slow feast poetry club | vol. 3
bonfire at midnight by rumi.
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Sometimes, I wake up and realize I’ve been cooped up.
School has been busy, the post-grad job search has been a rollercoaster, my routines are all over the place. When all this happens, a switch flips in my brain. My productive, efficient mind takes over and crowds out my contemplative, spiritual mind.
We don’t have time for you, my productive mind says. We have so much to do – and when you’re in charge, things move so slowly and we have to deal with our big feelings and then sometimes we cry, and that takes hours to recover from — so we’re just going to drop you off at home and pick you up when all this is over.
The Divine and I have a hard time connecting when my productive part has taken over.
But the spring is here, and I’m starting to thaw. I’m finding myself slowly untangling and returning to myself. I’m waking up drowsy, hungover from over-functioning and overwork. A shout comes out of my room.
In moments like these, Rumi has something for us.
If you have an extra minute, sit with the poem on your own before you read the rest. Sit with your gut instincts, your interpretations, your confusions, your delight. Sit with the words and phrases that stand out to you, that tug on your spirit. There is no One Right Way to interpret poetry, so your instincts are more valuable and more intimate and more true than anything I could possibly have to say.
Whatever Big Loving Thing is drawn to the surface for you today – that’s gold, baby.
And if you’re like, NOPE all good, head empty, just give me your thoughts – then give it a quick read and carry on, soldier.
Bonfire at Midnight by Rumi
A shout comes out of my room
Where I’ve been cooped up.
After all my lust and dead living I can still live with you.
You want me to.
You fix and bring me food.
You forget the way I’ve been.
The ocean moves and surges in the heat
Of the middle of the day,
In the heat of this thought I’m having,
Why aren’t all human resistances burning up with this thought?
It’s a drum and arms waving.
It’s a bonfire at midnight on the top edge of a hill,
This meeting again with you.
translated by coleman barks
I used to spend a lot of time fretting and feeling guilty about my eclectic and inconsistent spiritual practices. In college, I was introduced to the idea of “quiet time” – the expectation that every morning, you wake up and read the Bible and talk to God. Preferably, before the sun rises (who among us). Preferably for 30 minutes or more. And if you skip a day, you’re basically failing God. If you forget or sleep in or prioritize sleep, God is not with you that day. You missed your chance.
I’m learning more and more that this idea of “separate” and “together” is a faulty framework. We don’t wake up separate from God, needing a morning ritual to “get right” and “return” to our relationship with God.
There is no separation from the Divine. “After all my lust and dead living I can still live with you. You want me to.” Even if we close our eyes and our ears and choose avoidance over connection, productivity over trust, we are not evicted from the presence of God.
We always – always – live in the house of Love.
There is no shame in forgetting our divinity for a little while – forgetting where we live. It’s part of being human. God brings zero shame to the table when we return to the present, remembering our connectedness, our belovedness, our wisdom.
We are never too far that we can’t come back and be with the Divine. We get lost in our lives, we get lost in our own productivity and our own myth of self-sufficiency during the course of a day, we get lost in selfishness in our own relationships, but we are never too far. We always live in our own room inside the house of God.
God doesn’t give us the cold shoulder when we forget ourselves. Instead, you fix and bring me food. The Divine is so patient, so loving, bringing life and life abundant even in moments when we’re stuck in avoidance, stuck in our tiny, selfish perceptions. When we’re stuck, the Divine doesn’t abandon us. Instead, the Divine comes all the way to our door to meet us, to care for us, reminding us that we are already home. There is no shame in this love, only a warm bonfire of welcome.
Maybe the work isn’t to live more faithfully into the black and white of pass/fail spiritual rituals.
Maybe, instead, the work is to chip away at the burdens of shame that cause us to forget our belovedness in the first place.
Maybe it’s returning shamelessly to the present — to our most loving, to our most wise.
God heaps no shame, so why should we heap it onto ourselves?
In the words of Rumi, “your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
There is beauty in the returning. In the small moments, a hundred times a day, when we notice our surroundings, when we return to our breath, to our bodies. In the big moments, when we return to our knowing, when we see once again the movement of Spirit inside of our lives.
And what a love we get to return to.
A drum, arms waving, bonfire at midnight, joy in the return kind of love.
You don’t need to earn your belovedness.
You already live in the house of Love.
The fire is always lit.
Warm yourself by the bonfire.
Is there a word or phrase from the poem that stands out to you? What might you be invited to notice?
What does it look like in your life for you to be “cooped up”? What habits, behaviors, or distract you from the Divine or pull you away from the present?
Growing up, what did you learn about God’s love? Was it conditional? What could separate you from God’s love, if anything? What was required of you in order to stay in God’s good graces?
Take a moment to sit with these words: You do not need to earn your belovedness. You always live in the house of God. What feelings arise in you? Is there resistance, relief, hesitation, something else? Take a moment to explore that feeling. Where does it come from?
What truth or wisdom is revealing itself to you?
Thin Space Cowboy is a reader-supported publication written and created by Lindsey Kelley. Click here to subscribe or gift a friend a subscription here (if a friend sent you this email—tell them thank you!). Have questions? Requests? Reply to this email to reach me directly!
So so soooo good 🫶🏼