Every Friday we light candles.
We light them for ourselves and for everyone.
Begin
This is now. Don't
postpone till then. Spend
the spark of iron on stone.
Sit at the head of the table;
dip your spoon in the bowl.
Seat yourself next your joy
and have your awakened soul
pour wine. Branches in the
spring wind, easy dance of
jasmine and cypress. Cloth
for green robes has been cut
from pure absence. You're
the tailor, settled among his
shop goods, quietly sewing.
--Rumi
We tried a journaling idea.
Since it's still January we took a minute to think about beginnings. When does something really begin? Can you tell when something really starts? Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. And yet, true thresholds seem to be crossed at times. To anchor the thought into our day to day, we spent a minute thinking about the start of our day. Is there a time or a place when we leave the misty fog of dreamtime behind and cross into the clarity of the daylight? What could be done at this threshold to say hello, to ourselves, to the day, to freshness and curiosity and wonder?
Love the line "seat yourself next to your joy." Thinking about how to do that and how it relates to my (new) work. Thank you for this lovely poem.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I went over this again and again to be sure I got it right, which I'm normally not inclined to do, but with words and writing I think it's one reason I've always copied things down...the translation actually reads "seat yourself next your joy" there is no "to" in there. It reads slightly differently then...I guess it could still be a typo in translating, but for a well known translator of poetry, i think this may have been a careful choice.
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