A Little Rumi for Your Monday

I believe that in the next day or so, I will be discussing the unusual psyche of sports gamblers here, because I have been spending absurd amounts of time with them of late, preparing for the madness of the annual Hilton Super Contest. They are a mindset all their own.

In the meantime, in the last twelve months of my personal reconstruction (which is the first I've called it that, but it's accurate), beginning with SMOS and ending with a recognition that I had what I wanted and just needed to tear down some old constructs, old relationships and old patterns to get to it, I've been meditating, sometimes daily, on a particular Rumi poem. This week promises to be stressful and difficult for me, and I'm trying to remind myself that I'm tearing a lot of things down in order to get on a road I'd rather have, emotionally, mentally and even just practically. I thought I'd share the poem.

I don't think I've ever written a run-on sentence as bad as the one above. Rumi is a better writer than I am, even in translation. Enjoy.

The Pickaxe
Some commentary on I was a hidden treasure,
and I desired to be known; tear down

this house. A hundred thousand new houses
can be built from the transparent yellow carnelian

buried beneath it, and the only way to get to that
is to do the work of demolishing and then

digging under the foundations. With that value
in hand all the new construction will be done

without effort. And anyway, sooner or later this house
will fall on its own. The jewel treasure will be

uncovered, but it won't be yours then. The buried
wealth is your pay for doing the demolition,

the pick and shovel work. If you wait and just
let it happen, you'd bite your hand and say,

"I didn't do as I knew I should have." This
is a rented house. You don't own the deed.

You have a lease, and you've set up a little shop,
where you barely make a living sewing patches

on torn clothing. Yet only a few feet underneath
are two veins, pure red and bright gold carnelian.

Quick! Take the pickaxe and pry the foundation.
You've got to quit the seamstress work.

What does the patch-sewing mean, you ask. Eating
and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body

is always getting torn. You patch it with food,
and other restless ego-satisfactions. Rip up

one board from the shop floor and look into
the basement. You'll see two glints in the dirt.

- Rumi

The only thing that creates change in your life, people, is you impacting change in your life. Nobody ever got happy by waiting for somebody else to rip up the foundation. Finding your carnelian vein is hard work.