“A DUMB EXPERIMENT
Break open your personal self to taste the story of the nutmeat soul.
These voices come from that rattling against the outer shell.
The nut and the oil inside have voices that can only be heard with another kind of listening.
If it weren’t for the sweetness of the nut, the inner talking, who would ever shake a walnut?
We listen to words so we can silently reach into the other.
Let the ear and mouth get quiet, so this taste can come to the lip.
Too long we’ve been saying poetry, talking discourses, explaining the mystery outloud.
Let’s try a dumb experiment.
A PILRIMAGE TO A PERSON
When you are not with close friends, you are not in the presence.
It’s sad to leave the people you travel with.
How much moreso those who remind you of God.
Hurry back to the ones protecting you.
On every trip, have only one objective, to meet those who are friends inside the presence.
If you stay home, keep the same purpose, to meet the innermost presence as it lives in people. ”
Excerpt from The Essential Rumi: Reissue – New Expanded Edition by Coleman Barks
Theo and Mira 