Kahlil Gibran on Love

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Happy Valentine's Day :)

You must take living so seriously that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees — and not for your children, either, but because although you fear death you don’t believe it, because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

(Nazim Hikmet, Turkish poet, persecuted during the Cold War for his communist views, 1901-1963)

I love this quote. I love the idea of planting olive trees – not for my children, but for myself. I love the acknowledgment of death but the reality that life weighs heavier. Taking living seriously.

What does this mean, exactly? I have a few ideas:

I live my life not in “some day” or “if only” categories but in ways that are reflective right now of what I want, intend, need, and hope.

I believe in my worth, my strength, my beauty, my voice, my influence, my capacity to give and receive love.

I love without limits; with abandon and passion, and with absolutely no editing or censoring.

I hug my daughters more. I tell them again and again how amazing and beautiful and brilliant they are.

I stop worrying about the “how-to” and instead just start/do what I want, live as I desire, be who I am.

I never ever make myself smaller, quieter, or more acceptable (whatever the hell that means!).

I write my damn book already.

Even as I type this list I can feel my internal tension. I can feel the part of me that already doubts, already questions, already has Plan B’s in place. I want to be like Nazim Hikmet: a man who knew extreme persecution and still had the capacity to take living seriously and plant olive trees at the same time. Clearly, he wasn’t living with Plan B’s in place. How is that possible? How is it that he has somehow found (or at least pursued) a balance between today and tomorrow; between action and intention; between reality and imagination? I do not know.

I paused after typing those last words. I thought again. I took some deep breaths. And I proceed.

I do know how he did it; this holding on to seriousness and hope simultaneously. It’s what I do all the time. It’s what I have done over and over again. It’s what I will do, endlessly. Not because I’m so amazing (though even saying this denies one of my list-items above…), but because it’s the stuff of life, because it’s both/and and ambivalence embodied and lived out on a day-to-day basis, because it’s what I do. I can’t not. And I don’t think I’m the only one…

Hear the voice of Nazim Hikmet again. He invites. He provokes. He is dangerous with beauty and meaning. (Mmmmm. I need to add those last three sentences to my list above! And then I need to go plant some olive trees!)

Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel for example – I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation.

However and wherever we are, we must live as if we will never die.

…and the most beautiful words ever spoken, I have not yet said to you.

Taking living seriously. Living as my whole occupation. Living as if I will never die. Speaking beautiful words. Planting olive trees.

2010 is going to be an amazing year!

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Related posts:

1. Wide Awake
2. Keywords Matter – but not in the way you might think.
3. Parting the Waters

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Tagged as: hope, intention, life, living

POEM

homage to my hips

by Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips

they need space to

move around in.

they don't fit into little

petty places. these hips

are free hips.

they don't like to be held back.

these hips have never been enslaved,

they go where they want to go

they do what they want to do.

these hips are mighty hips.

these hips are magic hips.

i have known them

to put a spell on a man and

spin him like a top!

Lucille Clifton, "homage to my hips" from Good Woman. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Source: Good Woman (BOA Editions, Ltd., 1987)

No matter the size of your hips, own them and recognise what power you have.

If thoughts affect water like this - what will they do for you or to you?

	The Invitation   Oriah Mountain Dreamer Canadian Teacher and Author
	It doesn't interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dreams for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes." It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.   © 1995 by Oriah House, From "Dreams Of Desire" Published by Mountain Dreaming, 300 Coxwell Avenue, Box 22546, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4L 2A0 Please click here for more information about Oriah's book.

 

That kind of person would do me fine! Or at least someone with the intent of working towards it

Sent to heaven with love - this demonstrates to me how important it is to be creative and express ourselves. Particularly in art, craft, song, dance etc.

I was researching for my full moon dreamboard under the word clarity and this came up - what a stunning and hauntingly comforting photograph of a wee boy who knows.