Danyel's Favorite Poetry

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning 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 are 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 whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi
- Translated by Coleman Barks

Say Yes Quickly

Forget your life.
Say God is Great. Get up.
You think you know what time it is.
It's time to pray.
You've carved so many little figurines, too many.
Don't knock on any random door like a beggar.
Reach your long hand out to another door,
beyond where you go on the street,
the street where everyone says,
"How are you?"
and no one says
How aren't you?

Tomorrow you'll see what you've broken and torn tonight,
thrashing in the dark.
Inside you there's an artist you don't know about.
He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you're causing terrible damage.
If you've opened your loving to God's love,
you're helping people you don't know and have never seen.

Is what I say true?
Say yes quickly, if you know,
if you've known it from before the beginning of the universe.

- Rumi
- Translated by Coleman Barks

These Spiritual Windowshoppers

These
spiritual windowshoppers,
who idly ask, How much is that?
Oh, I'm just looking.

They handle a hundred items
and put them down
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love
and two eyes wet
with weeping. But these walk
into a shop, and their whole lives
pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing
much."

Even if you don't know
what you want, buy something,
to be part
of the general exchange.

Start a huge, foolish, project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no
difference what people
think of you.

- Rumi
- translated by Coleman Barks

Who is it we spend our whole life loving

I know the sound of the ecstatic flute,
but I don't know whose flute it is.

A lamp burns and has neither wick nor oil

A lily pad blossoms and is not attached to the bottom!

When one flower opens, ordinarily dozens open.

The moon bird's head is filled with nothing but thoughts of the moon,
and when the next rain will come is all that the rain bird thinks of.

Who is it we spend our whole life loving?

- Kabir
- translated by Robert Bly
- from The Kabir Book

Yesterday at dawn...

Yesterday at dawn, my Friend said, How long
will this unconsciousness go on?

You fill yourself with the sharp pain of Love,
rather than its fulfillment.

I said, "But I can't get to You!
You are the whole dark night,
and I am a single candle.

My life is upsidedown
because of You!"

The Friend replied, I am your deepest being.
Quit talking about wanting Me!

I said, "Then what is this
restlessness?"

The Friend, Does a drop
stay still in the Ocean?

Move with Entirety
and with the tiniest particular.

Be the moisture in an oyster
that helps to form one pearl.

- Rumi
- translated by Coleman Barks
- from Like This

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals or
have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be
careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you're telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful
and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty
even when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your life from G-o-d's presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of a lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and
despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs
to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are, or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls
away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

I do not know who lives...

I do not know who
lives here in my chest.

Or why the smile comes.

Am not myself, more the bare
green knob of a rose that
lost every leaf and petal to
the morning wind.

-- Rumi
-- translated by Coleman Barks, The Illuminated Rumi

A Creed to Live By

Do not undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others.
It is because we are different that each of us is special.

Do not set your goals by what other people deem important.
Only you know what is best for you.

Do not take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, for without them life is meaningless.

Do not let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past nor for the future.

By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.

Do not give up when you still have something to give.
Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

It is a fragile thread that binds us to each other.

Do not be afraid to encounter risks.
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Do not shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible to find.
The quickest way to receive love is to give love;
The fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly;
In addition, the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Do not dismiss your dreams.
To be without dreams is to be without hope;
To be without hope is to be without purpose.

Do not run through life so fast that you forget not only where you have been, but also where you are going.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.

Until One is Committed

Until one is committed, there is hesitance,
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness concerning
all acts of initiative (and creation).
There is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills
countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself
then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never have otherwise occurred.
A whole stream of events issue from the decision,
rousing in one's favor
all matter of unforeseen incidents,
meetings and material assistance,
which no man would have dreamed
could have come his way.
Whatever you can do or dream,
you can begin it. Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it. Begin now.

- Goethe

Ashes

We rise again from ashes, from the good we've failed to do
We rise again from ashes, to create ourselves anew
If all the world is ashes, then must our lives be true
An offering of ashes, an offering to you

We offer you our failures, we offer you attempts
The gifts not fully given, the dreams not fully dreamt
Give our stumblings direction, give our visions wider view
An offering of ashes, an offering to you

Then rise again from ashes, let healing come to pain
Though spring has turned to winter and sunshine turned to rain
The rain we'll use for growing and create the world anew
From an offering of ashes, an offering to you

Thanks be to the Father, who made us like himself
Thanks be to His Son, who saved us by his death
Thanks be to the Spirit, who creates the world anew
From an offering of ashes, an offering to you

The clear bead at the center

The clear bead at the center changes everything.
There are no edges to my loving now.

You've heard it said there's a window that opens
from one mind to another,

but if there's no wall, there's no need
for fitting the window, or the latch.

-- Rumi
-- translated by Coleman Barks, The Illuminated Rumi

I stand up, and this one of me...

I stand up, and this one of me
turns into a hundred of me.
They say I circle around you.
Nonsense, I circle around me.

-- Rumi
-- translated by Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi