A gift to be shared

If, like me, you aren't able to watch all of this at once, don't let that stop you from beginning to watch.  Although, knowing that your lives are full, I was going to recommend simply watching the part where Rena Priest speaks, now I recommend watching the entire 90 minutes.  Every moment of the Lummi portion of the ceremony, which took place not far from where I live, moved me deeply in one way or another.

“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.” - Rumi 

(quoted by Rena Priest during the ceremony)

Here is more of her poetry, which includes this poem:

DAFFODILS

After Wordsworth

 

The Indigenous poet

writes life-affirming poems

about daffodils.

Her audience says,

“But you’re oppressed.”

The Indigenous poet

writes poems of outrage

about oppression.

Nobody cares.

She gets depressed.

The Indigenous poet

gets requests for poems

about being Indigenous.

“But, all my poems are

about being Indigenous.”

The Indigenous poet

isn’t considered

an Indigenous poet,

because, “Shouldn’t you

write about genocide?”

The Indigenous poet

tries to write poems

about genocide.

Her poet spirit dies.

(Genocide gets the job done.)

The Indigenous poet says,

“Stang tse temxwila!”*

and writes about daffodils,

and the untouchable beauty

of living a poet’s life

 

---

* “What the hail.” This is the closest we get to a swear word in 

Xwlemi Chosen (Lummi Language).

Morning / The Reed Flute's Song (Rumi) / Rona Yellowrobe

THE REED FLUTE'S SONG

Listen to the story told by the reed,

of being separated.

"Since I was cut from the reedbed, 

I have made this crying sound.

Anyone apart from someone he loves

understands what I say ..."

-- Jalaluddin Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

Rona Yellowrobe

 

Love

Let your teacher be Love itself.
(Rumi)

Hearts understand in ways minds cannot.
(Lois Wilson)

TAKE WHAT YOU HAVE GATHERED FROM COINCIDENCE

I've been without an Internet connection since June 26. I made a deliberate decision to take a vacation from email, blogging, and internet searches when my modem stopped working. My internet provider gave me several options, including free dial-up. I chose to wait 10 days for a free replacement modem to arrive and to decline the dial-up option. That modem arrived yesterday.

A technician spent an hour with me on the phone, trying to reestablish an internet connection. He was unable to do that and determined, as I had suggested early in the phone call, that the replacement modem was defective. This morning I decided to use the free dial-up connection while I wait for another free replacement modem. I had not bothered to set up the dial-up before now because my recollection was that dial-up is impossibly slow. I'm not going to try to download any pictures until I have a DSL connection again.

The vacation from the Internet has been good for me. The weather has been beautiful, and I've been in good spirits for the most part.

This morning, after checking through and beginning to respond to my backlog of email, I received an email from a friend who sent this timely poem:


Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

(Jalaluddin Rumi)


A few hours after reading that poem, I opened my copy of MEDITATIONS OF JOHN MUIR: NATURE'S TEMPLE, compiled and edited by Chris Highland. Chapter 18 is called "All the Air Is Music." It consists of a paragraph about a brave little water ouzel, taken from the writings of John Muir. At the bottom of the page it says:

"We have fallen into the place where everything is music.' -- Rumi