Body Intelligence

By Rumi

Your intelligence is always with you,

overseeing your body, even though

you may not be aware of its work.

if you start doing something against

your health, your intelligence

will eventually scold you.

If it hadn’t been so lovingly close by,

and so constantly monitoring,

how could it rebuke?

You and your intelligence

are like the beauty and the precision

of a astrolabe.

Together, you calculate how near

existence is to the sun!

Your intelligence is marvelously intimate.

It’s not in front of you or behind,

or to the left or the right.

Now try, my friend, to describe how near

is the creator of your intellect!

Intellectual searching will not find

the way to that king!

The movement of your finger

is not separate from your finger.

You go to sleep or you die,

and there’s no intelligent motion.

Then you wake and your fingers

fill with meanings.

Now consider the jewel-lights in your eyes.

How do they work?

This visible universe has many

weathers and variations.

But uncle, O uncle,

the universe of the creation-word,

the divine command to Be, that universe

of qualities is beyond any pointing to.

More intelligent than intellect

and more spiritual than spirit.

No being is unconnected to that reality,

and that connection cannot be said.

There, there’s no separation and no return.

There are guides who can show you the way.

Use them. But they will not satisfy your longing.

Keep wanting that connection

with all your pulsating energy.

The throbbing vein

will take you further

than any thinking.

Observe the wonders as they occur around you.

Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry

moving through, and be silent.

-The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

http://yogapracticeandreflection.com/about/recommended-reading/poetry/

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices  around you kept shouting 

their bad advice ~

though the whole house 

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug at your ankles. 

"Mend my life!" 

each voice cried. 

But you didn't stop. 

You knew what you had to do, 

though the wind pried with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations, 

though their melancholy was terrible. 

It was already late enough, 

and a wild night, 

and the road full of fallen branches and stones. 

But little by little, 

as you left their voices behind, 

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds, 

and there was a new voice

which you slowly recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, 

determined to do the only thing you could do ~

determined to save the only life you could save."

~Mary Oliver

We have come to be danced

Stumbled upon the poem "We Have Come to be Danced" by Jewel Matheison on Stumbleupon.

I was going to type it all out but found this video.

Enjoy.