Forgive the Dream

All your images of winter
I see against your sky.

I understand the wounds
That have not healed in you.

They exist
Because God and Love
Have yet to become real enough

To allow you to forgive
The dream.

You still listen to an old alley song
That brings your body pain;

Now chain your ears
To His pacing drum and flute.

Fix your eyes upon
The magnificent arch of His brow

That supports
And allows this universe to expand.

Your hands, feet, and heart are wise
And want to know the warmth
Of a Perfect One's circle.

A true saint
Is an earth in eternal spring.

Inside the veins of a petal
On a blooming redbud tree

Are hidden worlds
Where Hafiz sometimes
Resides.

I will spread
A Persian carpet there
Woven with light.

We can drink wine
From a gourd I hollowed
And dried on the roof of my house.

I will bring bread I have kneaded
That contains my own
Divine genes

And cheese from a calf I raised.

My love for your Master is such
You can just lean back
And I will feed you
This truth:

Your wounds of love can only heal
When you can forgive
This dream.

~Hafiz

Hafiz does it again. Words that touch so far into the depths of my unconscious mind. What is this mystery that brings joy and sadness, pain and pleasure, winter and summer, hard and soft? Grace has brought me to a point of stillness, able to gaze upon ~
                   The magnificent arch of His brow
                   That supports
                   And allows this universe to expand.

The wounds exist because love is not real enough to allow the healing. Reading this takes me back to places I don't want to be; to pain I no longer feel. And yet, if the experiences never existed, I would not be here in the moment. Resting on a carpet of light, encirlced in the warmth of just being.

When you have traveled too fast

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.

Learn to linger around someone of ease

Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,

Having learned a new respect for your heart

And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

John O’Donohue

This is just a portion of a poem entitled "For One Who Is Exhausted."  I find refuge in the image of my soul coming to take me back. There are times when we all move too fast and miss the small miracles that are always nearby.  Why not come into the present moment and the "joy that dwells far within slow time?"