Reading the great Persian poets, such as Rumi, Hafez and Attar, was a heady experience where I discovered, in middle age, that poetry might be unabashedly addressed to the Divine as well as sensual, at once.
Mysteriously, as I mined Sufi literature more deeply– Al-Hujwiri’s luminous Kashf al Mahjub ('The Revelation of the Veiled') remains a personal highlight – I discovered that I was deepening my faith and returning Home.
Even though I was, now, based in the United States, I found myself profoundly attracted to the work of a saint and sage of 13th century Egypt, Ibn ʿAtāʾillāh, who lived during the blossoming of new Sufi Orders.
I’d begun my literary career, as an aphorist in my late teens, enraptured by the wisdom literature of Gibran (a mix of philosophy, poetry and spirituality) and now that I had returned to writing aphorisms in my middle age after a long silence, I found myself captivated by the stark (sometimes, stern) and lyrical maxims of a great Muslim aphorist.
Below, is a selection from Ibn ʿAtāʾillāh’s justly celebrated Book of Wisdom, that I try to consult often for sustenance and inspiration, as I begin to realize that perfection of one’s art and purification of the heart are intertwined.
How can the laws of nature be ruptured for you so that miracles result, when you, for your part, have yet to rupture your bad habits.
People praise you for what they suppose is in you; but you must blame your soul for what you know is in it.
Hope goes hand in hand with deeds; otherwise, it is just wishful thinking.
Sometimes, you will find more benefit in states of need than you will find in fasting or ritual prayer.
States of need are gift-laden carpets.
If you want gifts to come your way, then perfect the spiritual poverty [al-faqr] you have. “Alms are for the poor.
Empty your heart of alterities and creatures and you will fill it up with gnostic intuitions and mysteries.
This is rich! Those aphorisms are treasures--like gems in a jewelry box, and I must revisit them daily, take them to heart, internalize them.
I love your insight:
You remind me of an art exhibit I saw in college many years ago, Reuben Nakian's line drawings of Leda and the Swan - (rape!) - a curator had posted the typed placard explaining that the artist saw "the sacred in the profane" - and while I forget 90% of what I see, hear, and read, that one stayed with me. Online, I cannot find a good copy of it. For $545, you can buy a print... such a simple line drawing, yet it conveys so much.
If you care to take a closer look, you can zoom in on it here: https://www.quintessentialthings.com/product/reuben-original-etching/
Ok, that's enough of the sensual and the divine for one Monday morning. :)
Thank you for the daily dose of wisdom - today in particular I'm trying to process this one:
I should write a post about the Sacred and Profane but you already know this subject as only a poet and mystic can, and I am in a sort of hibernation or literary winter, not putting much out there anymore, for assorted reasons, none of them valid. #WeShouldBeWriting, as Jess used to say. But I keep saying "we should be reading too!" - in moderation - we should read each other, and avoid throwing rotten tomatoes and wet blankets, and send encouragement. (You know all this--I post it here for those who might not know--but I have a hunch no such readers will ever see my words.)
Ok, I need to keep surfing the web to get at what you touched on here with the Divine and the Sensual. Song of Solomon, the most sensual book of the Bible, is not regarded as profane.
Time now to check in with @owasco, one of the best of Hive's poets. :) She always startles me and makes me see things in a new light. Her writing is more cynical than yours, perhaps (if that is the right way to think of it). But I am ever a skeptic and a cynic, for all my wannabe mysticism, and @owasco speaks for me.
But I keep trying to focus on all that is POSITIVE and constructive and hopeful, even though it don't come easy. So I will close with something hopeful:
I read you, Carol, and hope to return more closely, later on. Preparing for a houseguest and should get offline, soon.
But, yes, fascinating (near paradoxical) subject the sensuality in mysticism. We are embodied spirits and even when we sublimate our essential/sensual drive it finds its way in the passionate address to the Divine…
🙏🏼✨
I am so happy I ran into this post.
I needed some sweet soul-food tonight and there is nothing more delicious than immersing oneself in contemplating the metaphors of Rumi.
His poetry is a celebration of the union with the Beloved, the Divine, and those transcendental states, when you reach them, feel very sensual in the body, because you're basically uniting your own masculine and feminine energy currents, as they rise naturally (without forcing with all kinds of strange practices) and the fusion of both in the brain feels as an ecstatic explosion of sensual desire, immense tenderness and complete dissolution into "one energy", into the Divine absolute All that there is. It all starts with a complete state of surrender.
Many years ago I visited the Mevlana Museum in Konya, Turkey, and was captivated by the ecstatic whirling dance of the dervishes in order to rise above the human mind and reach "no-self" states. Since then Rumi's poetry is in my iPad :) and only many years ago I fully understood their real mystical meaning after I myself had those mystic experiences of the union with the divine.
Khalil Gibran is also one of my all time favorite mystic writers, more because of his "didactic" metaphoric stories in verse.
Thank you for sharing this book with us, I will remember to look for it next time I'll seek more soul-nourishment.
Bless your heart, @lauralauze, for your trust in sharing your heart-warming response. Only the person who tastes knows, say the Sufis, and I can hear this in your meditation above about surrender and no- self. May you continue to be familiar with these states of grace and, emboldened by a sense of affinity, I share with you the video to my new book (where I hope you might also find some soul-nourishment):
Have a blessed day, kindred spirit 🙏
Thank you, beautiful soul!!
I will keep it open on Youtube to listen to you in a while. I'm so glad we met!
You make this world better with your beauty!!!
You’re a generous spirit and I’m glad that my YouTube readings — which I’m updating, regularly — connect with you . What we are’s remind us also seeking us, as Rumi says 🙏🏽✨
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Well, dang. Yes, I am back. Again. Already.
The Sufi master with his insight on our audacity in seeking miracles.... it seems to conflict with the Christian doctrine I was taught from infancy: we never deserve grace, or mercy, but through Jesus, it is freely given to us. It is ours for the asking. If we pray for miracles that "rupture the laws of nature," we don not fear that our bad habits stand in the way of God's grace.
I can hear @manorvillemike now, urging me to go outside and play or get a hobby or a job, something to keep me too busy to over-think stuff like this.
Cheers!
Concentrated Thinking is bad for the body. Crazy bad for the brain. Get yourself in a floating chamber for as long as you can hold your bladder. Empty your mind. Do this as often as you can. You can achieve a peace you cannot describe. Or you can get plastered in your local bar & grill.
LOL - Get plastered! Quicker, in' it?
Empty this mind. YES. Yes. Yes.
Meditation - Clear the Head -
Yes.
I maybe able to persuade a retired drug dealer to help you with your quest..
I’m with @manorvillemike, such things do not withstand much thinking… Yes, gifts or graces are granted, mysteriously, not earned. Just as we are spared what we might deserve through Mercy.
What I do know is that cynicism or doubt or anything short of surrender are obstacles to liberation…
Peace 🙏🏼
Right you are - but my skepticism and cynicism continue, even in the face of "obvious" signs.
The tree frog that fell on my head was just a tree frog perched above the door.
Not a message from my sister, my grandpa, or any angel or herald from the Other Side.
Or it was just the kind of sign, something mischievous, my sister would think up!
I only send you smiles, I cannot argue with ‘logic’ ;)