Images in the Tavern of Love

The following pattern of coherence has come into my meditations these last few days. It concerns the love-longing that pervades our human existence here in space-time.

The way of love is not some subtle argument,
but its doorway leads into devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles out of their freedom.
How do they learn to do that?

They fall, and in falling, they’re given wings.
--Rumi

The deepest love is nothing but drinking the wine of eternity.
In this state, the soul finds life only by dying—
But, of course, I wanted things in reverse!

I thought, “First I will know you, then I’ll die.”
But you said, “Whoever knows me never dies.”
--Rumi

So we’ve placed our prayer carpets
on the wine chalice,
and made ablutions there
from the dust of this wine tavern.

Perhaps in these taverns
we’ve rediscovered that life—
the one we’d lost in other places.
--Ghazali

If the heart has devoted itself to love,
there is not a single inch of emptiness.
Gladness gleams all the way to the grave.
--Mary Oliver