Added Tuesday, August 24th: Inspiring story about people helping selves:
Residents Of Pakistani Town Battle Indus River By Julie McCarthy and Renee Montagne
Find Story here Pakistan Time August 24, 2010 Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET Tuesday - In Pakistan, the southern town of Shahdad Kot never expected to be hit by the massive flooding that is sweeping south through the country. But the Indus River breached its banks farther north and sent water cascading toward the rice farming region. The people of Shahdad Kot banded together to build a levee in a matter of days. From Pakistan
Interpreting the Dream
When death comes like dawn and you wake up laughing
because you thought it was only a dream...
yet this one did not go away...
This one included everything cruel and unconscious
done in the illusion and evident reality of the present
and did not fade away upon the death-awakening...
So, it must be interpreted...
All of it...
the cruel laughing,
the lude, the crude,
the overly easy blaming,
assumptions,
even the wanting
of instant good,
or relief...
We have to learn to live
with the sudden and easy
disappearance of many things
without losing our bearings...
We have to continue to give up,
let go,
all that is not alive and whole -
the torn coats of Joseph...
our own greed for the many
and desire for easy revenge -
our habits of unforgiveness -
our steadfastness now
must include mercy
and friendship...
deeper kinds of love
and wider..
The Dream now must be interpreted
in part - even understood...
while we are yet in our grogginess...
We are now awakening...
in each others' towns,
in one anothers' beds,
We are one anothers' Heart and Soul...
We are even each others' religion -
The Humanity of us All--
the world is now that kind of sleep -
just now waking up.
The dust, the burning and the flooding
the desperate numbing fog
of sudden unbelief,
God-Death,
over the uselessness,
even extinction
of so many crumbled cities -
settles over us ALL,
like a forgetful dose
or a rude awakening -
but we are older than those cities,
we are from another place
more united than any
and more functional
then all of them
put together...
Why have we so often forgotten
our former states,
except in early spring
or the uncovering...
of the latest excavation,
by intention or by war?
Yet, now is the time to remove the veil...
to become Wide Awake...
to turn toward the Teacher
for whom we've prayed...
to lean toward the right breast,
to follow SPIRIT instinctively
and learn we are the perpetrator,
we are the victim
and we are the HEALER.
We are all being led
along the greatest evolving
of all time...
through a wild migration of intelligences...
beyond even all our known emotions...
we can sense, feel and know an Inner Wakefulness
Directing our Dream - The Dream of the Ages.
Grow Life like a vineyard in late summer -
Then become Light - become more than a mere sword,
Be called Radiance -
Become One Song:
It's Dawn!
and the Caravan
is starting out once again.
Come and get on...
This is our One Dream
with which we are startled
both back and forward
until now we are
awakening into the truth
we have always known,
only forgotten -
the truth of Who We Are.
Don't waste time:
Interpret the Dream.
(The above is a paraphrase of IV, 3654-3667,3626-3652 from Jalaluddin Rumi's Six-Volume masterpiece, the Mathnawi with insertion of one stanza beginning Grow Life paraphrase from IV, 1-24 and spirit of III, 2122-2127)
NOTE:
This Dream in poetic form came to me beginning soon after midnight as applicable for the nightmarish flooding happening NOW in Pakistan along the Indus Valley.
Along with these Rumi lines came this early morning vision:
1) If Rumi fans world-wide would unite (and there is a FAMILY of us larger than all the armies of the world combined); 2) If then we would all alone and together act out of the Love, Mercy, Light and Peace taught by Rumi (and his visionaries throughout the ages such as Iqbal and Khurram Ali Shafique - who are part and parcel of India, Pakistan and the regional histories); 3) Then, we will help significantly if not dramatically to save the Indus Valley and her Peoples for generations to come...
SEE VIDEO - HEAR Heavenly Music - WEEP with Pakistanis and the victims - GIVE NOW - CLICK HERE
Let's form a Community of Love extending to our Family in the Indus Valley region NOW:
R - Radiate
U - Undying
M - Mercy (to)
I - Indus Valley
Let's do so now alone and soon united. Would you like to be at the beginning of such an International Community for both enlightenment and service? If so, share here in Comments below with your reflections, visions, favorite Rumi poetry, suggestions. Keep coming back.
* photo above is of the Indus Valley from google earth, 2009
So moving in every sense of the term, emotional on one hand and erratically moving up and down on all scales touching one thing, then other, then yet another, moving all around the spectrum of thought, knowledge of past and present, will, fate, self, selflessness. Immensely powerful and I read it slowly, then loudly both times finding the rhythm and the effect of poem very alluring.
ReplyDeleteOf course, with Rumi's prophetic, transforming and whole-spectrum work to begin with, hard to miss...
ReplyDeleteAnd for you to continually encourage my little poetic and other attempts at such expressions gives me all I need to keep going.
Sensing deep oneness with the many who are facing the current struggles in your part of the world.
Your suggestions as to how to help for us in other places would be deeply appreciated. Let me know if you find any people stories, articles, facts which strike you particularly.
How beautifully the Truth has been wrapped by Rumi in the cloak of enchanting poetic rhythm.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for sharing such a beautiful post Connie. I can't help reading the poem again and again. It over-powers the senses and shakes one from within.
It takes one from the darkness of night to ray of Hope that comes with the Dawn in such a captivating way.
These lines touched me the most
"Yet, now is the time to remove the veil...
to become Wide Awake...
to turn toward the Teacher
for whom we've prayed...
to lean toward the right breast,
to follow SPIRIT instinctively
and learn we are the perpetrator,
we are the victim
and we are the HEALER.
We are all being led
along the greatest evolving
of all time...
through a wild migration of intelligences...
beyond even all our known emotions...
we can sense, feel and know an Inner Wakefulness
Directing our Dream - The Dream of the Ages."
Perhaps this flood can lead all of us together, one step forward in our understanding of ourselves and our Universe.
Thanks again for sharing such a lovely post.
Yes, dear Namrah, which is why I have so strong faith in the same, because these truths and wisdoms resonate from deep within and are inspired largely from what I've learned by being with you each/all at RR and by "being with" our mutual One God via the Spirit of Love...
ReplyDeleteJust a note, my conscience reminds me to also give credit not only to Rumi but also to the translator Nicholson (via where the version for the numbering listed comes from and also thus by way of Coleman Barks)
ReplyDeleteThat spoken, the adaptions seemed to come much more naturally and confidently from a place I can only say war truer to Spirit than most anything I've done and this sense resonates because several of you find the post/version of Rumi helpful to you as well :)
Thanx for taking the time from all your own challenges to stop by and comment...
For folk who came here looking for my more usual human rights pieces, plz go to:
ReplyDeletenomorecrusades dot blogspot dot com
WE HAVE TO GET RID OF OUR RATIONAL MIND.
ReplyDeleteBe irrational,
Then only you would be close to your beloved.
Thank You, Amiya Chatterjee, I'd like to know more about what you are meaning.
ReplyDeleteFamily Charity & Farm commits to help 1,000 families until and thru re-settling back home!
ReplyDeleteSee Morning Edition on National PUblic Radio, USA
npr.org
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129418000
Or Try:
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=3
Pakistani Farmer Helps Workers Hurt By Flood[5 min 14 sec]
Sharing the beginning of quite a touching story here:
ReplyDeletehttp://ghameagahi.blogspot.com/2010/08/chapter-no-1-beginning-iii.html