Dear Yogis,

What a fun get-together we had for my birthday – and no, I didn’t take a photo – I never think of it!  Katie was there and she takes ten photos of a baby’s every breath, of every flower, and not even she remembered!  But we who were there don’t need photos – it was FUN, and we don’t get enough of that!  Thank you to those who came.  It was such a memorable day – and it hasn’t finished, I still have a couple of get-togethers to attend.  My granddaughter had three day birthdays and I could never understand it, but now I do.  What a fabulous thing to do!  Try it.  Much better that one huge party – not that it is possible with covid, everything has to be “spread out”.  Even parties.  The photo is of “orbs”  I have visited them, and they are with me, with us.  We are never alone (even at birthday parties) ….. Sometimes they become visible to us.  They are always the same – we change.

The new year is well and truely started.  What is your new year resolution?  At my party, the group there (after the happy birthday song) and the toast, asked me to name one goal – a memorable kind of goal – that I have for the new year.  Here it is.. I want to learn Qur’anic Arabic.  Not just by rote (which many people do).  I want to know what God said.  The Qur’an are the words of God, direct and unadulterated.  If you read a translation you are reading an “interpretation” and we all know how wildly inaccurate these can be – just take the Bible for instance.  Learn THE WORD, then read THE WORD.  That is my plan, and I know it is not an easy one.

Learning Arabic is going to be made easier, and I am going to have to be disciplined because a number of you have said you want to learn with me!  Now, I love to teach, but I have never taught a language before, and I certainly will need God’s help to do this.  I find that this is both daunting and exciting.

Because my father spoke Arabic (mostly to my mother when he was cross – there are so manly poetic ways of expressing displeasure, and love) I am very comfortable with the sounds, but I have never written it which I will have to do.  Not the beautiful script, but the English phonetics to pass on to you. We will get there.  I am waiting for a book… and will move forward with you once it arrives.  It may take a little while.  In the meanwhile we will just do our usual newsletters, and I will let you know how I am going learning the language by ear.

RUMI

At my party, as usual people asked me about things that are inspiring me at the present – and the poetry of RUMI certainly is.

Rumi didn’t always write fabulous poetry about love.  He was brought up to be strong and academic by his father,  a Sultan and a pillar of his community.  Rumi did all the right things and it was supposed he would follow in his father’s footsteps..  Ring a bell?  We all try that.  We all try to live up to other’s expectations.  It worked until he fell in love, totally in love, for the first time with “Shams” (which translates as “the sun”). Shams wasn’t just a lover, he was a teacher, a miracle worker, and a voice of The Divine.  The Master appeared in the form of Shams, and most importantly – Rumi recognised Him..

Rumi knew whom he had found.  He left his family and his children, and lived with his love.  He became a wild man – laughing, dancing in the street, drinking.  All the things he had been warned against and all motivated by wild, abandoned love.  It was only a short time until a member of his former family took matters into their own hands and killed Shams, thinking that this would cause things to revert to how they were – they didn’t, they couldn’t.  After a period of deep grief and mourning, Rumi began to write poetry.

Those of you who are creative will know that great joy and great suffering propels great creative endeavours.  Great art (even great science)  generally does not come out of a humdrum, boring, “meat and three veg” existence.  Pain and release of some kind unlocks the flowering of art.  Not everyone who experiences this will have the impact that Rumi did, but they will experience the release and the love if they allow it.  If they follow it.

There is a Melbourne Art Collection Called THE DAX COLLECTION.  It was assembled by a Dr.Dax who worked at Royal Park Infirmary in Kew,  a place for people deemed to be mentally infirm or unbalanced (or other such euphemisms).  Unlike many of the doctors there, Dax asked his patients to make drawings throughout their stay.  When they arrived, their drawing (in my opinion) would be fabulous, exploding , and glorious.  As the treatment progressed and the clients became “sane”, the paintings became more and more “ordinary” until at the end of their stay, were not even worthy of storing in a filing cabinet.  There is a lot to be said for “Wild Abandon”.  I believe I do have a painting in the Dax Collection, submitted by my doctor and painted when I was going through a period of intense grief.

“Anywhere you find a lullaby, leave; safety is the final danger.
When you come across a storyteller know a house is being destroyed.

How long will we fill our pockets with dirt and stones?
Let the world go.  Holding it, we never know ourselves, are never airborne.

I lost my world, my fame, my mind.
The sun appeared and all the shadows ran.  I ran after them but vanished as I ran.
Light ran after me and hunted me down.

Circle the Sun, and you become a sun.
Circle a Master and you become one.
You would be a ruby if you danced around this mine.
Dance around Him and you will glitter like gold.  (Rumi)

 

AS ALWAYS I WILL MEET YOU ON THE MAT.
NAMASTE. JAHNE