Poems and Quotations I

,.,.,.,
m,m,m,m

........Rx: Take one Rumi poem in the morning and another one at night.
...................Repeat as necessary.

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.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RUMI



Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me.
Is someone here? I ask.
The moon. The full moon is inside your house.

My friends and I go running out into the street.
I'm in here, comes a voice from the house, but we aren't listening.
We're looking up at the sky.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .RUMI
...........................................................Be Melting Snow


Rumi was a 13th century Persian mystic. His words are still alive today.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

-- Leonard Cohen

The Waking

Theodore Roethke


I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Funeral Blues

-- W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'

--The Talmud

If you're going through hell, keep on going.
. . . . . . . . . . . . Winston Churchill

They have released against her, our lady Ishtar, the
sixty miseries: miseries of the eyes, of the heart, of
the head, of the sides, miseries against her feet,
miseries against every part of her, miseries against
the entire body of our goddess.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Babylonian Songs

For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but
against the principalities, against the powers,
against the world rulers of this present darkness.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ephesians 6:12

For God shall bring every work into judgement,
with every secret thing,
whether it be good,
or whether it be evil.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ecclesiastes 12:14

The only thing I know that truly heals people is
unconditional love.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elisabeth Kubler-Ross M.D.


Good Living

Good living is an act of intelligence, by which we
choose things which have an agreeable taste rather
than those which do not.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brillat-Savarin "The Physiology of Taste" 1826

Love

For one human being to love another, that is perhaps
the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the
last test and proof, the work for which all other work
is but preparation.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ranier Maria Rilke

"you musn't force sex to do the work of love or love
to do the work of sex."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mary McCarthy


Goddesses

All things of the sea belong to Venus; pearls and
shells and alchemists' gold and kelp and the riggish
smell of neap tides, the inshore green, and purple
further out and the joy of distances and the roar of
falling masonry, all these are hers, but she doesn't
come out of the sea for all of us.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Cheever

I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond
the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and
I burn in the sun, moon and stars. . . . I awaken
everything to life.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hildegard of Bingen

The Lady's Psalm
The Lady's my shepherd, I have all I need.
She makes me to lie down in green meadows,
Beside the still waters She will lead.
She restores my soul. She rights my wrongs.
She leads me in a path of good things
and fills my heart with songs.
Even though I walk through a dark and dreary land,
There is nothing that can shake me.
She has said She won't forsake me,
I'm in Her hand.
She sets a table before me in the presence of my foes.
She anoints my head with oil and my cup overflows.
Surely. . . surely, goodness and kindness
will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will live in Her house forever, forever and
ever.
Glory be to our Mother and Daughter,
and to the holy of holys.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be
world without end. So Mote It Be.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .author unknown


Medicine & Science

Only 15 percent of the decisions a doctor makes
everyday are based on evidence.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Robert Califf M.D. Director of Duke University's Clinical Research Institute
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Time magazine October 12, 1998)

Cultural assumptions are often the hidden rationale
underlying many scientific premises.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fatimah Jackson
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Professor of Biological Anthropology
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .University of Maryland

The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and
he that is wise will not abhor them.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Brillat-Savarin
. . . . . . . . . . . . . ."The Physiology of Taste" 1826


Temporal Forces

Behind every great fortune is a great crime.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Montaigne

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Audre Lord


Power

Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the
taking is empowerment itself.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .. Gloria Steinem

The history of every century begins in the heart of a
man or woman.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Willa Cather
. . . . . . . . . . . . . O Pioneers! 1913

Food

Sixty runners will not overtake him who breakfasts
early.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Talmud: Baba kamma

Preach not to them what they should eat, but eat as
becomes you, and be silent.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Epictetus

Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fran Leibowitz

Finding Your Path

One finds one's way by only by taking it.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .A.D. Sertillanges

Adventure is not in the guidebook, beauty is not on
the map. Seek and ye shall find.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Russell
. . . . . . . . . . . . . On The Loose

Only by going alone is silence, without baggage, can
one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All
other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and
chatter.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .(author? let me know if you know)

It is the climbing of the mountain that makes the view
from the top so breathtaking.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Richard C. Miller

The great thing in the world is to know how to belong
to oneself.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Montaigne


In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities.
In the expert's mind there are few
. . . . . . . . Shunryu Suzuki


Cats

I saw cats, tomcats, Mary Ann cats, long-tailed cats,
bob-tail cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed
cats, cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats, white
cats, yellow cats, striped cats, spotted cats, tame
cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats, groups
of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats,
multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them
sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep.
. . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Twain, writing about the cat population in
Honolulu in 1866, where he reckoned there were "just
about cats enough for three apiece all around."


Leadership

To lead the people, walk behind them.
. . . . . . . . . . . . Lao-Tzu

A good leader can't get too far ahead of his
followers.
. . . . . . . . . . . . Franklin Roosevelt 1949


Miscellaneous

Love truth, and pardon error.
. . . . . . . . . . . .Voltaire

What is a holy person? The one who is aware of others' suffering.
. . . . . . . . . . . . Kabir

The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
. . . . . . . . . . . .Voltaire

Your vigor for life appalls me.
. . . . . . . . . . . .R. Crumb, Cartoonist