long life
honey in the heart
…We
drove her aqua
Ford convertible into the country
with a sack of red apples. It was a perfect day
with her sun-brown legs and we threw ourselves into
the future together seizing the day. Fifty years later we hold each
other looking out the windows at birds, making dinner, a life
to live day after day, a life of dogs and children and the
far wide country out by rivers, rumpled by
mountains. So far the days keep
coming. Seize the day gently
as if you loved
her.
A sea-cow, a dugong, finds a special pearl
and brings it up on land at night. By the light it gives off
the dugong can graze on hyacinths and lilies.
The excrement of the dugong is precious ambergris
because it eats such beauty. Anyone who feeds on Majesty
becomes eloquent. The bee, from mystic inspiration,
fills its rooms with honey.
So the dugong grazes at night in the pearl-glow.
Presently, a merchant comes and drops black loam
over the pearl, then hides behind a tree to watch.
The dugong surges about the meadow like a blind bull.
Twenty times it rushes at nothing, passing the mound
where the pearl is.
So Satan couldn’t see
the spirit-center inside Adam.
God says, Descend,
and a huge pearl from Aden gets buried under dirt.
The merchant knows,
but the dugong doesn’t.
Every clay-pile with a pearl inside
loves to be near any other clay-pile with a pearl,
but those without pearls cannot stand to be near
the hidden companionship.
Remember the mouse on the riverbank?
There’s a love-string stretching into the water
hoping for the frog.
Suddenly a raven grips the mouse and flies off.
The frog too, from the riverbottom,
with one foot entangled in the invisible string,
follows, suspended in the air.
Amazed faces ask, “When did a raven ever go underwater and catch a frog?”
The frog answers, “This is the force of Friendship.”
What draws friends together
does not conform to Laws of Nature.
Form doesn’t know about spiritual closeness.
If a grain of barley approaches a grain of wheat,
an ant must be carrying it. A black ant on black felt.
You can’t see it, but if grains go toward each other,
it’s there.
A hand shifts our birdcages around.
Some are brought closer. Some move apart.
Do not try to reason it out. Be conscious
of who draws you and who not.
Gabriel was always there with Jesus, lifting him
above the dark-blue vault, the night-fortress world,
just as the raven of longing carries the flying frog.
A certain man
was constantly bewailing his poverty.
Ibrahim ibn Adham said to him, “My son, perhaps
you paid little for your poverty.” “You are talking nonsense,”
said the man, “You should be ashamed of yourself.
Does anyone buy poverty?”
Ibrahim replied,
“For my part I chose it of my own free will;
moreover, I bought it at the price of this world’s sovereignty
and gave up my kingdom and my ruling over others. I would buy
one instant of this poverty again with a hundred worlds, for every moment
it becomes worth more to me. When I found this precious merchandise,
I gave my final farewells to royalty. Without any doubt I know
the value of poverty. While you remain in
ignorance of it, I give thanks
for it.
Ibrahim ibn Adham
What good
is it to spend your life
accumulating material things?
It isn’t in keeping with the Tao. What
benefit in conforming your behavior to someone’s
conventions? It violates your nature and dissipates
your energy. Why separate your spiritual life
and your practical life? To an integral
being, there is no such
distinction.
Live simply
and virtuously, true to
your nature, drawing no line
between what is spiritual and what is
not. Ignore time. Relinquish ideas and
concepts. Embrace the Oneness.
This is the Integral
Way.
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