tabula rasa

Last night you left me and slept happily.

Tonight, faithless, in which bed do you lie?

You are joined to me, I said, till judgment day.

Say to me what you said when you were high.

#1897: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Today I feel in a whingeing, whining, complaining mood and it seems that Rumi is inside the exact same head space. It is the disappointed whine that comes after a moment of ecstasy. It comes of the realization that the high points are just moments among others, just as mountain peaks occur at certain geographical locations while depressions and deep dark seas occur at others. The earth is broad and its places diverse, just as is the soul.

When motivation abandons me then, like Rumi, I wonder where it could be now. Is it a spirit that has gone to greener pastures? Has it sucked me dry only to move on? In a way, yes, it has. That spirit wants to draw me out of my current complacency, out into the wilderness, out into the blank spaces of a virginal tabula rasa. New beginnings and a new day. And indeed a dawn light is creeping up from the horizon as I type.

THE MYSTERY OF PAIN.

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

- Emily Dickinson