Jul 04 2025
be let feel accept
Be fully present.
Be totally naked.
Let the energy flow.
Feel everything.
Accept yourself completely.
Jun 20 2025
Simnani – What Was
What Was
by Ala al-Dawla Simnani
English version by David and Sabrineh Fideler
Once I was here,
but now “I” am not:
If there’s really a “me,”
it could only be you.
If any robe warms
and encompasses me now,
that very robe —
it could only be you.
In the way of your love,
nothing was left —
neither body nor soul.
If I have any body —
If I have any soul —
then, without question,
it could only be you.
— from Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition, Translated by David Fideler / Translated by Sabrineh Fideler
/ Image by Imad Alassiry /
With the headlines filled with war and mass traumas, the playing out of the death urge on the global stage, it is often difficult to select a poem for the Poetry Chaikhana. Certainly there are many great poems on war and death, but those have general not been the focus of the of the Poetry Chaikhana. I tend to highlight poems of individual mystical awakening, that flash of insight, the flood of bliss, the overwhelming sense of wholeness and harmony. Should we even try to make room for such poems in a time of upheaval and fear?
I think the answer is that our spiritual journey must incorporate the fullness of this human experience, even war, even injustice. This doesn’t mean that we accept what is cruel or harmful or increases suffering, but we cannot pretend that it is not playing out in the moment. We can do our best to see it honestly for what it is, why it is there, and begin to nurture mature and patient remedies — first within ourselves and individuals, then allowing ourselves to become medicine for the wider world. Be distrusting of solutions that are quick or external. Balance is always found at the center point, within. This is true for societies and cultures as much as for individuals.
Today I feature a poem not of war but of spiritual selflessness by a Persian Sufi poet, that is by a poet from Iran.
Once I was here,
but now “I” am not
Do you feel it? That sense of “I” and “me” how thin and intangible they are when you really look?
We spend most of our life energy asserting that this thing, this “me” is IMPORTANT. The problem is that that “me” is not real. The more we look for it, the more it retreats. When we finally corner it, it simply fades away, dispelled like a trick of light. What are we left with?
There is a self, but it is not a limited or selfish self. To some it borders on blasphemy to call this real Self a self at all, implying some personal possession of something so all-inclusive. Some prefer to call this center of being not “me,” but You — the Friend, the ever-present Beloved. While the “me” struts and shouts and grabs, it cannot make of itself a real and lasting thing. But that You remains, always there, waiting patiently for the braggart self to tire of its own voice and step aside.
In the way of your love,
nothing was left —
neither body nor soul.
Everything we thought we owned, everything we ascribed to that “me,” even the body itself, they all cease to be limited objects of the mind when the me itself is recognized as unreal. Body, self– these are seen, not as things that “I” am or possess, but as part of a fluid continuum of the greater You. Everything stops being things, and is, instead, a grand embodiment of the Eternal.
If I have any body —
If I have any soul —
then, without question,
it could only be you.
Have a beautiful day enrobed in the Beloved.
Recommended Books: Ala al-Dawla Simnani
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| Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition | The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Ala’ Ad-Dawla As-Simnani | |||
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Ala al-Dawla Simnani
Iran/Persia (1261 – 1336) Timeline |
Jun 20 2025
the spaces between
We need to retrain our eyes to see
the spaces between and the secrets behind.
Jun 06 2025
Kahlil Gibran – Bewildered
Bewildered
by Kahlil Gibran
This would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of you bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt, that builded your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.
— from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran
/ Image by Cody Black /
I hadn’t read this poem by Kahlil Gibran in some time. His words have a rare quality of directly confronting our self-doubts and fears, and then elevating us with such gentleness. He manages to rearrange our reflexive view of things in a way that is almost playful yet without discounting soul’s fears. That’s the transformative medicine of some poetry.
Rereading the words I originally wrote more than ten years ago to accompany this poem, they still fit–
It’s been a difficult week for a lot of people. Some weeks, vulnerabilities just get triggered, and life’s solid certainties fade and shift about. If it’s been that sort of week for you, don’t take it too personally. It’s going about. Sometimes we’re just being reminded to breathe, to allow the dream to reshape itself. When we listen for the breath, we participate in its rhythm. And from that soft rhythm our world is daily reborn.
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Have a beautiful day!
Recommended Books: Kahlil Gibran
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| 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 >> | ||||
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Kahlil Gibran
Lebanon/US (1883 – 1931) Timeline |
Jun 06 2025
God to God
When we call out to God,
we are actually hearing God calling to us.
All of creation is a part of God,
and its every song, when heard with an open ear,
is really the song of God to God.
May 23 2025
Layman P’ang – My daily activity is not unusual
My daily activity is not unusual
by P’ang Yun (Layman P’ang)
English version by Satyavayu
My daily activity is not unusual;
I just remain in spontaneous harmony.
Not grasping or rejecting,
nothing left to assert or oppose.
What use are fancy titles
and expensive clothes of vermilion and purple?
This entire mountain is free
of even a speck of dust.
Supernatural powers and miraculous activity:
fetching water and carrying firewood
/ Image by Alexander Klimm /
Something quiet today. A reminder to us of the magic found in our ordinary moments.
My daily activity is not unusual;
I just remain in spontaneous harmony.
When the mind comes to rest and ceases to kick up its own dust, we can finally, perhaps for the first time, see reality in its most beautiful, clear form.
This entire mountain is free
of even a speck of dust.
That’s when the miraculousness of each moment reveals itself.
Supernatural powers and miraculous activity:
fetching water and carrying firewood
So much beauty awaits us just beneath the disruptions of the mind. Whatever work we have before us, even when difficult or frightening, in whatever world we find ourselves moving through, let us set aside time to quiet down and truly see. We can deny the truth. We can cover it over with busyness and cruelty. But don’t be fooled. Heaven is barely held in by the surface rind of reality.
Recommended Books: P’ang Yun (Layman P’ang)
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| This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World | The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry | Haiku Enlightenment: New Expanded Edition | The Sayings of Layman P’ang: A Zen Classic | |
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P’ang Yun (Layman P’ang)
China (740? – 808) Timeline |
May 16 2025
R. S. Thomas – Via Negativa
Via Negativa
by R. S. Thomas
Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.
— from Through Corridors of Light: Poems of Consolation in Time of Illness, Edited by John Andrew Denny
/ Image by tanakawho /
This is a haunting poem, yet lovely and uplifting at the same time. God is a kind of a ghost in this poem, a tangible absence.
…God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within…
And that is really the poet’s point. So often we struggle to imagine what God is, the qualities and awareness associated with that immense… Something. But this poem is a meditation on the Via Negativa, that is, the recognition that the Eternal is not a “thing” at all. Every definition or description or quality we attach to the Divine is necessarily a limitation on the Divine Nature and, therefore, incomplete. To turn God into an object that can be described is to make God a subset of Existence, when the Eternal is the Whole of Existence and beyond. The idea behind the Via Negativa is that God cannot be adequately conceptualized by the limited human intellect with attributes of a limited physical reality, and so God is best discovered through negation. In other words, God is all-encompassing, and therefore perceived as a sort of vibrant Absence, a sort of haunting Presence within the empty spaces of our perception…
…He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow…
That ache we universally feel, that absence can feel to the soul like an existential betrayal inherent within reality. Most of us reflexively turn from that feeling and run from it, endlessly distracting our awareness so we don’t feel it so painfully. But, ultimately, that’s not very effective, and it is never satisfying.
We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm.”
This is, of course, a reference the story in the Gospels when “doubting” Thomas would not believe that the risen Christ stood before him until he could touch the wounds in Christ’s side. Here the poet sees that wound as another representation of that hauntingly empty space, which reveals itself to be both real and also divine. There is a void we all sense and mostly try to ignore. When we no longer recoil and instead reach out to touch that emptiness, we hope to feel warmth, life, presence within the apparent absence — and we do.
–
Mystics encourage us to look deeper, to fully encounter that “great absence,” to sit with it. Eventually we discover to our surprise that that terrible void is, in truth, filled with immense life and an indescribable bliss. Our very being flows from that immense and spacious No-Thing-Ness. If we name It, if we describe or define It, that my help our understanding up to a point, but if we cling too tightly to those names and descriptions, we limit our full awareness and vision. This is the truth of the Via Negativa.
Recommended Books: R. S. Thomas
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R. S. Thomas |
May 09 2025
Mechthild of Magdeburg – Effortlessly
Effortlessly
by Mechthild of Magdeburg
English version by Jane Hirshfield
Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.
Thus we move in His world
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note,
Humanity sings —
The Holy Spirit is our harpist,
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.
— from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell
/ Image by ac4photos /
Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.
Isn’t that image wonderful? The words themselves flow through us, like gentle music. That opening affirmation is so lovely that it’s easy to miss importance of the next few lines:
Thus we move in His world
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
When we discover that total integration of self, when every aspect of body and soul recognizes itself as a harmonious unity, the sense of the effortful self disappears. Our actions and movement through the world flow without friction. We normally take it for granted, the presence of a constant resistance in every action. What is that resistance? It is the fingerprint of the ego as it declares through each effort, “I am here! I did this!” It is a declaration of separation. But instead, when we are overcome with love and wholeness, the ego fades, no separation is seen, and we, in turn, flow.
Think of it this way: Just as swimmers shave their bodies to eliminate the constant drag of body hair in order to glide through the water, shedding the ego through love allows us to glide with surprising ease through the world. This is how saints and masters manage to act with such natural grace of spirit.
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.
=
The Catholic Church has elected a new pope, who has taken the name Leo XIV. The previous pope, Francis, was a much-needed voice of compassion when it came to questions of global poverty, immigrants and refugees, the suffering of occupied and colonized peoples, and the desperate needs of the environment. It remains to be seen if the new pope will oppose the regressive factions within the Vatican and live up to the historical moment.
Ultimately, of course, we should not wait for perfect popes or presidents or prime ministers. It is ourselves we truly wait for. The goal is always to allow Love to flow into ourselves and through ourselves into the world until, one-by-one we light up and discover the underlying Unity. With so much threat and uncertainty in the world, it is easy to see and feel only that onslaught. But in complete disregard for our own fears, there yet remains that glowing, blissful Oneness beneath. The more we recognize and nurture it in ourselves and the more we help others to do the same, the more the world can let go of its terrible dramas and awaken to its inherent heavenly nature. It may take great striving to get there, but when it happens, it happens — effortlessly.
Have a beautiful day! Sending love to you all.
Recommended Books: Mechthild of Magdeburg
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Mechthild of Magdeburg |
Apr 25 2025
Rainer Maria Rilke – I am praying again, Awesome One
I am praying again, Awesome One
by Rainer Maria Rilke
English version by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
I am praying again, Awesome One.
You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.
I’ve been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.
In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
With my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.
I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.
I am a city by the sea
sinking into a toxic tide
I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.
It’s here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart–
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God — spend them however you want.
— from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, by Rainer Maria Rilke / Translated by Joanna Macy
/ Image by Klara Kulikova /
I am praying again, Awesome One.
I like that opening line. Personal, honest, no pretense of formula.
I’ve been scattered in pieces…
Scattered, disjointed, plundered, befouled. Feeling this way, how does one ever feel whole again?
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
The first thing I would say is that the solution is not to return to a time when things were good or normal. Crises only arise when problems have been ignored. This is true on a personal, spiritual level, and it is true on the societal level.
So when we look back on a time in our lives when things felt more “right,” the first thing to do is to notice what we missed or ignored. Be willing to see what was not right about it. What were our secrets? What was our pain? Who suffered and was kept silent?
The first step is not to fix the brokenness. It is to feel the brokenness. It is to see it. As this poem does. If we are broken, let us see it and feel it. All of it.
Of course, to do so means the destruction of our cherished heroic self-story. But there is a strange magic that happens when we let that story fall apart and finally look into the shadows. Hidden in those hurt and hurtful corners is so much of ourselves. We can’t be complete without them. They may seem ugly or shameful. We may not know how to welcome them back into a healthy and functional sense of being. But it is all us.
All of those shadowy fragments, in ourselves, in society, they are the missing pieces that complete us. The failures we don’t want to admit in ourselves, they are the key to our success. The path to wholeness is through the brokenness, not away from it.
But how does one integrate it all? How does one atone for the hurts caused, heal the hurts received? No problem can ever be solved at the same level on which it was created. We need to step past the ego and the repeating justifications of the calculating mind in order to invite a higher level of intelligence. We might think of this as calling upon God or a Higher Power or simply a higher awareness within ourselves. We don’t have to know at the level of the intellect, but we have to be honest with ourselves, humble, courageous and open. Then watch what happens.
As the poet says with his own words of courage and humility:
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God — spend them however you want.
Recommended Books: Rainer Maria Rilke
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Rainer Maria Rilke
Germany (1875 – 1926) Timeline |
Apr 25 2025
simple answers
Don’t ask questions
with simple answers.
Ask the questions
that bring you face-to-face with the Mystery.
Apr 18 2025
Chinook – Teach us, and show us the Way
Teach us, and show us the Way
by Chinook (Anonymous)
We call upon the earth, our planet home, with its beautiful depths and soaring
heights, its vitality and abundance of life, and together we ask that it
Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the mountains, the Cascades and the Olympics, the high green
valleys and meadows filled with wild flowers, the snows that never melt, the
summits of intense silence, and we ask that they
Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, that flow in our
rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields and we ask that they
Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the land which grows our food, the nurturing soil, the fertile fields,
the abundant gardens and orchards, and we ask that they
Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the forests, the great trees reaching strongly to the sky with earth in
their roots and the heavens in their branches, the fir and the pine and the
cedar, and we ask them to
Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon the creatures of the fields and forests and the seas, our brothers and
sisters the wolves and deer, the eagle and dove, the great whales and the dolphin,
the beautiful Orca and salmon who share our Northwest home, and we ask them to
Teach us, and show us the Way.
We call upon all those who have lived on this earth, our ancestors and our friends,
who dreamed the best for future generations, and upon whose lives our lives are
built, and with thanksgiving, we call upon them to
Teach us, and show us the Way.
And lastly, we call upon all that we hold most sacred, the presence and power of
the Great Spirit of love and truth which flows through all the Universe, to be with
us to
Teach us, and show us the Way.
— from The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World’s Great Wisdom Traditions, Edited by Andrew Harvey
/ Image by Oppo Find x5 Pro /
I have been engaged in quite an act of rebellion lately: I have been gardening.
Just a small garden, a few vegetables and flowers.
And I’ll be honest, gardening doesn’t come naturally to me. I was raised in small apartments by a single mother who was often at work. Gardening wasn’t an activity handed down to me. I tend to be more of a person of fire and air than of earth. So rolling up my sleeves and digging in the dirt is not always my first instinct in the springtime.
But the gardeners among you know what I am still learning, that the earth speaks to us through the garden. It becomes a conversation. I speak to the weeds as I pull them, thanking them for the green impulse they brought and apologizing for their removal. Words of welcome and gentle encouragement to the strawberries and marigolds as I pat them into place and pour water around them.
Earth and water. Air and sun. And growing green life. These bring the soul back to rest.
While gardening is often a solitary, meditative act, I am surprised by how often it brings me back into connection with my community. As an inexperienced gardener, I bring my questions to the woman across the street whose yard is filled with tulips and daffodils and green sprouts waiting to reveal themselves. And we are talking about life. The rhythms of the year and the movements of the clouds.
Later in the year, I hope to have a few extra butternut squash, Perhaps my wife and I can share them with our neighbor (as I know she will come by with more than one box of potatoes and tomatoes for us). Or maybe I will bring something from my garden over to my cousin’s house. Next year, if I plan early enough for a larger garden, perhaps I will have extra to bring to one of the local homeless shelters.
Who knew that putting your knees on the ground and digging your fingers into the soil could reconnect us with the world? It brings us back into the rhythms of life and community. It returns us to ourselves.
Some might say that is a dangerous thing.
Others would say, community, the earth, life, these speak to us. They remind us of important truths. Let’s listen. Let us ask them to teach us, and show us the Way.
Recommended Books: Chinook (Anonymous)
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| The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World’s Great Wisdom Traditions | ||||
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Chinook (Anonymous)
US (18th Century) Timeline |
Apr 04 2025
William Carlos Williams – It is difficult to get the news from poems
It is difficult to get the news (from Asphodel That Greeny Flower)
by William Carlos Williams
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
— from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: Volume II 1939-1962, by William Carlos Williams
/ Image by Brad Starkey /
I was recently reminded of this poem by the wonderful Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem. I call it a poem, but it is actually an excerpt from a much longer poem, yet these few lines stand alone.
With so much uncertainty about us, with suffering on the rise, it is natural to amp up our anxieties in response, wanting to “make things right” but without really knowing what to do. It can become a cycle of fear and feeling betrayed, of loud words, louder thoughts, and halting action followed by inaction and numbness.
Poetry can seem unimportant, even frivolous.
These aren’t times for simple answers, but I would suggest that the answers are not found in keeping ourselves perpetually plugged in to the recitations of horrors and outrages fed to us through the headlines. We need to remain aware of what is happening in our world, yes, but the news is often not the best source of our news. The real news requires an act of awareness. And connection. Connection with our communities. Importantly, connection with the vulnerable and outliers in our society. Connection, most importantly, with ourselves. And with nature, which is always our home ground.
The more we nurture these forms of connection, the more we remember what is real and what is important. Through these connections we understand what is actually happening. We also get a better sense of what we can and should do about it. We are reminded that the most powerful actions are not always grand gestures on a global stage; instead, it is often our seemingly small acts of kindness and genuine connection that truly resonate in the world.
But it is never simply about action. Action without awareness is just movement. Awareness is the key. Seeing what is truly happening, the entire picture, the expanse and the overlooked valleys, this requires awareness. Knowing when to act, how to act, and when to simply glow in the world, this requires awareness.
What we call the news is not primarily a medium of full-bodied awareness. That is why, though it is difficult, we should do our best to get our news from poems.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
Sending love to you all!
[BOOK LIST REPEATING]
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William Carlos Williams
US (1883 – 1963) Timeline |
Apr 04 2025
street names
When you know where the Beloved lives,
you are content,
no need to argue with others over street names.