Something in His eye grabs hold of a
tambourine in
me,

then I turn and lift a violin in someone else,
and they turn, and this turning
continues;

it has
reached you now. Isn’t that
something?

by Rumi, interpreted by Daniel Ladinsky

What is it for you that Rumi is referring to? What is the music?

There’s something about this time of year (and I’m speaking here for those of us in mid-winter in the northern hemisphere), which can prompt us to look inwards for a source of light. Here in Herefordshire we haven’t seen the sun for a week now and the nights are long. For me, the music in this poem may be many things, but certainly the light of love and joy comes into it.

Christmas time, for those who celebrate it, is about the birth of love, which is an inner light in the darkness for sure. But where there is love there is also lost, unlived or broken love and many of us navigate these waters over the festive period too.

This poem speaks of our profound interdependence as human beings. We depend on each other instinctually for love and joy, for upliftment (whether spiritual or not). It has reached you, Rumi says – might ‘it’ be the spirit of joy perhaps? And you lift your tambourine to join in the harmony. And might you turn to the next person and see their heart lift as you pass it on?

How might you be able to act in this spirit over the festive period?

Wishing you love and joy!

Photo by febri sym on Unsplash

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirit fly in and out.

by Rumi – translated by Coleman Barks (although there are many experts who say that Coleman Banks’ ‘translations’ are more interpretations of Rumi’s original words or poems ‘inspired by’)

This is one of those poems that I liked on first reading and have been carrying with me in my red poem folder to courses and retreats. I’ve even read it out from time to time for its quality of resting: the sense of everything happening by itself and we can let go, witness and be present without trying so hard to make everything happen.

Witnessing my husband move through life after he had a stroke three weeks ago, has suddenly made it an important poem for me in a way it wasn’t before, because it points at what is seeming to sustain him in a challenging time of adjusting to a body and mind that are functioning different from before. And ‘different’ doesn’t quite cover it: where Rumi speaks of ‘broken instruments’, Alexander suddenly can’t speak or type or draw with his right hand in the way he was used to for all these years, and that’s quite something for a coach, storyteller and artist.

And yet I can see he’s anything but crushed by it. In fact he’s been telling me about this wellness that lives in him since the stroke, and said that not for a moment did he wish it hadn’t happened (who is the mindfulness teacher here, living acceptance like that?! I can’t say I’ve been quite as equanimous…). But somehow this poem helps me to understand. If we realise we’ve ‘fallen into the place where everything is music’, then maybe our idea of what it’s supposed to sound like isn’t the most important anymore. And ‘if one (or several!) of our instruments break, it doesn’t matter’ – or at least the ‘hidden instruments’ sing completely unimpeded. It requires a shift in orientation of course, letting go of wanting to ‘save these songs’ and instead listening to the ‘graceful movements’ of this ‘singing art’.

So this is the practice: tuning my inner ear to where everything is music, and opening ‘the window in the center of my chest’. So much to be grateful for, also in the midst of challenges…

PS. of course that doesn’t mean there may not also be some very human disappointment, worry and pain going on, and they deserve heaps of compassion from self and others. I’ve noticed both in myself and others that it can be tempting to skip to the bigger picture to avoid the struggle of the moment, and I doubt that’s what Rumi intended to point at!

Photo by Mario La Pergola on Unsplash

lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard
yet always present.

When all other things seem lively and real,
this one fades. Yet the notes of it

touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound
of the names laid over each child at birth.

I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.
If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,

the telling is so soft
that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,

becomes beautiful. I stop and stop again
to hear the second music.

I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.
All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart.

by Annie Lighthart

A few things went different from plan this week, resulting in some unexpected time to do… what? Combined with a spacious retreat day and special time in the company of horses and their people, this made for a week in which I’ve been more aware than usual of what Annie Lighthart calls ‘the second music’.

I know exactly what she means although I’d never have thought to describe it like that. It seems to be connected with the knowing what is happening while it’s happening, that subtle but important shift in perspective that is accessible to anyone but definitely seems to happen more with practice.

Makes me feel grateful, and alive.

And you? Does it speak to you? Can you hear it… now?