Allspirit

Tag: sacred

  • The Power of Art

    By George Santayana

    NOT human art, but living gods alone
    Can fashion beauties that by changing live,–
    Her buds to spring, his fruits to autumn give,
    To earth her fountains in her heart of stone;
    But these in their begetting are o’erthrown,
    Nor may the sentenced minutes find reprieve;
    And summer in the blush of joy must grieve
    To shed his flaunting crown of petals blown.
    We to our works may not impart our breath,
    Nor them with shifting light of life array;
    We show but what one happy moment saith;
    Yet may our hands immortalize the day
    When life was sweet, and save from utter death
    The sacred past that should not pass away.

    Read more poems from George Santayana

    Index of poets on Allspirit

     

  • One Whisper of the Beloved

    By Rumi

    Lovers share a sacred decree –
    to seek the Beloved.
    They roll head over heels,
    rushing toward the Beautiful One
    like a torrent of water.

    In truth, everyone is a shadow of the Beloved –
    Our seeking is His seeking,
    Our words are His words.

    At times we flow toward the Beloved
    like a dancing stream.
    At times we are still water
    held in His pitcher.
    At times we boil in a pot
    turning to vapor –
    that is the job of the Beloved.

    He breathes into my ear
    until my soul
    takes on His fragrance.
    He is the soul of my soul –
    How can I escape?
    But why would any soul in this world
    want to escape from the Beloved?

    He will melt your pride
    making you thin as a strand of hair,
    Yet do not trade, even for both worlds,
    One strand of His hair.

    We search for Him here and there
    while looking right at Him.
    Sitting by His side we ask,
    “O Beloved, where is the Beloved?”

    Enough with such questions! –
    Let silence take you to the core of life.

    All your talk is worthless
    When compared to one whisper
    of the Beloved.

    Ode 442 translated by Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
    A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi

    Read more poems from Rumi

    Index of poets on Allspirit

     

  • Now is the Time

    Now is the Time

    Hafez

    Now is the time to know
    That all that you do is sacred.

    Now, why not consider
    A lasting truce with yourself and God.

    Now is the time to understand
    That all your ideas of right and wrong
    Were just a child’s training wheels
    To be laid aside
    When you finally live
    With veracity
    And love.

    Hafiz is a divine envoy
    Whom the Beloved
    Has written a holy message upon.

    My dear, please tell me,
    Why do you still
    Throw sticks at your heart
    And God?

    What is it in that sweet voice inside
    That incites you to fear?

    Now is the time for the world to know
    That every thought and action is sacred.

    This is the time for you to compute the impossibility
    That there is anything
    But Grace.

    Now is the season to know
    That everything you do
    Is sacred.

    The Gift – Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master
    translations by Daniel Ladinsky

    Read more Hafez Poems

    Index of poets on Allspirit

     

     

  • On the Steps of South Building

    These are the gifts, brother
    A reverent gaze into this-
    sacred-immediate-unknown
    tumbling oak twigs,
    this rush of higher knowledge,
    yet unknown-
    our turn in the complex
    perfection of forests
    that once here spanned
    realms of time and existence,
    death forgotten,
    gifts so foolishly taken for granted.

    October 1994

    ROSS L. ANDREWS