Rumi - The Privileged Lovers (Poetry)

The Privileged Lovers

"The moon has become a dancer
at this festival of love.
This dance of light,
This sacred blessing,
This divine love,
beckons us
to a world beyond
only lovers can see
with their eyes of fiery passion.
They are the chosen ones
who have surrendered.
Once they were particles of light
now they are the radiant sun.
They have left behind
the world of deceitful games.
They are the privileged lovers
who create a new world
with their eyes of fiery passion."

~ Rumi

And here is a a poem about love from Rumi spoken by Goldie Hawn 

Real Connection wanted

Here is something I read last week in a research paper. I wanted to stay at home, but after posting this I decided to go fetch a wine bottle and have a chat with my awesome neighbor. It's saturday night for god's sake. :)

We live in a world where the pace at which we live our lives makes it increasingly difficult to create real connections with the people and world around us.

We're stuck in fast-forward and the culture of speed is spilling over into our social lives. This speed makes it harder to connect and satisfy our basic human social needs for belonging, closeness, conviviality&friendship.

It's ironic that in a world where we are more connected than ever we feel less connection. We are connected all the time, in real time through mobile, email, instant messaging, tweets, texts&posts yet as a society we feel the depth of connection is missing.

It's never been easier to make friends but never been harder to form friendships. Our culture is increasingly defined by the quantity of friends we have on Facebook not the quality of friends sat around the dinner table.

And, when we do meet face-to-face it's getting more difficult to get beyond the small talk to the big talk. We consume everything in convenient bite-size. Chat shows now have 5 guests in an hour, we tweet in 140 characters and news is delivered in 60 second sound bites. Our digital behavior has influenced our real life social behavior. We've forgotten how to hold a conversation, stay on one subject, get beyond the small talk to the good stuff, the deep stuff, the rich stuff, the revealing stuff, the juicy stuff.

We've been given the media to get our ideas and thoughts out there. We are constantly on transmit but have forgotten how to listen? When it comes to conversation listening is equally important to talking. We've forgotten how to listen, to question, to challenge, to be interested. We get stuck in the same place trading sound-bites about ourselves and miss the opportunity to embark on a conversational journey neither could make on their own.

Love letter

Wow, here is a wonderful but heartbreaking love letter, I have found in a park yesterday. It was left under a park bench as if this woman wanted at least someone to read about her feelings. Hmmm, if they are meant to be, I hope they will get together at the end. In any case, just beautiful words...

So many things on my mind and yet, nothing really makes sense to me. All my thoughts are empty. Only he is on my mind. His face is in front of me, his big beautiful warm eyes that carry so much love and pain are all I can see in the emptiness of myself. It pains me not to be with him. Now that god has showed me his face again, now that our souls have finally found each other's half on earth, nothing else makes sense without him. It's our destiny to be together. I hope, he will feel that, too. "No one but you". No other, but your eyes. I want no other soul to dive inside the depths of me but yours." So much pain of separation, I feel. My soul is crying with dried-out tears, as his ecstasy is missing. He is my ecstasy. Are we two pillars of the same house or are we one? I want to merge with him. I want to flow and melt together right there without and within. This state of division is hardly bearable, unnatural, he is me and I am him. I am going crazy, but let me be. 

If we can't be together, oh god, please make me be strong enough to see the whole beauty of your world. Let me not wither like a flower without his sunshine, without his water, dying slowly of a lost soul-love. Instead, let me see your love in everything that surrounds me and let this love be sufficient for my heart. For my deeply longing ill mind tries to seduce me with sharp claws into sins, eager to rip out my heart in an instant when I look away, making my soul a slave to a dark land where you will leave me on my lost path to you.

I start to understand Romeo&Juliette's unendurable pain. Let me drink tonight as if this painful night of love never happened and yet I know, it will be written down in the books of the universe.

I love you. With all my heart.

(translated from German into English)