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 whoever comes,
because each has been sent 
as a guide from beyond.
                                                             Rumi

Today Like Every Other Day

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 to be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

                                                              Rumi

There is a Field

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
there is a field.
I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
                                                                                Rumi

I saw Grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out,
"It tastes sweet, doesn't it?"
"You have caught me," Grief amswered, "and you've ruined my business.
How can I sell sorrow, when you know its blessings?"
                                                                                   Rumi


"It is never too late to be what you  might have been"  George Elliot


Subtle degrees of domination and servitude,
are what you know as love

but love is different, it arrives complete
just there, like the moon in the window

desire only that of which you have no hope
seek only that of which you have no clue

love is the sea of not-being
and there intellect drowns

this is the shoreless sea;
here swimming ends always in drowning

a million galaxies
are a little scum
on that shoreless sea.                  
                                                                      Rumi


On Joy and Sorrow

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the  well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

                                                                                                    Khalil Gibran