echoes of Maria

Come, treasure, home to these ancient ruins.

Come, hair, don't fly from these shoulders: rest tame.

Come, bird, don't turn away, this seed is yours.

Come, house of God, come home to your own home.

#1019: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

I feel apprehensive this morning for I am to attend a gathering tonight, a gathering of people who have shared an interest but who have also spread apart both through the drift of time and circumstance and through the divisions of conflict. I would like to believe that what we share is strong enough to bring us back together again.

This reiterated idea of coming home, in today's verse, has appeal and speaks to my current circumstances. It gives me a sense of forces coming together from four directions symbolized by the treasure, the hair, the bird, and the house of God. The last is both one of the four directions and the place where all of the elements come together. It is structures like this that convince me that Shams had taught alchemy to Rumi. This structure resonates so strongly with the Axiom of Maria Prophetissa, who is acknowledged as a key founder of the alchemical arts.

Axiom of Maria Prophetissa:

One becomes two,
two becomes three,
and out of the third
comes the one as the fourth.

Mary the Prophetess @ altreligion.about.com