This Being Human Is A Guest House…

In those difficult moments, when your mind is troubled and your heart feels tender and cracked wide open, we can turn to the healing energy of music, art and poetry  for wisdom and comfort.

Even though we work with images only when making SoulCollage® cards, and not words, we can use the magic of poetry as a starting point of inspiration.

One of my favorite poems is  ‘The Guest House’ by 13th century Persian poet and Sufi mystic Rumi. This poem is balsam for the soul. It invites us not to resist the experiences and emotions passing through us but to meet them with courage and compassion. These seemingly unwelcome guests in the guesthouse of our mind will cleanse away what no longer serves us if we are willing to surrender to their presence. And since being guests, they most likely come with a gift and eventually leave again as well…

 

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.

​by Jelaluddin Rumi

​Taken from SELECTED POEMS by Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks (Penguin Classics, 2004).