When I am wordless, I read Rumi’s poetry. It speaks to my heart and soul. As I feel my speechlessness in the tropical night, I come upon his poem “Clouds”:
…What we say
is a caravan bell, clouds moving across.
Traveler, don’t try to decide where to stop.
(…)
Stay light on your feet and keep moving.
Speak any language, Turkish, Greek, Persian,
Arabic, but always speak with love.
Rumi, “Clouds” in The Essential Rumi
I feel that, for me, English is the language of nature; Spanish, of the heart; Portuguese, of the body; and Wind, the hum of my breath, the language of Spirit.
Whether it be English, Spanish, Portuguese, or the sound of my breath, I do wish always to speak with love.
I wish to do it now, for example, with my new friends who speak Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Georgian, Uzbek, Mandarin, and other languages that I will discover as they reveal themselves.
Let us speak with each other in any language we can. Sometimes it may be the Wind of Spirit.
But let us always speak with love, even if our words are clouds drifting through each other’s sky.
