Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.  I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

Rumi

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks


The Country of Marriage

I.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the night songs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

II.

This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth's empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.

III.

Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

IV.

How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.

V.

Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don't know what its limits are--
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen tine and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.

What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

VII.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in the ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy--and this poem,
no more mine than any man's who has loved a woman.

Wendell Berry

Light Breeze
   
As regards feeling pain, like a hand cut in battle,
consider the body a robe you wear.  

When you meet someone you love, do you kiss their clothes?               Search out who's inside.                                                                       

Union with God is sweeter than body comforts.

We have hands and feet different from these.                                       Sometimes in dream we see them.
That is not illusion.  It's seeing truly.                                                     You do have a spirit body;
don't dread leaving the physical one.                                                         

Sometimes someone feels this truth so strongly
that he or she can live in mountain solitude totally refreshed.              

The worried, heroic doings of men and women seem weary
and futile to dervishes enjoying the light breeze of spirit.

Rumi

From Soul of Rumi
by Coleman Barks


Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloudcover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface,
yet I'm already under
and living with the ocean.

Rumi

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks


If you want what visible reality
can give, you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

Rumi

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

Image: Arthur F. Kales, "The Call of The Sea," 1916

"...letting go can be a practice. It is the slow process of opening like a lens to the radiance at the heart of our lives, here and now. We are enlightened as we learn to let the light in and let it shine out. This happens as we learn to be with life just as it is, receiving what is always being offered, always waiting to be received."

–Tracy Cochran from "Away" in the summer 2013 issue of Parabola: "Alone & Together," http://bit.ly/1aPLZJr




Only Breath
 
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, Sufi or Zen                                                                      

Not any religion or cultural system. 

I am not from the East or the West,                                                     

not out of the ocean or up from the ground,                                  

not natural or ethereal,                                                                     not composed of elements at all.

I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.
 
Rumi

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks


Birdsong brings relief
to my longing
I'm just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!
Please universal soul, practice
some song or something through me!
 
Rumi

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

Not Intrigued With Evening

What the material world values does
not shine the same in the truth of
the soul.  
You have been interested in your shadow.                                             

Look instead directly at the sun.                                                            

What can we know by just
watching the time-and-space shapes of each other?  

Someone half awake in the night sees imaginary dangers;        

the morning star rises; the horizon grows defined;                
people become friends in a moving caravan. 
Night birds may think
daybreak a kind of darkness,      

because that's what they know.

It's a fortunate bird  

who's not intrigued with evening,
who flies in the sun we call Shams.

Rumi

From Soul of Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks
 
A Deep Nobility
 
There are degrees of nearness.
Simply by existing,
Every creature lives near the creator,
but there’s a nobility deeper than just being.
The sun warms generally the mountainside,

but it illuminates the shaft of a gold mine.
The bush will never know how the sun is with gold.
There are dead branches and live branches, full of sap.
The sun brings flowers and fruit from one
And more withering to the Other.
Don’t be the kind of ecstatic who feels ashamed
When he or she comes back to normal.
Be a clear and rational lunatic whom
The most intelligent human beings follow.
Don’t be a cat toying with a mouse.                                                     Go after the love lion.
You have inflated yourself with imagination.
Drink in rather the
Soul of Khidr, who doesn’t
Flinch when it’s time to die.
All winter you carved
Water jars out of ice.
How well will they hold the summer snowmelt?


Rumi
 

The Music We Are

Did you hear that winter's over?
The basil and the carnations cannot control their laughter.
The nightingale, back from his wandering,                                             has been made singing master over the birds.
The trees reach out their congratulations.            

The soul goes dancing through the king's doorway.              

Anemones blush because they have seen the rose naked.
Spring, the only fair judge, walks in the courtroom,

and several December thieves steal away.
Last year's miracles will soon be forgotten.                                            New creatures whirl in from non-existence,

galaxies scattered around their feet.                                                    Have you met them?
Do you hear the bud of Jesus crooning in the cradle?
A single narcissus flower has been appointed                                   Inspector of Kingdoms.
A feast is set.
Listen; the wind is pouring wine;                                                          Love used to hide inside images; no more!
The orchard hangs out its lanterns,

The dead come stumbling by in shrouds.
Nothing can stay young or be imprisoned.
You say, "End this poem here.
and wait for what's next."
I will.
Poems are rough notations  

for the music we are.

Rumi

“TODAY

Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.
But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.”

Excerpt From: Oliver, Mary. “A Thousand Mornings.” Penguin Group, USA, 2012-09-11. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/a-thousand-mornings/id520239899?mt=11


Things Have Changed

A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There's a woman on my lap and she's drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin's eyes
I'm looking up into the sapphire tinted skies
I'm well dressed, waiting on the last train

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I'm expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

This place ain't doing me any good
I'm in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood
Just for a second there I thought I saw something move
Gonna take dancing lessons do the jitterbug rag
Ain't no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he's got anything to prove

Lot of water under the bridge, Lot of other stuff too
Don't get up gentlemen, I'm only passing through

People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

I've been walking forty miles of bad road
If the bible is right, the world will explode
I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
You can't win with a losing hand

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street

People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

I hurt easy, I just don't show it
You can hurt someone and not even know it
The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity
Gonna get low down, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I'm in love with a woman who don't even appeal to me

Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake
I'm not that eager to make a mistake

People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

Bob Dylan

Tomorrow Never Knows

Turn off your mind relax and float down-stream,
It is not dying, it is not dying,
Lay down all thought surrender to the void,
It is shining, it is shining.
That you may see the meaning of within,
It is speaking, it is speaking,
That love is all and love is everyone,
It is knowing, it is knowing.
When ignorance and hate may mourn the dead,
It is believing, it is believing,
But listen to the color of your dreams,
It is not living, it is not living.
Or play the game existence to the end.
Of the beginning, of the beginning.
Of the beginning. Of the beginning.

The Beatles

   
The Buddha's Last Instruction

By Mary Oliver
(1935 - )

"Make of yourself a light,"
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal -- a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire --
clearly I'm not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

“You don’t need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Don’t even listen, simply wait.
Don’t even wait.
Be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you.
To be unmasked, it has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
—Franz Kafka”

Excerpt From: Robbins, Tom. “Still Life with Woodpecker.” Bantam Books, 2003-06-17. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.


Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent…Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions, then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair…Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work…Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death.
(Mary Jean Irion, from “Yes, World: A Mosaic of Meditation“)



“The guest is inside you, and also inside me;
you know the sprout is hidden inside the seed.
We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.
Let your arrogance go, and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.

I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken,
inside "love" there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.
How hard it is to feel that joy in all our four bodies!

Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail.
The arrogance of reason has separated us from that love.
With the word "reason" you already feel miles away.” 

― Kabir, The Kabir book: Forty-four of the ecstatic poems of Kabir

“A GLASS OF WINE

In this age, the only companions we have

Who are free of faults are a glass

Of clear wine and a book of love poems.

Go by yourself, for the gates of righteousness

Are narrow; take hold of the wine cup,

For nothing can equal the dearness of life.

Others beside me are fed up with this world of idleness

And useless brain labor.

The weakness of academics comes

From never carrying an idea onward into days and nights.

To the eye of the spiritual intellect, this hallway

Of life, this corridor of noise, this world

And all its affairs are flat and without substance.

My heart was full of hope that it could achieve

Union with your Face; but death is a thief

Who steals all desires and keeps us from union.

Reach for her forehead and lift one of those strands

Of hair; then forget about whether Saturn

Or Venus is responsible for your luck.

A passionate note was put into Hafez on the day of creation.

In no cycle of history will you ever find him sober.

Hafez has always been drunk on the wine of Pre-Eternity.”

Excerpt From: Robert Bly and Leonard Lewisohn. “The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/p8UFv.l

“FOURTEEN QUESTIONS

What if I broke off a whole branch of roses?

What if I lost myself in the friend?

How would it be to have no faith?

What if I picked a pickpocket’s pocket?

Does it mean anythingwhen a single basket is lost in Baghdad,

when one wheat grain is missing from the barn?

How long will this illusion last?

What remains when a lover sits quietlywith the beloved for one second?

Will it involve you at all if I say some unsayable things?

Will my heart feel relieved doing that?

Something has passed between lover and beloved.

Are you part of these goings-on?

What does the soul feel when Jesus heals the body?

This is the night when life decrees can change.

If the moon came to visit me,would that affect other people?Shams Tabriz, if I gave workers a holiday,and if

I turned the marketplace upside down,

would that be a kind of image for how you love the world?”

Excerpt From: Coleman Barks. “Rumi: The Big Red Book.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/EoZdw.l



Streaming

By Hakim Sanai
(1044? - 1150?)

English version by Coleman Barks

When the path ignites a soul,
there's no remaining in place.

The foot touches ground,
but not for long.

The way where love tells its secret
stays always in motion,
and there is no you there, and no reason.

The rider urges his horse to gallop,
and so doing, throws himself
under the flying hooves.

In love-unity there's no old or new.
Everything is nothing.
God alone is.

For lovers the phenomena-veil is very transparent,
and the delicate tracings on it cannot
be explained with language.

Clouds burn off as the sun rises,
and the love-world floods with light.

But cloud-water can be obscuring,
as well as useful.

There is an affection that covers the glory,
rather than dissolving into it.

It's a subtle difference,
like the change in Persian
from the word "friendship"
to the word "work."

That happens with just a dot
above or below the third letter.

There is a seeing of the beauty
of union that doesn't actively work
for the inner conversation.

Your hand and feet must move,
as a stream streams, working
as its Self, to get to the ocean.
Then there's no more mention
of the search.

Being famous, or being a disgrace,
who's ahead or behind, these considerations
are rocks and clogged places
that slow you. Be as naked as a wheat grain
out of its husk and sleek as Adam.

Don't ask for anything other
than the presence.

Don't speak of a "you"
apart from That.

A full container cannot be more full.
Be whole, and nothing.

-- from The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan, Translated by Coleman Barks

Streaming
Where the path ignites a soul
There's no remaining in place
The foot touches the ground

Where the path ignites a soul ---- 
But not for long
The foot touching the ground is
The way where love tells its secrets

-----But not for long!
There's no remaining in place.
The way where love tells its secrets

is streaming.

Donna Swaringen

. 

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

Frank Overton
Carolina Counseling Center
819 Broad Street
Durham NC 27705
919-450-7930
frankoverton@icloud.com

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