Recently I received an email from a friend that included two quotes by Rumi, and I was instantly captivated by the succinctness of insights about love in poetic language—one was even humorous!
Rumi, a 13th-century poet, was Muslim, an expert in Islamic law, and as a Sufi mystic lived his life in an inward searching for God, shunning materialism*
Hunting for more quotes, I discovered "Journeys" on the first site I opened. It was the first quote and described the first strong turning point of my life. My excerpt of the quote is here with the source of the full quote found in the notes.
Journeys ...
move in the passageways of the self.
...
They are like shafts of light,
always changing, and you change
when you explore them*.
A journey is defined as a long and often difficult process of personal change and development, often described as spiritual development.
The year 1974 was a turning point in my life. From new inner awareness prompted by the adoption of our five-year-old daughter, and the birth a year and a half later of our second daughter, I wrote my first two poems, one about each, and continued writing. In 1990, my first spiritual experience occurred as an inner voice spoke a line from the Twenty-third Psalm. The following year, now a certified writing facilitator, I opened my home to Creative Writing and Journaling workshops with a brochure promoting the inner awareness I had been living with for seventeen years.
"By drawing from our life experience, we use writing
for self-discovery, health, and artistic expression."
New journeys entered my life when in January 1997 I met David Cousins of Wales* who gave me a reading in which he spoke metaphorically of my coming spiritual growth.
It's like this: you are in a hot air balloon a mile above
the earth where, at three miles up, you'll be able to see
more, but not as much as I can from six miles up.
In his February workshop I learned of a second and different journey where this time I would be taking a jet plane.
You might want to go to India in the fall, he had told
me, but you don't have to. Then he had paused and added,
"Although you are a journey person."*
From eight decades, I look back at the years of inner reflection that have brought constant change into my life. Rumi's voice is a welcomed new companion on coming journeys both inner and outer.
My realization is, "New avenues of life can be inspired from the simple sharing of friendship."
* Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition, Amazon, May 28, 2004. Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī is the best-selling poet in America. "Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever."
This site explains that Rumi's original poems were a vivid reflection of his Muslin identity and spiritual beliefs, but that in their translation, the culture and religion were left out.
* https://quotefancy.com/quote/904288/Rumi-Journeys-bring-power-and-love-back-into-you-If-you-can-t-go-somewhere-move-in-the. A list of 104 Rumi quotes can be found at https://leverageedu.com/blog/rumi-quotes/
* Prema Jasmine Camp, A Flower for God: A Memoir (Seattle, WA: Wilson Duke Press, 2021) 186, 187.
*David Cousins, A Handbook for Light Workers (Dartmouth UK: Barton House, 1993). Cousins is a Welsh spiritual master, mystic, and healer.