Friday, April 03, 2009

Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the water!



I know the title is a corny line from an advert about a sequel to the horror shark movie Jaws that was perhaps the beginning of several horror movies like Anaconda and the likes of it .

What is it about being eaten alive or having parts of a person bitten off that is so fascinating that such movies become box office hits?

The line popped out at me after I began to see myself spiralling again to an emotional and mental state that I thought I had left behind so very many years ago .

Just when we taught we are so old that we have outgrown certain needs of the past , the needs come back stronger than ever .

Just when we thought we had become wise because of the additional years to our lives , we realise that it is just not so .

But I suppose in the very realisation lies the increase in awareness and perhaps being down in the dumps from knowing that I am a weak and faulty human ,I surrender myself and I then hold out my arms in helplessness and allow God to pull me up again....

SHADOW AND LIGHT

How does

a part of the world

leave the world?


How does wetness

leave water?


Dont' try to put out fire

by throwing on more fire!


Don't wash a wound

with blood.


No matter how fast you run,

your shadow keeps up.


Sometimes it's in front!


Only full overhead sun

diminishes your shadow


But that shadow

has been serving you.


What hurts you,

blesses you.


Darkness

is your candle.


Your boundaries

are your quest.


I could explain this,

but it will break

the glass cover

on your heart,

and there's no fixing that.


You must have

shadow and light source

both.


Listen,

and lay your head

under the tree of awe.


When from that tree

feathers and wings

sprout on you,

be quieter than a dove.


Don't even open your mouth

for even a coo.

Jelal'uddin Rumi - 13th century Sufi mystic and poet

From The Soul of Rumi. Translated by Coleman Barks.

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