Nadia Farah

Mid Winter

Chill.

Seemingly rejected from our light-giving Sun. Resources stretched, each day ebb further away. I remember the poem below when the ghouls howl at my dark windows in the night…

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

– Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

Who are we to decide this or that emotion is ‘good’ or ‘bad’? ‘There is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad” – as David Hawkins points out in The Eye of the I. They are social constraints – the categorization of everything along lines of ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  Who is to say that tears are not good? or that sadness and bleakness are not good to face? As in Rumi’s poem, ‘he may be clearing you out for some new delight’. It is good to welcome in, make space in yourself – the home, to greet and allow to enter, to be allowed to be seen and heard – all that come knocking. For who are you to not be all that you are?

“Dear God,
May every aspect of my being
be converted to Truth.
May every cell fall into place
and serve a higher plan.
I no longer wish to be
who I was.
I wish to be more.

Amen”

Marianne Williamson