Claiming the powers of sea and fire
Inspired by a passage from Rumi
This post was inspired by the passage below from Rumi.
Translated by Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin.
I became the sea and each atom flamed out of me in glory I became fire and each moment became an eternity.
Even the most daunting and deadliest of all elements is capable of nourishing life. Its power to create is as magnificent as its power to terminate. Like anything in nature, we cannot fight it. All we can ever do is accept that it is there and be one with it.
There were, are, and will be days in our singular lifetime when we feel as helpless as a driftwood in the midst of a turbulent sea about to meet the river of lava plunging towards it.
For days and weeks, the driftwood floats. Getting drenched just right so it does not sink until it reaches its intended shore. The sea is its friend, until it isn’t. Once it is waterlogged, to the bottom it goes… sinking, disappearing, into nothing.
Most driftwoods say no. No to sinking and no to drowning. Otherwise they would not have earned their name as drifters, we would have called them “sinkers”.
Those many driftwood that managed to stay afloat, drift, drift away they go. A burning river is their foe. For what would become a driftwood with a body that is torched? Unrecognizable and unable to reach its destination.
On second thought, would they really? When burnt and torched, are they going to sink? Inside of me I am cheering for those driftwood floating above the rolling waves, partially burnt from a lava flow, still floating… drifting… until they safely reach the shore.
May this writing reach those of you who needed to read something hopeful today.
If you cannot fight… float…
If the current is strong… drift…
If you are met with fire… let it burn you…
But come hell and high water, drift anyway or drift faraway…
A shore is waiting for you.
💕
Read more of my It-Narratives.
Rumi is my favourite Sufi poet! Enjoyed reading this Jen.
absolutely Love Rumi.reading a book of poems by Rumi on friendship