Shariat Farm: Serendipitous Love Part Two

Unable to find any place to rent and with my departure date coming up, I wondered if I could move my things into the farm, and with the thought that I could also help Jesse, I began cleaning. When Jesse's twenty-one-year-old son finally appeared, we agreed that I needed to make a call to his father. His first reaction was shock, but he turned amenable when I asked in the name of Meher Baba and I heard the answer I had hoped for.

Now I brought my things out. The field with the horses was un-mowed since Jesse had left mid-summer, but I delightedly plowed through grass up to my knees, stopping for cactus that climbed even higher, with one of each of two pale-green and prickly mitts narrowly attached to its brother underneath. Tall, thin stems erupting in tiny, white flowers became part of my search for plant names in the wildflower book.

“Returning from India to the farm each year, I loved my small bedroom with its west-facing window taking up half the wall ... where in the morning I propped up pillows to look out at the roughly mowed yard and the trees, where birds and animals moved and leaves were shifting. ...This was the first time I'd lived in seclusion among abundant grasses. ... I looked out and met my new family—scrambling, squabbling birds at the feeder I hung, wheeling hawks, grazing deer and wild turkey, a passing fox partially visible, and a steadily crawling, long-term resident gopher tortoise on its routes."*

* All quotes in this post can be found in Prema Jasmine Camp's A Flower for God: A Memoir (Seattle, WA: Wilson Duke Press, 2021).

Shariat Farm: Serendipitous Love Part One

My moving to Shariat Farm really began at a reading by David Cousins in January 1997, months before I first set foot on the farm. I hadn't heard of Meher Baba, but David told me that He was standing behind my left shoulder, cranking up my heart that was all run-down.

 In April, I received a phone call from a man I didn't know who gave his name as Jesse, and when I mentioned Meher Baba he told me that he had photos of Him that he would give me, but it would be two months before I had an opportunity to be in Jesse’s town.

On the day to pick up the photos, I found the lime rock road described in the directions, turned into sparse woods, followed sand tracks through dried grass to a curve in the road, then stopped at the edge of a field. Tall grasses grew back to where two live oaks made diminutive a low, faded-peach building with a wide, covered front porch.

Once inside, seated on his sofa and recognizing Meher Baba in photos, I asked if we could walk in the field that I could see through a sliding glass door, back to where I could hear there were horses neighing

Earlier, in David's February workshop, he had told me that I might want to go to India in the fall, but that I didn't have to, and then pausing, added, "Although you are a journey person." By late September, I had a partially paid ticket as I waited for the necessary sale of my home in Massachusetts to complete the payment. Jesse had called again, and this time to say that he might want to rent his home while he was in India for six months.

I had found a driveway off the lime rock road, wondering as I drove through woods, if I had turned at the right mailbox. .... As I walked through the tall grass to the porch, in those early few moments, I had stood still in a theater of humming insects and known this was my home—and that the thought was totally inappropriate. Nonetheless, I'd felt undeniable contentment, as in coming home," serendipitous love," and an unquenchable longing to stay.*

* All quotes in this post will be found in Prema Jasmine Camp's A Flower for God: A Memoir (Seattle, WA: Wilson Duke Press, 2021).

Rumi and My Journeys

Recently I received an email from a friend that included two quotes by Rumi, and I was instantly captivated by the succinctness of insights about love in poetic language—one was even humorous!

Rumi, a 13th-century poet, was Muslim, an expert in Islamic law, and as a Sufi mystic lived his life in an inward searching for God, shunning materialism*

Hunting for more quotes, I discovered "Journeys" on the first site I opened. It was the first quote and described the first strong turning point of my life. My excerpt of the quote is here with the source of the full quote found in the notes.

                        Journeys ...
                        move in the passageways of the self.
                        ...
                        They are like shafts of light,
                        always changing, and you change
                        when you explore them*.

A journey is defined as a long and often difficult process of personal change and development, often described as spiritual development.

The year 1974 was a turning point in my life. From new inner awareness prompted by the adoption of our five-year-old daughter, and the birth a year and a half later of our second daughter, I wrote my first two poems, one about each, and continued writing. In 1990, my first spiritual experience occurred as an inner voice spoke a line from the Twenty-third Psalm. The following year, now a certified writing facilitator, I opened my home to Creative Writing and Journaling workshops with a brochure promoting the inner awareness I had been living with for seventeen years.

                                               
                        "By drawing from our life experience, we use writing
                        for self-discovery, health, and artistic expression."

New journeys entered my life when in January 1997 I met David Cousins of Wales* who gave me a reading in which he spoke metaphorically of my coming spiritual growth.

It's like this: you are in a hot air balloon a mile above

the earth where, at three miles up, you'll be able to see

more, but not as much as I can from six miles up.                              

In his February workshop I learned of a second and different journey where this time I would be taking a jet plane.

                        You might want to go to India in the fall, he had told

                        me, but you don't have to. Then he had paused and added,

                        "Although you are a journey person."*

From eight decades, I look back at the years of inner reflection that have brought constant change into my life. Rumi's voice is a welcomed new companion on coming journeys both inner and outer.

  My realization is, "New avenues of life can be inspired from the simple sharing of friendship."

* Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition, Amazon, May 28, 2004. Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī is the best-selling poet in America. "Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever."

 This site explains that Rumi's original poems were a vivid reflection of his Muslin identity and spiritual beliefs, but that in their translation, the culture and religion were left out.
* https://quotefancy.com/quote/904288/Rumi-Journeys-bring-power-and-love-back-into-you-If-you-can-t-go-somewhere-move-in-the. A list of 104 Rumi quotes can be found at https://leverageedu.com/blog/rumi-quotes/

* Prema Jasmine Camp, A Flower for God: A Memoir (Seattle, WA: Wilson Duke Press, 2021) 186, 187.

 *David Cousins, A Handbook for Light Workers (Dartmouth UK: Barton House, 1993). Cousins is a Welsh spiritual master, mystic, and healer.