my daily work

As long as I live, this is my work and my trade.

No hunter am I, but I live to stalk this prey.

This is what fills my life, this is what fills my day,

My calm rest, my relief, my companion in grief.

#267: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Search word: work

Today I return to work, as my health problems abate. I will discover some more about publishing by tackling a more substantial job. My thoughts have been on career a lot and I'm currently reading Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and wondering what my calling or vocation might be. I've never been able to give it a name. I've always been plagued by a sense of vocation that is elusive and unclear, that will perhaps only become clear as my life unfolds. When I was a teenager I dreamt of a kind of tapestry or woven carpet emerging from a loom, each row a year of my life and the full picture becoming clearer only near the end. This image has often sustained me in my times of uncertainty.

Rumi's work is making these quatrains, these short verses in memory of his beloved friend and teacher, Shams. I can understand the hunting metaphor: each morning I select a verse of Rumi's and each morning I must hunt down its meaning for me. As long as I live, this is my work and my trade. Like Rumi, I will fill every moment with making the poetry that is my life, each day another row of my tapestry.