Coherence

¡Hola! Everybody…
Well, a few of us met yesterday and we had a great time. I finally met Angel (Stiffy Johnson), and met E.Volve (Letrice) for the second time. She came up from Baltimore with her friend (A Raven’s fan LOL! -- loooooooserrrr!) and her friend’s husband. Also, I got to meet someone else from 360, I forget her 360 name (spice?), but I call her “Ms. Cleo” because she has a delightful W. Indian accent. We had a ball and I laughed so much, my facial muscles hurt today. I have a blog to post regarding our [mis]adventures, but it will have to wait for tomorrow.

I would also like to give some well-deserved recognition to a young lady on my friends’ list, Sistahgirl. A single parent juggling the enormous tasks of work, school, and the responsibilities of parenting, she’s about to graduate from college. This is no small task, people. Congratulations, sweetie and much respect!

I have a long day ahead and I’m already behind…

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-=[ Birdsong ]=-

[Note: I was going to post a fragment of the following and add a comment. But the more I read it, the more I realize it needs to be posted -- period. Embedded within these seemingly simple paragraphs are intricately crafted truths adorned with elegant imagery. Here Rumi, a Persian poet of the 13^th century, describes the day he met a wild dervish called Sham, a mystic who would change Rumi’s life forever… ]

In the spring the birds are everywhere. They take to the sky from the distant marshes and the morning is often made over with birdsong. That morning was no exception. I heard the laughter before I saw the two men round the path along the creek bed where I was walking. If there were birdsong in the human heart, which I sometimes swear there is, it would sound something like their laughter.

Most laughter is a release -- a venting of some burden. Most laughter has an object, a mirror that reflects the longing in the heart for freedom. Not this laughter. No this morning. This was a laughter of fullness that greeted me. Full of joy, with no cloud of misery.

As the two came near, I saw that their eyes were closed. They were walking blind, and their laughter amid the flowers was a wing of finely-feathered joy that lifted them into some other realm.

Love has no object if it is truly love. This I saw that morning, for there was no “other” in the gesture that these two made of their lives. They trusted each other to see and yet they were both walking blind. I would not place such trust in any man or woman. But then I had a heart that had not melted before the sun of such union.

Our beloved teacher opened his eyes first. He must have sensed my presence -- though they both seemed aware of worlds that could not be seen. He smiled at me. I have never seen a human being so grateful to be alive. There was no armor, no shield, no weapon of ill-advised thought in that smile. There was only the ascending curve of gratitude that carried with it the birdsong, the flowers, the morning, and the promise of the golden sky above us.

It was then that I understood that gratitude is the doorway to the fire we call love.

My eyes welled up as I looked into his. The thousand places in which I resented the life I was called to live stood before the light of his gaze, and suddenly I knew why it was that I could not truly hear the birdsong I had been listening to all that morning’s walk. I had not been listening with gratitude.

The veils of resentment were lifted from my heart, ad I knew why birds sing every morning. They are, and always will be, grateful for the light. So grateful that they cannot stop the sound that leaps up from their hearts. A blessing is bestowed upon our world whenever love has found wings.

It was then that Shams opened his eyes. A desert wildness lived behind those darkened orbs. I saw he stars spinning in the heavens. I saw within him a fiery presence of enormous radiance. And I saw that love is born of such fire. I think it is not possible to be in love and stay tied to the donkey of judgment. I had heard all the gossip about the two. Who had not? It was the talk of the town. And I, too, must confess that I had formed my heart into certain shapes when this wild dervish had appeared in the life of our beloved teacher.

But there, in the flowered morning of my awakening, I was stripped of all judgment. The purity of their laughter and the gracious invitation to gratitude that was in their eyes informed me a deep well of love had appeared in our midst. Such love takes down pretense.

I was made naked that morning by the rich and sonorous chords of laughter that was pure freedom in the making. Only a heart that has been made new by love could find the innocence to laugh in such a way.

The two passed and I was left with the rushing wings of dawn and strand upon strand of birdsong that wove itself up into a rich, thick carpet of beauty.

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Love,

Eddie