the eye of the storm

Your eye is the light, the eye of the storm

That stirs all life, the source, the fountainhead,

The eye that lights the eyes of all mankind,

And from your spring streams flow from every eye.

#1607: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Key word: storm

Still under the spell of Viorst, I see the armies of Western doggedness lined up against the armies of Islamic doggedness. Cutting across this clash of cultures are the opposing voices of "either/or" and "both/and". The first says that only one side will win, this is war, there can but be a Winner and a Loser. The second says that both sides have a point, that a win/win situation is always possible. The first voice responds with warnings of where compromise or conciliation can lead: the name of Neville Chamberlain is recalled and his policy of appeasement of the Nazis pointed to. Both voices have a point, says the second voice ...

Rumi's verse today acknowledges that the source of enlightenment is also the "eye of the storm", the quiet but intense central point around which all conflict circles. He understands, too, that this source is what causes our tears to flow. It is often the case that tears wash away impurities and allow us to see more clearly. When we cry we are reaching into the heart of the matter, finding what really matters most to us.

Today's verse is an interesting contrast to yesterday's emphasis on the deity's stone qualities. Every thought or feeling that we have, every response to conflict, every quality of hardness or softness, serious or humorous, happy or sad, all these flow from our inner being. Each one is created through what we are and what we are capable of. Whatever God or process created us, it also created all that. Not only our capacity to conceive gods but our capacity to question those conceptions. Not only our capacity to innovate but our capacity to refuse to do so. It's all there in the bloody and chaotic mix that is humanity, exposed to the light of consciousness that comes with the territory. That's how it is, take it or leave it.