The Beauty We Love

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened.  Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
~Rumi
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I love Rumi.  It seems I can't read anything of his without thinking, "Exactly."  I was taking a break after a day full of stupid, thumbing through a well-worn copy of Barks's The Essential Rumi (which if you don't have, you should get with all due speed), when this struck me.  How often do we deprive ourselves of opportunities to pursue things we enjoy and thereby enrich our lives?  How often does our "busy-ness" interfere with our life?  Shouldn't we be busy with the things we find lovely? Isn't that passion telling us something?  Joseph Campbell said it another way, "Follow your bliss."  Same principle, really.  Follow the thing that makes you happy because it is okay and right to be happy.  There is a reason it makes you happy, and if it doesn't make you happy, then you should probably get away from it.  I'm as guilty as anybody else of clinging to blades that cut down to the bone for no good reason.  What a lovely thought this is, though.  If you find it beautiful, pursue it, and through that pursuit, somehow, you will be touching the divine, a process through which all things are bettered.  Happiness, communion, inspiration.  Yeah.  Sign me up.