Sidewalk Sufi

Larry Goldfarb February 21, 2020
4 Comments

Walking home the other day, right next to the bus stop around the corner, I ran across this lovely bit of chalk art. I was so delighted to discover one of my favorite poems unfolding at my feet that I just had to capture and share it with you. 

You’ll find a series of seven images below. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then that would make this the longest blog post I’ve written so far. To get the full experience of my neighbor’s rendering of Rumi’s rumination, please start with the bottom image and read upward.

(You’ll also find the text written out below.)

This short poem is one of many penned by the prolific 13th-century Persian poet, theologian, and jurist Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, known the world over simply as Rumi. Here it is written out for your contemplation:

Although the road is never-ending

take a step 

and keep walking

do not look 

fearfully into the distance . . .

On this path 

let the heart be your guide 

for the body is hesitant 

and full of fear

– Rumi

There are only a few copies remaining of the recordings of the first run of my newest program, IT’S A LESSON (IAL). which is about how to teach personal ATM® lessons. After one of the sessions, a participant wrote: “This afternoon was revelatory, a breath balloon . . . Thank you.”

The IAL recordings are available exclusively to MIMO members with a Become a Better Teacher account. Once these recordings have been sold, this material will not be available until the course gets added to the MIMO ATM Teaching Academy curriculum, later this year or, more likely, sometime next year. If you’d like to learn more, you can purchase your very own copy only until the end of this month — 11:45 PM California time on Sunday, 29 February 2020, to be precise— or until all the copies have been sold, whichever comes first.


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Categories: Blog

Responses

  1. charlotte-rehbock-walter Rehbock-Walter February 22, 2020

    It’s a very nice Rumi poem. Funny enough, just yesterday night I visited a little theater in Munich, and on one of the doors there was a poster with another poem by Rumi:

    Bevor du sprichst,
    lasse deine Worte durch drei Tore schreiten.
    Sind sie wahr?
    Sind sie Notwendig?
    Sind sie freundlich?

    in my english translation:

    Before starting to speak
    let your words
    stride through three gates.
    Are they true?
    Are they necessary?
    Are they kind?

    Thanks, Larry for sharing many useful thoughts with us.
    Best wishes
    Charlotte