Undressing
Learn the alchemy true human beings
know: the moment you accept what
troubles you've been given, the door
will open. Welcome difficulty
as a familiar comrade. Joke with
torment brought by the Friend.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
then are taken off. That undressing,
and the naked body beneath, is
the sweetness that comes after grief.
translated by Coleman Barks
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundred of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage thr...
