← Contemplify
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- [00:06]
A
Welcome to Contemplify, where we seek to kindle the examined life for contemplatives in the world. I'm your host, Paul Swanson. Today I welcome back to Contemplify Hala Liza Khafori, translator, performance artist, vocalist, and educator whose work bridges ancient Persian mysticism with contemporary spiritual longing. In our conversation, we talk about her latest book, Water, a luminous collection of new Translations from the 13th century Persian mystic Rumi. This follows her acclaimed debut, Gold. You can find our first conversation on Gold in the Contemplify archives. I am moved by Hala's ability to make these masterworks sing, bringing Rumi's timeless wisdom about surrender, divine love, and ecological awakening to this moment. As always, you can visit kitebify.com for the show notes and learn more about hala@halaliza.com that's H A L E H L I Z A dot com now join me in raising a glass to my guest today, Hala Liza Ghafori. What a joy, Hala, to be together again. I'm so grateful for your presence here, but in the world and how you move and teach and speak and sing Rumi wherever you go, but also through your own voice and translations. It's a gift to be in conversation with you today.
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B
Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Paul. Thank you for having me.
- [01:52]
A
Oh, thrilled. Where am I finding you today? What's the location of your body and presence today?
- [01:58]
B
Yeah, today I'm in the beautiful town of Acord, New York, which is near Minnewaska State park, which I haven't seen tons of state parks in America, but I've seen a chunk of them. And this is one of my favorites by far. It's a beautiful state park. And so I'm right by there. I'm at a friend's house, actually, so I'm piping in from her house.
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A
So you're surrounded by beauty and friendship. That's a good place to be connecting from.
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B
True, true.
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A
The last time we spoke, we were talking about your translated book of Rumi's poems called Gold. And so it's been a couple years and my wife has this great question. When she sees someone that she hasn't seen in a few years, she asks the question, what has become clear to you since we last spoke? It could be big or small. But since we last spoke in the spring of 2023, what has become clearer for you?
- [02:59]
B
Actually, personally, the profound value. It's not something that I didn't know before, but I think I'm sensing it More deeply, the profound richness of friendships and the importance of cultivating and strengthening friendships by seeing people. And I've had the fortune of being able to see people more as I've been traveling a bunch for performances and seeing old friends and also meeting new ones. And I feel like this experience of strengthening my celial network of friends slash my extended family and letting that family grow has been extremely fulfilling.
- [03:47]
A
Yeah.
- [03:48]
B
And so friendship is something that I feel. So that's a personal thing. And as far as Rumi goes, well, since 2023. Right. The new book has come out, and I was working on another batch of 54 poems. And I think what's continually clear to me is how wonderful Rumi is and also how much he continues to startle. There are poems in water that startle me. So I love that, you know, and I try to pick the ones that. That startle me at certain points. Not all of them, not every single one of them does, but a good chunk of them do.
- [04:31]
A
Yeah. What a great gleaning. Yeah. I was looking at your. Your schedule over the past few months, and you're all over the map. And it's fun to imagine you not only connecting with old friends and that, making new friends along the way, but. But you're bringing these resuscitations and songs of Rumi and your own work to the world. What is needed right now for this type of poetry and this type of song in the world?
- [05:04]
B
Well, I thought you said recitation, and I heard resuscitation. And I thought both of Those words are apt. Resuscitating, as in bringing to life and infusing new breath into something. And I do feel like every time one recites a poem, they are resuscitating the poem, putting it into the world. And I think right now, these messages that Rumi had composed for us 800 years ago, you know, they speak loud and clear and are certainly useful. And they provide, I think, a poetic and philosophical foundation, a value system that is different from what I think is mainstream in the Western world, where obsessive materialism has been the norm, where militarism has been justified over and over again. And I believe that Rumi speaks to both of these and provides another way of seeing and another foundation, another set of values, as I said, where we find the richness not in material, hoarding of material. The wealth is not there. That's actually not. The wealth is in this active and alive heart. And what it is. What does he say? In one of the poems? My heart spins the finest silks So I love that feeling of reams of silk sort of flowing out of the heart and creating a silky environment for us. This experience of being human is challenging.
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A
Amen.
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B
Yes. And we need cultures that. And value systems that help us along the way, not traumatize us.
- [07:21]
A
Yeah. And you used an interesting word just a few minutes ago around startling. You know, like there's some of these poems are startling. Have you found that as you've traveled around the world sharing these with those who come. How has the response been to some of these more startling poems?
- [07:40]
B
They've been actually really great. I mean, people really enjoy them, I think. You know, like seeing maybe one might say a more complete picture of Rumi as a poet. I like to say that his poetry is very muscular. It holds a range of emotions and a range of experience. And you know, when I talk in the intro about how he experienced both extremes of brutality and beauty in this world. The brutality being knowing what Genghis Khan was doing as he plundered and pillaged Central Asia. But he was aware of those horrors. And he was also aware of like astonishing beauty. And surrounded by astonishing beauty. And also surrounded by these calls to dissolving the self interest really. You know, dissolving self. But what are we talking about when we say dissolving self? We're talking about really dissolving the part of self that is obsessively self interested and actually feels itself separate from everything. And also is living in a state of scarcity in terms of mindset. And he's. We're dealing with that part of us and saying that part of us needs to dissolve, it needs to be shed. Needs to be incinerated in love's fire.
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A
Yes.
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B
So that. That the part of us that can be present to the reality of our interconnection has some space to speak and be right.
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A
Yes. You ended up there perfectly because you took the wonderful muscular route of Rumi to touch the different angles of. How does the startling. There's the startling of like the horrors of life and then there's the startlings of the overwhelming beauty and awe. And so I feel like you brought all that in to how folks have received this and why they're being drawn to it.
- [09:42]
B
Yeah. And you know, also one thing that I think startles sometimes is. Well, I could read one or two of the poems. I might as well. He's. Yeah, these sort of confessional ones where he's talking about his own struggle and he's admitting his own set experience with that self interested ego part of Being or that part of us that feels separate and isolated. And we think of Rumi as this, like, incredible love poet, which he is, which he totally is, and a sage, which he is. But to see his human side and to see how much he actually understands the struggle of human existence and how he is willing to tell us how he went through it and lived it is so beautiful. We talked about some of the poems that you marked down. And I think of two of those right now that I could read. Let's start with, on page five of Water, the poem I travel to every City. And he says, I traveled to every city. There was none like the city of love. The city of love. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what I was missing. Young and callow, I ran from one city to another. All I knew was a searing loneliness. I didn't give love a thought. I walked straight out of its honeyed fields and like a beast, grazed on whatever grass I could find. I hungered for onions and leeks. Not quail, not honey, not manna. I love that trio, by the way. You know, the bread that falls from the heavens. And quail, honey and manna. It's like cacao, right? I hungered for onions and leeks. Not quail, not honey, not manna. How could I long for what I hadn't tasted? Among souls? I was a soul alone, a restless heart with no wings. A flower has no tongue, yet it tastes the rain. A flower has no throat, yet it drinks the rain. So I tasted and drank the wine of kindness and laughter. Without my knowing, without my doing. It seeped into me. Love called out to my soul. Come in, come close. I built a house for you. It won't be free of sorrow. Trial come anyway. No, I said, I won't enter. I resisted. Time and again I ripped off my clothes, Wailing in defiance. Calmer, go. Love told me, I am here. Closer to you than the vein in your neck. Then came the enchantment, the toying sweet words, the magic of the bounding world. Who am I not to be lured? And who am I when love, right, capital L love, obliterates the I. I thought I was drawing me from one path, leading me on another. I could tell you. But every time I get to this point, the tip of my pen breaks.
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A
That poem, I feel like is so near and dear to my heart from my own watch. Reflective of my own pathways in relationship to love. And that ending, it just leaves me breathless. Just stunning.
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B
Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting. I started Out. You asked me something about what's clear to me, and I said the importance of friendship. And I'll tell you that there was a time that I didn't know how to do friendship because for whatever reason, the circumstances of my childhood, my. I'm not going to get into it now, but. But it was something that I learned over time. And so just to say to any listeners out there who might be feeling isolated or a sense of separation, as he describes when he says, among souls, I was a soul alone, a restless heart with no wings to just trust that many of us have been there and that just knowing that there is actually a way to cultivate friendships with ourselves, with each other, with this earth, you know, this is all within our capacity and actually is our true nature and to just hold tight, hang tight and gravitate towards the things that help on that path and just eat them. Eat them. You know, when Rumi says, eat my poetry like Egyptian bread, it's nourishing and it helps us grow, right? So all of these things that. That are available to us now, especially in this time, I just encourage people, if anybody listening feels the ache of separation, feels the searing loneliness that he describes in here, to hang tight and know that you're not alone and just like gravitate towards what feels good and trust that you have in your capacity to feel interconnected and to feel and to feel the truth of that. And when he says, a flower has no tongue, yet it tastes the rain, a flower has no throat, yet it drinks the rain. So I tasted and drank the wine of kindness and laughter without my knowing, without my doing. It seeped into me.
- [15:33]
A
It's so gorgeous. We could just stop right there. That'd be more than enough.
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B
Yeah.
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A
One thing I was reflecting on after reading this book and reading the introduction a couple of times and thinking about your own journey, am I correct that you have a biology degree from Stanford? Is that right?
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B
Yes, yes, that's right.
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A
You have this scientific degree. You've also toured and been at Bonnaroo, that the big music festival.
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B
That's true.
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A
I'm thinking about your experiences in life. How does your scientific training inform your approach to translating mystical poetry?
- [16:12]
B
Oh, my God. That's such a beautiful question, and it's one I've never been asked. And it's so lovely. I mean, I'll say this one thing about biology is that it is really a field that's awe inspiring to learn about the little mic mitochondria and what is going on inside this little organelle, inside the cell to learn about. One thing that always amazed me was the sodium potassium pumps. These are these sodium potassium pumps in the cell membrane. I think it's 2 pass potassium and 3 or 2 sodium, 3 potassium, or maybe the other way around. But they're just being dumped across the membrane and it's essential that these pumps are working. And all of this kind of activity inside our bodies that we don't even know about is happening to enable us to sit here or that I should say that we don't know about. I mean, we know if we study biology but. Or we study these things but we don't control it, we don't have to do anything to make it happen. It's happening. So there's some kind of life force, something that wants life to live, something that wants to take all of these disparate atoms and molecules and bring them together and then bring them together again, then bring them together into more and more complex sort of beings. It's like mind blowing. That force exists and all the little forces inside the Van der Waals and the, the covalent and ionic forces, you know, there's so many different electromagnetic forces that are bringing these things together, but the incredible harmony of it that we can speak, you know, that we are just these sort of little atoms that could have just been in total chaos, and yet we've come together and coalesced into these beings that, that can understand and that are sentient and conscious. It's just like, whoa, it's mind blowing, right? And so that's one of the things, I think biology, studying biology showed me that things are really, really deserving of our awe. And we can walk through life and not remember these things. But at the center of Rumi's poetry and Sufi mystical thought is herat, which means awe. And they want to bring us to awe. And Rachel Carson, the environmentalist, talks about awe and says that awe, well, let's say Terry Tempest Williams says awe is the moment ego surrenders to wonder, right? So that's a wonderful way of looking at it. So that's a humility to just be like, wow. And it's also reverence. And Rachel Carson says when we feel awe, we're less prone to destroy things. And so Rumi and the Sufis are asking us. So I think in a way, biology gives us plenty of things to be in awe about if we pay attention to them and to also see the patterns, to see the, the branching that's happening in the lungs, the branching that's happening in the trees, the branching that's happening in our neurons. I mean, in water. In one of the poems, Rumi says intelligence is a tree. In Samma, samma is the practice of deep listening and whirling dance. He says, in Sama, we hear the breeze in the branches. We hear the branches bloom. And so he's talking about one of his favorite meditative practices and how it would bring him to revelation, the blooming of intelligence. But, like to say that intelligence is a tree. I mean, he didn't know about neurons back then.
- [20:11]
A
Right.
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B
But the dendrites of neurons look like the trees out the window, the branching. So anyway, these motifs of branching, also the whirling motif, the whirling dervishes are going, going, going. And then we know in chemistry and biology, we learn about the electrons spinning around the nucleus. And then the. And then we know from all our planetary studies and the solar systems, we know the Earth is spinning around and spinning on its axis, and everything's spinning. And also our galaxy, unlike other galaxies, not all galaxies are spirals. Our galaxy is a spiral, and it's whirling, too. And so we have these two motifs of branching and whirling. I mean, how beautiful and interesting. And what a thing to just honor just a little undercurrent of reverence. He says that herat is the first stage of love, of the kind of love he's talking about. Awe is the first stage of this love. Right. So these things do relate.
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A
What a response that the ground of reverence and awe and how we can, like, allow them to be in. In this erotic conversation, this life force that gets born of that. It's just so. So enlivening.
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B
It is. And I like that you use the word erotic. It's a sensual and erotic existence. This whole planet is brimming with sensuality and an invitation to relish in it. And what is going on with the human mind.
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A
Yes.
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B
That is destroying and causing wreaking so much havoc upon the earth. Those are the things, too, that Sufism and Rumi particularly, and Sufism in general, asks us to look into and inquire about. Right?
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A
Yes, yes. And I feel you touch on this in the. In the introduction, too, where you. You talk about this kind of. At least how I'm seeing it, this alchemical transition from gold to water. So your first book, Gold to here with water. Eddie, you said that gold is Rumi's rhapsody, his ecstatic side, and water is Gold's moody cousin.
- [22:37]
B
Yeah, I called him moody cousin. Yeah.
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A
Can you say more about that?
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B
Yeah, I mean, I will Say that someone I like very much, a poet named Susan Barbo who works at New York Review Books. She was like, are you sure she read the book? She said, are you sure you want to call it Gold's Moody Cousin? Because I hear also the ecstatic, and I'm not so sure how moody it is. And I said, well, that's true, but also I do think it's got a moody side. And. And so I kept it. I. I like it anyway. Gold is. Water is moody, Gold's Moody Cousin. So I can see that people might see it differently, and that's totally fine. But I do see that water has. Well, we have grief in it, appearing in two poems more than we did in. In Gold, which I do think has more of the ecstatic and the wine of love. There is a little more critique of the brutality in the world. And he's showing his frustration in a way that I think is very productive, actually, because he's following it along and working through it. And he's also. Then love appears in water 96 times. So there's also an exploration of love. And what is this thing love? And how many ways can it be defined or understood? How many metaphors can he present for us to penetrate us? I mean, the goal is to help us feel it and activate it. And so he's providing so much for us. And so, yeah, I just think there's a little more of working through. But I think both books show his confessional side. Both books show the sage. Both books show sometimes the demanding preacher. Both books show the ravaged lover and the ecstatic lover. So they both have all these facets of him displayed. But I think maybe Water has a little more of his grief and frustration as well as his absolute and complete commitment to love.
- [24:50]
A
Yeah, yeah. Hear, hear. I think the descriptor of Moody Cousins, the landing, sticks like, I think it works because it doesn't diminish, as you said, all the other textured elements of what Rumi brings forth and the poetry. So, like, what I liked about it is like, oh, this is going to be different than Gold and dug it. I loved Gold. And so, like, I was excited that it. You could have try to do a carbon copy selection and translation. But, like, you brought forth something else in the world which is certainly related to Gold, but, like, allowing other facets to face forward was really intriguing to me as a reader. So I'm glad that you did not back down from the Moody Cousin side of things while acknowledging the fullness of what was brought forward.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
You know, we've been talking about intuition too. I feel along this way, the way that Rumi like, intuitive some of these things that science would come along later and have branches or these explanations. But you talk about how for this collection, you followed your own intuition. Could you describe how a poem reached out to you to make it known that it wanted you to put it in water? How was that intuitive response kind of triggered?
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B
Yeah. I think in a way I'll read a poem and if it. Something in it delights, challenges, startles, it could be any of these baffles or affirms or provides an answer, some kind of answer to a question I've been having or speaks to our times. Like, these are the things I'm attracted to. Right.
- [26:41]
A
Yeah.
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B
I also, as you pointed out, I don't want to repeat my. The poems too much. Like, I. I'm looking for different moments in this body of work or different flavors in this body of work. But also, of course, themes repeat, which I do like, but they sort of are repeated in different ways. There's something different, you know, like, for instance, there's a poem in gold on laughter. And I really, really love that poem. And there was another poem I found on laughter during the process of going through more, and it was, in my view, not as good. So I didn't bother translating.
- [27:23]
A
Yeah.
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B
I said, look, I got this one that's I think, is just a wonderful poem. And this one is also on laughter. And it has a little similar quality, but it's just not as strong. So there's no point. So I'll put that aside. But I think that it is about just sort of following. Yeah. What kind of wakes me up in some way or another.
- [27:47]
A
I love that. And so it's that waking up effect. You can articulate it when it hits you and you can kind of decipher about which one's going to make the cut or not from that. That intuitive sense. That's great.
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B
Yeah. Yeah.
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A
I care if I read it somewhere or heard it in another interview. But you've talked about leading walking tours through forests that involve poetry.
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B
Mm. Yeah. Where did I talk about that?
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A
I can't remember now. This came up in some of the research I was doing, which was. Was broad. So I can't. I don't have the exact source for it. But what happens when you bring Rumi into nature versus a book reading? Like, what happens with Rumi outside versus within four walls?
- [28:32]
B
That's interesting because I was just. This past weekend, I did a performance in Vermont and it was outside, and it was like towering pine trees and a river and a field and this, like, mossy knoll that we ended up calling Memory Foam Hill because it was like the springy ground.
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A
I love that.
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B
It was so comfy, you know.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And even the pine needles, you know, they can be actually quite soft. Right. It was just like such a comfortable hill. So we called it a memory Foam hill. But anyway, there I was before Memory Foam Hill among the pines. It's a river down in this kind of valley, essentially. And it was nighttime and the stars were out, and I gravitated towards. I'll tell you the poem that I started with just because I was in that environment. So this was actually one that I had never read at a performance, but I decided to start it with this. The garden, sent as a messenger, arriving again and again, inviting us in hidden exchanges, hidden cycles stir life underground. What stirs the life in you? The garden asks. The garden thrives, invites us to do the same. Saplings break through darkness Ladders set against the sky. Mysteries ascend. Lips of lilies open Secrets whisper to the cypress Good news of spring blasts from the mouths of tulips among red buds and willows Nightingales perch like rant like guards over open coffers of nectar. Open coffers of nectar. Leaves are tongues, the fruit a heart. When the heart opens, we know the tongue's worth. So this poem, you know, has such a ni. Like a lovely sort of sense of the responsiveness and dialogue the natural world is in with itself and with us. That the plants are speaking to each other, that the tulips are blasting the good news of spring, which is what they do. Like, almost like trumpets, their color. Right. And they're like, we're here. We made. We made it through the winter, guys. We're here. It's happening. Spring is here. And the sense of the nightingales, but that the coffers, you know, they might look like guards, but the coffers of nectar are open. And I don't know, there's just such a beautiful. And what stirs the life in you, that we ourselves are gardens or what? Or we could be any kind of ground, and we as humans can project anything onto this earth. Are we gardens? Are we battlegrounds on the inside? And then what are we projecting onto the earth? And are we sometimes both? And are we moving between the two? And are we finding ourselves in the moment that we are holding a battleground within? And are we taking responsibility for it?
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A
Yeah.
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B
And if we project that, or are we nurturing if it's within, are we nurturing ourselves and being kind to ourselves? Stop battering ourselves. And then if we're projecting it onto the world of battleground, are we being accountable? Are we willing to look in the mirror and stop blaming and say, what the hell? When Rumi says in gold, he says, I'm not that lion. Battling an enemy, confronting myself keeps me busy enough. Yeah, I am the soil, living love. Seeds, roses and lilies will bloom from this mud. So we can imagine an individual saying this, and we can also imagine a nation saying this. What if nations each said this? I'm not that line. Battling an enemy, confronting myself keeps me busy enough. I mean, every nation has to confront itself and its own toxicity and the enemy within its own field. And then he says, and then imagine a nation says, I am the soil. Love, seeds, roses and lilies will bloom from this mud. This is really a human evolution. And later on in the poem, with utter humility, he says, I am a child and love is my teacher waking me from ignorance. And we gotta do it again and again and again, right? We stray, we remember, we stray, we remember, we forget, we remember, we forget, we remember, we stray, we return, we stray, we return hopefully again and again to love. And love is this practice, and love is this oasis. And love is this choreless, boundless sea where we can take our ladle and pull it, drink from it. And love is a fire that incinerates the egoic narratives. Love is all these things, he says, right? And what are we doing to activate these forces in ourselves? And then how best can we project gardens upon the world, right, instead of battlefields? And so all these things come up. And when I'm outside, nature speaks. And when I'm inside, Nature speaks. Because humans are nature, and we're a confusing species. We are. We have a cerebral cortex that's very demanding and gives us delusions and gives us all kinds of things that we have to work through.
- [34:20]
A
That's so true that I didn't know that question was going to open up that amazing, expansive answer. Because I think what you're bringing into this for me is something I've been thinking about in all times. Of course, we need poets. But in times of challenge and hardship and loss and trauma, particularly at the global scale, that I feel like we're being inundated with every single day to have, poets tend to get there first. And I think. And it's not just current poets, but also current poets can help draw poets like Rumi to the forefront and be like, let's listen to these words.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah.
- [35:01]
A
Not just from one particular lens, but from this political lens of what is being asked of us to what does it mean to centralize love as a political goal? Like there's these waves of new understandings that we can get from poets that I don't think we can get anywhere else. So I'm curious for you, as a poet, as a translator, how do you see poetry as political?
- [35:29]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, I just love what you just said and I echo and hold that as a call and a challenge to humanity that we allow love to enter the socio political realm. That we can admit, we have to admit the challenges of human existence. Every single human is dealing with challenges. And the fact that we are matter in spirit, the fact that we have all these thoughts and a mind that is extremely active. Right. And that can go in all kinds of directions is a challenge. And we have feelings that are like, wow, overwhelming every human. I mean, some people have more than others, but anger and kindness, thank God, compassion, thank God. Generosity, thank God. But also anger, greed, outrage. And some of these angers useful. Outrage is useful. Grief is important. All of these things are important. And even jealousy can be a compass of telling us what we might want in life. So all of these emotions are, okay, they're human. But it's a lot being human. It's just a lot. And so why can't we imagine a sociopolitical system that cares for us all that we are creating the sociopolitical system and we care about ourselves and each other and we recognize the challenge and we want to make it easier, not harder, Right? What if the goal of a sociopolitical system is to make human existence easier, not harder? Why should we have sadomasochistic sociopolitical systems where people are denying themselves healthcare and okay with putting people in prisons and spending $126 a day per person to torture them? But then, but like we can't have healthcare, but we can do that with the money. That's really. Is that really the direction? I mean, is that really. Is there any level of intelligence or heart to that? No, but there's some crazy stuff. There's the desire to scapegoat, which is a human desire which has been through history. We can look into that, inquire, you know, it's just inquiry. What is that about? Can we talk about it? And are we going to allow this urge to scale scapegoat to run our sociopolitical systems? Are we gonna allow love and care for ourselves and each other and beyond tribe because we are all one tribe. We are one tribe, we are one species. And we gotta make this work together. Cross national collaboration. The flag is the flag of compassion and there are the social majority. There are people across the entire world of all nations, of all religions, of all creed who are loving people who want to wake up and have a good day and don't want bombs dropping on anyone and that's a simple fact. And don't want to be if they're thinking about money, they don't want their tax dollars at least to be spent on destruction. They'd rather their tax dollars be spent spent on schools and things that bring life and art and, and wonder and joy. Let's invest in joy. Let's invest. You know, I mean these things are so elemental and yet we're living in this delusionary world that is like. That is built on narratives that are doom ridden narratives and they're only used by people in power to secure their power.
- [39:35]
A
Battle preach. I love that. I think we're making the essential non essential when we cut off cultivating joy. When we're not centering love, we're making choices unconsciously to perpetuate one thing that tends to be diminishing for the masses while helping others in power retain that power or influence in ways that is whatever the opposite of harmony is with the. The planet and with culture, with people and even supporting across difference, you know, whether it's religion, race, ethnicity. There's a beautiful vibrancy in that web that when it's woven together around love. And what's coming to me right now is I wasn't always this love drunk. Would you mind reading that poem?
- [40:26]
B
Totally. Honestly, that's what I was just thinking. Let's see what page that is.
- [40:32]
A
I think that's 40.
- [40:34]
B
Okay. Page 40. Yeah. I wasn't always this love drunk, this crazed, wrapped and enchanted. Driven by reason, on guard. I was a hunter. Calculated, charming, strategic. The heart is a tender thing, pulsing with blood, pulsing with life. That wasn't me. I wanted answers. What is this? What is that? And what will they be tomorrow?
- [41:06]
A
Awe.
- [41:07]
B
I knew nothing of awe. And the awe struck. Those free from the gnawing need to know the unknowable. They didn't impress me. Sit down with me. You're a smart one. Consider what I was and what I no longer am. I wanted to be kingpin, top dog. Bigger than big, like smoke I climbed greedily going nowhere. A crooked plume wayward Drifting over parched land, Thirsty for meaning. I didn't know when love hunts you down. When you fall prey to love, you only rise higher. Continuing my futile climb, I fell. I fell like a gem out of a pile of dirt. Not a hoarder of treasure. Treasure.
- [42:07]
A
That's a poem.
- [42:09]
B
I love that poem. I'm so glad that you wanted to hear that one. I love that poem and the generosity and kindness of it and the. The willingness. I wanted to be kingpin, top dog. Bigger than big, like smoke. I climbed greedily. A crooked plume wayward, going nowhere. Yeah, whatever it was. Over parched land, thirsty for meaning. And then to say, you are not a hoarder of treasure. You are treasure. You are treasure. I'm not a hoarder of treasure. I am treasure. And that is the beauty. And in another poem in water, he says, searching for treasure. You've endured so much trouble. Hear this truth. You are the treasure and the veil hiding it.
- [43:03]
A
It's just stunning to me just how evocative these words are to the human condition and the things that we strive for. I was reminded of. I think it's Thomas Merton, who said, like, the problem with climbing the ladder is you often realize once you get to the top that it's leaning against the wrong wall.
- [43:25]
B
Nice. Yeah.
- [43:26]
A
And I think there's. There's so much truth in that of. There's, you know, across all. All mystical traditions, it's been said, you know, all the way to heaven is heaven. How do you come to that kind of place if it's not from finding it within and finding it with whoever you're with before you? For that you see God, divine divinity, love through them, however you're approaching it. And I think that's one of the great gifts of the poetry of Rumi. Is these reminders from all different sides. It's not just. Again, this is why I'm so smitten by the moody cousin. Because it shows the shadowy side, too, of love or the things that we try to dismiss. What does love look like in politics? What does love look like when bombs are being dropped in your name and falling on folks that you'll never know, but you feel impacted by it. It's the dimensionality of love that I. I think, makes poetry a necessity in our lives.
- [44:31]
B
Yeah, it makes me think. You spoke of the ladder and of hierarchy. And he was tired. Around the age of 48. He was at the apex of his career, so he was at the top of the. The latter. And he was wary of this fame and this position. And he knew that around him, people were talking about the dissolution of self and self Interest. And yet everybody wanted to be sort of like sitting next to the VIP or stuffing their. Their turban with rags, because the larger the turban, the larger the man and these things that were not really walking the talk. And, you know, he grew tired of that. And, you know, he says in a poem in gold, he says, look at me at this feast. I'm the lowest of the low. And he says, I'm so far gone in ecstasy, I can't tell up from down. And in another poem, he says, master, serve love. I don't want to be. He says, I'm not a shaykh. I'm love servant. And again, taking this sort of position where the wealth is in the state of serving, this beautiful life and existence that we are so lucky really to experience. I mean, gosh, we could just be. What did Mark Twain. I think Mark Twain said this. Someone told me this the other day. It was so funny. He said, I'm not afraid of death. I was death. For what is something like this? I'm not afraid of death. I was dead for millions of years. And it. And it never scared me or something like that. I think. Oh, it never bothered me. That's what it. He said I was dead for millions of years. It never bothered me. But we could have never existed.
- [46:24]
A
Yeah.
- [46:26]
B
So we have this finite existence. Right. Maybe we're also immortal, but all we know right now is we've got this. And so this notion of serving and being in awe of that is very prevalent. Yeah.
- [46:40]
A
Yes, yes. And I think holding that transitory nature and trying to relish the beauty while we can does not diminish our capacity for compassion in the suffering either. Like, I feel like they're. They're both coming from this chorus of life. It's just sometimes it's a minor key rather than a major or. Yes, but both are necessary, and I want to participate in both to the best of my ability and stand next to a stronger singer. I'm coming to the limits of this metaphor, but stand next to a stronger singer when I don't. When I can't quite reach those notes or. But I want to be there in support. I want to be there as a listener and bear witness to it. And to me, this is like the role of the poet. This is what I'm so grateful for, poetry and poets holding that. That post in the world.
- [47:31]
B
Yeah, same, same. You know, poets through history, such an. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and being willing to tell these truths of their own experience, their own personal experience in these sort of Distilled forms that we can just sort of experience and, and. And feel. You know, it penetrates poetry, can penetrate us in a way that maybe nothing else can. And walk with us, and it can haunt us and it can stay with us. And that's a good thing. And make us think and give us a room for discussion and interpretation and revelation of our own psyche. Where is our own psyche at? If it sees this or that, this way or that way and sort of. And how do we see it in 20 years? Yeah, it's interesting. It's a very living, living form.
- [48:24]
A
It's such a living form. And it's something you're saying just is sparking this for me. I can't remember exactly where, but you kind of get a sense of Roomy's sense of humor in water. Like there's some, like, humorous, pretty jabs around economics or desire. As you were doing this work of translation, was there anything in that translation process that made you laugh out loud where it's like, oh, Ruby, this stands. All these years later, this still makes for a chuckling, startling perspective on economics or desire. Does any line come to mind around that?
- [48:58]
B
Yeah, actually, the very brief line when he says, beloved, beloved, you know, he's speaking to the divine beloved. When your sweetness rains down, the price of rock candy plummets. I thought, that's very good. And it's just again, it's once again calling us to the spiritual life versus the material. And also when he says world of water and mud. Ever since I've known you, I've known torment, trial and tribulation. You are a pasture for grazing donkeys, not the abode of Jesus. What am I doing in a pasture for grazing donkeys? Why am I here? And this is a serious inquiry. And it's also. There's a sense of humor there. And, you know, and the donkey in Persian literature is considered a symbol of ignorance. And. But ignorance, as in hasn't awoken to love.
- [49:51]
A
Yeah.
- [49:52]
B
When he says, this is a pasture for grazing donkeys, not the abode of Jesus. But then later he moves through the poem and he's working it out himself, this sensation of frustration with the world. And then he comes to. Well, he's talking to the infant blossom and so on. But then he says, while here I am raising my arms to the sky, praising the one who made the sky, but why insist on above and below when my source dwells in every here and every there, why ask where of the everywhere? And so even though he said, this is not the abode of Jesus. Then by the end of the poem, he's like, oh my God, the divine is pulsing through everything. And then he just says, turn off the mind, turn off the tongue, enter nothingness, see things through nothing's eyes.
- [50:45]
A
It leaves me speechless just holding all of that and then have it funneled through such beautiful words. Like the particularity that drops into the universal is a wonderfully startling way to be awakened. Like I feel my own juices of life be enlivened through this conversation around the way that bringing all of Rumi into it and all of what's happening in the world into this moment. I say this as a fan of your work. Is Rumi done with you? Do you feel like you have more roomy translations that are going to come come out in this series? Because they've been so joyful for me as something to read and pass on or share with friends. Is Rumi continuing to be a muse of translation for you?
- [51:39]
B
I believe so, yes. I found a poem I really like and I feel like it's the first poem of the third book. And I've been thinking about the third book and there's a character named a prophet. And wherever Khazr sits, well, let's say Hez sits and then leaves and green grows. So wherever he sort of has touched, there's a fertile growth and something productive and nourishing that grows and something green. You know, he's the green prophet. And I like that as a metaphor for being human. It's a tall order that everywhere we leave there's a little mini garden that grows. But just as a sort of. Because in. Because we have so much for so long in this country. I was born here in America and I know that what we have valued is material wealth. And we've looked up to people who have gained material wealth, never asking who did they, what did they do to get all that material? I mean, sometimes they've done very good work. That's true. I'm not saying that all of the accumulation of wealth is always for. Because of something negative. But in a lot of cases there's been all kinds of exploitation and immoral behavior. And yet even so, those people are still regarded again as top dog, kingpin, bigger than big. And that, that is something to aspire to is odd. But what about aspiring to a character like. Like this that leaves green wherever they, you know, have sat? You know what I mean? So it's just again, it's a value system once again that we're questioning.
- [53:43]
A
Beautiful. Beautiful. And I think your words and your poetry and the translations invoke that they invite that for to make such considerations which feel so countercultural to the massification of the desire for more and more at whatever cost to other folks. And I think there's a staunch truth and beauty to this work that like invites us to look at it differently. I would love to ask you to read one more poem before we go. Is there anyone that. That comes to mind as a way to send us off?
- [54:22]
B
Yeah, I mean, let's see. Shall we go for a simple one? Sun in the heart. Sun in the sun. Soul.
- [54:30]
A
Perfect. Perfect.
- [54:31]
B
Yeah, let's do that one. Page 29 and I'll say so anyway. Those are some lines in Persian. Sun in the heart, sun in the soul. Fill the house with light again. Fill our friends with joy. Blaze in the eyes of enemies, blind them till they see. Sun in the heart. Right. Blaze in the eyes of enemy with that love. Blaze in the eyes of enemies, blind them till they see. Rise over the mountain, Ripen the grapes, make rubies out of stones. Sun in the sky, sun in the heart. Dr. Beacon, take our hands, use our hands. Cure the ill and ailing, make the gardens green again. Adorn farm and meadow with every fruit and flower. Criminal to let clouds hide you. Sun in the heart, sun in the soul. Unveil your face and brighten our dim world.
- [55:57]
A
Wow, what a poem to end on and send folks out to ringing in their ears. We always close with a question of embodiment. Hala. If you were going to pair our conversation with a drink, what would be your drink of choice and why?
- [56:16]
B
I would say. Well, actually a few things came to mind. The first thing that came to. I'll just say the first thing that came to mind was the ginger beer. Ginger beer, which is a. It's called beer. It's a. It happens to be non alcoholic beverage. But anyway, it's just. It's just gingery and delicious and it's refreshing. It's refreshing and it's effervescent and it's got heat to it. Ginger has a heat and I love a cold ginger beer. And the cold and the hot, the hot and the cold coming together to both refresh us and warm our hearts. Hopefully, yes. And our throats. And this bringing love to this, let's call it the chakra, the throat chakra. And allowing ourselves to speak, speak from our heart, you know, to let the heat of the heart rise like the heat of ginger rise into our throats and come out our mouths as we speak in love. For this world.
- [57:21]
A
That's marvelous. Ginger is one of my favorite flavors. I have ginger tea. That's how I start my day. So I'm going to close out my day with a ginger beer. So that sounds so good to me right now. This is such a joy and delight. Thank you so much again for being in conversation.
- [57:37]
B
I love all the synchronicities, too. The ginger synchronicity. That's good. It's like I'm like telepathically reading. I was like, ginger, that's right.
- [57:46]
A
You pulled it out in the morning.
- [57:47]
B
Okay, good. I like that. I like that.
- [57:50]
A
That's perfect. Thank you for listening to this. This episode of Contemplify. May it stir conversation with kindred spirits and strangers alike and provide a nourishing morsel of thought for your week. Slip over to contemplify.com to find the show notes for this episode. While you're there, sign up for the monthly Contemplify Non Required Reading list and the weekly contemplative practice Lo Fi and Hushed. If you're enjoying Contemplify, rate and review it on your podcast player. The president of the Internet slipped me a note just the other day on a napkin that said, this will help spread the contemplative cheer. The theme song of Contemplify is called Langside by Charles Ends and Darren Hoveus. Fellas, grateful as always, and I'm looking forward to bringing you more musings and conversations with contemplatives in the world here in the near future. Until then, be well.
- [59:15]
B
Sa.