lullaby afar -- draft 1

Good night, good knight;

My whispers landing light on your ear

 -- sweet sleepy droplets of moon

floating slow, clear to your soul --

I hold you dear, echoes of stars ancient 

flow draping your absence 

in waves of blue, of gold.

I whisper goodnight, 

and the night folds distance til you are near.     

Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes... because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation - Rumi

Today's Rumi

Another year, another spring.
The fragrance of love arrives.

So dancy, this new light on the ground,
and in the tree.

The one who heals us
lets whatever hurts the soul
dissolve to a listening intelligence,
where what we most deeply want, union with eternity,
grows up, around and inside us now.

trans. Coleman Barks

Three verses for U

1. Breathless

Oh you. You who, you
Who took my wind so,
So my hollowed breast echoes
Echoes so
So my wings won't fly.
Blow
Blow through
Through my chest. You
You who flew with me
Oh You
Breathe me to the divine.


2.
Though you fled, it seems my soul snagged on you, and as you fly further it unravels in infinitesimal glint,
spiraling your soar in a white love whisper, keeping you close.

or:
You Fled.
It seems my soul snagged on you
Fly further.
Unravelling in infinitesimal glint
Spiraling your soar in
White love whisper,
Keeping
You close

3.
In the middle of the night I cry out,
Who lives in this love I have?
You say, I do, but I am not here alone.
Who are these other images with me?
I say, They are reflections of you,
just as the beautiful inhabitants of Chigil in Turkestan
resemble each other.
You say, But who is this other living being?
That is my wounded soul.
Then I brought that soul before you as a prisoner.
This one is dangerous, I say.
Do not let him off easy.
You wink and give me one end of a delicate thread.
Pull it tight, but do not break it.
I reach my hand to touch you.
You strike it down.
Why are you so harsh with me?
For good reason.
But certainly not to keep you away.
Whoever enters this place saying, Here I am
must be stopped.
This is not a pen for sheep.
There are no separating distances here.
This is love's sanctuary.
Saladin is how the soul looks.
Rub your eyes, and look again with love at love.


Rumi. trans. C. Barks.

Love's Burn

Aries Horoscope for week of March 1, 2012

 
At one point in his book The Divine Comedy, the Italian poet Dante is traveling through purgatory on his way to paradise. American poet T.S. Eliot describes the scene: "The people there were inside the flames expurgating their errors and sins. And there was one incident when Dante was talking to an unknown woman in her flame. As she answered Dante's questions, she had to step out of her flame to talk to him, until at last she was compelled to say to Dante, 'Would you please hurry up with your questions so I can get on with my burning?'" I bring this to your attention, Aries, because I love the way you've been expurgating your own errors and sins lately. Don't let anything interfere with your brilliant work. Keep burning till you're done. 
(Source: "A New Type of Intellectual: Contemplative Withdrawal and Four Quartets," by Kenneth P. Kramer.) 
Rob Brezsny, www.freewillastrology.com

Catharsis, Greek κάθαρσις   cleansing, purging

Cathexis,  Greek κάθεξις   holding, retention

Our urge to cathect with an other, one other, re-form the uterine, the maternal connection, both drives our search for "love" and undermines our understanding of what love is. (Or: my search, my understanding.)

I, you, she, we.

In the garden of mystic lovers

these are not true distinctions

Rumi 

Expurgating this visceral-emotional drive and learning of love: this has been my work. This, behind the "errors and sins" along the way that are neither costly nor deadly, that are par for each course, that hoist us from one level to another as we learn; this work is my Dantean paradise.

So to burn as catharsis. I burn my points of cathexis; the pain that attends this fire is an internal not eternal suffering. With promise of an end, the pain is that of becoming-released, of childbirth, of a phoenix renewal, not hell's slow infinite burn, the fearful unknown at death's pyre. 

It was deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and then she clearly understood
if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright? 

Leonard Cohen "Joan of Arc"