Currently, my formal practice is sporadic. Sometimes the pieces come together in a rush. This happened this week. Michael Lerner of Commonweal recited Ibn ‘Arabi’s poem, A Garden Among the Flames, in Ordinary Life class and at the Jung Center’s annual event. The words and voice speaking them lingered with me. I chose the poem to use as our centering practice in Conspire on Sunday. While I let the words sink in, spending more than enough time to read each word and let them sink into the crevasses and open parts of me, I gathered the words that spoke loudest. I let them rearrange as I remembered a specific moment in time where I felt buoyed by love. I let them turn into a new piece that sings a song a gratitude for one of the toughest and most graceful moments of my life. I went back to the day my stepfather died, the horror in my mom’s mourning wails, the grace that held my arms wrapped around her, and the moment I felt us both giving way to the weight, when my step-brothers and sisters arrived at the very moment I needed to be held and replenished. Yesterday I visited the Menil Collection to work with a team of writers to prepare for this year’s field trips of creative writing excursions. One of the Rothko pieces caught my eye. Often we use color as a starting place for writing about emotions. A large piece with bright red dissected by a thin white line gave me a writing prompt. If red is anger and fear, then what is this white line? This morning as I reflected on Bill’s talk, Conspire practice, and the Rothko piece, I realized that the poem, the words I collected from Ibn ‘Arabi’s poem, gathered all the fragments in a piece I could share today.
Caravan of Hearts
A garden among the flames
A meadow of faith
Hearts, a caravan among the flames
Cloistered in a heart of love
A garden among the flames.
Here is Ibn ‘Arabi’s poem
A Garden Among the Flames
O Marvel,
a garden among the flames!
My heart can take on any form:
a meadow for gazelles,
a cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka’ba For the circling pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah,
the scrolls of the Qur’án.
I profess the religion of love;
wherever its caravan turns along the way,
that is the belief,
the faith I keep.