Conspiracies

Conspiracies
Come and go
With spirit
Inspirations
More or less
Intermixed
In illusions
Or believes
Try action
In reality
See what
Crumbles
Facing life
And love
If it drops
Or rises up
Supposed
As a truth
For some
To believe
With spirit
Conspired
Religion
Detach
Be free
In spirit
Miracles
Of all life
And love.

“Fused oriental occident and occidental orient”

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, 13th-century Persian poet

“Learn the alchemy true human beings know.
The moment you accept what troubles
you’ve been given, the door will open.
Welcome difficulty, as a familiar comrade.
Joke with torment brought by the Friend.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
and then are taken off.
That undressing,
and the naked body underneath,
is the sweetness that comes after grief.”

“The hurt you embrace becomes joy.
Call it to your arms where it can change.
A silkworm eating leaves makes a cocoon.
Each of us weaves a chamber of leaves and sticks.
Silkworms begin to truly exist as they disappear inside that room.
Without legs, we fly. When I stop speaking,
this poem will close, and open its silent wings. . . .”

— A Year with Rumi, Daily Readings, Coleman Barks, pp. 341 and 333 (also on YouTube 14:43-19:50, read by Coleman Barks with music by the late David Darling)

Sparrow recovering from glass wall conspiracies