Last night, while looking through some photographs I took in Israel a few years ago, I stumbled upon the header image, which shows some details of the interior dome of a magnificent garden structure adjacent to the Dome of the Rock. As I studied the richness of the colors, the invitational qualities of the archways, and the paths that seem to run throughout the design of the ceiling, I felt instinctively that Rumi was speaking to me. Once again, and especially during these opening days of a new year, he was reminding me of the light-filled doorways that lead to renewal, expansion, and spiritual growth.
From A Community of the Spirit —
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
From Quietness
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
From Unfold Your Own Myth
But don't be satisfied with stories, how things
have gone with others. Unfold
your own myth, without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.
Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy
and tired. Then comes a moment
of feeling the wings you've grown,
lifting.
Note: Quotations from The Essential Rumi (Translations by Coleman Barks).
