Thursday, April 16, 2009

Zero Circle

I made this card at Santa Sabina retreat center recently. I was attending my fourth meeting of the Embodied Life Mentorship Program with Russell Delman.

I haven't spoken from this card yet, so have no "I am the one..." statement. However, one of the participants at the gathering read this poem. The card and the poem seem like a perfect reminder of what to keep in my mind and heart.

Zero Circle -- by Rumi (version by Coleman Barks)

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty,
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Besides ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.