RUMI THOUGHTS

Whenever life shows up as contentious, uncertain, 

and I find myself impatient to make some immediate change, 
I know I need to look to the ancients for the long view.
 
Who better than Rumi to have something to say about that:
 
MY CURE
 
My heart wandered through the world
constantly seeking after my cure,
but the sweet and delicious water of life
had to break through the granite of my heart.”
 
and more:
 
WHAT THE HEART WANTS
 
If you feel distress within yourself
while your eyes are unclosed,
know that you have shut the eye of your heart.
So open it.  Recognize the craving of the eye of your heart,
seeking the immeasurable Light.”
 
……from the RUMI DAYBOOK, 
selected and translated by Kabir and Camille Helminski
 
There is a way there, and it ends up being here.
 
always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette
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UNRAVELING

In Astrology, when a planet goes ‘retrograde’ there is a time of possible
unraveling.  A time of looking again at our actions, our purposes, and
seeing a possibility there that was an underlying current, hitherto unseen.

I could say it’s like unraveling a sweater I have knitted,  that suddenly seems
to have lost its shape.  The material, the yarn perhaps, is still good, just a
little out of place at this moment.

Because I am in the process of looking for an essential way to create
a soulful arrangement of the furniture and things in my apartment,
I’m looking for a poem to align with that purpose.
I have chosen one for today:

AS IF

In the still room where you are waiting,
the vase of wildflowers, day lilies, verbena —

and flowers you can’t recognize —
will draw you to it.  It is so perfectly quiet

you can hear the spaces between flower and leaf.
When Queen Anne’s lace brushes the tabletop

you will hear it.  If you lean over the bouquet
you will find a meadow with so many pathless

sounds you will call it the sigh of summer.  But listen,
listen again to the footsteps of the meadow walker,

the woman who always comes to gather the flowers,
who returns to the still room where you are waiting.”

……………….ANNETTE BASALYGA,
in her book, LIFER, published in 2012

Unraveling takes a great deal of waiting.  Just noting that.

always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette
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CONSCIOUS LISTENING

Lately I have not wanted to talk to anyone for a “breakfast meeting”. I haven’t yet formed my plan for
the day, no matter how I’ve prepped the day before.
I need to walk around here until I pull all the parts of me together and am finally tuned in.

Other times, younger years, I’ve had a schedule to fit in to the business I was in. So, to get ahead of
even that, I used to be in my studio by 7:30 am. (only 10 minutes from where I lived). That gave me
a couple of hours before I had to be available for using my developed gifts.

Now in my 90’s, I have yet to find those developed gifts that can only now show up.
How about that!

Conscious Listening
“I am always tuning my orchestra. Somewhere deep inside there is a sound that is mine alone, and I struggle daily to hear it and tune my life to it.

Sometimes there are people and situations that help me to hear my note more clearly; other times, people and situations make it harder for me to hear.

A lot depends on my commitment to listening and my intention to stay coherent with this note.

It is only when my life is tuned to my note that I can play life’s mysterious and holy music without tainting it with my own discordance, bitterness, resentment, agendas and fears.”

Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging

Sent to me from my writer friend, Susan Heller, multi-faceted producer.

Thanks, Suze.
always with love,
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

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