According to ChatGPT, humans, on average, are awake about sixteen hours a day. When I think about this, I have to wonder just what I have done with this time of life that I have lived? As I've aged my productivity has waned considerably. While my age has settled into my bones, my soul intention and the lid on my energetic imagination has blown exponentially into the cosmos. I reflect on my youth with a kind of wonder and humility because, at that time, I thought I wasn't doing anything of value. I now realize I was doing everything that I could and it was all valuable in its time. This is still true.
Hafiz is asked to leave off of his monkey brain for one hour to dive deeply into what brings him joy in this poem. I'm not so sure I would have lived my life any differently had I given myself over to what truly brought me joy for an hour everyday but I guarantee I would have valued my life more by claiming that hour as my own.
Thank you for listening.
https://pixabay.com/music/ambient-a-flavour-of-india-5810/
Music: Here is Snow Patrol, a band from Scotland who, according to their wiki page seems to have been bitch slapped repeatedly by the music industry for nearly a decade but still came up swinging with a career. Here is their song. Chasing Cars.
...If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we're told, before we get too old
Show me a garden that's burstin' into life..
The original post in this series of poems by Hafiz (including an addendum regarding the authenticity of these poems) can be found here. Also, my thoughts on this series a year into these poems, HERE.
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz and translated by Daniel Ladinsky can be purchased here.
My book can be purchased HERE. E-book HERE. The Season Two blogcasts with audio excerpts from my book begin HERE: in Behind The Lines. This reading of the book excerpts in a mixed media format is Season Two of this blog. These recorded excerpts are outside the chronological order in which the book was written. Podcasts with audio only beginning with episode 22 can be found HERE.
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