Coleman Burks on RUMI; Cody's Books, 2 Stockton, San Francisco. A favorite poet of mine once said "I am in the world to change the world". Rumi (1207-1273), was a teacher, mystic, founder of what we now know as "Whirling Dervishes," and a poet of lyrical spiritual power, who created 20,000 poems or oral extemporizations that were recorded by his students. He believed that prayer has a form and physical equivalent, that every thought has an expressive action. As part of the UNESCO declaration of 2007 as the Year of Rumi in honor of the 800th anniversary of his birth, Coleman Barks visited San Francisco from his native Georgia and "ruminated" on this great man, and read from A YEAR WITH RUMI: DAILY READINGS.
The Self we Share:
Look fish, you are already in the ocean
just swimming there makes you friends with glory.
What are these grudges about?
You are Benjamin.
Joseph has put a gold cup in your grain sack
and accused you of being a thief.
Now he draws you aside and says,
You are my brother. I am a prayer. You are the AMEN.
We move in eternal regions,
yet we worry about property here.
Let this be the prayer of each:
You are the source of my life.
You bring rivers from the mountain springs.
You brighten my eyes.
The wine you offer takes me out of myself
into the self we share.
The Love Religion
...Love is the religion in me
whichever way love's camel goes,
that way becomes my faith.
the source of beauty, and a light
OF SACREDNESS OVER everything.
Rumi's poetry feels like it belongs to everyone. When he died in 1273, members of all religious came to the funeral. As Coleman Burks pointed out, wherever you stand, his words deepen your connection to the mystery of being alive.
QUESTION AND ANSWER:
Q:(me) I have a friend who is a very devout Catholic who insists that the soul needs "feeding" with rituals,and that you need to attend church in order to fulfil the hunger of the soul. I believe that the body and soul need laughter. I think i understand the mystics, Sufis, but how does humor figure in?
A: It's very humanistic isn't it, laughter?
A Nazradene went into a store (he was a trickster), and the shopkeeper comes forward. Trickster says, did you see me come in that door? Yes, I saw you. Trickster: Have you seen me before in your life? Shopkeeper: Never have I seen you! Trickster: HOW DID YOU KNOW IT WAS ME?
I'm not against church. There are wonderful things that happen there...the singing. Some people have more use for it than others. I just feel that the EXCLUSIVITY of the God Names, you know, the God Claims, are causing danger to the planet.
Me: Norman Mailer was in San Francisco. He believes in the soul.
Burks: I like Norman Mailer's writing, but he's very mean though, isn't he? He's a boxer!
M: Coleman, religion and politics are so intertwined in the United States, do you not agree? What was Rumi's political bent? Did he have any kind of political life?
A: We have 147 letters that have survived that tell about his day-to-day life -they're not about politics...Sultanate was in charge there, but he was deeply involved in the nitty-gritty of life with friends, his community, helping neighbors, relatives with loans, whatever he could do to make a difference in the world. Trying to help out, micromanage ways with the world around him so you'd call that politics, wouldn't you.
Coleman Burks is a dynamic speaker/poet and was 39 years old before discovering Rumi. It was hopeless at that age, he said, to learn Persian (farsi) and relied on scholars to help "translate" the poems.
There is a French saying that TRANSLATION is a betrayal. Burks' language, poetry seduces, and is no betrayal! His meditative, ruminative, poetic RUMI is worth visiting if your "soul" needs inspiration, awakening, wit, and humor!
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