Guidance From The Wise Ones

[DawnFae]

Thank you so much for the beautiful, expressive poem Mz.Iris!
It made me cry and also smile.
The pain of not getting love and the ecstasy of tasting love are close... Or so I felt the whole expression.

I also love the demons tatoo. Yeah! Being able to breathe under water would make the demons powerless in that case. No drowning possible! Brilliant!

[Dee]

I applaud you Mz Iris, for sharing this beautiful piece here. I know it took a lot of courage, an awful lot of courage. But I hope it's gradually getting easier to share. Because without opening up fully, we can't expect others to open up with us either, and only through such sharing we actually learn of our deepest commonalities - which can make all things dark so much more bearable. And only through opening up we can truly get to know one another and that's one of the greatest gifts in life, to really know someone, is it not? And somewhere in that sharing and opening love flows so freely and unconditionally, that it's a beauty to behold.

As I've already responded to this piece before, and Lori has done such a stellar job cherishing the gentle beating heart of it, I'd like to just focus on the opening of the piece.

Overflowing with secrets and lies, it betrays itself by the flippancy with which it is scattered into the vernacular.

So concise. I often think about this, how the word has been used, misused, overused and abused.

I also find it fascinating that in English the word "love" is used to describe the emotion a woman feels for their child as well as for their partner, for the summer, for a favourite song, a cat, a pair of shoes. In Hungarian we have similar but different words for love (szeretet) and romantic love (szerelem). We also use the equivalent of "adore" far too easily (including for a song and a pair of shoes).

I also wonder if our need for embrace and touch is the same as our need for love. These are all such complex things. We have addressed this somewhere here before, haven't we? Can love be a negative? And I think we have agreed that true love can only be a positive. Bad things come from abusing the word, the concept of love, distorting it, mistaking it for a need to control, to possess as opposed to the feeling of pure selfless adoration, and a desire to cherish and gift.

There's a massive difference between need and love, and in the vernacular this is frustratingly blurred.

It appears to be incredibly hard to find love and feel love in its purest form for a person. So much easier with other things in life. Animals. Music. Nature. But humans. That's always the hardest.

[Iris]

Thank you so much for the beautiful, expressive poem Mz.Iris!
It made me cry and also smile.
The pain of not getting love and the ecstasy of tasting love are close... Or so I felt the whole expression.

I also love the demons tatoo. Yeah! Being able to breathe under water would make the demons powerless in that case. No drowning possible! Brilliant!

Thank you so very much for your kind words Mz DF. Greatly appreciated.

[Lori]

Dame Judi Dench

"Don’t prioritise your looks my friend, as they won’t last the journey.
Your sense of humor though, will only get better with age.
Your intuition will grow and expand like a majestic cloak of wisdom.
Your ability to choose your battles, will be fine-tuned to perfection.
Your capacity for stillness, for living in the moment, will blossom.
Your desire to live each and every moment will transcend all other wants.
Your instinct for knowing what (and who) is worth your time, will grow and flourish like ivy on a castle wall.
Don’t prioritise your looks my friend, they will change forevermore,
that pursuit is one of much sadness and disappointment.
Prioritise the uniqueness that make you you, and the invisible magnet that draws in other like-minded souls to dance in your orbit.
These are the things which will only get better."

[Dee]

Thanks for sharing, Lori. And thank you, wonderful Judy Dench. Words to be framed. And truly, this is why I never wish to be a day younger. Despite the annoyingly growing list of physical issues that come with aging, everything else in our mature age is just getting better, deeper, truer and freer, day by day. I love getting older.

[DawnFae]

Thanks for sharing, Lori. And thank you, wonderful Judy Dench. Words to be framed. And truly, this is why I never wish to be a day younger. Despite the annoyingly growing list of physical issues that come with aging, everything else in our mature age is just getting better, deeper, truer and freer, day by day. I love getting older.

Amen to that Sis

[Moonchime]

That last one of Rumi's is one of my absolute favourites.

As Rumi appears so often in our harbour I'm wondering if anyone has read "The Forty Rules of Love" by Elif Shafak in which the author imagines the relationship between Rumi and his great friend and mentor Shams of Tabriz?

[Dee]

That last one of Rumi's is one of my absolute favourites.

As Rumi appears so often in our harbour I'm wondering if anyone has read "The Forty Rules of Love" by Elif Shafak in which the author imagines the relationship between Rumi and his great friend and mentor Shams of Tabriz?

Hang on, so these words above are Rumi’s, not Judy Dench’s?

The book sounds very interesting.

[Moonchime]

I have no idea to what I was responding to now- whether or not I had flicked from another page (very likely methinks) or place in the harbour I don't know but I assume that those words were Judy Dench words and not Rumi - his are somewhere - it does pay to check you are on the right page (at least for me) and sometimes not to delete the message you are commenting on!!!!

Anyway I do love those words of Judy Dench Lori - I should probably read them every day because no matter how much I know and believe them I also know that getting old is a difficult journey and so often as an old woman you are given less credence than others and everything you used to be able to do physically gets harder with each passing year. But hey - as she says there are loads of advantages and that 's what we should focus on!! The more messages of that kind the better.

[Moonchime]

The book sounds very interesting.

It is a very interesting book about Rumi's relationship with his great friend and teacher Shams Tabrizi. It has two parallel stories running through it - one modern day narrative about a housewife who learns about Sufism and the Forty Rules of Love and the other about Rumi and Shams obviously interconnected. Personally I didn't find the modern story particularly interesting but the other is fascinating.

[Lori]

That book does sound interesting! This old dog could use some new tricks regarding love.

[DawnFae]