"Perform good deeds and observe spiritual discipline.
Fool, listen with gratitude.
Lovers fasten your sandals. The fool's youth slipped away unnoticed."
Free Expression and Expectations -
Different not Separate
An Adaptation of an introduction to a poem by Rumi "Look at Love"
It is as if grief wants to let us be individual and react in our own personal way. Grief’s love and loss together, can show us our natural wild powerful feelings and give us the opportunity to express this in our own way.
At the same time, society wants us to conform,
to be just like everybody else in silence, and behave as expected,
so we don’t cause any bother, awkwardness or embarrassment.
Although they may seem completely at odds with each other,
.our personal expression of the natural wild feelings of grief
and society’s detached attitude actually share the same aim,
which is to show us we are not separate.
Grief shows us something, it gives us something,
because grief is not nothing.
It shows us that our way is the same way
as everybody else’s way, only different.
Grief makes us aware we are each like a wave in the ocean,
slightly different from each other but not separate from the ocean,
not separate from each other, part of a whole,
In grief’s love and loss together, we experience in our own way what everyone else experiences in their own way.
This love and loss together can show us an awareness
which is common to all.
. This awareness is irrespective of our culture,
our tribe or any group we belong to.
This awareness of being part of a whole,
is awareness of what we are to each other.
Look at Love - a Poem by Rumi
look at love how it tangles
with the one fallen in love
look at spirit how it fuses with earth
giving it new life
why are you so busy with this or that or good or bad
pay attention to how things blend
why talk about all the known and the unknown
see how the unknown merges into the known
why think separately of this life and the next
when one is born from the last
look at your heart and tongue one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs
look at water and fire earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once
the wolf and the lamb the lion and the deer
far away yet together
look at the unity of this spring and winter
manifested in the equinox
you too must mingle my friends since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me
be like sugarcane sweet yet silent
don’t get mixed up with bitter words
my beloved grows right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be
