Spiritual Poetry on Love

Tao Te Ching, by: Stephen Mitchell
(From a beautiful Goddess friend's book named Emily Nussdorfer- Dance & Movement Arts Therapist. In our conversation, she had told me this is who I am, and I thanked her, and copied the poem.)

The Master has no mind of her own.
She works with the mind of the people.

She is good to people who are good.
She is also good to people who aren't good.
This is true goodness.

She trusts people who are trustworthy.
She also trusts people who aren't trustworthy.
This is true trust.

The Master's mind is like space.
People don't understand her.
They look to her and wait.
She treats them like her own children.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpts from the poetry of
Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi

Versions by Coleman Barks
From Unseen Rain,

Quatrains

Don't let your throat tighten
with fear. Take sips of breath
all day and night. Before death
closes your mouth.

There's no love in me without your being,
no breath without that. I once thought
I could give up this longing, then thought again,
But I couldn't continue being human.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpts from
Love is a Stranger

Poetry of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi
Translated by Kabir Helminski

The Intellectual

The intellectual is always showing off;
The lover is always getting lost.
The intellectual runs away, afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love is to drown in the sea.
Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.
The lover is always alone, even surrounded with people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.
The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
gets nothing. He's mocked by passion.
Love is like musk. It attracts attention.
Love is a tree, and lovers are its shade.

Listening To Your Love, by: Margaret Truxaw Hopkins

Managing one's own reactivity is especially crucial when the conversation takes place between people who share a close, caring relationship, whether in intimate partnership or within a facilitated peer group. In the container of such a relationship, there is potential for great healing, when listening is skillfully practiced with loving-kindness. When there is a breach in the intention and the attention, the opposite can occur, and there is potential for eliciting further suffering. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. The process of releasing what has long been held tightly can hurt even as it heals. It requires a conscious choice and a disciplined practice on the part of the listener and the sharer to make the most of the opportunities a relationship generates. We are often drawn to a partner whose complementary issues offer us the most challenging, but most potentially rewarding, mirror for our own growth. Relationship built on a foundation of trust and deep listening is not for the faint of heart. But the rewards are worth the work.

When I am listening to my partner with skill, I can see more clearly which elements of a conflict belong to him and which belong to me. If I feel a strong emotional reaction to what he says, it is almost certain that something tender and vulnerable in me has been touched, and it is useful to note that for when it is my turn to be the speaker. When I am in a conversation without consciousness and care, my subjective reactions can spill out with little control, and the listening temporarily comes to an end. When I can tune my attention with awareness to his core dynamic, there is a better chance that the container will be strong enough for deeper healing work to begin. I can see my own needs and wants as well as his.