“It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.” — Rumi When you break down distances into bite-sized chunks, they don’t seem all that bad. To walk 250 miles over the course of roughly two months I needed to average 35 miles per week,…
“One day Rumi was teaching by a fountain in a small square in Konya. Books were open on the fountain’s ledge. Shams walked quickly through the students and pushed the books into the water. “Who are you and what are you doing?” Rumi asked. “You must now live what you have been reading about.” Rumi…
If I flinched at every grief, I would be an intelligent idiot. If I were not the sun, I would ebb and flow with sadness. If you were not my guide, I would wander lost in Sinai. If there were no light, I would keep opening and closing the door. If there were no rose…
Watch the man beating a rug. He is not mad at it. He wants to loosen the layers of dirt. Ego accumulations are not loosened with one swat. Continual work is necessary, disciplines. — Rumi We’re all on our journey of becoming. We’re all working to grow in our chosen work, to experience life more…
Does a drop stay still in the ocean? Move with the entirety and with the tiniest particular. Be the moisture in an oyster that helps to form one pearl.— Rumi We are all drops in the infinite ocean, part of the whole yet trying to make a splash. Why do we focus so much on…
We are the first double-leaf sprout, two inches out of the ground. We need rain, or we may not grow more than this. — Rumi The rain rolled in right on schedule, really, timed to mask the Aurora Borealis thoroughly and keep my mind from wandering north. Quietly scheming to drop everything and drive as…
The knight and the castle move jaggedly across the chessboard, but they are actually centered on the king. They circle. If love is your center, a ring gets put on your finger. Something inside the moth is made of fire. — Rumi, A Mystic and a Drunk We wrap our lives around certain customs and…
You try to accomplish things, to win, to reach goals. This is not the true situation. Put the whole world in ambition’s stomach, it will never be enough. — Rumi, I Met One Traveling I’ve been mentally stacking mountaintops, places to summit in my short time here. You tend to feel you’re falling behind when…
Every tree, every growing thing as it grows, says this truth, You harvest what you sow. With life as short as a half-taken breath, do not plant anything but love. — Rumi, Every Tree I had lunch with a man of Ukrainian descent. He spoke with love for his old home, before he came to…
If a tree could fly off, it would not suffer the saw. The sun hurries all night to be back for morning. Salty water rises in the air, so the garden will be drenched with fresh rain. A drop leaves home, enters a certain shell, and becomes a pearl. Joseph turns from his weeping father,…