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Excerpt from Robert Bly's "What Stories Do We Need"

The following is a transcribed excerpt from "What Stories Do We Need" -- a thought provoking and timeless recording by poet and men's movement pioneer Robert Bly.  "What Stories Do We Need" reminds us that we all carry a personal mythology, but the stories we tell ourselves may not be entirely true... Recorded live at The New York Open Center.

We’re talking about mythology today. And mythology moves towards the soul in the same way that philosophy moves towards the brain. In fact, I think Joe Campbell said the other day, all philosophy is a frozen form of mythology and if you really love a philosopher, then try to recognize the philosopher as being a kind of an ice over the water on which you could walk. And that’s nice, but try to go below and see what the water is doing down there. And in that case, he believes that every philosophical idea has a mythological image underneath it, including all those ones, Heraclitus, and all of that. They come out of centuries of wild mythological imaging.

Excerpt from "The Glance"

Enjoy this gorgeous passage of Rumi's poetry from "The Glance", as translated and read by Coleman Barks.  Jalalud'din Rumi is one of the world's most revered poets and mystics.

Love is alive, and someone borne alone by it is more alive than lions roaring or men in their fierce courage. Bandits ambush others on the road. They get wealth, but they stay in one place. Lovers keep moving, never the same, not for a second. What makes others grieve, they enjoy. When they look angry, do not believe their faces. It is spring lightning, a joke before the rain. They chew thorns thoughtfully, along with pastured grass. Gazelle and lioness having dinner. Love is invisible, except here, in us. Sometimes I praise love. Sometimes love praises me. Love, a little shell somewhere on the ocean floor, opens its mouth. You and I make we. Those imaginary beings enter that shell as a single sip of seawater.

Coleman Barks Bio and Links

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Excerpt from "Poems of Rumi" read by Coleman Barks and Robert Bly

We are delighted to offer this excerpt from "The Poems of Rumi" as read by Coleman Barks, leading scholar and translator of Rumi poetry, and Robert Bly, poet, author, and leader of the men's movement. Jalaluddin Rumi is a beloved as a spiritual master and one of the greatest poets of all time. 

The dictionaries have no entry for the sort of love we have. If you can define a road, it’s not the lover’s road. The high branches of love shoot up into the air that exists before eternity and the roots grow down into the earth after eternity. This tree doesn’t stand around isolated on the earth. We have pulled the sober watcher from his throne. We’ve moved the said rules for animal and instinctual life. The kind of love that we know of is too great for this sober watcher, and for this simple instinctual life. Now, if you believe that your need can be met and you’re wanting, satisfied from the outside, you are really a tiger or a cougar. You pray any longer to wooden idols, then why do you keep praying to your desire? If you become the one you long for, what will you do with your longing? The captain stalks on the deck of his ship. The planks are his spears of the bad things that may happen, and the wood is his longing for marvelous things to happen. When the captain and the board both sink, nothing remains but the drowning. The teacher I love is the ocean and also the pearl deep in the ocean. His personality is the one secret the holy one never gave away. 

 

Excerpt from "Like This: More Poetry of Rumi". Translation by Coleman Barks

Jalaluddin Rumi is recognized as one of the greatest poets of all time. Through his rendering of Rumi’s poems and stories, Coleman Barks has established himself as one of the leading voices for Rumi’s work today.  Enjoy this excerpt of beautiful Rumi poetry from "Like This: More Poetry of Rumi", translated and read by Coleman Barks.

There is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of spirit on the body. 

Seawater begs the pearl to break its shell, and the lily, how passionately it needs some wild darling. 

At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. 

Breathe into me. 

Close the language door and open the love window. The moon won’t use the door, only the window. 

Watch the dust grains moving in the light near the window. Their dance is our dance. 

We rarely hear that inward music but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless. 

There is a passion in me that doesn’t long for anything from another human being. 

I was given something else, a cap to wear in both worlds. It fell off. 

No matter. 

One morning I went to a place beyond dawn, a source of sweetness that flows and is never less. 

I have been shown a beauty that would confuse both worlds, but I won’t cause that uproar. 

I am nothing but a head set on the ground as a gift for Shams.

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Coleman Barks Bio and Links

Pure Water - Poetry of Rumi wins Gold Nautilus Award for audio!

This morning at Book Expo America in New York City it was officially announced that Pure Water-Poetry of Rumi with Coleman Barks and Grammy Award-Winning cellist  Eugene Friesen, won the Gold Award in the Audio Category of The Nautilus Book Awards.

Better Listen! is honored to be in the company of the other outstanding Silver and Gold winners in the competition. 

Click here listen to a preview (and purchase) this great title.

Click here for a delightful transcribed excerpt of the audio program.

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Like This - More Poems of Rumi - Coleman Barks

Through his rendering of Rumi’s poems and stories, Coleman Barks has established himself as perhaps the leading voice for Rumi’s work today. His warm and sensitive reading combines with the world-renowned musicianship of Hamza El Din (oud and tar) and Steve Coughlin (ney an hansuri) to create an enthralling listening experience. 

Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), is now recognized in the West as one of the greatest poets of all time . His works are charged with an unequalled blend of literary genius and spiritual wisdom 

No matter how often we listen to Rumi, each time is always the first time.

This program includes twenty two of Rumi’s most beautiful poems. Coleman Barks bio and links

Running Time: 73 minutes Like This - Preview	Buy From BetterListen!
	also available on iTunes

2009 Nautilus Gold Winner Pure Water - Poetry of Rumi with Coleman Barks and Eugene Friesen

BetterListen is proud to be the recipient of a 2009 Nautilus Silver Award for our recording of Pure Water - Poetry of Rumi with Coleman Barks and Eugene Friesen. 

Following are transcribed selections of Rumi poetry included on our audio program our Pure Water.

Inside water, a water wheel turns.

The star circulates with the moon. 

We live in the night ocean wondering, 

What are these lights?  

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This moment, this love comes to rest in me, 

many beings in one being.

In one wheat grain a thousand sheath stacks. 

Inside the needles eye a turning night of stars.

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I am so small I can barely be seen.  

How can this great love be inside me?  

Look at your eyes, they are small, 

but they see enormous things.

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Keep walking though there is no place to get to.  

Don’t try to see through the distance, that’s not for human beings.  

Move within but don’t move the way fear makes you move.  Move within.  

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Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, 

there is a field. I’ll meet you there. 

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.  

Coleman Barks Bio and Links