Rumi, Spirituality And Poetry
Posted: October 31, 2018 Filed under: Inspirational, Poetry | Tags: ancient texts, Art Rosch, language, Poetry, Rumi, spirituality, The Many Faces of Poetry 6 Comments
The oldest poetry of all is in the Holy Books. The Rig Veda, The Maharashtra, the Buddhist Sutras, The Old and New Testament. Then there are the extended legend/poems that have become embedded as virtual racial memories of mankind. The story of Beowulf, the Icelandic Eddas, The Iliad and The Odyssey. It seems as if poetry came first, was the primal form of literature, handed down from The Gods to human beings.
More familiar to us today is the work of the Sufi mystics like Rumi. I know that Rumi’s poetry has become a consumer commodity. His work is immune to vulgarization, however, so I’m not worried about Rumi. He is said to be the most widely read poet in the world. His work has survived eight hundred years. He nearly vanished to the western world until Sufi scholar Coleman Barks translated Rumi into English and it took off…again!
Rumi addresses himself to God, to Allah, as if to an intimate lover. He gives all of himself to the Highest because he is in love with the Highest. Rumi is also very human, rooted and ordinary. He offers us practical insights on daily survival. He writes, “Don’t worry about what doesn’t come. By not coming it may prevent disaster.” He may as well have been speaking directly to me. I’ve waited for a lot of things that haven’t come.
Poetry and prayer are inseparable. Isn’t every poem really an address to the Divine? Isn’t it laden with hope, desire, confusion, supplication and maybe even surrender? Rumi’s poetry attracts modern readers because it retains its purity, it can’t be trivialized by the consumer paradigm that dominates our world. It doesn’t matter that Donna Karan uses Rumi to sell fashion. Or that rock star Chris Martin uses this poem on an album by Coldplay.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
I can’t think of any more appropriate response to the maladies that afflict us in these times.
This, then, is my poem, a poem very much influenced by Jalalladin Rumi of The Mevlevi School of Sufism.
A Worthy Destination
I haven’t found peace.
I don’t own peace,
rent peace,
buy or sell peace,
though I do encounter peace
from time to time.
Peace is like a friend
who comes for a surprise visit.
As my life takes on a shape
in which peace feels comfortable
I see peace more often.
Peace is not easily found in this world.
Peace comes like an accident,
a good mishap.
Peace lands in my heart like
a bird that’s raised its young
and is looking for a new place to nest.
I thought I would know peace by now,
but it’s taking longer than I expected.
The biggest problem is my mind.
It’s like a bag turned inside out, its contents
are the world, spilled and crazy.
Peace is not comfortable
in the world. When I’m with peace, I feel as though I’ve brought a guest
to the kind of party
that’s broken up by the cops after midnight.
I need to make peace more welcome here.
I should send peace an invitation, find a good solid tree
where peace can perch and sing
before taking flight
to a more worthy destination.
To see more of my writing, photography and music I highly recommend that you take an excursion to
email writernuts@gmail.com
A Midwesterner by birth, Arthur Rosch migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that he was more connected to the Beatnik generation. He harkened back to an Old School world of jazz, poetry, painting and photography. In the Eighties he received Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders. The timing was not good. His life was falling apart as he struggled with addiction and depression. He experienced the reality of the streets for more than a decade. Putting himself back together was the defining experience of his life. It wasn’t easy. It did, however, nurture his literary soul. He has a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv.
Voting For Sociopaths
Posted: November 17, 2025 | Author: artrosch | Filed under: Commentary, Mind Fields | Tags: consciousness, meditation, Mental Health, mindfulness, spirituality | 1 CommentIf you vote for a sociopath to serve in public office, you may be acting from your own sociopathic tendencies. Americans have succumbed to a sociopathic culture that is sad and shocking. It isn’t wealth or poverty that counts in the USA. It’s numbness to the suffering of others. It is disturbing that numbness has spread itself wide, that apathy has replaced interest in public discourse. The awful fact is that people are dead inside.
How do I know this? I know it from personal experience. I was also dead inside. Now, I have a bit of life within myself. I continue to fight this social and spiritual desolation. I am less dead than in the past. I use every tool I can grasp: therapy, meetings with a group, reading about psychology, learning about Consciousness itself.
Growing up in a typically dysfunctional family has left me reeling with emotional pain and often engaged in struggles with addiction and other debilitating conditions. I didn’t want this! I wanted to live free and happy, but that is neither possible nor even desirable. I have learned patience and the ability to frame my narratives of pain in terms that show their creative importance.
As far as I know, I was not “sent here” by anyone other then another faculty of my very core SELF. We need to understand that possession of a Self is a very high privilege, a vital connection between what is human and what is not of this world, but of some inner possibility. Selfness is a condition of consciousness, a unique and important faculty of identity. It isn’t random, it doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from within the mind and the fact that there IS a mind at all is crucial.
Why? Why have a mind? Of what evolutionary use is a mind? All creatures have minds and some of them may be highly organized and developed. We have no idea what goes on in the mind of an animal like a whale or an elephant. It seems clear from observation that they are not automata. Nor are they entirely conditioned by nature. There is something else, something beyond our grasp, about the minds of other species. We are desperately uninformed. At best, we are guessing, by way of zoologists, veterinarians, communicators and empaths.
What if a blue whale knows about the cosmos in an entirely different way? What if its brain produces some profound psychedelic that eludes human beings? In its own way, as it sounds the depths, it may be swimming among the stars. Is there not an inner life within the life we see? Should not a bear possess an inner life? Does not its memory belong to the universe?
About Arthur Rosch
Arthur Rosch is a novelist, musician, photographer and poet. His works are funny, memorable and often compelling. One reviewer said “He’s wicked and feisty, but when he gets you by the guts, he never lets go.” Listeners to his music have compared him to Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Randy Newman or Mose Allison. These comparisons are flattering but deceptive. Rosch is a stylist, a complete original. His material ranges from sly wit to gripping political commentary.
Arthur was born in the heart of Illinois and grew up in the western suburbs of St. Louis. In his teens he discovered his creative potential while hoping to please a girl. Though she left the scene, Arthur’s creativity stayed behind. In his early twenties he moved to San Francisco and took part in the thriving arts scene. His first literary sale was to Playboy Magazine. The piece went on to receive Playboy’s “Best Story of the Year” award. Arthur also has writing credits in Exquisite Corpse, Shutterbug, eDigital, and Cat Fancy Magazine. He has written five novels, a memoir and a large collection of poetry. His autobiographical novel, Confessions Of An Honest Man won the Honorable Mention award from Writer’s Digest in 2016.
More of his work can be found at www.artrosch.com
Photos at https://500px.com/p/artsdigiphoto?view=photos
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