closing couplet where he declares that the Lord dwells in the heart and yet we wonder about in search of God. I certainly was caught by that pattern myself in my early searching. I intensely, even desperately wanted a direct experience of God — the Divine, the Eternal, however we want to name that transcendent reality. Yet I was hampered by the same sort of romantic exoticism that we often suffer from, particularly in the West — this idea that mystical insight and truth can only come from an exotic culture. I couldn’t imagine deep insight coming from a person who looks like me or a culture I recognized. I hungrily read about spirituality of India and China and Native Americans. In my attempt to pare my life down to get to that essential truth, I was often cutting away connections to the culture in which I was raised. I was alienating myself intentionally from what I knew because it felt so unbearably mundane.

And frankly that path works really well up to a limited point. It frees us from the prejudices and cultural assumptions that we are all raised in. It brings about important internal confrontations, forcing us to re-assess who we are and the world around us. It also creates a profound problem for spiritual progress beyond that point: the more we define the Divine as somehow outside, outside our world, and most importantly outside our own selves, the more we create an internal gulf that can never be bridged when ultimately that true, essential spark is not somewhere “out there.” It is never found outside ourselves or outside our world. It’s always, always found within at the truest point within ourselves. This is why many traditions refer to the Divine as the Self. It is the Self of our selves, it is the self of all of us. It is the Heart, the center of our being. A certain amount of external seeking and wandering can help galvanize our energies and free us from limiting assumptions and patterns. But we must always, always return to the Self of selves, to the Heart.

We may call what we seek “Lord,” “Him” (or “Mother” or “Beloved”), but even those words become a trap. They are other. It’s useful to externalize the Divine in order to create focus, a goal, have an object of devotion. But when we’re really, truly ready to melt, it can only ever be recognized as the true self that we already are and not other than what we are.

I had a whole other commentary planned this morning, but I saw this poem and went off in a new direction. So much for plans!

Recommended Books: Baba Sheikh Farid

Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth	Anthology of Great Sufi & Mystical Poets of Pakistan	Sri Guru Granth Sahib	Sri Guru Granth Sahib

Baba Sheikh Farid Pakistan (1173 – 1266) Timeline Muslim / Sufi Sikh

Continue Reading »

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

/ Image by Dewang Gupta /

I know it has been far too long since our last poem email.

In recent months I have needed to focus my energies on my work as a database application developer. I was preparing a major presentation on AI, which I delivered at a developer’s conference. The presentation went well, and I am now back and rediscovering my regular rhythms — which should once again include poetry.

In fact, I had a nice moment just yesterday morning. I was sitting at a coffee shop reading The Book of Mystical Chapters, by John Anthony McGucking, a book of contemplative sayings from the early Christian tradition, especially Eastern Orthodox voices. While I was sitting there reading and sipping my matcha latte, a man walked up to me, drawn by the book. He said he knew the book well because he discussed it in a course he taught. It was a sweet moment of talking about early Christianity, poetry, and doorways into deeper exploration of the mystics — and discovery of figures, like Symeon the New Theologian.

=

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!

Recommended Books: Symeon the New Theologian

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	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives
More Books >>

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

Continue Reading »

Ojibway Song
by Ojibway (Anonymous)

English version by Ivan M. Granger

Sometimes
      I go about pitying myself.

Yet all the while
      I am carried by winds
      across the sky.

— from This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World, Edited by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by ahermin /

Usually, all it takes is a shift in perspective.

We frequently feel hurt or angry or sad or just trapped. The common response, especially in our task-oriented modern era, is to decide what we are going to do about it. We try to take charge. We act, we do, we fix. And, yes, that approach can be useful in many circumstances.

But we need to make sure we don’t ‘do’ as a way to avoid feeling. Frequently we have an impulse toward action because, otherwise, we will have to feel, and what we actually feel may not be pleasant or contained. But if we don’t feel fully, some part of ourselves has been shut down, separated from the whole, and our field of perception has narrowed.

That’s the other reason not to rush to action. ‘Doing’ can become a way to reinforce our limited ideas about reality. Action is like a ritual, it makes everything feel more real, more imprinted in the mind. This can be a good thing or it can be a trap. It depends on whether or not we are seeing clearly.

In any situation, the first thing to do is to not do anything. Instead, we should first allow our perspective to shift. We must see what we see. This is the most potent act possible. Seemingly doing nothing, all of reality changes. The willingness to step aside from our own internal dramas allows us to recognize and utilize the great currents already flowing soundlessly through our lives. Then, in harmony with that underlying momentum, should we choose to act, our actions have a power and purpose, bringing extraordinary results.

We soar, we dance, we are carried by winds across the sky.

Recommended Books: Ojibway (Anonymous)

The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World’s Great Wisdom Traditions	The Path of the Rainbow: An Anthology of Songs and Chants From the Indians of North America

Continue Reading »

They Speak
by Dorothy Walters

They speak of enlightenment.

O, My Invisible,
you and I know the secret ways.

— from The Ley Lines of the Soul: Poems of Ecstasy and Ascension, by Dorothy Walters

/ Image by Ricardo Gomez Angel /

A short one today from my beloved friend Dorothy Walters who passed away just a few years ago.

Dorothy and I connected in the early 2000s, around the time I started the Poetry Chaikhana as a website, and she was first blogging about her experiences of spiritual opening. She reached out to me and we began a correspondence. Not long after, she moved back to Boulder, Colorado, where she had lived and taught for many years previously, and where I was also living at the time. So we had the opportunity to meet regularly for brunches, laughter, discussions of poetry, and the movements of spirit in our lives.

We were in different phases of life. She was already retired and several decades my senior. Now, many years later, as I approach 60 and begin to imagine my own elder years, I look back upon my time and friendship with Dorothy as a source of inspiration, a template of sorts for how I might integrate the outpourings from the inner world with a still active outer life.

It’s a question most of us deal with at one level or another. What is the ideal work-life balance? Of course, work is not somehow separate from or contrary to our life. For most of us, it’s a hugely important aspect of our lives. But what is that inner-outer balance?

In some ways, this question is up for me more than it has been at any other point in my life. For much of my adult life, I’ve tended to view my work as a necessary chore, necessary to my life role, but always secondary. Spirituality, poetry, my immediate relationships were always primary in my mind. Interestingly, work has become more prominent in recent months for me. This is why the Poetry Chaikhana emails have been less frequent. I’ve been particularly busy with my work as a computer programmer. Right now, I’m especially focused on preparing for an upcoming conference.

While many around my age are perhaps winding down their work energies, my work focus is ramping up. It’s both enlivening and challenging to feel more engaged in the outer expressions of my life. It brings me back to that question of inner life, outer life, how to be fully engaged in an active outer life while remaining well-centered in a vibrant inner life. Some days that conscious integration, acting on all those levels in a balanced way simultaneously, seems effortful, perhaps beyond my immediate capacity. Then, on other days, I’m naturally in the flow and I don’t see a real separation; even the outer life is really just a further expression of that radiance within.

So I come back to the words of this poem by Dorothy. Can… light illumine light? It’s all there radiant at every level right now. Do I need to add effort in order to integrate things? Or do I simply need to remember to pause and see that it is already all illuminated?

We’ll see in the coming years how this plays out in my life. How prominent will my work remain? Will I eventually shift my activities more to something similar to what Dorothy did late in her life, meeting with circles of people on the spiritual journey, lovers of the arts and poetry, hoping to be a gentle light that inspires others? Dorothy spent most of her life teaching others, so sitting in on small social groups felt natural to her. I’ve tended to be a quiet, rather private, individual. So perhaps my pathway will be different. Or perhaps through my evolving work activities, I’m cultivating new qualities and skills that will lead to my own unique ways of connecting and sharing in my later years. We shall see. I am curious. I remain open.

you and I know the secret ways.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Dorothy Walters

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Marrow of Flame : Poems of the Spiritual Journey	The Ley Lines of the Soul: Poems of Ecstasy and Ascension	Diamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania
More Books >>

Dorothy Walters US (1928 – 2023) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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We awaken in Christ’s body
by Symeon the New Theologian

English version by Stephen Mitchell

We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.

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

/ Image by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen /

I have been rereading John Anthony McGuckin’s The Book of Mystical Chapters, which is a selection of short poems and insights, many of them from the desert fathers and other voices from the rich Eastern Orthodox tradition — beautiful little meditations. And one of the visionaries highlighted repeatedly is Symeon the New Theologian. Despite my Russian name, I was not raised in Orthodox Christianity myself, but I have really come to appreciate many of these profound mystics, perhaps most especially Symeon the New Theologian. This is one of my favorite poems by Symeon the New Theologian.

Symeon doesn’t urge us to merely honor or love the Beloved (Christ within the Christian tradition) from a distance. We melt into the Divine, become one with the Divine, share the same body.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him

Some of these lines remind me of a poem often inaccurately attributed to Teresa of Avila, You Are Christ’s Hands with it’s lines– “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, / no hands but yours…”

This poem by Symeon is one I just want to drink in — it feels so deeply healing and generous to the soul.

and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.

Have a beautiful day discovering the Beloved within.

Recommended Books: Symeon the New Theologian

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	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives
More Books >>

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

Continue Reading »

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

Continue Reading »

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

Continue Reading »

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…

=

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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