So here is to Monday, and all that it entails…
On The Menu:
Vas – The Promise
Tales from Idries Shah: When the Waters Were Changed
Poetry:Sweet Rumi For A Monday Afternoon…
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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Vas – The Promise
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Tales from Idries Shah: When the Waters Were Changed
Once upon a time Khidr, the teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.
Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.
On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.
When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.
At first, he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.
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Poetry:Sweet Rumi For A Monday Afternoon…
A Smile and A Gentleness
There is a smile and a gentleness
inside. When I learned the name
and address of that, I went to where
you sell perfume. I begged you not
to trouble me so with longing. Come
out and play! Flirt more naturally.
Teach me how to kiss. On the ground
a spread blanket, flame that’s caught
and burning well, cumin seeds browning,
I am inside all of this with my soul.
-Translator: Coleman Barks
—
The Freshness
When it’s cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.
And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.
The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.
I can’t explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,
and I am nowhere again.
Inside the majesty.
-Translator: Coleman Barks
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Some Kiss We Want
There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of
spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At
night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language- door and
open the love window. The moon
won’t use the door, only the window.
-Translator: Coleman Barks
—
When you find yourself with the Beloved, embracing for
one breath,
In that moment you will find your true destiny.
Alas, don’t spoil this precious moment
Moments like this are very, very rare.
-Translator: Shahram Shiva
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Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky
And you lift me up out of the two worlds.
I want your sun to reach my raindrops,
So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.
-Translator: Shahram Shiva
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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 all they know. It’s a fortunate
bird who’s not intrigued with evening,
who flies in the sun we call Shams.
—
For awhile we lived with people,
but we saw no sign in them of the
faithfulness we wanted.
It’s better to hide completely within
as water hides in metal, as fire hides in rock.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.