Moments With The Sun
Enclosed is about 90% or so of the Introduction to a book I am working on, and a sample of the opening few lines on a couple pages, that follow this Intro. Turning it into a blog entry like this helps me to polish it. Hope something here is of value to you. Moments With The Sun, is the title to the new book, and a hopeful series that I want to have a poetic quality, via short sayings and some art, too, being about half of each book.
Introduction: Realizations!
I like looking up words sometimes, even though I might have in some ways been hanging out with them most of my life. Like the word realization. I just officially looked that up for the first time. Its meaning is: the act of becoming fully aware of something— as a fact.
What we believe in surely, surely affects us, and can deeply. And who is not a honey bee trying to extract all the nectar we can— from the minute, the hour and the day? From eyes we look into, from sounds we hear, from dreams we have— from anywhere we go!
What is a garden in your life that you draw life from? What are the greatest facts or experiences to you, or Moments With The Sun? Or an oasis where you might bump heads with an angel, too, drinking there?
My primary meadow in bloom, an oasis, I draw life from, a Sky—to me— is poetry and writing; and memories of my some six years in India, and having spent some remarkable, intimate time with someone who I feel was a true Teacher! A real Buddha in some ways— as every creature and form is evolving toward.
And memories— our best of those— can be even more alive and still giving than what we might often feel.
And how wonderful the heart, a vital salvation, of so many lives can be one's children, a dog, cat, horse, a career. I had a dog like that, a great buddy in the world, I can still gladly, sweetly weep in missing, after many years.
So this little book, that I hope to be a series— and in it I quote from my work with Hafiz & Rumi & Kabir. And if one were at all concerned (or interested) in the whole translation-rendering-inspiration thing, please go to my website (well you are here now) where I go into all that to some important extent.
Realizations. One’s Moments With The Sun, of real Knowing! Let the golden bird out of the cage, and its wings can unfurl and caress the cheek of God!
Daniel Ladinsky
Taos, New Mexico USA
(Some samples from the book.)
Realization #1:
One day I saw the sunlight as one of God's myriad hands reaching out to the earth and us, wanting our hearts to hold something of Her body close. And then a tree swayed, and a mountain sang— telling me even more about love!
Realization #2:
Wherever you go! Leave at least an invisible flower on the holy shrine existence— that is everywhere!
Realization #3:
There is a Knowing that can so defy gravity! You can sit on a limb with a bird, and then, why not, fly off together!
Realization #4:
How do you know— you don't Know! Your aren’t singing, dancing or laughing! Or at least have a smile unpacking enough of your baggage to— fly off with a bird!
Realization # basically Everything:
And where does the wing of a lover of God go
when it has the strength and freedom to fly?
To caress the cheek of the Beloved. To caress
the cheek of God.
And the Sun is always reaching out its hand to us, you can hold now. You can touch God now— within your heart. Or see Her anywhere when you begin to really— see!
All the fish will turn golden in this Ocean of
the Sun.
—Rumi
And here are a few lines of Hafiz beautifully presented. It is not quite a two minute video, someone sent me just last night, asking me some questions about it. Think I might have seen it only once before. There are a few lines from my Hafiz poem titled: “Listen To This Music,” as the poem appears for January 1, in A Year With Hafiz. Indeed listen to the Sun, and to the Mountain & to the River— in your heart!