Set your life on fire.
Seek those who fan your flames.
Who gets up early to discover the moment the light begins?
What was whispered to the rose to break it open
last night was whispered to my heart.
You've gotten drunk on so many kinds of wine.
Taste this. It won't make you wild.
It's fire.
Give up, if you don't understand by this time that
your living is firewood.
Set your life on fire.
Seek those who fan your flames.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
To change, a person must face the dragon of his
appetites with another dragon, the life-energy of
the soul.
What is the body?
That shadow of a shadow of your love, that
somehow contains the entire universe.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some
momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and attend them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently
sweep your house empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet
them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets
that serve to cover, and then are taken off.
That undressing, and the beautiful naked body
underneath, is the sweetness that comes after grief.
You haven't dared yet lose faith - so how can
faith grow in you?
Gamble everything for love, if you're a true human being.
If these poems repeat themselves, then so does Spring.
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
With thanks to Love Is A Place
Photo: Peter Bowers