Nests In Your Palm

Nests In Your Palm

What makes the wings return in the spring,
I know all about.

And what makes them leave again
before the snow weighs down their 
need for flight? 
That feeling too I am familiar with.

Look at your own migration
from spirit to form and back,
so many times.

What is there to learn before you can 
retire and cease such an arduous journey?

Discovering that heaven nests in your palm. 


    "Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game. Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom. At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding." You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with eyes closed. Listen to the answer. There is no "other world." I only know what I've experienced." - Rumi

      What does "weaning yourself" mean? Is it to discover that heaven nests in your palm? Or to find whatever personal revelation is needed to drive you onward into the galaxy? When I shared this quote with my dad years ago, he said: "Rumi asks the question, 'What do you know?' I will ask another, 'What do you remenber?'"

      It's a great question, on this ardurous journey (life), with the need for flight (transformation), what will we remember? Probably the times when our spirit feels most alive, and closest to that heaven within us.

Hungry Eyes (1987), Eric Carmen 

My Teacher Once Told Me A Story

My Teacher Once Told Me A Story

My teacher once told me a story 
of a great Saint,
who wanted to travel the world 
and talk about some spiritual matters
to all those who would listen. 

And when he reached a certain point
in his journey, he said to some of his companions: 

"My only concern is that we get a few to listen
to my words which will plant seeds for generations.
So I want you to employ twelve of the most beautiful dancers
who can travel with us as we tour the land." 

So the dancers were employed 
and from that moment on, traveled city to city with the Saint.
The dancers would begin the show, and a great crowd would gather,
then the saint would speak for just a few minutes,
then let the performers resume their art. 

My own teacher then stopped the story,
looked at me in a very sweet way and said, 

"Hafiz, don't forget the dancers in your poems.
Don't forget the music." 


          Someone who didn't forget the mellifluous sounds of life was Alice Herz Sommer, who survived the Holocaust by playing in a "Jew Orchestra" for the Nazis. She played over a 100 concert inside the concentration camp and she likens that experience, both for the performers and their imprisoned audience as being close to the divine. Alice is unequivocal in stating that music preserved her sanity and her life: "Put good things in your head, fill it up, because no one can take that away from you. People think we played for entertainment, but we played for moral support, for inspiration, for beauty, because the moment the first note of music starts it goes straight to your soul."

          The documentary, The Lady In Number 6, about her life and the lives of other Holocaust musicians is currently up for an Oscar.

          You can view the preview for The Lady In Number 6 here:

In The Midnight Of Thy Tresses

In The Midnight Of Thy Tresses 

Who can conceive of judging a whole life,
or of granting all in it a pardon,

unless at midnight, 
you let us enter your tresses,
know your scent 
become as intimate with your light
as anyone ever has. 

All images are shadows you once cast
as your search for righteousness 
made others seem wrong

The shadows will gladly surrender 
their identity 
and reveal the potential within 

the way a piece of paper would 
if it ever made love to a great flame. 

        It is often difficult to make a decision without judgement. As soon as we eyeball someone, we're judging them. We're juding the way they dress, their weight, the way they talk, their past, their present, or anything that comes to the surface. And yet, it is with these same superficial "facts" we come to condemn them. It doesn't matter that the smell of chocolate chip cookies can bring her happiness at 9 AM, or that he wakes up early to make her coffee. It doesn't matter that he goes home each night to being a loving father, or that she works the nightshift to pay for a child of a man who is never there. It doesn't matter that she loves the color blue, and not just any blue, but the blue part of the rainbow when the sun is shining once more, or that he hums showtunes in the shower. Business exectuive, bum, burn-out, has-it-made, we categorize and in this way "contaminate" everyone before we really "meet" them (especially these days with social media).
        But do we really know anyone? I suspect only a precious few. Even then, it's our own version of them that survives and manifests itself every time we think of them, talk to them, or talk about them. And in this way, we select, eliminate, alter, exaggerate, minimize, glorify, and vilify them - and in the end, it creates its own reality.
       It's best to remember we all contain multitudes and that knowing a small facet of someone hardly constitutes as knowing them at all.

       “Who, what am I? My answer: I am everyone, everything whose being-in-the-world affected me and was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow the world.” ― Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

Crossroads (1999), Jim Brickman

"Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good -- be good for something." - Henry David Thoreau

Thousands Enter Your Court

Thousands Enter Your Court 

Most live in a constant state of comparison.

Thousands enter your court each day,

where you judge. 

How many things though get 

your personal attention 

to the extent you might speak to them

or place your hand against their body? 

Names and forms are drowning before me

dissolving in the Ocean of Light 

what should I do,

when a door is now open? 

       Very few people get your complete attention and personal affection. Time is the most precious gift you give someone. Virtually everything, within reason, is unlimited. The materialistic things certainly are, and more money can be come by if one works harder or longer, and Love knows no time to begin with. When people say time is precious, the distinct realization is that we associate gem-quality with finiteness. 

       A few year ago I started loving the witty one-liners by Jarod Kintz and was equally excited when he tweeted me back. In his book I Should Have Renamed This he writes: “If you only had 48 hours left to live, would you spend it like you normally spend your weekends? If not, why spend 2/7th of your life wasting your free time? After all, free time isn’t free. Free time is the most expensive time you have, because nobody pays for it but you. But that also makes it the most valuable time you have, as you alone stand to reap the profits from spending it wisely.” 

       That's so true and I've begun to think of love like that as well. Love means you want to spend all your free time with that person...that it isn't a chore, but a comfort. That you find yourself more awakened and alive in their presence than you are in their absence. The time that is yours is willingly given to them because with their love, your life is enriched. If you live to be 80 years old, you’ll have lived about 700,000 hours. That’s it. Isn't that shocking?! Mind-blowing almost. I'm sure my guess would have been millions of hours for the average human lifespan. But it isn't, we're only granted so much time - and usually not enough at that. 

         Kahlil Gibran said: "Do not seek your friend in your hours to spare, seek him in your hours to live." 

A Thousand Years, The Piano Guys

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. - Gibran 

The Root of The Rose

The Root of The Rose 

In this cup I am drinking from, 
I can see the face behind every face

In a well, I see where creation 
was once drawn with a stick

A galaxy can appear in the reflection 
of a small pool. 

Within an arm's reach is all I desire,
so I am never in want. 

The root of the rose I have become,
from loving the way I did. 

         
     "Love is not the last room: there are others after it, it is the whole length of the corridor that has no end." Those are the words of Yehuda Amichai, whom Israel often considers to be their most accomplished poet. His remaining papers are held in The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, remembered with the words: "Amichai had a rare ability for transforming the personal, even private, love situation, with all its joys and agonies, into everybody's experience."
     Hafiz has penned quite the ethereal experience resulting from "loving the way I did", but in some sense it is a realistic truth. True love allows you to envision how your life would be, you're gifted glimpses of the miraculous and the incredible in front of you, the stars do seem brighter, the chocolate much richer. And within an arm's reach is all you desire.

What was whispered to the rose


To break it open


Last night


Was whispered to my heart.
 – Rumi

           What are those words? More than "you're beautiful", though that may be fine to say to a rose. It's a fine place to start in love as well, but then it evolves, to you're need, you're inspiring, you enrich my life, you make it more fulfilling, more livable, more fun.
           When I went off to college my dad started signing a lot of his emails, "Love til' the flame turns blue" because it takes eons and eons, millions and millions of years, for a star to change from red to blue (and many times, it never happens). It's a poetic way to say I'll love you forever. It probably stemmed from the David Gray album we enjoyed together on a long drive and my love for astronomy.  I'll always remember this line and cannot wait to use it with my own children one day. Love should show you galaxies and the galactic quality of your own soul.
 

Flame Turns Blue, David Gray 

Beautiful Hands

Beautiful Hands 

This is the kind of friend you are: 

Without making me realize 
my soul's anguish 

you slip into my house at night
and, while I am sleeping 

you silently carry off 
all my suffering 
in your beautiful hands. 

        I think it is easy to associate a lover with the comfort you feel in a loving touch, the safety you feel in a warm embrace, the reassurance you feel in a long hug. Sometimes, we forget to honor that friends touch and embrace us too, though it may not be physical. A true friend will carry off your anguish, even if all that means is they sat close and listened. 
        I found a touching account of love in friendship. It is the dedication in East of Eden from John Steinbeck to his friend Pascal “Pat” Covici. At one point, Pat asked Steinbeck to make him a box; Steinbeck joked that the only specification was that Pat shouldn’t be able to fit inside it. 

To Pat - You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, ‘Why don’t you make something for me?’ 
I asked you what you wanted, and you said, ‘A box.’ ‘What for?’ ‘To put things in.’ ‘What kind of things?’ ‘Whatever you have,’ you said.
 Well, here’s your box. Nearly everything I have is in it. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad. Evil thoughts and good thoughts – the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.
 And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.
 And still the box is not full.

        Here's a nice Chinese Proverb: "To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon." I like the concluding line "on the wings of a dragon", and what an honor that would be.

Selected Lyrics from For Good, Wicked 

I've heard it said,

That people come into our lives

For a reason

Bringing something we must learn.

And we are lead to those

Who help us most to grow if we let them.

And we help them in return.

Well, I don't know if I believe that's true

But I know I'm who I am today

Because I knew you.

It well may be

That we will never meet again

In this lifetime.

So, let me say before we part:

So much of me

Is made of what I learned from you.

You'll be with me

Like a handprint on my heart.

And now whatever way our stories end

I know you'll have rewritten mine

By being my friend.

         
           A true friend will rewrite your story, just by being there to share in the joys, sadness, and randomness that life encompasses.

For Good, Wicked

Original Broadway Cast 

More Awake In Dreams

More Awake In Dreams

Many are more awake, 
with greater abilities in dreams,
than in the daylight,

I walked through a world last night 
of such exquisite intricacies 
in my sleep, some might say.

But no, it was not really like that. 
It was surely as real 
as any place you ever visited. 

Whatever the hand can shape 
 - and make last - 
the mind can do a millionfold. 

         A few years ago, my dad taught me the word koan, which I had forgotten until now. A koan is a story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition. One famous koan is, "Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?" (an oral tradition attributed to Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769). The term koan refers to any experience that accompanies awakening, spiritual insight, or kensho (to "see the essence" or to comprehend).
         “It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” - Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist 

I Dreamed A Dream, Les Miserables 

Jun Sung Ahn, Violin