Saturday, December 23, 2023

Chelan Harkin: Rumi's Heart

Last night I experienced the great gift of deep sharing and heartfelt connection and celebration within a community of beautiful hearts. This unfolded on a zoom call with Chelan Harkin celebrating all of her amazing work and the release of her latest book in particular. 

I now have all three of Chelan's books Susceptible to Light, Let Us Dance, and now Wild Grace. And what gems they are!! I truly cannot recommend the work of Chelan Harkin more deeply, something so needed for us as individuals and collectively. There is a path of reconnection to ourselves and one another and all that is sacred which is healing and transformative beyond words. And yet what Chelan illuminates is exactly that which most of us cannot find the words to express. Such a gift.

This mystical and deeply human poet embodies a depth of wisdom and compassion and love found in other mystic poets such as Hafiz, Rumi, and Kahlil Gibran. And she has the great gift of making it accessible to us all. What comes through her is truly Sacred and serves as an antidote to the suffering of shame and separation, dehumanization and delusion, fear and all of the many faces of violence. In the work of Chelan Harkin you will find great beauty and a soothing balm for our hearts in these challenging times and all times.

The poem here is but one tiny glimpse from her latest book. Blessed be. 💗🙏Molly

Photo by Molly

Rumi's Heart

Rumi's heart,
more than an orb
of unattainable light
set above you

was more likely
a hopelessly unfixable
broken pot

through which light
was merciful enough
to continuously spill.

Hafez, most likely,
was a gardener of sorrow
he knew how to bring its aching
to blossom, and open you
to beauty there.

I'm sorry if this disappoints you,
that even the greats
weren't elitist untouchables
that have defied suffering.

Even Jesus, Muhammad, The Buddha
all those Great Ones
must have held tenderly
in their own chests
the deepest ravines of humanity's sorrow
how else could they have known
compassion like that?

They simply knew
how to kneel down deeply enough
to kiss that wound.

Don't do that unnatural thing
of separating the sacred
from its sorrow.

Artists of the deep heart
are not apart from suffering.
They've learned the craft
of melting it into gold.

They don't flee from fire
they make it their medium.

— Chelan Harkin
From Wild Grace


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