~

Being overwhelmed by emotions created a strange, painful writer’s block controlling my heart and mind.

George Floyd flashing “I can’t breathe” echo grasps for justice breath. If I’m unable to write, I could read. If I’m unable to speak, I could listen.

I whispered to my heart: what’s better than Rumi filling this empty, cold space known as writer’s block?

I browsed through The Essential Rumi. And here, what the mystic poet, Rumi, had to say: “Only breath.” I will not dig into what he meant—what he felt—what he thought.

Let Rumi’s words sink in and take them into our world:

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

[…]

My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

Read the full poem here. 

Floyd couldn’t breathe. Let’s grasp for “breath” that would liberate our world from racism, hate, and injustice.

After all, we are “only breath.”
~

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The Maya Angelou Quote that America Needs to Hear.

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