Many of us are living in much more isolation than usual. So the opportunities to put we into practice other than in our thinking is a bit more limited. This week the isolation began to get to me. So when I re-read this poem by one of my favorite poets, it was just what I needed. So I thought I’d share it with you, in case you need it, too.
ALL THE HEMISPHERES
Hafiz
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
This poem reminded me that everything we need is both within us and all around us. That when we say that All we need is Love, that we are all One in Love, it means that Love expresses and embodies all the qualities of Love — connection, compassion, kindness, joy, healing, hope, wholeness, health, happiness, love — in our own hearts. And so, when we choose heart-centered practice, we live out from Love.
That’s hard to remember sometimes. When we feel isolated or lonely, it can feel like we are an I far more than a we. This poem reminded me of the we of Love living inside each of us. It is only by living as this we that we can live as we in our world.
In other words, only if we feel that inherent we-ness of Love inside ourselves can we understand it, see it, experience it, express it, and manifest it in the world.
Sometimes we need to change rooms in our mind to remember that all the hemispheres of existence lie in our hearts. That all the hemispheres of heaven are stitching themselves into a Great Circle inside each of us.
Wholeness begets wholeness. When we heal inside, we live whole outside.
Heart-centered practice is an inside job. .. but only as we, as One, with Love.
I needed to remember this today. I hope it helps anyone else who might have needed to remember it, too.
