Sunday, January 29, 2012

You are a divine elephant

My husband took this photo with his smartphone at my request: this elephant was on the tabletop at the restaurant we went to on a whim Friday evening.

I am not usually all that interested in elephants, but they had developed a particular significance in a therapy session just that afternoon, so I was amused to see one appear before me.  We hadn't been to this particular restaurant in several years, so it was just -- an odd set of coincidences.

... Made odder still this morning, when I discovered the Hafiz poem for today in Daniel Ladinsky's A Year with Hafiz:

All in All

Could you help me with this? an ant said
to an elephant when a large seed the ant was
dragging back to its nest got stuck between
some grass.

The elephant, looking down and feeling
kindhearted that day, began to contemplate
all that might be needed to render some
service,

but the task just seemed too delicate and
in need of more precision than the elephant’s
trunk or one of his feet or even his tail or one
of his grand ears could handle effectively.

So the elephant began to pray for divine
intervention, and sure enough it worked, or
it seemed to --

a berry on a nearby bush happened to fall
in such a way as to free the seed for its
onward destination.

The elephant’s faith in God was increased,
and the ant, having heard the prayer, was
now less of an agnostic, which he had been
for the last year or so because of personal
reasons... he would rather keep private.

All in all, seems things are moving ahead,
working out for the best.
Yep.


I went online after reading this, knowing I wanted to post the poem here and hoping I wouldn’t have to type out the whole thing, but I couldn't find it.  Everywhere I looked, though, there was another terrific Hafiz quote,: 'You are a divine elephant with amnesia trying to live in an ant hole.'

Wonderful!  Great message for a Sunday morning, too.

So -- how is this true for YOU?  Have you even begun to realize yet how HUGE the divine spirit is in you?  How will you release it, and give it voice?

And in the meantime, isn't it great to be reminded:

All in all, seems things are moving ahead,
working out for the best.
Yep.

1 comment:

Louise Gallagher said...

Ah yes,

All in all, seems things are moving ahead,
working out for the best.
Yep.

I think I'll live on that statement for awhile.