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A Garden Beyond Paradise, by Rumi

7/1/2013

 
Picture
A Garden Beyond Paradise

by Rumi

Everything you see has its roots
    in the unseen world.
The forms may change,
    yet the essence remains the same.

Every wondrous sight will vanish,
every sweet word will fade.
    But do not be disheartened,
The Source they come from is eternal--
growing, branching out,
    giving new life and new joy.

Why do you weep?--
That Source is within you,
and this whole world
    is springing up from it.

The Source is full,
its waters are ever-flowing;
    Do not grieve,
    drink your fill!
Don't think it will ever run dry--
This is the endless Ocean!

From the moment you came into this world,
a ladder was placed in front of you
    that you might transcend it.

From earth, you became plant,
from plant you became animal.
Afterwards you became a human being,
endowed with knowledge, intellect and faith.

Behold the body, born of dust--
    how perfect it has become!

Why should you fear its end?
When were you ever made less by dying?

When you pass beyond this human form,
no doubt you will become an angel
and soar through the heavens!

But don't stop there.
Even heavenly bodies grow old.

Pass again from the heavenly realm
    and plunge into the ocean of Consciousness.
Let the drop of water that is you
    become a hundred mighty seas.

But do not think that the drop alone
becomes the Ocean--
    the Ocean, too, becomes the drop!


Keep Walking, by Rumi

7/29/2011

 
Picture
Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. 
Don’t try to see through the distances. 
That’s not for human beings. 
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty & 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 hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Rumi


    Contents

    Love after Love, by Derek Walcott
    Elizabeth Barrett Browning
    Credentials, by Daniel Berrigan
    Morning Poem, by Mary Oliver
    A Secret Life, by Stephen
        Dunn
    Tread in Solitude, by V.
        Schoffel

    Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann
    Beannacht
    , by John
        O'Donohue

    The house was quiet and the world was calm, by Wallace
        Stevens
    A Garden Beyond Paradise, by
        Rumi
    We remember them, from a
        Jewish Book of Prayer

    The Summer Day, by Mary
        Oliver

    An African Elegy, by Ben Okri
    Variation on a Theme by Rilke,
        by Denise Levertov
    Love of the World, Charlotte
        Tall Mountain

    The Poet's Obligation, Pablo
        Neruda
    All True Vows, David Whyte
    Sea Fever, John Masefield
    The Shortest Day, Jan Sutch
        Pickard

    Song for the Open Road,  Walt
        Whitman
    Keep Walking, Rumi
    Fog in the Valley, Paul Zimmer
    Bandito, Eleanor Lerman
    The Peace of Wild Things,
       Wendell Berry
    But the silence in the mind
, 
        R.S. Thomas
    I Wandered Lonely as a
      Cloud, William Wordsworth
    A Cloth of Fine Gold,
        Dorothy Walters
    Weather, Fleur Adcock
    The Blind Old Man, Robert
           Bly
    The Three Goals, David
           Budbill
    All Roads Lead to Me, 
           Anonymous
    With that Moon Language,
         Hafiz
    The River and Its Waves are
         One Surf, Kabir
    What to Remember When
          Waking, David Whyte
    Love after Love, Derek
       Wolcott
    Last Night As I Was  
        Sleeping, Antonio
        Machado (version by
         Robert Bly
    where we are, Gerald
        Locklin
    Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
    Why I Wake Early, Mary
        Oliver
    I heard a bird sing, Oliver    
         Hereford
    I have a house where I go, 
         A.A. Milne
    Going to Walden, Mary
         Oliver

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