Discipline

Don’t avoid discipline.

You have learned ways to make a living

for your body. Now learn to support

your soul. You wear fine clothing.

How do you dress your spirit?

This world is a playground

where children pretend to have shops.

Sometimes when they wrestle,

it may look like sex,

but none of it is real.

They exchange imaginary money.

Night comes, and they go home tired

with nothing in their hands.

-Rumi

Good ol’ Rumi was at it again with this poem…You wear fine clothing. How do you dress your spirit?
I’m going to guess Rumi wasn’t a guy you would want to take shopping.

I think it’s back to that balance between the Laughing Pink Buddha and the Serene One. My tendency is to tip deeply into the meditation and thinking and reflecting and writing and generally retreating into the cave when I think I need to regroup and try to make sense of what’s happening. Too often I feel the injustice of the world, my having while the rest have not.

But what if all a girl needs is a little material restoration? Yes it’s frivolous. It’s materialistic and shallow. I get that. But aren’t we supposed to embrace our duality? Be one with complexity?

I mean truly…at some point, isn’t it all about the right shade of lipstick?

I want to go to lunch and buy something silly and fun and not in the least bit practical. I want to go shopping and not think about the world.

But here’s what I don’t want to do. I do not want to wear red and purple. Save me from a fate worse than death. I may be over fifty, but you can’t make me wear one of those hats.