Sunday, January 16, 2011

Rumi: The Language of Life 2

Drum sounds rise on the air,
and with them, my heart.
A voice inside the beat says,
I know you are tired,
but come.
This is the way.
   -- Rumi

Today's guidance from The Rumi Card Book:
Category: Birth -- Your soul was a snake, but is now a fish; it leaps in the spring of immortal life.  Love and hard work have changed you from someone who was struggling into someone who lives in joy.
Category description from the book:  "Each moment of our lives is potentially a new birth, if our hearts are open.  Rumi always claimed that the wind of grace is always blowing from God, but that we are too rarely open to its fertile power.  Nevertheless, through Divine generosity, signs of new birth constantly dance in and out of our lives, inviting us to hope, creativity, passion, and praise!
 Another story about the destiny that brought Coleman Barks to Rumi:
Now comes the funniest and baffling anecdote. Coleman discovered his hidden relation with his life's destiny rather recently. At age six, he was a geography freak who would recite the capitals of all countries when randomly questioned by his father's colleagues. "Bulgaria", some one would yell and he would chirp back, "Sophia!" Until one day, when a trickster of a teacher, fresh from his Latin class, threw him a stunner, "Cappadocia!" The look on Coleman's face, when he was stumped earned him his nickname - Capp!
And then, years later as a Rumi scholar, came the stunning revelation! Cappadocia, was the Anatolian country where the central city was Iconium or Konya, where Rumi lived and was buried!!!
Part 2 of Bill Moyers' series "The Language of Life"

1 comment:

  1. Incredible to find that connection. Clearly, Barks was the chosen one.

    ReplyDelete