Some of my least favored posts, I've noticed, are the ones that talk about spirituality in terms of its shadow state. The bitter pill. Hafiz addresses this aspect of blindness in human nature in this poem. We have an innate sense to not go THERE. Sadly, by not going there, we deny ourselves claiming our own mettle and the sanctity of our own health and well being.
We are here on this earth to traverse and apply the sacred to our lives in all of its forms including what we deem as the nasty bits. These hidden places are where the whole story that we need to better understand resides. Without this understanding there is no motion forward. Leaving out the unsavory, the pain, the sorrow and the profane creates some harsh realities. Denial of these energies forces these things to manifest in our lives to get our attention in horrific ways. Whether it is on a personal level and our house burns down or our child is killed or it is on a collective level with horrid people becoming mysteriously empowered and dangerous to threaten our values, our honest efforts towards fairness and finer attributes; not recognizing human life as being difficult by design is deadly. Not standing up to our inner fears is costly in terms of being able to love and be loved and, in fact, being able to survive both personally and collectively.
Fearing death like a dark, hooded specter hoovering over our shoulder is not the end of the story, it is the beginning of it. If we full stop there as a species, we will be pushed off the edge of our soul's journey to be traded in for another situation, frankly. We can resurface perhaps somewhere on the earth time line far more heinous than this current situation, which is already an accumulation of our better natures over millennia. We are able to live all of the timeline of humanity and the royal we will do what it takes to gain understanding to smooth out our thorny fears through our lives. Not facing these darker or shadow aspects of our lives is unnatural and fatal to what we have accomplished. Sadly, accepting darkness is contrary to millennia of orientation as humans and most people will pack up their bags and head out of town in the name of a false sense of safety and security never knowing that their fear of the dark makes darkness fearful.
Thank you for listening.
https://pixabay.com/music/world-desert-voices-11468/
Music: The Peps. I think the last arena concert I attended was the Red Hot Chili Peppers back in the 90's. They continue over the decades making their danceable, in-your-face, black magic, music medicine. Anthony Kiedis says: "(This song) speaks to the beauty of our dark sides and how much creativity and growth and light actually comes out of those difficult struggles that we have on the inside of our heads that no one else can see..." I might add struggles of our hearts, as well, because that is where I feel it cloud and crowd me. So how does one tell the difference between projected darkness forcing our hands and the laws of the land and the sweet darkness we need when both frighten? The baseline and the beat, baby.
Wizards Tarot designed by Corinne Kenner and illustrated by John Blumen, is photo-realistic digital art. This card is explained HERE.
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.
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