If you play along reading all of my posts this month, you’ll likely come upon a few Rumi poems.
Rumi was 13th century Sufi mystic and poet. Even if you don’t know his poems, you might have heard snippets of his wisdom in quotes — his poems are like meditations on a life of the spirit, and his insights into the human condition, though written so very long ago in another part of the world (what is now afghanistan), still ring true today.
I’ve been lucky enough to see Coleman Barks — the most well-known modern-day translator of Rumi — read his poetry at the Dodge Poetry Festival several times. And twice, at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning.
Coleman Barks (red scarf) and Paul Winter (far right) at Early Morning Rumi – Dodge Poetry Festival, 2006
I’m not a morning person (those who know me well are laughing now)…(go ahead…catch your breath; i’ll still be here). Though I actually rise early, it takes me a while — and a couple cups of coffee — to get myself out the door. But one year, after a couple of friends who worked for Dodge kept telling me how amazing this morning session was, I hauled my butt out of bed around 4 am to drive north to a bucolic spot (not far from where i live now) to experience Bark’s popular Early Morning Rumi session. Accompanied by the Paul Winter Consort, Barks read Rumi’s poems for about an hour to a packed house.
The second time I experienced Early Morning Rumi, I wrote that “hearing Barks recite Rumi feels as I imagine church or temple must feel to the true believer. It hits me in a place so soft and deep and primal that crying seems like the absolutely perfect response. When I hear those poems I think: if everyone in the world could experience Coleman Barks reading Rumi while the Paul Winter Consort played, the soul of the world would open up and all the negative energy in the world would melt away.”
I hunted for my favorite poem from one of those sessions on Dodge’s video archives, but was only able to find this one (filmed at dodge, but released through a PBS for ‘poetry everywhere’ series). And while it’s not my favorite Rumi poem (i’ll share that another day), this one’s not too shabby either.
Today, Like Every Other Day
Jelaluddin Rumi
Today, like every other day
we wake up empty
and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and
kiss the ground.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
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