A reflection on Rumi by Leo Hartshorn

Be patient.
Respond to every call that excites your spirit.
Ignore those that make you fearful and sad,
that degrade you back toward disease and death.
-----Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi


When life has squeezed from you joy and wistfulness
When putting your nose to the grindstone brings in the money
but not freedom and dancing of the heart
Listen to that still, small voice that calls in the wind
It causes you to spread your wings and fly out over the fields of joy
The voice resonates with your true inner self
It brings wholeness and peace

Ignore the calls that make you drink the dregs of depression
Forget the fears that paralyze and keep you looking down in the dirt
when there is so much blue sky overhead
Avoid like the plague the disease of duty and the straightjacket of conformity
Soar on the wings of chance and ride in the current of risk
Climb to the peaks of promise and hope. Be light like the clouds
Follow those paths that excite you, stir your passions, and makes you dream
Consider each new day a sacred adventure ready to burst forth with new life

Slow the Passing Trees: a poem by Leo Hartshorn

In a boat down a fast-moving creek,
it feels like trees on the bank
are rushing by. What seems to be
changing around us is rather
the speed of our craft
leaving this world---Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi

O Life, slow down the speed of
passing trees and months and years.

In the wake of the boat I see
a child running with abandon in the lemon orchards,
a youth playing wildly on the drums,
a young adult studiously reading books,
a man seriously preaching in a small church,
a middle aged adult sadly packing to move,
an older man wistfully watching his grandson play.

O Life, slow the passing trees,
the speed of the boat
that is leaving this world.