"Lousy at math"

Blessings to Wendiferous for finding this one:

Lousy at Math

Once a group of thieves stole a rare diamond
larger than two goose eggs.

Its value could have easily bought three thousand horses
and three thousand acres of the most
fertile land in
Shiraz.

The thieves got drunk that night to celebrate their great haul,
but during the course of the evening the effects of the liquor,
and their mistrust of each other grew
to such an extent

they decided to divide the stone into pieces.
Of course then the Priceless became lost.

Most everyone is lousy at math and does that to God -
dissects the Indivisible One,

by thinking, by saying,
"This is my Beloved, he looks like this and acts like that,
how could that moron over there
really
be

God?"

—The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the great Sufi Master
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

Hafiz, again

Walhydra was looking this morning for something she could use to comfort her brilliant brother and his wife and son, all of whom are going through major challenges.

She wasn't surprised to find it here:

You Were Brave in that Holy War

You have done well
In the contest of madness.

You were brave in that holy war.

You have all the honorable wounds
Of one who has tried to find love
Where the Beautiful Bird
Does not drink.

May I speak to you
Like we are close
And locked away together?
Once I found a stray kitten
And I used to soak my fingers
In warm milk;

It came to think I was five mothers
On one hand.

Wayfarer,
Why not rest your tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes.

Come morning
I will kneel by your side and feed you.
I will so gently
Spread open your mouth
And let you taste something of my
Sacred mind and life.

Surely
There is something wrong
With your ideas of
God

O, surely there is something wrong
With your ideas of
God

If you think
Our Beloved would not be so
Tender.

—The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the great Sufi Master
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

Double zap

Walhydra got a double zap this evening, reading the latest from two of her favorite bloggers.

On Pagan Godspell, Sara has quoted this delicious poem by Kabir:

The Time Before Death

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

And on Quaker Pagan Reflections, Cat has given us this gentle leading from Quaker meeting for worship:

"Up!"
Early in meeting for worship today, I was all caught up in my head--in ideas about what is ministry and what is faithfulness, and whether or not I'm "doing" Quakerism "right."

And then an echo of the Song of Songs came to me: "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine." And everything changed, and the words washed away in just being with the Beloved. And the Light grew so bright and good around me and inside me, that I could just about bear it:

There is an hour, every week, during which I get to drop all the hard work of trying to be something, and just be what I'm supposed to be. I don't have to be strong, or wise, or clever. I don't have to anything at all, because the Beloved is there, and it's just fine...

At those times, the image comes to me, of myself as a tiny child, almost too young for speech. Have you ever seen a little girl, one just barely walking, make her way solemnly to her mother? That's me. And when I get there, I lift my arms up in the air, stiffly, the way that toddlers do.

"Up!" I say, in that toddler way. "Up!" with all the quiet confidence of the completely loved, completely trusting child.

And I go up in those warm, strong arms, and turn my head into that safe neck and shoulder, and I let go and clasp on, and I'm free in a way I have mostly forgotten how to be.

And you know, everything else--the hundred thousand words we use to strap ourselves in, corset-like, to being faithful to the Light we're given, all the Quaker or Pagan or philosophical apologetics--is really beside the point.

I am my Beloved's. And my Beloved is mine.

"Up!"

And everything follows from there.

What can Walhydra do save thank the grace which moved these two wise women to move her in turn...and to share her own contribution, from Hafiz:

I know the way you can get
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.

Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!

From: I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

While she’s at it….

Now that she’s been reminded of Sufi poet Hafiz, Walhydra figures she might as well share her favorite Hafiz poem, given here in Daniel Ladinsky's luminous version:

In a Tree House
Light
Will someday split you open,
Even if your life is now a cage,

For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown on an ancient, fertile plain
You hold the title to.

Love will surely bust you wide open
Into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy.

Even if your mind is now
A spoiled mule.

A life-giving radiance will come,
The Friend’s gratuity will come—

O look again within yourself,
For I know you were once the elegant host
To all the marvels in creation.

From a sacred crevice in your body
A bow rises each night
And shoots your soul into God.

Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One
From the lunar vantage point of love.

He is conducting the affairs
Of the whole universe

While throwing wild parties
In a tree house—on a limb
In your heart.

And so it is.

Blessèd Be!

The cup's smile

Walhydra has been a devotee of the 14th century Sufi poet Hafiz i-Shirazi ever since a decade ago when she first stumbled onto Daniel Ladinsky's marvelous English versions in The Subject Tonight is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz.

She can open to almost any of Hafiz's poems, and it's like getting a startlingly auspicious and uplifting card reading, an unlooked-for kiss from the Divine One, who is always described as the Friend or the Lover, always teasing the listener for feeling less worthy than the One knows her to be.

And always celebrating the blessedness of human incarnation—against all moralistic protests to the contrary.

Earlier on this Wednesday evening's shift at the library, struggling with burnout and depression, Walhydra was Googling at random for sites about "gay beauty" and hit upon just such a poem:

Ghazl No. 10 from the Divan of Hafiz

His mop of hair tangled, sweating, laughing and drunk,
Shirt torn, singing poems, flask in hand,
His eyes spoiling for a fight, his lips mouthing "Alas!"
Last night at midnight he came and sat by my pillow.
He bent his head to my ear and said, sadly,
"O, my ancient lover, are you sleeping?"

The seeker to whom they give such a cup at dawn
Is an infidel to love if he will not worship the wine.
O hermit, go and do not quibble with those who drink the dregs,
For on the eve of creation this was all they gave to us.
What he poured in our cup we drank,
Whether the mead of Heaven, or the wine of drunkenness.

The cup's smile and the wine boy's knotted curl
Have broken many vows of chastity, like that of Hafiz.

A variation on the interpretation of E.T. Gray, Jr., in
The Green Sea of Heaven, White Cloud Press, 1995.

What a sweet reminder, in the midst of Walhydra's spiritual stuckness, that there is delight hidden in all of the Divine One's work.

And so it is.

Blessèd Be!