Accepting One's True Capacity

By Mark Silver, "How Productivity Contributes to Global Warming and Debt" - The Huffington Post - NY, NY, USA

Monday, May 19, 2008

I've heard that there are approximately 20 million people in the US who have what is called a 'personal-sized' business. And that number is expected to go to 32 million within the next decade.

That's a lot of people solo in business. And if you're in that position, as I am, then you know how much there is to do on your plate.

In fact, why would you even read this, when you could be getting something done instead?

Yet the problem isn't productivity. The truth is, we're already incredibly productive. On your laziest, slackest days (well, maybe not your absolutely laziest) if you live anywhere in the so-called 'developed' world, you are still party to the most 'productive' society ever.
And it's our doom.

First, beat up on your best helpers
There was an edge to my voice as I asked my wife and business partner the question: "And so why haven't you finished what you promised to do?"
I meant it to come out nicer, more reasonable. But, it didn't.

This is so often where we land, kerthunk, in business: are you getting it done, or aren't you? In the western world we think it's a good thing. Even if we complain about it, or hold spiritual values that say otherwise, I find that my clients (and me... ) orient around this question.

Are you being productive enough?
And did you realize that your desire for productivity is contributing to global warming, debt, and business struggle?

The problem isn't productivity... it's capacity
What is 'capacity'?

Capacity is, simply put, the quantity something can contain. How much water a glass holds (oh, about eight ounces), how many people can fit around a Passover table (24! What? Aunt Joan brought six cousins with her? No problem!)...

How many things can you get done in a day, week, year?
The idea of abundance is very alluring! There's plenty to go around, there's plenty for everyone, there's no reason you can't do it/have it all.

Unfortunately, this runs smack into a very troubling spiritual teaching.

The physical world is a limited place
There is an unlimited amount of love, mercy, and peace available. There is, however, a limited amount of fresh water, fossil fuels, and arable land for growing food. There is an unlimited amount of creativity and connection. There is, despite our best efforts, a limited number of seats at the table (we'll have to find an extra table for those six cousins...)

In the Sufi take on the creation story, Source is described as 'veiling' itself, in order to create the physical world. The physical, 3D, dirt and grass reality we live in is distanced from Source, because otherwise we'd all be dissolved into Oneness, with no individuality discernible at all.

The things that are unlimited are the things that are less 'distant' from Source, and thus are without physical form: love, compassion, mercy, creativity, etc...

Surrender to the fact that you have limited capacity
One of the first small business groups I ever facilitated, before Heart of Business even existed, was a six-week "Success" group. Every week, people would write down their goals and tasks for the next week. And every week we'd come back to find that everyone, everyone, without fail was leaving about 50% unfinished.

The issue wasn't productivity: the issue was capacity. They were all overestimating their capacity by about 100% -- they thought they could do twice as much as they actually could.

It's this inability to judge our capacity that leads to debt: you spend more than you have. It also leads to global warming, which is a kind of debt, in that we are spending more energy than we have the capacity to produce sustainably.

And the interest is piling up in the atmosphere.

It also leads to business struggle -- trying to do more than you really can, means you end up exhausted, cranky, and feeling like a failure. Your clients get your worst work, and you can't sustain what you're doing.

This was a profound insight for me, when I realized that what was making my life so crowded was also what was maxing our credit cards at the time, and was also contributing to the ravaging of the planet.

Just accepting one's true capacity is a big step towards the healing of our families, our communities, and the world. And yet, and yet...
Is that it? Give up on your ambitions and your goals? Play small? No. But getting real about your capacity is a critical first step to bringing your ambitions and goals within reach.

(...)

When you realize what your capacity really is, it becomes easier to say "no" to things that just don't fit, and "yes" to the things that are important in your business and your life.

There's tons of other things that go here: having the right tools (like a larger computer monitor, or the right pruning sheers in the garden), having an office that is set up efficiently, getting regular exercise, etc.

That's all good stuff, but the foundation of it all, I've discovered, is to really face the reality of your capacity. As you settle into the truth of what's possible in this finite world of ours, I bet you'll discover a lot more of the limitless abundance of love and peace and compassion in your heart.

And with more of that love, we'll have more time and capacity to make this world a much more wonderful place. And to allow the spaciousness for your business to truly thrive.

Mark Silver helps people in small business who want to make a difference in the world, and need to make a profit. He's the author of five books and programs, publishes a weekly article for personal-sized businesses Business Heart, and has been named as a master teacher in his Sufi spiritual lineage.

[Visit the Author's Website http://www.heartofbusiness.com/index.htm]

More Hijab in Tashkent

[From the French language press]:

De plus en plus nombreuses sont les jeunes filles à porter le hidjab dans les rues de Tachkent, y compris sur Amir Timour (Tamerlane), la grande artère de la capitale de la république d'Asie centrale, qui a gardé un fort laïcisme de son passé soviétique.

De notre envoyé spécial à Tachkent et Samarcande, "L’islam entre répression et encadrement" - RFI Radio France Internationale - France; lundi 19 mai 2008

More and more young girls are wearing hijab in the streets of Tashkent, including on Amir Timur (Tamerlane), the great artery of the capital of the Central Asian republic, which has retained a strong secularism of its Soviet past.

Since the "Andijan tragedy" of May 13th, 2005, Uzbekistan has increased its political presence on Islam.

The State wants to encourage the development of a certain version of Islam while keeping it under control.

Just as it was done in the nineties, when a state Sufism was encouraged, rehabilitating an authentic Uzbek religious tradition while rebuilding it in its own way.

[Pictures: Chorsu market in Tashkent. The new Hazrati imom masjid (5000 places, two minarets 52 metres/170 feet high, Tashkent. Photos: RFI]

Authorities On Their Toes

By Yusuf Jameel, "Junoon performance worries authorities" - Howrah News Service - Howrah, West Bengal, India
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Srinagar: Pakistani band Junoon on Sunday [May 25th] is performing on the banks of the Dal Lake, whose placid and jade-hued waters are fringed with willows and chinar trees against the backdrop of the magnificent Zabarwan hills.

The event that has put the authorities here on their toes.

A Pakistani Sufi pop band settling on to perform in Kashmir’s heartland Srinagar may be a pleasing outcome of changing times and the ambience of amity building up in the South Asian region, but the move is fraught with political connotations as well.

After all, Islamabad has not officially given up its claim on Kashmir though to many, both in the neighbouring country and here in Jammu and Kashmir, it is only dragging its feet from what it would until a few years ago insist is its "jugular vein".

At least, the hardnosed among Kashmiri separatists have not yet digested Pakistani artists heading for the "disputed territory" to perform and will certainly try to put their finger on the choice of Junoon.

Hence, setting the affairs in order for the Sufi pop band and then keep the event free from trouble is in itself a challenging job for the authorities here.

But what makes it all the more intricate for them is that among the audience will be President Pratibha Patil [*] and a host of dignitaries from Saarc [**] nations, besides Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, the governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Lt. Gen. S.K. Sinha (retd), and chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

This would be Ms Patil’s maiden visit to Jammu and Kashmir spreading over five days during which she is scheduled to visit forward Army posts in Tanghdar and Uri sectors to interact with the troops defending the Line of Control, address the Sher-i-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST) convocation in Jammu, inaugurate its news camps in Bhaderwah town, pay obeisance at the cave shrine of Mata Vaishnodevi tucked away in Trikuta hills and go for leisure at the meadow of flowers, Gulmarg.

A tight security umbrella is being put up for the President’s visit.

But it is mainly Junoon’s tryst with the place which is causing worry among the authorities, particularly the security forces’ officials. More than 10,000 people are being invited to see the band singing.

The concert will be part of the celebrations marking the inauguration by the President of Kashmir Studies Institute at Kashmir University (KU).

The concert has been sponsored by the Indian chapter of South Asia Foundation, a non-profit group, in collaboration with the KU.

The hosts have invited government leaders and other important dignitaries from all the Saarc nations, but it is learnt that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has already expressed his inability to join in view of his pre-engagements back home.

While his country is likely to be represented by its envoy to New Delhi, invitees like President of Maldives, Mr Mamon Abdul Gayoom, and his counterpart from Sri Lanka, Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa, will turn up seems to be improbable.

Also, there is no word so far from Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal as to who will represent them or they are going to skip the celebrations.

But given Islamabad’s stance on Kashmir, its participation in an event taking place in Jammu and Kashmir is unbelievable, say the Kashmir watchers.

[*] 12th and current President of India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratibha_Patil

[**] South Asian association for Regional Corporation http://www.saarc-sec.org/main.php

[Visit Junoon's official Website http://www.junoon.com/]

With Young Muslims

By Cherry Thomas, "Celebrating Muslims parade through Bolton streets" - The BoltonNews - Bolton, England, UK

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Hundreds of Muslims paraded through the streets of Bolton to celebrate the birth of the prophet Mohammed.

More than 500 people, including many children, joined the annual procession through Great Lever.

Participants carrying banners and flags travelled from Makka Mosque, on Grecian Crescent, through the streets, before returning to the mosque.

The event also honoured the work of the late Sheikh Grandmaster Sufi Mohammed Aslam, a Muslim leader, who came to England in the 1960s.

He settled in Blackburn and did a lot of work with young Muslims.

His son Mohammed Riaz led the parade.

Tassadaq Hussain, one of the organisers of the procession, said: "The purpose is to let the local community know the great work of Sufi Mohammed Aslam.

"He developed youngsters, teaching them basic Islam and to live in harmony and peace in the community."

Food was enjoyed before the parade and afterwards there were presentations on Sufi Mohammed Aslam's teachings, before more food.

[Picture: Hazrat Khwajah Sufi Riaz Ahmed Naqshbandi Aslami. Photo from http://www.naqshbandi.org.uk/khanqahhome.htm]

A Little of Their Soul

By Simon Broughton, "Dancing to a different beat" - The Guardian - London, UK
Saturday, May 17, 2008

Europe's burgeoning pop festivals offer a sunny alternative to Glasto, but for a true flavour of local culture nothing beats these world music events

Against the magnificent backdrop of the keyhole gate to the royal palace in Fes, Youssou N'Dour gave the live premiere of Egypt, his most groundbreaking album in years.

With Egyptian strings and Senegalese percussion, his incantatory voice soared into the warm night sky.

The album is about Islam, the Mouride brotherhoods of his native Senegal and their message of peace. The occasion was the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in Morocco (this year's event runs June 6-15), and the shrine of one of the saints he was singing about was just a few minutes away in the labyrinth of lanes that form the medina.

Music festivals have mushroomed. There are those, like Exit in Serbia or Benicassim in Spain, that give you pop and rock stars, indie bands and DJs - the Glastonbury experience without the mud - but the ones I prefer are those that spring from their location and give you a window on the culture.

Fes is the artistic and spiritual capital of Morocco. It's a glorious city in its own right, with a mosque and university dating back to the 9th century.

All roads lead to the Kairaouine mosque and shrine of Moulay Idriss II in the heart of the medina, and en route you can enjoy getting lost in the best-preserved medieval Arabic city in the world.

There are leather-workers, tailors, carpenters, donkeys laden with mint and piles of olives and fruit. You are bombarded with colours, smells and, during the festival, a glorious variety of music.

The festival was started as a reaction against the polarisation of the Arabic world and the west and the idea is simple, to juxtapose sacred music of all cultures and religions.

These take place in atmospheric venues like the huge Bab Makina (where Youssou performed), the intimate garden of the Batha Museum, free concerts in the city and late-night Sufi groups in a tiled garden pavilion.

(...)

Often the combination of a great location, spectacular performance spaces and the right music that makes a festival work. For that it's hard to beat the new Jodhpur International Folk Festival (JIFF) in Rajasthan which had its first edition in October last year (jodhpurfolkfestival.org, October 10-14 2008).

It's held in the halls, courtyards and ramparts of the Maharaja's Mehrangarh Fort, magnificently situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the city.

The opening is timed to coincide with the full moon and involves vivid costumes, dancing, processions, camels, flaming torches and some of the wildest and most exciting music on the planet.

Mick Jagger, who's presumably got a few rock festivals under his belt, was there - not as a performer, but a punter. "I listen to a lot of Indian music," he said, "and a festival like this gives a great platform to folk artists."

More than that, it is helping to sustain local musicians in Rajasthan, bringing an income and respect to highly skilled performers who are often marginalised in India's economic boom.

Festivals like these enable you to experience great music where it belongs - alongside the food and the people. If you listen and share people's music, it's like sharing a little of their soul.

[Visit the Fes Festival Web site (in French) http://www.fesfestival.com/2008/index.php]

[Picture: Opening doors ... Youssou N'Dour performing at the Keyhole Gate in Fes. Photo: The Guardian]

To Be Closer to God

By Jeffrey Thomas, "Muslim Chaplaincy Student Wants to Help the Poor, Homeless" - News Blaze - Folsom, CA, USA
Friday, May 16, 2008

For a large part of her life, Ra'ufa (Sherry) Tuell was a very devout Christian, not someone recognizable as a future student in a Muslim chaplaincy program who intends to work with the poor, the homeless and the battered.

But 15 years ago, Tuell found herself leaving her church and searching for something she could not define, she said in an interview.

"It was a good period of growth, but very, very difficult. I came to the end of myself, so to speak, or the end of the search, and found myself crying out to God, and shortly after that I found myself at an introductory evening on Sufism."

Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, appealed to her. "Sufism is like the bee that pollinates all the flowers," she explained.

"The first in that continuum of coming closer to God or the creator Allah is the conversion experience and coming into the realization that we are a created being and that there is a creator and the maturation process is surrendering and becoming righteous or right with God.

And then it progresses, like any maturation process, spiritually - everything grows," she said. "As a Sufi, I only want to be closer to God."

Sufism led Tuell to enroll in the Islamic Chaplaincy Program at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.

In the United States, chaplains are often members of the clergy, but they also can be lay people providing spiritual advice and care in settings as various as colleges, prisons, hospitals and the military.

Hartford Seminary offers the only accredited Islamic Chaplaincy Program in the United States. The program has two components.

The first, a master of arts degree with a concentration in Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations, is designed to train students in Islamic religious thought and practice, historical and contemporary perspectives on Islamic societies, and theological and social interaction between Islam and Christianity.

The second component, which results in a graduate certificate, seeks to develop skills a chaplain needs for pastoral care and multifaith relations.

(...)

Previously, Tuell had done lay chaplaincy work and taught Sufism in prisons. As part of her program at Hartford, she expects to spend a year as an intern chaplain in a hospital. After that, she said, "I have a strong urge to work as an interfaith chaplain with the poor, the homeless and the battered - those who have fallen between the cracks of society and are unwanted and uncared for."

"I see myself as an interfaith person," she added. "I believe that we're all the children of Allah, that there is only one creator, and Allah is very diverse in manifesting creation, and I find great beauty and depth and richness in the various ways of coming into relationship with the creator - whether it be Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam."

Tuell's brother, sister and son have been supportive. "My parents have both passed away in the last five years," she said. "Most of my friends are like me: they're either Sufis or they are so spiritually oriented that they can't help but support a practice that is about love and service for others."

"To me, true Islam is love and service to others in need. It's the pouring out of ourselves to others in service to Allah," she said.

[Picture from: ICP Hartford Seminary. Visit the Islamic Chaplaincy Program Web site http://macdonald.hartsem.edu/chaplaincy/index.htm]

Islamic Hip-Hop

By Jerome Taylor, "Introducing hip-hop's songs of praise" - The Independent - London, UK
Friday, May 16, 2008

Hip-hop has often been used to promote hate, violence, and greed. But now it is being adopted by Britain's Muslim youth to publicise religious, pacifist messages

In a darkened, cramped venue above a west London fitness club a crowd of young men and women talk animatedly as they eagerly await the night's entertainment.

A DJ, dressed in the obligatory baggy pants and shades, turns down the volume on his turntables as the first act of the night takes the stage. Heavy bass and beats, intertwined with complex samples and scratching, resonate around the room.

This could be the start of any other hip-hop gig. But when the rapper begins his first song, you know this is something entirely different. "Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim!" he shouts. "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful" – the opening lines of the Koran.

Welcome to the world of Islamic hip-hop, a new style of urban music that is becoming increasingly popular among Britain's young Muslims.

The normal time one might hear the opening words of the Koran resonating in song is when a muezzin calls on the faithful five times a day from the top of a minaret, in an Arabic tradition that dates back 1,400 years.

Tonight's "Bismillah" is a thoroughly modern, Westernised interpretation of that tradition but its aims are remarkably similar: to remind the audience of the "One God Allah" before the show begins.

A closer look at tonight's venue, the monthly Rebel Musik night in Ladbroke Grove, quickly clears up which particular genre of hip-hop we are now listening to. Pinned to the door of the club is a sign politely reminding the audience not to bring alcohol inside.

Religion and bling-obsessed hip-hop might not seem the likeliest bedfellows but, even within mainstream rap, faith has become an increasingly acceptable topic to rhyme about – Kanye West's song, "Jesus Walks", is a recent commercially successful example.

In the United States the relationship between Islam and hip-hop has always been a strong one. Prominent commercial Muslim rap stars like Mos Def, Chuck D and RZA have long rapped about their religious influences, while Nation of Islam followers producing politicised Muslim rap are many.

But since the mid- to late-Nineties a new genre of Islamic hip-hop has emerged, one that rejects the misogynistic, materialistic overtones of gangsta rap and instead concentrates almost exclusively on using hip-hop as a way to preach about Islam.

One of the earliest Islamic hip-hop bands to try their luck in Britain were Mecca2Medina.

Set up in the late 1990s, Mecca2Medina switched from the usual diet of extolling the triple "hip-hop virtues" of money, drugs and women and began recording songs with a distinctly Islamic edge. But, initially, they found few fellow believers to play to.

"To be honest, most of our early fans weren't even Muslims," Ismael South, one of the band's three members, admits as he sips sugary mint tea in a café on London's Edgware Road. "Our fans were generally from the underground scene, which was getting increasingly tired of the direction mainstream hip-hop was going in."

The early years were lonely, but, ironically, it was the terrible events of September 11 that changed all that. "September 11 was definitely the tipping point," recalls Rakin Misbah. "British Muslims were suddenly forced to ask some searching questions about themselves, like: 'Who am I? What am I doing here? Am I Muslim or British or both?'

All the organisations that had once condemned us for rapping about Islam suddenly clamoured to get hold of us. They needed people to represent and talk to young British Muslims."

Although Islam has strong musical traditions – Sufi chants and the devotional songs known as nasheeds are just two examples – some orthodox interpretations of Islam believe that music itself is forbidden.

The confusion stems from the hadiths, words and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad that Muslims use, alongside the Koran, as the source of all guidance.

Although there are a number of hadiths in favour of music, there were also times when the Prophet appeared to voice his disapproval of musical instruments, and scholars still remain divided on the issue to this day.

One of the reasons why rap is such a popular form of music is that it is possible to circumnavigate these arguments entirely by relying on just beats and vocals.

Nowhere is the role of rap and Islam more controversial, however, than when it comes to female hip-hop artists. Rabiah Abdullah, 21, is a typical example of the type of confident outspoken Muslim women currently gaining strong reviews and acceptance from their peers.

As Pearls of Islam, Abdullah, her younger sister Sakinah, and friend Khadijah Muhammad are one of the few female acts willing to use musical instruments and singing in their set.

Their Sufi-inspired songs steer clear of the politics that so often creep into the genre and instead concentrate on the idea that Islam, like Christianity, is fundamentally a message of love – "love is the bind that binds the heart" is a frequent refrain found in their songs.

"When we first started out it was such a new idea, not just Islamic hip- hop music but also the idea that Muslim ladies are able to do so," says Abdullah, her smiling face wrapped in a brilliant turquoise hijab. "There are these silly misconceptions about Muslim ladies."

Sakinah, Abdullah's equally confident younger sister, remembers what it was when they had just started: "I remember this one time, we'd only just started rapping and we got invited to an event to perform. I think the person organising it didn't really understand what our act was about because the venue was full of those Saudi-type men, the Wahabi-minded Muslims. We jumped on stage wearing bright-coloured hijabs and started rapping and they just walked out."

Other female acts have begun using their position as artists to try and persuade their Muslim "brothers" to give women a greater voice.

Poetic Pilgrimage, a powerful vocal duo consisting of two sisters, whose motto features a veiled woman holding a Kalashnikov with a flower in the barrel, are one of the major bands who rap as much about encouraging social change within the Muslim community as they do about the religion itself.

"The way things have grown is truly remarkable," says Muneera Williams, one half of Poetic Pilgrimage.

"A few years ago we were one of the few female acts on a struggling scene. Now we have a magazine devoted to the genre, national tours, regular music nights across the country and we even have our own record labels."

[More about Hip Hop: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop]

[Picture: Poetic Pilgrrimage Vocal Duo. Photo from http://www.muslimhiphop.com/index.php?p=Hip-Hop/Poetic_Pilgrimage ]

Mystic Activism Knows No Boundaries

By Doroti Désir/Corinne Innis, "Getting Your Divine Swirl on at Malcolm X’ s Birthday Celebration" - News Wire Release - USA
Saturday, May 17, 2008

The Shabazz Center at the Historic Audubon Ballroom, site of Malcolm X’s assassination, hosts an extraordinary cultural exchange program in connection with the slain leader’s birthday

Highlights - May 19th from 6:00 to 9:30pm

“The exhibition, performances and discussions being held at the Shabazz Center set a standard of excellence that we believe Dr. Shabazz would have approved of when she set about to found a world class institution to honor her late husband’s legacy,” states Dowoti Désir, the Shabazz Center Executive Director.

Harlem, NY: The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center (The Shabazz Center) in collaboration with Def Dance Jam Workshop (DDJW), an inter-generational company of performing artists with (and without) disabilities, celebrates the 83rd birthday of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz – Malcolm X with an evening of special activities.

It opens with a lecture demonstration with a Semazen (Whirling Dervish) Mete Horzum in discussion with Al-Hajj Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid and the internationally known choreographer Ron Brown on “Sufi Mysticism: the Radical Imagination of Rumi and Malcolm X.”

A session on Turkish Dervish Whirling follows. Participants are encouraged to wear comfortable clothing and shoes with leather bottoms.

The evening’s celebrations continue with music by Rachiim Ausar Sahu and Salieu Susso and close with the screening of “The Final Days of an Icon” by French filmmaker Ted Anspach.

One of Turkey’s leading Whirling Dervish dancers, Horzum, worked in collaboration with Aziza, founder of Def Dance Jam Workshop, in developing “ANCESTOR CONFIRMATION.”

Conceived of and directed by DDJW Founder Aziza, the movement piece is a multi-media offering inspired by the teachings of Muhammed Celaleddin-i-Rumi (The Sufi Poet of Love) known as Mevlana to some and Rumi to others.

piece coincides with the 800th anniversary of Rumi’s birth and the 83rd anniversary of the birth of Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. It was performed at The Shabazz Center on May 17th.

Aziza is an ordained Interfaith Minister and Harlem native whose unique and highly effective approach to working with the differently abled community has been recognized around the world.

She met Mete Horzum, the Whirling Dervish, during her own pilgrimage to Konya in 2007, and thus began the collaboration and cultural exchange that brings Rumi’s philosophy and spiritual practices to the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center at Harlem’s Historic Audubon Ballroom.

“What Aziza, Mete and all of the collaborators and artists have created is profoundly moving,” said Dowoti Désir, the Center’s Executive Director. “It brings together two powerful ancestral spirits, Rumi from the East and Malcolm from the West, in a perfect reflection of how profound faith and love of community translate into acts of resistance and how mystic activism knows no boundaries -- temporal, geographic or racial."

The Shabazz Center is presenting the work of Chakaia Booker, a highly regarded artist and arts educator, who creates large works out of discarded truck, car and bicycle tires.

Located in the lobby of the historic Audubon Ballroom, the exhibition entitled “Destiny Unchanged” will be on exhibit until June 29th, courtesy of Malborough Gallery and the Broadway Mall Association as part of the May celebrations of both Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz birthday festivities.

Lecture demonstration with a Semazen (Whirling Dervish) Mete Horzum in discussion with Al-Hajj Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid and the internationally known choreographer Ron Brown on “Sufi Mysticism: the Radical Imagination of Rumi and Malcolm X”

Music by Rachiim Ausar Sahu and Salieu Susso

Film screening of “The Final Days of an Icon” by French filmmaker Ted Anspach

Art exhibition “Destiny Unchanged” work of artist and educator Chakaia Booker

Location: The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial & Educational Center3940 BroadwayNew York, NY 10032(212) 568-1341 ddesir@theshabazzcenter.org

I have to disappear — with Rumi

By Gloria S. Redlich, "Coleman Barks: poet and translator" - The Rhode Island Times - RI, USA
Tuesday, May 13, 2008

This is Coleman Barks’ second visit to Block Island; he was here for the Poetry Project last year. About his second visit to the island, Barks says, “It’s an absolutely spectacular place.”

Born in 1937 in Chattanooga, Tenn., and receiving a bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina and a master of arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Barks is renowned for his collaborative translations of the poetry of Jelaludden Rumi, a 13th-century Persian mystic.

Barks works with the Islamacist scholars John Moyne, A.J. Arberry and Reynold Nicholson to rend literal and more formal translations of the Persian poetry “into American free verse.”

His interest in Rumi was piqued in 1976 when the poet Robert Bly shared some of the scholarly translations of the Persian poet, suggesting, “These poems need to be released from their cages.”

Barks says he was initially drawn into Rumi’s poetry, “entering a new region that felt very familiar — very new and very alive.” He adds, “The poetry couldn’t always be understood by the mind; it had to be inhabited by the heart and soul.”

An example is his translation of Rumi’s “A Community of the Spirit”:

“There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise. . .”

The speaker eventually asks,

“Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.”

Barks points out that he intends his translations to be non-intellectual; he is more interested in what he calls “sublime relaxation.”

He says that after teaching three classes at the University of Georgia, he would pour himself some hot tea and work on one of Rumi’s poems, “going into the trance of the poem.” He describes this experience as feeling “the soul growth.”

Using the images of the poem, he worked to translate it into accessible English from more scholarly or formal English. He calls it “movement toward the emotional and spiritual — toward that which is felt.”

Breaking into a broad grin, he adds, “Who knows what I’m leaving out?”

Translator and poet
A poet on his own, Barks explains the distinction he experiences in his two poetic endeavors: “I like translating Rumi and writing my own poems. But in one,” he notes, “I have to disappear — with Rumi. In the other, I have to get in the way — get my personality and my delights and my shame into the poem.”

At his reading Saturday evening, May 3, Barks said of Rumi’s work, “There is a sense of presence” embodied in an “all-purpose pronoun that means I, you, he, we, they and God.”

This notion is conveyed in Rumi’s “Two Friends,” which Barks translates as:

“A certain person came to the Friend’s door and knocked.
‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s me.’

The Friend answered,
‘Go away. There’s no place
for raw meat at this table.’”

After wandering for a year, the caller learns humility
and finally returns to knock “gently” on his Friend’s door:
“Who is it?’
‘You.’
‘Please come in, my self,’
there’s no place in this house for two.

The doubled end of the thread is not what goes
through the eye of the needle.
It’s a single-pointed, fined-down, thread end,
not a big ego-beast with baggage.’”

In his own verse, Barks weaves in the emotion of his own deepest attachments and his acute sense of the transience of life, as reflected in a poem he read called “New Year’s Day Nap”:

Fiesta Bowl on low.

My son lying here on the couch
on the “Dad” pillow he made for mein the Seventh Grade. Now a sophomore
at Georgia Southern, driving back later today,
he sleeps with his white top hat over his face.
I’m a dancing fool.

Twenty years ago, half the form
he sleeps within came out of nowhere
with a million micro-lemmings who all died but one
piercer of membrane. specially picked to start a brainmaking,
egg-drop soup, that stirred two sun and moon centers
for a new-painted sky in the tiniest ballroom imaginable.
Now he’s a rousing, six feet long,
Turning on his side. Now he’s gone.

Having taught American literature, poetry and creative writing at the University of Georgia and other universities for more than 30 years, Barks’ translations of Rumi have grown to 19 volumes and led to the sale of more than three million copies.

It has been suggested that this makes the Rumi the most-read poet in the United States.

[Picture: Coleman (Professor Coleman Barks) and Boo, Woody, Benjamin, Keller, and Tuck. Photo from Prof. Barks' Web site http://www.colemanbarks.com/]