Rumi-nating...

My brother is getting married.  This is very exciting news.  His fiancee is a wonderful woman and it is thrilling for me to have a new sister.

Today she asked for some help with another wedding she has to make a toast at on the weekend.  Her  friends who are getting married in Vegas, (my personal dream wedding location...so fun!) asked her to speak and so she asked me for help with ideas.

I looked through the Internet for inspiration and found nothing quite suitable for this couple.  Then I remembered a quote by Rumi that I had jotted down a few weeks ago.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi 

This is the  message I sent to her and how I suggested she use the quote...

 What about this...I love this..if you build upon this..you have a couple who have found each other later in life..they've spent a lot of time learning who they each are as individuals..they've probably had some negative experiences in life and in love and disappointments..but here they are together..a couple...close and ready to enjoy the moments..all of the barriers against such a possibility removed and all of the hope for each day together bright and luminous and obvious. It speaks to all who are still searching and all who have thought maybe it's not there for them.

For those who are unfamiliar, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī , known as Rumi, was a theologian and scholar and poet of the 13th century in Afghanistan. His native language was Persian but his work has been translated into English(among other languages) and is one of my great inspirations.

Since she liked it I sent her my favourite quote of Rumi's and one of my favourite quotes on romantic love of all time and suggested it might work for her own wedding.

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along. 

~Rumi 

This has always reflected my knowing that when you meet "the one" you recognise them.  There is no mistaking it.  That it is just there, not someone new but someone who has been  with us always.  There are many kinds of love, most of us will love many people in different ways, but one will stand out as connected in someway to us on a different level.  There is no explanation, no reason, so logic, it just is as it is.

Yes..like Rumi I am a romantic.  While others scoff at it as nonsense, I love the idea, the dream, the possibility and the delight that such romantic love exists. I love knowing it exists.

And in all my life, I've only ever seen proof, that I am right.

Maybe it's time I started working on that novel seriously.   Maybe I'm meant to write loves stories, with twists and turns and heart wrenching impossible and possible love.

Perhaps he said it best when he wrote...

How could you reach the pearl by only looking at the sea? If you seek the pearl, be a diver: the diver needs several qualities: he must trust his rope and his life to the Friend's hand, he must stop breathing, and he must jump. ~Rumi

Never be afraid to jump into love..the pearl is worth the dive.