"The Guest House"

I've turned my property, and my house,  into an "Enclave", now for 11 years.  I guess it could be said, economic benefits aside, that I've turned my home into an Art Project, one that continues to evolve.  It's even become a bit of a mini "eco system",  as the gardens have attracted birds, a bee hive, and a few abandoned cats as well, who have become permanent residents.  And I should mention Ambrose the desert turtle as well.

Mostly it's been rented through AIRBNB, although I have also hosted people who came for workshops, friends, students and teachers and nurses and "snow birds",  and soon, if approved, I will host also some Ukrainian refugees.**   I've built 4 tiny houses, created patios and gardens, renovated the old house, and had a lot of fun furnishing everything thanks to Goodwill, the Habistore, and a lot of paint and "elbow grease".  It's been challenging, and I've done my share of complaining, but also very rewarding. Being an empath, I have had to learn to create emotional boundaries.  And being an artist, which is fundamentally an introspective, introverted life, I have grown a great deal by having to learn to deal with many kinds of people.  Sometimes communities, however transient, have coalesced, which pleases me.  Certainly some remarkable friends have been made.  I am grateful, for all of it.  

Rumi is right.

The Guest-House

This being human is a guest-house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you

out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

 

 

** here is one of many FB groups dedicated to helping Ukrainians fleeing the invasion of Ukraine by Putin.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/usa.canada.help.shelter  Any reading this Blog who may wish to be a sponsor/host,  please visit.  

A Rumi and Rilke Moment........

Georgia at White Sands (2015)

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors,
and keeps on walking,
because of a church
that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead. 

And another man,
who remains inside his own house,
dies there,

inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children
have to go far out into the world
toward that same church,
which he forgot.

Rainer Maria Rilke  (translated by Robert Bly)

Spring at White Sands (2015)

When grapes turn
to wine, they long for our ability to change.

When stars reel
around the North Pole,
they are longing for our growing consciousness.

Wine got drunk with us,
not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.

We are bees, and our body
is a honeycomb.
We made
the body, cell by cell, we made it.

Rumi (Translated by Robert Bly)

Guest House

During the winter and spring I support myself, and am able to keep my house,  mostly by renting rooms to women visiting Tucson, and occasionally the renovated Airstream trailer in the back to both men and women.  If I'm feeling especially lively, everyone gets breakfast, but not always.  I never expected I'd be making a living changing sheets and making toast, but it's been a blessing, a lot of fun,  and I've met some great people, including people from Paris, Tasmania, and Helsinki.

I really appreciate the site that I work with, and others like it.  In this time of big boxes and vast corporations, it's great to see small enterprises, and resource and skill exchanges, still around, even thriving.  I think it's the wave of the future, at least, I hope so.

And you never know what kind of haven you might be providing, what effect, if any, your presence or art or stories or garden, or even the books lying around that you haven't read in years...... might have.  And, of course, the other way around as well.......which reminded me of this poem by Rumi.

The Guest-House

 
This being human is a guest-house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you
out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Say I Am You: Poetry Interspersed with Stories of Rumi and Shams,
 Translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks,  1994.

Rumi and Rilke, a Moment

 When grapes turn to wine, they long for our ability to change.

When stars reel
around the North Pole,
they are longing for our growing consciousness.

Wine got drunk with us,
not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.

We are bees, and our body
is a honeycomb.
We made
the body, cell by cell, we made it.

Rumi (Translated by Robert Bly)

 

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors,
and keeps on walking,
because of a church
that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man,
who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children
have to go far out into the world
toward that same church,
which he forgot.

Rainer Maria Rilke  (translated by Robert Bly)

Rumi

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down
in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language
- even the phrase "each other" -
do not make any sense.

From The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks.
© Copyright, 2004, HarperSanFrancisco.

I woke up this morning to find the word "raukkadessa" floating  in my mind, between sips of coffee.  The word came from a song on  Beyond Love (Sami Records, 2004), an album by my friend Kathi Huhtaluhta.  Kathi  lived in Finland  where she studied "Yoik" traditions of Sami chanting.  She told me her song, Raukkadessa, derived from a word she learned while there, which meant "beyond love".

Meaning, beyond the pairs of opposites, beyond loss, conflict,  history, and the constructs of personality and culture, beyond even our temporal experience of love, "there is a field".