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

https://chelanharkin.com/selected-poems/