Red Cedar

In all the academic writing, the poetry analysis, the travel updates I haven’t done a personal update in quite awhile. It’s not that I have nothing going on (obviously!) but some of what’s been going on has been personal and also – all my writing brainspace is being taken up with the journaling for class which I’ve been sharing with you here.

But I’m in a really positive headspace this morning so now seems like as good a time for an update as any. In bullet-form, what is me right now?

• Since my grad studies started in September, I really do feel like reading and writing is all I have been doing. And it’s glorious people! Not because I love everything I’m reading – but definitely it’s true that the works I am reading are sparking all sorts of creative ideas in terms of both writing and textile arts. Which is really exciting because I can’t remember the last time I felt this engaged intellectually. The classroom discussions aren’t quite at the level I had hoped (yet), but I enjoy them nonetheless and I feel that the work I am doing on my own is mostly what I want to build on anyway.
• Another cool thing about grad school has been meeting a bunch of new people who I quite like (an interesting, diverse group). We have dinner before every class and are planning a theatre outing in January. After some of my union disappointments in the last couple of years (cliquishness from which I was excluded mainly), it’s nice to be reminded that normal social interactions exist and can be fun!
• On the work front I’ve returned from holidays to a small re-location of some co-workers which has meant changes in my cube-neighbours. It’s suprising how little changes like this can feel like such a movement of energy. Plus, going down to four days a week has been such a great shift in terms of having more time for myself (to do schoolwork mostly).
• I’ve been involved in a competition for a labour movement job recently that has been stressing me out. After a not-great interview yesterday, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be offered the position – but it’s been a really good chance to evaluate myself, my strengths and what I do/don’t like about my current working environment. At the end of the day I’m grateful that I’m looking for work while having a good job already because it would be much more stressful and disappointing a week otherwise.
• On a more emotional front – I am making my current personal work about compassion. That is, becoming a more compassionate person out in the world and towards myself – which is not so easy, really. I have become increasingly judgemental and frustrated with people over the last several years and when I find myself locked in those emotions I wonder how it is that I can’t let them go. It’s been a long time since I have done any personal, exploratory work – and recently I’ve been meditating on this area of my life. Interestingly enough, this coincides with a visit by Karen Armstrong to Vancouver in spring 2012 where she will be lecturing (through SFU) on exactly this subject during “Twelve Days of Compassion“. I am currently reading her book on the same subject – through which I hope to find some practical insight into doing the work I am craving to do.
• And on the note of craving things – since we went away to NYC last week and things have been so busy recently – I am really missing the act of creating! I’ve got part of a skirt and a top cut out and ready to sew, part of a baby blanket crocheted, and a head full of textile art projects going on right now. On top of writing a class paper and going to #OccupyVancouver this weekend, I’ve got to find a way to get my hands into things again.
• On the whole Occupy movement? I’m mostly just curious right now – having seen what looked like a dishevled forest-action-style-camp in NYC – I believe the most important thing isn’t the actual “occupation” but the daily demonstrations that draw from the broad-spectrum of angry people. I will definitely participate in the demonstration this Saturday, and do what I can to assist the occupation going forward – but I won’t be doing any occupying myself because I just don’t see how to balance working, going to school, and the whole family-life-dynamic with sleeping in a tent at the VAG. We’ll see where things go – I am trying to be less critical and more intrigued at the moment because I do have a tendency (that I don’t like) to be all-too cynical around activism these days.

Tonight we have friends in for dinner (soup, fresh breads, cheeses, pickles and cold-cuts – very simple), and it looks like the weather is going to hold for the weekend so perhaps I can get some gardening in on top of everything else – I’ve got plum trees, blueberry bushes, garlic and spring bulbs to plant. Coming back from NYC I’m feeling pretty charmed at the moment – if not a little bit tired.

Join yourself to friends
and know the joy of the soul.
Enter the neighborhood of ruin
with those who drink to the dregs.

Empty the glass of your desire
so that you won’t be disgraced.
Stop looking for something out there
and begin seeing within.

Open your arms if you want an embrace.
Break the earthen idols and release the radiance.
Why get involved with a hag like this world?
You know what it will cost.

And three pitiful meals a day
is all that weapons and violence  can earn.
At night when the Beloved comes
will you be nodding on opium?

If you close your mouth to food,
you can know a sweeter taste.
Our Host is no tyrant.  We gather in a circle.
Sit down with us beyond the wheel of time.

Here is the deal: give one life
and receive a hundred.
Stop growling like dogs,
and know the shepherd’s care.

You keep complaining about others
and all they owe you?
Well, forget about them;
just be in His presence.

When the earth is wide,
why are you asleep in a prison?
Think of nothing but the source of thought.
Feed the soul; let the body fast.

Avoid knotted ideas;
unite yourself in a higher world.
Limit your talk
for the sake of timeless communion.

Abandon life and the world,
and find the life of the world.
–Ghazal 2577 Version by Kabir Helminski

For my second journal entry on Rumi, I’ve decided to take a central poem (as determined in our class discussion last night) and do a bit of a poetic analysis of it.
This poem – Empty the Glass of Your Desire – is in the form of a ghazal (which is not so obvious in its translated version – a ghazal is made up of rhyming couplets with evenly metered lines). Ghazals are prominent in Eastern mysticism and traditionally deal with the subject of unattainable (or illicit) love. Although ghazals may take up earthly love as their subject, the following poem clearly examines our connection with the divine. From Wikipedia “The love is always viewed as something that will complete a human being, and if attained will lift him or her into the ranks of the wise, or will bring satisfaction to the soul of the poet.” This is the stated main goal of the poem, as its end refrain exhorts the reader/listener: ” Abandon life and the world / and find the life of the world.” Ie: Abandon the ego and the material, to find the true light (spark of life, divine core) of the world.

A poem in translation defies some characteristics one might use to analyse a poem – the line length, rhyme, meter, and alliterative effects of the original are lost in the conversion from one language to another. Beyond recognizing the original form of this poem (which automatically gives it a central theme of love – divine love), we can really only delve into it by the meaning of the text itself which I will look at stanza-by-stanza.

Join yourself to friends
and know the joy of the soul.
Enter the neighborhood of ruin
with those who drink to the dregs.

I am unclear about the original form of the poem, but can only assume that each four lines formed two lines of the couplet – linking the ideas from one line to the other. Here we can surmise that Rumi is exhorting the listener that great joy is found in unifying ourselves with others. “Friends” here can refer to specific friends, those who are in the same spiritual or emotional camp, or the greater humanity to which we might merge and unify. Bottom line is, to know the deepest happiness, we must give up our individual selves to others. However! If we ally with those who scrape to the bottom of material life as signfied by the wine “dregs” referred to, we will only be harmed for it, left unable to attain the exalted state we could inhabit.

Empty the glass of your desire
so that you won’t be disgraced.
Stop looking for something out there
and begin seeing within.

Like a glass of wine which can embarass us when we drink to much of it, our desire can only shame us in our scramble to attain more of the world for ourselves. If we empty ourselves of desire, we end this cycle which leaves us worse off. Once we stop looking around outside of ourselves for the answer in the form of “something” whether that be material or spiritual, we can see what is actually inside of ourselves.

Open your arms if you want an embrace.
Break the earthen idols and release the radiance.
Why get involved with a hag like this world?
You know what it will cost.

If you want to be held by the world, you must hold it. You will get what you put out in return – so live with the openness you wish to be met with. Rumi urges us to destroy our material idols – our possessions – in order to give way to the illumination of the greater divinity. The material world is like a difficult woman, a demanding crone – involvement with such people will only cost the pain which is already familiar to us.

And three pitiful meals a day
is all that weapons and violence  can earn.
At night when the Beloved comes
will you be nodding on opium?

Even sustenance is not worth having to fight in the world. Our appetites will only drive us further from God.

If you close your mouth to food,
you can know a sweeter taste.
Our Host is no tyrant.  We gather in a circle.
Sit down with us beyond the wheel of time.

Giving up our physical appetites gives way to rewards that we are otherwise unaware of. God is not a scary deity in the sky, but one who we can join with in communion. Outside of earthly measures we can find Rumi, the deity and others with whom we can end our isolation.

Here is the deal: give one life
and receive a hundred.
Stop growling like dogs,
and know the shepherd’s care.

Give up this one physical life, the ego, the material attachment and attain much more than you are leaving behind. Fighting for the scraps in the yard doesn’t allow you to become one with the unified flock who is cared for.

You keep complaining about others
and all they owe you?
Well, forget about them;
just be in His presence.

Your petty complaints aren’t worth the time spent on them. Stop grousing about the pains of others and just allow yourself to relax in the presence of God.

When the earth is wide,
why are you asleep in a prison?
Think of nothing but the source of thought.
Feed the soul; let the body fast.

You have the whole world and yet you are unaware and bound inside your own cage. Stop striving for new ideas and allow yourself to discover your root, the divine within your thought. Stop feeding the body in order to nourish the soul with light

Avoid knotted ideas;
unite yourself in a higher world.
Limit your talk
for the sake of timeless communion.

Don’t get caught up in riddles, they will only keep you tied down to the earthly world which you don’t want to be a part of. To much chatter will distance you from the truth, not get you closer to it.

Abandon life and the world,
and find the life of the world.

Give up the material, physical desires in order to find true divinity – the spark which animates all life.

Summed up? This poem is essentially a series of advice on finding divinity through self-reflection. It counsels the reader to cease their material attachments, physical appetites and addictions and circular thinking in favour of communion with others, looking inside of ourselves and allowing oneself to rest in the presence of God. The path Rumi prescribes is an ascetic one involving fasting, meditation, and quietude though the rewards he promises for this practice are richer than a single human life can imagine. Ultimately he wishes us to get beyond that which blocks us from finding the truth, and urges that it is possible with the resources which exist within us.

(Thus concludes my poetry analysis and my last post on Rumi for awhile.)