Today is “Rumi Day” on the calendar for #CelebrateEveryDay, a day that commemorates the life and writings of the poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, or simply Rumi.
I’m going to be honest, if you don’t know anything about the man, then you are only slightly behind me. I’ve been somewhat familiar, but not sure enough to tackle telling you about his life. If you’d like to read more, let me suggest Wikipedia – Rumi as an obvious place to get started. If you’d like to read about some of the more complicated issues surrounding the man, try The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi, or perhaps Why is Rumi the best-selling poet in the US?.
Everything considered, that’s good press for a 13th-century Muslim mystic and poet, don’t ya think?
Rumi and the Monster
I think my first exposure to Rumi was from Colin Fletcher – the man some say was the father of modern backpacking in the United States. At the back of the The New Complete Walker there was a collection of quotes Colin had put together about hiking and walking, things that he found satisfying or insightful. Several quotes by Rumi were found in Colin’s collection.
I used to collect quotes from my readings, as we read a lot of classics at my college preparatory school, and when I wasn’t in college I used to give myself “assignments”. I read “classics” we hadn’t covered in our classes.
For instance, we had a teacher who loved Les Misérables, I know we read the book for class, sometime in my freshman, sophomore, or junior year. In my freetime, a year or two after I graduated, I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame. For school we read Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Because I liked the whole Arthurian legend things, I read Le Morte d’Arthur and The Once and Future King on my own. I think you get the idea.
I’ll be quite frank, I know Rumi from his quotes, many of which are beautiful and/or quite moving. Let us move on to some quotations…
Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.
I like this one, I’ve often wished to be notorious. The closest I’ll ever come to it is the time I was working for the State Reptilian’s office, And, as I’ve said before – “Never Convicted, Never Even been Indicted.”
What you seek is seeking you.
I think in today’s age, we’d call this the “law of attraction”…
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
A slightly different angle on the same concept.
Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.
To me, this is a reminder to seek the beauty in ordinary things. Girl and I fell far short of our original destination on our recent vacation, but we found a beautiful gem of a park that no one goes to because it’s just a county park no one seems to know about.
We could have looked around, seen a little trash in the campground, or complained about the traffic noise during the day, or complained about the small size of the park itself. Instead, in our mirth at celebrating our first anniversary together, we saw none of that. We found the garden, so to speak, a charming little campground with marvelous hosts, and discovered a very special little place I’ll be writing about soon.
There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again.
I’ve heard it said that you can “Never go home again,” but I believe the two quotes are talking about different things, despite both being about going home. To me this means – you can always go home, but you can never go back.
The garden of love is green without limit and yields many fruits other than sorrow or joy. Love is beyond either condition: without spring, without autumn, it is always fresh.
I feel this quote deeply within, yet I also have 3 ex-wives. I have tasted both the sorrows and the joys, but the love I feel for others (and still even for past wives…) is always new, it is always fresh. Love itself remains forever untarnished, even if the relationship has rusted away
You’ve been walking the ocean’s edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry. You must dive naked under, and deeper under, a thousand times deeper!
Embrace life, and embrace it’s posabilities…
It’s your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.
This is a good one to remember, and so very much true in my experience.
It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I’ve gone and come back, I’ll find it at home.
There’s no place like home, but sometimes you have to leave to find it!
Although the road is never ending take a step and keep walking, do not look fearfully into the distance… On this path let the heart be your guide for the body is hesitant and full of fear.
Take a step and keep walking? Just do it!
You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?
This is the question I’d like most politicians to answer!
