Alan Olee Book Report

We had an uncommon wind and rain storm yesterday here in Phoenix, Arizona.  It was unexpected and wonderful in the sense that it made everything look different because it defied our expectations.  About this time of year, usually, it is just starting to get warm and even hot during the noon-time day hours.  For some reason, many people dread the oncoming heat.  So a breezy rainstorm, though uncommon, was welcome.

A Day After the Storm

It made me think of this poem by Rumi:

THE GRASSES

The same wind that uproots trees
makes the grasses shine.

The lordly wind loves the weakness
and the lowness of grasses.
Never brag of being strong.

The axe doesn’t worry how thick the branches are.
It cuts them to pieces. But not the leaves.
It leaves the leaves alone.

A flame doesn’t consider the size of the woodpile.
A butcher doesn’t run from a flock of sheep.

What is form in the presence of reality?
Very feeble. Reality keeps the sky turned over
like a cup above us, revolving. Who turns
the sky wheel? The universal intelligence.

And the motion of the body comes
from the spirit like a waterwheel
that’s held in a stream.

The inhaling-exhaling is from spirit,
now angry, now peaceful.
Wind destroys, and wind protects.

“There is no reality but God,”
says the completely surrendered king,
who is an ocean for all beings.

The levels of creation are straws in that ocean.
The movement of the straws comes from an agitation
in the water. When the ocean wants the straws calm,
it sends them close to shore. When it wants them
back in the deep surge, it does with them
as the wind does with the grasses.

This never ends.

Rumi

Garden After the Storm