the music, the dance

Rumi quotes in bold arabesque (orange).

-

Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, or just Rumi. I met his writing a couple of years ago. You can find a link to his poems on my sidebar. I had heard about him in Istanbul when we lived there in the late 1980s.

You picked up a handful of earth, I was in that handful.


Rumi was born in present day Afghanistan September 30, 1207. Apparently 2007 is the year of Rumi, celebrating his birth year 800 years ago. He died in Konya, Turkey, December 17, 1273. This carpet in our guest room is from Konya, where Rumi died and is buried.





Not until a person dissolves, can
he or she know what union is.

There is a descent into emptiness.
A lie will not change to truth

with just talking about it.


I’ve read that he’s the most popular poet in the U.S. (best selling). I find this surprising. I’m guessing 10 years ago not many had heard of him here. Is it surprising to you that an 800-year-old Persian poet is the most popular in the United States of America, more popular than Robert Frost or Maya Angelou? But if you pay attention to the boom in Eastern philosophy in this country, maybe it isn’t too surprising.

A lover wants only to be in love’s presence, an ocean whose depth will never be known.

-

Love’s work looks absurd, but trying to find a
meaning will hide it more. Silence.


And isn’t it a little ironic that a mystical Muslim is our poet, when our government has demonized Muslims? I am tired of being around such blindness. Oh, the beauty of poetry to bridge this gap.



Blessed is one who sees his weakness, and blessed is one who, when
he sees a flaw in someone

else, takes responsibility for it. Because, half of any person
is wrong and weak and off

the path. Half! The other half is dancing and swimming and
flying in the invisible joy.




Last night Coleman Barks, translator of Rumi in the volume I own, came to my University, and Inge and I went to hear him, and also to see the Whirling Dervishes after his reading.




Barks’ voice is deep and just a tad southern. (He was born in Tennessee and now lives in Atlanta.) For an hour and a half, he recited from memory or read Rumi on the mysteries and perplexities of love and life, accompanied by Glen Velez, drummer (please go to his link and see how amazing his playing is), and David Darling, cellist. Barks' strong voice supported by the beats of the drum and the pluck of the cello melded into a very easy-to-listen-to rhythmic cadence. Each artist alone would have forced my eyes closed in delight. But hearing the trio together, I simply sat in stunned bliss. Actually, it was a quartet, Rumi in the lead. Every moment the sunlight is totally empty and totally full.





Rumi asks, What is the heart? What is it to be a true human being? What is in the human exchange?

After Rumi’s death, the Mevlevi Sufi Order was founded, they are the Whirling Dervishes.


Following Barks’ reading, Velez’ drumming and Darling’s cello playing, two Whirling Dervishes whirled in a performance. Dervishes believe their ecstasy from union with God culminates in this dance.


I was a little troubled, even beforehand, by the prospect of watching this practice, because it felt as if I would be watching something intimate, and I wondered how this could be conjured for a show?


Be a clear and rational lunatic.


So mostly I just closed my eyes and listened to the Sufi musical foursome from Chicago play for the Dervishes. They too were earnest, and I appreciated their devotion, all of them.



The two dancers walked in ceremoniously, dressed in white gowns covered by black robes. It’s now time to live naked.

But the event for me was about listening to the words of a man who thought he

could find a way through fire, expressed through the artistry of three men whose gifts and skills match the depths of a poet’s words still alive after 800 years.

You’ve been walking the ocean’s edge,
holding up your robes to keep them dry. You

must dive naked under and deeper under, a thousand
times deeper! Love flows down. The ground

submits to the sky and suffers what comes. Tell
me, is the earth worse for giving in like that?

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holiday cactus (Schlumbergera)

I think they're supposed to be "Christmas cactus."

Or "Thanksgiving cactus."

But they seem to be "Halloween cactus" again this year.

I take the schlumbergera out to the porch in the summer. They love it and grow a lot.

Then in October when I bring them inside, they immediately begin to bud and bloom. It must be the decrease in light that triggers the bloomin'.

I think the blooms will be gone by Thanksgiving (November 22), when we'll have Don's family at our place to celebrate the holiday.

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Who am I: Deep Thoughts

I'm trying to think of a term for myself that sounds right. I inhabit a little non-working farm with my husband.


He is the farmer. He plants the seeds. He weeds and hoes. He sprays organic stuff to get rid of bugs.


He is the farmhand (remember Eb on "Green Acres"?). He lugs the heavy stuff, does the grunt work.


He is the farmer's wife. Forgive me, but he is. He not only picks the berries, he comes in the house sweaty and dirty from picking, and he gets out all the canning equipment and makes jams and jellies, while I sit and read. Well, I help sometimes. But he has all the knowledge, all the drive.


I, who am I?


Sticking with the Green Acres connection (please click on the link for the theme song and opening sequence), I am Lisa. Now she's not the typical farmer's wife, which is why I can say Don is the farmer's wife and I am Lisa.


Unlike Lisa, I can actually bake a real cake (not put a box in the oven and watch it come out a cake). Unlike Lisa, I am not a city girl, and I don't wear evening gowns around the house.


But she is the closest I can come, so far, to discovering who I am.



And oh, see all this pumpkin glory? Yes, my husband's first pumpkin harvest. And yes, it was HE (shall we call him "Ollivah"?) who cut one up (not easy), baked it 1 1/2 hours at 350F, pureed the flesh in the food processor, strained the juice, made homemade pie crust (Carolyn Roehm's recipe; if you look at this link, she looks a little like Lisa), and made pumpkin pie. It's the best darn pumpkin pie I've tasted, so fresh and REAL, unlike canned pumpkin. And he used the recipe for pie that our old friend gave us, who died a couple of weeks ago after a beautiful long life. She used molasses, and that, my friends, is the secret to extraordinary pumpkin pie. You can see it makes the pie dark too.

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loving the oil

Isn't it handy I happen to have pictures of the Board of Water and Light from last year, hehe.

This guy, J. Peter Lark, the general manager of the Board of Water & Light in Lansing, wrote an editorial about how Michigan used to be an industrial giant, the supplier of WWII machinery (whoohoo!), Detroit was considered the “Arsenal of Democracy.” The good old ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, eh? When the economy was fueled by wars and we were shooting for the moon and the stars.

He says we should sign on, like 24 other US states, and pledge to use wind power and landfill gases to generate electricity. Hey, this is the general manager of the Board of Water & Light talking! He says only 3 percent of the electricity sold in Michigan is from renewable resources. He wants to see that tripled in the next decade.

Mr. Lark is saying Michigan can be the “Arsenal of Green Energy” instead of the “Arsenal of Democracy.” I like that. Envision less dependency on foreign oil. Envision less dependency on foreign oil. Envision less dependency on foreign oil. Envision fewer reasons for you know what. Yep, "protecting our interests"/loving the oil. Oil and blood, both running, one out of, one into, the ground.

Our Michigan auto execs failed us. They decided to nix the electric car. So, we have to keep “protecting our interests” in oil. Remember what that means. (I still haven’t seen “Who Killed the Electric Car?” gotta see it.)

Don and I would buy a wind turban for the farm if we could afford it ($6,000-22,000). Maybe we’ll try to afford it in a few years. Depending on available wind, we could reduce and/or eliminate our need for electricity fueled by oil. And the process of converting methane gas from landfills around here for electricity, that doesn’t break my heart either.

But what I’m getting pretty excited about is a bio-diesel burning car. After my Chevy Aveo I’d like to get one of these. I would go around to restaurants and ask for their frying oil. Hey! Michigan being the state with the highest number of fat people, that means leftover French Fry oil is plentiful! Heather, does Chris know a lot about making biodiesel?


This site talks about biodiesel fuel processors you can buy, but it also says you can build your own if you’re handy. Hey, I’m married to a handy guy.

So here are some benefits of biodiesel according to this site:

* It can be made from almost any vegetable oil. Most restaurants will gladly give you their used oil for this, but it’s best if it hasn’t been used too many times. You can make a batch in a day (6 hours).

* It’s actually good for your car’s engine, naturally cleans it.

* Biodiesel is so pure you can drink it! “100 times more biodegradable than petro-diesel, is cleaner burning, does not contribute additional Co2 to the atmosphere when burned" (Don, science teacher explains: regular diesel is made from crude oil that contained trapped carbon for millions of years in the ground, so burning it brings new carbon into the atmosphere. But biodiesel is burning carbon that was already in our atmosphere, so plants have already recycled it and we're not putting additional carbon into the air), "less explosive and less dangerous in a spill or accident, and smells like a deep fryer when it burns instead of the nasty diesel smell.”

* You can make top quality biodiesel for $.50-.90 a gallon.

So, am I right that any diesel burning engine can take biodiesel? I read that you might have to change rubber fittings for Viton, since biodiesel erodes rubber.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe converting to these new technologies is that hard. It just takes WILL. JFK said he wanted a man on the moon in 10 years. It happened in 8. Could Al Gore (i.e., President Al Gore) do the same, different goal? Convert dependency to foreign oil to dependency on the available energy from the sun, wind and trash (including trashed oil)? OMG, can you imagine a 10 year goal like that?

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hands that harvested your food

"Strawberries are too delicate to be picked by machine. The perfectly ripe ones bruise even at too heavy a human touch. Every strawberry you have ever eaten has been picked by calloused human hands. Every piece of toast with jelly represents someone's knees, someone's aching backs and hips, someone with a bandanna on her wrist to wipe away the sweat."

—Alison Luterman, quoted in "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry," by Jack Kornfield

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work boots

We have two work days at our family cottage: one in the spring and one in the fall.

In the spring, there is tons to do. Wash all the bed linens (we have beds to sleep almost 30). Wash all the windows. Put the porch screens in. Wash all the walls, cupboards, floors, everything top to bottom. Put the dock out, the raft. Tidy up the yard. Sweep and hose down the house siding.

But in the fall, hehe, there is not much to do. And yesterday was a perfect autumn day to not do much.

We had time to color.



Enjoy the sun.

Crawl around.

Look at each others' faces.


Drink coffee. Cuddle.

Oh, and then we also did some work. Like take out the porch screens.

Wash porch windows.

Find where the windows go. This is the hardest part.

And put them up.

The babies kept themselves occupied.



While their mommies, daddies, grandmas and grandpas worked.

But often the babies also helped.

And then they had to take a break.

Because the loving is the most important part.

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