Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
***
Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloudcover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface,
yet I’m already under
and living with the ocean.
***
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
***
The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere,
they’re in each other all along.
Translations are from the books, The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, The Glance by Coleman Barks, and Soul of Rumi by Coleman Barks.
I have always had a very hard time understanding the phrase each other. Is there anyone here besides you and me? An illusion stands between us. Something imagined. Something with no reality. Something other.
You’re in fine company. That reality is an illusion, and that separation is an illusion, are precepts in quantum mechanics as well as ancient spiritual truths. Hmmmmmmm