I turn all thorn then, but you come back again and make my thorniness fragrant and pink and petaled.

Humble yourself, you’ll grow greater than the world.Your Self will be revealed to you, without you.

There is none dwelling in the house but God. When a man is awakened he melts and perishes.

There is a basket of fresh bread on your head, yet you go door to door asking for crusts.

Without you the instruments would die. One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss. The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself. Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone, that what died last night can be whole today. Why live some soberer way, and feel you ebbing out? I won't do it. Either give me enough wine or leave me alone, now that I know how it is to be with you in constant conversation.

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 from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. 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.

Hardship may dishearten at first, but every hardship passes away. All despair is followed by hope; all darkness is followed by sunshine.