Transformative Fire, Leila Samrad

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.
~Rumi

Out of myself, but wanting to go beyond that
wanting what I see in your eyes,
not power, but to kiss the ground
with the dawn breeze for company,
wearing white pilgrim cloth.

I have a certain knowing.
Now I want sight.
~Rumi

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You left ground and sky weeping, mind and soul full of grief.

No one can take your place in existence, or in absence. Both mourn, the angels, the prophets, and this sadness I feel has taken from me the taste of language, so that I cannot say the flavor of my being apart.

The roof of the kingdom within has collapsed. When I say the word you, I mean a hundred universes.

Pouring grief water or secret dripping in the heart, eyes in the head, or eyes of the soul, I saw yesterday that all these flow out to find you when you're not here.

That bright firebird Saladin went like an arrow, and now the bow trembles and sobs.

If you know how to weep for human beings, weep for Saladin.
~Rumi

Whatever gives pleasure is the fragrance of the Friend.

Whatever makes us wonder comes from that light.

What is inside the ground begins to sprout because you spilled wine there.

What dies in autumn comes up in spring, because this way of saying no becomes in spring your praise-song, yes.
~Rumi

To those who will come after, I say,
Life is not for waiting.

Do not postpone.
Love is bringing everyone by the ear
to a place where reason cannot go,
where Muhammed's eyes close in sleep,
and the night grows quiet.

Truth does not sleep. Sunlight does not go away.
The stars are suns. Shams is everywhere.
~Rumi

Nothing is better than selling figs to the fig seller. That's how this is.

Making a profit is not why we're here, nor pleasure, nor even joy.

When someone is a goldsmith, wherever he goes he asks for the goldsmith.

Wheat stays wheat right through the threshing.

How would the soul feel in the beloved's river?

Like fish washed free and clean of fear.

You drive us away, but we return like pigeons.

Shahabuddin Osmond joins the circle. We will say this poem again so he can play.

There is no end to anything round.
~Rumi

In honor of the current Leo sun:

You that come to birth and bring the mysteries,
your voice-thunder makes us very happy.

Roar, lion of the heart,
and tear me open.
~Rumi

Love flows down. The ground
submits to the sky and suffers what comes.

Is the ground worse for giving in like that?
Do not put blankets over the drum.
Open completely.

Let your spirit ear listen
to the green dome's passionate murmur.

Let the cords of your robe be untied.
Shiver in this new love
beyond all above and below.

The sun rises,
but which way does the night go?

I have no more words.
Let the soul speak
with the silent articulation of a face.
~Rumi

I could not have known what love is
if I had never felt this longing.

Anything done to excess
becomes boring except this overflow
that moves toward you.
~Rumi

If we are not together in the heart, what's the point?

When body and soul are not dancing, there is no pleasure in colorful clothing.

Why have cooking pans if there is no food in the house?

In this world full of fresh bread, amber, and musk, what are they to someone with no sense of smell?

If you stay away from fire, you will remain sour, doughy, raw, and numb.

You may have lovely just-baked loaves all around you, but those friends cannot help. You have to feel the oven fire yourself.
~Rumi

I am standing naked in the marketplace but no one turns their head to look at me, for no one can see me as I am.

Still I offer my friendship to all, still to each wing and fin and cell - I will be forever in obeisance. Anyone who bows touches my feet: anyone who sings helps me in my work. All labor is because my sinew quivers.

I cover the divine flame in my heart, for if I turned God loose from my house the earth would reveal to your eyes what mine always see - existence is a lamp and Kabir, the oil it burns.

The king is in a mood to grant pardons to acts yet done. If you can understand that kind of power, that is dormant in you, you may be ready for a teacher like Kabir.

I am standing naked in the world forever in homage to all movement. I cherish every atom that He moves in this dance.
~Kabir