a seed pearl
“‘Like the moon when it’s getting
smaller, yet knowing the fullness to come.
Like a seed pearl ground in the mortar for medicine,
that knows it will be the light in a human eye.’”
—Rumi, Childhood Friends, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.
gold for you
“When someone is counting out
gold for you, don’t look at your hands,
or the gold. Look at the giver.”
—Rumi, Omar and the Old Poet, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.
being green
“We began
as a mineral. We emerged into plant life
and into the animal state, and then into being human,
and always we have forgotten our former states,
except in early spring when we slightly recall
being green again.”
—Rumi, The Dream That Must Be Interpreted, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.
pieces of silver
“A certain rich man was accustomed to honor a sufi
by giving him pieces of silver.
‘Would you like one piece of silver now,
O Lord of my Spirit, or three at breakfast
tomorrow morning?’
The sufi answered,
‘I love the half a coin that I have already in my hand
from yesterday more than the promise of a whole one
today, or the promise of a hundred tomorrow.
A sufi is the child of this moment.’”
—Rumi, The Long String, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.
Become the sky
“Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.”
—Rumi, Quietness, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.
Maker of the Blue-Green Bowl
“Sovereign Plumed Serpent,
Heart of the Lake, Heart of the Sea,
Maker of the Blue-Green Plate,
Maker of the Blue-Green Bowl,”
—Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, translated by Dennis Tedlock, 1985.
quetzal feathers
“There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, forest. Only the sky alone is there; the face of the earth is not clear. Only the sea alone is pooled under all the sky; there is nothing whatever gathered together. It is at rest; not a single thing stirs. . . .
Whatever might be is simply not there: only murmurs, ripples, in the dark, in the night. Only the Maker, Modeler alone, Sovereign Plumed Serpent, the Bearers, Begetters are in the water, a glittering light. They are there, they are enclosed in quetzal feathers, in blue-green.
Thus the name, ‘Plumed Serpent.’”
—Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, translated by Dennis Tedlock, 1985.
a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush
“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am.”
—The Bible, Exodus 3: 2-3; quoted by Thorkild Jacobsen in The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.
the visible sun
“Whereas the power speaking to Moses in the desert disassociates itself from the bush, and identifies itself as the god of Moses’ fathers, numinous power speaking to the Mesopotamian Enkidu in the Gilgamesh Epic does not choose to disassociate itself from its locus and so needs no introduction. The Gilgamesh Epic simply states: ‘The sun god heard the word of his mouth; from afar, from the midst of heaven, he kept calling out to him.’ The power is here seen as immanent in the visible sun, it is what animates it and motivates it, is the god who informs it.”
—Thorkild Jacobsen, from The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.
an enormous black eagle
“Sometimes the form-giving imagination reads details and meaning into a form beyond what is given in simple observation: the numinous power in the thunderstorm, Imdugud, developed from the dark thundercloud into an enormous black eagle floating on outstretched wings; but since the mighty roar of the thunder could not well be imagined as issuing from other than a lion’s maw, this bird was in time given a lion’s head.”
—Thorkild Jacobsen, from The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.