Embracing Our Wild and Precious Lives

In her book Spring, Mary Oliver says:

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring.

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her –
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

     In one of her many portrayals of the power, beauty, and teaching offered by the natural world, Mary Oliver invites is to consider  learning to love and fully embrace this world. I am struck by the parallel to Rumi’s remindiers that we are “inside the majesty….
where “….everything is music.”

Elsewhere, Rumi says:

One day I went to a place beyond dawn

a source of sweetness that flows

and is never less.

I have been shown a beauty that is

beyond imagining….

     May we all cherish this and every precious day we are given. Blessings to our poets, musicians and artists for illuminating the path.

     Please visit me at www.coupleswisdom.com.

     Blessings to all.

Welcome all that comes!

In my book, The Rumi Secret, I begin with the following poem as translated by Coleman Barks.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house
every day a new arrival.

A joy, a depression a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain 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.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

In the United States, this is Rumi’s most famous poem. Its wisdom is timeless, and it presents a lifelong challenge for us all. Embrace it all, he says–our tragedies, the recurring problems, the failures. Along with these, we can all discover our capacity for joy,  for ecstasy and for peace.

There are no requirements for joy. As Mother Teresa said of love, it is “a fruit in season at all times. Anyone can gather it, and no limit is set….”

By grace, joy is given to us, and it can come under the most unexpected circumstances. May we all take Rumi’s words to heart on this precious day. As Mary Oliver says, while we may not “know exactly how to pray,” we can become skilled at paying attention.

Blessings to you, dear visitor. Please join my email list at drlee@coupleswisdom.com. May you be blessed with new acceptance today.

Feast On Your Life

Derek Walcott says:

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott’s wise words remind me of Byron Katie’s wisdom when she says  that if she still believed her thoughts, she’d pray to be spared a hunger for love. Why? Katie says it’s because a preoccupation with longing for what we think we don’t have prevents us from experiencing and cherishing what we do have.

When Rumi says that “….everything is soul and flowering,” I think he’s offering us the same lesson. Love and grace are all around us, always available in some way. If we are fortunate enough to have children or animals, unconditional love may be as near as the moment when we open our hearts to receive or give it. The wise ones teach us that receiving and giving love are two sides of the same coin; the hunger for the receiving can be fulfilled by the giving.

These lessons are so valuable for couples to explore together. Please visit www.coupleswisdom.com to learn about many opportunities to grow your relationship.

Blessings to you dear visitor!

 

The Ways of Love May Be Hard and Steep

Gibran says:

When love beckons to you,  follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep….
.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

I first read these words many years ago. They touch me still, but the interpretation I give them now has deepened.

In a most fortunate meeting with a wise person I know, I was reminded yesterday that love’s deeper task is finding the Beloved of the Soul. There is a better choice than the endless search for the perfect partner who inevitably disappoints since there’s no perfection in this life. The wise ones point us toward an ever more profound embrace of life and of what is right now.

Rumi loved all of it–the worship, the failure, the music, the poetry, the silence. When “everything is soul and flowering,” there is no circumstance or loss or confusion we cannot welcome as an unexpected visitor with lessons to teach us.

May you be blessed with the grace to see things this way today, dear visitor. For help with relationships and sexuality, please visit me at www.coupleswisdom.com.

Blessings!

I Am the Captain of My Soul

Today we return to Nelson Mandela’s favorite poem. It offers comfort, no matter what circumstances we may face. It speaks to those who want to learn to trust themselves more deeply.

                                 Out of the night that covers me,
                                 black as the pit from pole to pole,
                                 I thank whatever God there be
                                 for my unconquerable soul….

                                 In the fell clutch of circumstance,
                                 I have not winced, nor cried aloud.
                                 Under the bludgeonings of chance,
                                 my head is bloody, but unbowed.

                                Beyond this place or wrath and tears
                                looms but the horror of the shade;
                                and yet the menace of the years,
                                finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
                                how charged with punishments the scroll;
                                I am the master of my fate,
                                I am the captain of my soul.

–William Ernest Henry

Spiritual masters like Rumi point toward infinite sources of strength and even ecstasy. Learning that there is a Source of everything we need which is always accessible is one of the great lessons taught by every spiritual master. Rumi says:

Lo, I am with you always.

                                 You promised that, and when I realized it was true

                                 my soul flared up. Any unhappiness comes from forgetting.

                                 Remember, and be back with the Friend.

Dear visitor, please consider reading Rumi for a hundred consecutive days. Get a Coleman Barks translation of Rumi and sweeten your days with it. The Soul of Rumi and The Essential Rumi are my favorites, though any of Coleman’s 15 or more books contain Rumi’s jewels. You can also use my book, The Rumi Secret, available on Amazon or here. It combines many Rumi poems with applications of Rumi’s thought to issues of love, sex, joy and grief and more.

If you are lonely, depressed, confused, or in pain for any reason, a sustained encounter with Rumi can provide powerful help. Rumi’s profound  can transform your life. I don’t know just why or how this can be so, but I know that it is. If you are joyful and full of gratitude, Rumi will help you to articulate  and deepen those states. In other words, Rumi is for everyone.

Blessings to you dear visitor. Please post your comments here or visit me at www.coupleswisdom.com.

Amazing Grace

Gibran says:

When love beckons to you,  follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep….
.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

I first read these words many years ago. They touch me still, but the interpretation I give them now has deepened.

In a most fortunate meeting with a wise person I know, I was reminded  that love’s deeper task is finding the Beloved of the Soul. Instead of the endless, futile search for perfection in a partner, we must look deeper. A workshop I did years ago with Stanislov Grof was called The Mystical Quest. Such lasting grace came to me from that event! I learned that I have an infinite Source of joy inside me. I can access it in a second at any time, regardless of circumstances.

Rumi says:

Lo I am with you always.
You promised that, and when i realized it was true
my soul flared up.

Any unhappiness comes from forgetting.

Remember, and be back with the Friend.

The wise ones of every path agree: infinite peace and joy cannot result from anything we may achieve, buy or be given. Through grace, that joy is available to all of us through inner discovery. “An intense inner life,” as Mother Teresa put it, is the path.

“Ask and you shall receive,” but we must ask.

A thousand thanks to Stan Grof who is celebrating his 80 birthday now, and whose work has clarified the journey for so many.

Blessings to you, dear visitor.

Please see the Poetry and Inspiration page at www.coupleswisdom.com for some of Rumi’s other gifts to us all.

Missing Mom

Adyshanti says:

All you lovers of truth

and all you true lovers

now is the time to be done with it.

Wash your battle-scarred hands

in this presence among us….

Since a recent Mother’s Day, I’m so aware of missing my mom. She’s buried near my father–seven years now.  Until you experience it, it’s impossible to know what it’s like to live in a world that’s been left by the most crucial person of your childhood, and the one you’ve known the longest.

Having a mother to love and hate is so fundamental. Who else can bear the brunt of our mighty expectations and our overwhelming desire to blame someone for the ways that life disappoints us? If only my mother had encouraged me to go to Columbia when I had the chance. If only she had started me on violin and ballet lessons when I was five. If only she hadn’t been so determined to dominate me, I wouldn’t have had to become a lifelong rebel, still spending energy fighting petty authority grabbers wherever I find them. If only she had been a sophisticated Jew or a least an Episcopalian, not the devout fundamentalist she was. If only she had modeled choosing love well at the start, instead of settling.

On the other hand, if only she hadn’t died and left me! If only she was alive and reachable by phone today. If only we could talk about my kids one more time, and I could feel the power of the love she felt for them.

Instead of “if only” I choose appreciation now, at last. I had a mom who knew who she was, and who was nothing if not consistent. She provided good old-fashioned meals 3 times a day on schedule. She presided over a clean house, and laid out clean, freshly ironed clothes every morning for both me and my dad. She modeled devotion to the only faith she knew. Most profoundly, she did her best to pass on the spiritual wisdom she had. It took me decades to understand that her deepest message was that the spiritual part of life is the most important.

Rumi says:

If you think your [mother] is guilty
of an injustice, her face looks cruel…

When you make peace with your mother, she will look peaceful…

The whole world is a form for truth.

When someone does not feel grateful for that,
the forms appear to be as he feels…
they mirror his anger, his greed, his fear.

Make peace with the universe.
Take joy in it. It will turn to  gold.
Every moment a new beauty….

Forgiveness of parents is a primary sign of psychological maturity. I wish you that, dear visitor.

Please visit www.coupleswisdom.com for free offers and possibilities. Check out the Poetry and Inspiration page. You’ll find some of my recitations of Rumi there, along with the superb playing of master violinist Donna Lerew.

Blessings!

Risking Delight

Jack Gilbert says:
A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.

 We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Jack Gilbert reminds us to “risk delight.” This is possible and desirable no matter what our circumstances, but it’s especially incumbent on those of us who live privileged lives. Why am I privileged to live in safety and comfort while fellow humans on my TV screen suffer all manner of misery?

I don’t know. I cannot know. I bless them all–those who languish in far off prisons, those who don’t know how to feed their children today, those who don’t know if they will live to see tomorrow.

What I can do today is to look deeply into the eyes of every human and animal I see today. I can recognize their preciousness and acknowledge it. I can smile. I can reach out. I can thank those who are priceless in my life. I can inquire about struggles, and express support.

I can–and will–let the budding roses and white calla lilies blazing in my California back yard break my heart with their beauty.

Blessings to you, dear visitor. Please also visit me at www.coupleswisdom.com for free offers and to find our about how I’m trying to do good in this world.

Rumi says: Everything is soul and flowering!

Do You Love This World?

Mary Oliver says:
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready

to break my heart as the sun rises,

as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and they open —

pools of lace,
 white and pink —

and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes 
into the curls,

craving the sweet sap

taking it away

to their dark, underground cities —

and all day

under the shifty wind,

as in a dance to the great wedding,
the flowers bend their bright bodies,

and tip their fragrance to the air

and rise,

their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness

gladly and lightly,

and there it is again —

beauty the brave, the exemplary,
blazing open.

Do you love this world?

Do you cherish your humble and silky life?

Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?
Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,

and softly,

and exclaiming of their dearness,

fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,
with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,

their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are

nothing,  forever?

======================

Once again, Mary Oliver invites us to love our lives with the passion inspired by the exemplary beauty of peonies, of roses, of  the while calla lillies that dance in profusion in my backyard this April morning. In this, she joins Rumi and all other wise ones; Rumi says:

One morning, I went to a place beyond dawn,

a source of sweetness that flows and never stops.

I have been shown a beauty which is beyond imagining!

Love it all, says Rumi, because ….everything is soul and flowering. Every thing is soul and flowering! When I remember this wisdom, my heart fills with joy that is independent of the changing events in my daily life.

On this day, I will love April and calla lilies, and  the opportunity to write, and to learn more music. I will treasure those who may ask for my help, and I will walk outdoors while the sun sets. I will remember Alice Walker’s character in The Color Purple who says the only thing that angers God is if we “pass the color purple in a field, and don’t notice.”

In another poem, Mary Oliver says:

.…I know how to walk through the fields all day, feeling blessed,

which is exactly what I have been doing.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die and too soon?

Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?

Ah, the great question. May we all answer it well today.

May you find comfort and moments of beauty in this precious day, dear visitor. As usual, I ask your help in contacting veterans anywhere who may need my counseling services, and I invite other therapists to provide sliding scale skilled help to those who have served us Iraq and Afghanistan.

Please visit me at www.coupleswisdom.com. Your feedback on how that site can serve you better would be most appreciated. Contact me at drlee@coupleswisdom.com.

The Journey of Courage

In Dream Works, Mary Oliver says:
The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

In this stunning poem Mary Oliver articulates the painful choices authentic living makes inevitable. 

Rumi puts it differently:

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

Why indeed? Why do we cling to our chains? We hold desperately to our addictions, convincing ourselves on a thousand days that giving them up would be an unbearable loss. We don’t deserve freedom, and probably couldn’t handle it, says the inner Voice of false fear.

We stay in relationships that are wrong for us because our profound suspicion that we are unlovable makes us believe that an incompatible bird in the hand is better than no bird at all. The Voice repeats the refrain: Who would love us, given our weight, age, wrinkles, receding hairline, small bank account or character defects? How could someone whose main assets are a good heart, a sense of humor, a love of touch and willingness to keep on loving find anyone who wanted that?

We stay in jobs that don’t begin to make use of our gifts, and justify this choice as some kind of hero’s journey. Who are we to have financial solvency or even abundance and daily joy as well? If we have one, surely we don’t deserve the other too.

The bad advice of other voices around us can be frightening. The child who lets us know that a break-up would cause pain can so easily be one of the voices clamoring to give us the advice that keeps us stuck. Is modeling a life of unhappiness really a gift to the child?

Distinguishing between the times when we’re wrongly stuck and when we’re appropriately committed to doing whatever it takes is the great dilemma. The poet tells us “it’s already late enough,” and she seems to suggest that we’ll know when and what we have to do.

May it be so.

Blessings to you dear reader. Please visit me at www.coupleswisdom.com for free reports and videos as well as life-enhancing products. Visit the Poetry and Inspiration page to see videos of Rumi recitations accompanied by beautiful violin music. Visit the Advice Blog there to get free professional advice.  Please write me at drlee@coupleswisdom.com.