Friday, March 13, 2015

Let Yourself Be Silently Drawn By the Strange Pull.....

I'll never forget the first time I read the poems of the Sufi Mystic Jallaladin Rumi. 
Who can? I remember how thousands of infinite possibilities seemed to explode in my young brain--and heart, and soul--when I first read these words:

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray."
~ #Rumi, as translated by #ColemanBarks

How wondrous it is that words which were written in the 13th century are still being read and circulated today!  And how delightfully bizarre that these ancient words are now being TWEETED. I wonder sometimes if Rumi knew, at some level, that this would come to pass.  I, for one, am grateful that his pure light messages live on and continue to inspire so many. It really is proof that if you do what you love, and follow all those "strange pulls," your work will be infinite and lasting and true. 

I think of the young me: dog-earing pages of poetry; highlighting inspirational passages in novels and spiritual self-help texts; always, always always searching for greater truth and wisdom.  I think of those books, now lovingly organized and packed in neatly-labeled boxes in an ExtraSpace storage unit. It pains me sometimes, that my books do not get to breathe, or experience dust or sun, or the loving touch of human hands. But that's another topic.  
Right now I'm thinking --oddly--that all that dog-earing and highlighting was somehow laying the ground for a future of Pinterest pins and Tweets.  And I think, mostly, that I have to start relying on the ExtraSpace Storage Unit that is my brain.  All those quotes, all those poems, all that knowledge, everything I have ever read...this all must still be inside me somewhere. So even if my books aren't breathing, I must breathe for them, and for all the authors who have inspired me so.
 
Rumi would say not to worry. To call the knowledge forth. 

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
to regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
to enter this circle of lovers,
to see beyond seeing itself,
to reach and feel within the breast."


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