Saturday, February 9, 2008

Poetic Advice from Rumi



When I was in massage school two years ago, each class would leave behind a gift to the school. There were various art things, many involving hands, of course. One in particular I liked was a quilt with everyone's hands on it. Another was an OM symbol with everyone's names. So our class, Section 05-L, knew we wanted something hand-related and personalized.
The program started in Oct. and ended in May, and in between there was little time for anything else but anatomy, physiology, and massage. One of my classmates remarked that there was a perpetual pile of laundry on the sofa, and her family knew that's where they needed to go for clean clothes. Back when I lived near civilization, I could spend hours in Michael's. Even tho I didn't have time for art then, I was still there one Saturday wandering around. I saw this huge canvas, 3 X 4 feet in the back of the store. At the time I was just concentrating on muscles-muscles-muscles, had no immediate plans for anything artistic, had never painted anything beyond 14" X 20", and thought, "I'll wait until I get one of their 40% off coupons and then I'll buy it." I walked to the front of the store to get in line and an older gentleman walked up to me and said, "Excuse me, young lady. Would you like this coupon? My wife is not going to use it." And that's how fast it takes to manifest a congruent desire!
I blinked, and two months later, our class was talking about giving our school a going-away gift. And here was the canvas ready to paint. It might be hard to tell, but the hearts at the bottom are each a picture of my classmates. And the picture didn't translate the purpleness of the painting. The hand, the colour associated with the heart, represents healing, massage, and God. The lotus represent the soul. What some people might call a "star of David," is actually a symbol used in Vedic (Indian) art. The upward pointing triangle represents masculine, outward moving, action-oriented energy. The downward-pointing triangle represents the femine, receptive energy. United, it represents the union of heaven/earth, yin/yang, physical world/Spirit. In the chakra system, in sacred Indian art, the triangle is featured in the heart center, uniting the physical body with the spiritual. In the center of the lotus is an OM, representing God, the primordial sound. [In the beginning was the WORD].
The quote is from my favourite Sufi poet, Rumi:
Let the BEAUTY of what you LOVE, be what you do.

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