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.

Taking Flowers to Samadhi

Photo by Jesse Massa

Samadhi is the small, airy shrine of Meher Baba,* where a mural of muted colors covers the walls. A garden of heart-shaped garlands rises in a colorful pile on the altar cloths with Baba’s simple words in gold leaf, on white marble: “I have come not to teach but to awaken.” Only birdcalls, the movement of pilgrims coming in to bow down, or occasional, muted voices from the covered porch interrupt the silence.

My first pilgrimage to Meherabad* was twenty-five years ago on November 11, 1997. The scheduled arrival at 11:00 p.m. had been delayed, and it was after midnight when we began gently banking over Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. From my window seat, with my forehead pressed to the glass, I looked out at my first view of Mumbai, India—a vast orchard of lights—and was mesmerized.

In the morning, after the pilgrims left for breakfast, Samadhi was mostly empty. I would sit alone in the place I liked best, in front, on the right. With my left shoulder curved toward the wall, I turned my head toward the painting of Baba as a young man in a long, loose, white, dress-like sadra that fell below His knees. He sat in a field with a narrow dirt road winding away behind Him past a low tree and on to distant hills. As my gaze rested only on Him, I felt intimately alone, even if others were centimeters away. I talked to Him or gently corralled my wandering thoughts for inner as well as outer quiet.*

Two years ago, at Meherabad, on an early April morning I had awakened at my daily hour of five to walk to a plot of land where I planned to build a small eco-friendly home. My large home had been sold in order to reduce the responsibilities. The moon and a planet were still visible, as alone I began walking north on the old, narrow, humped asphalt road that connected the nearest village of Arangoan, to the neighboring, larger village, Kedgaon. Above the distant low horizon to the east, the sky was lighting up; the pale orange sun just rising. Walking between undeveloped land and fields used for crops, I reached the large tree that was my landmark. Two dirt ruts led to my left and divided a crop to the north ready for harvest from an open field of dried grasses. At the back was my plot. This morning I stopped short of the protruding irrigation pipe where I stood to imagine my home. From the road I had viewed Indians encamped on my plot, and up close I now saw how organized they were. Perhaps this was only for today. The next morning, I returned, but stopped at the roadside ruts. The number of Indians had definitely increased, and a large tractor was now parked. Resolutely I turned around; the seller would have to be called. Taking only several steps, I heard a message from my inner voice, initially pleased, but that later left me, wondering why—"You are being permanently reassigned to America."

My days became consumed with closing down my life. I visited Samadhi daily under the current Covid-19 restrictions. I could stand outside the railing that extended from the locked gate and look onto the porch with the door to the Tomb-Shrine locked, or I could sit on the Mandap, the covered stone platform across the hardpacked dirt. Then, a second message had come, and this one I found upsetting to hear, "You no longer need Samadhi for it is now in your heart." "Of course, I need Samadhi!"—I challenged back.

A year and a half later, I live quietly 7,700 miles away, near the Pacific Coast in Northwest Washington State. On arrival, after twenty-two years in India, I had found America a foreign country, but faced my reassignment knowing my placement was purposeful. I had young adult grandchildren to become close to now. For years, I'd visited in their childhoods, and early teens for several weeks at best. As I embraced the new, colorful, fragrant India became a rich memory. Then surprising me, I had received a photo taken by a friend at Meherabad as he held flowers in his hand to take to Samadhi, place on the rise of garlands sweetening the air, and softly speak my name.

My realization is, "A friend may recognize another's need, and inspired, give what prompts a grateful heart."

Prema Jasmine Camp, A Flower for God: A Memoir (Seattle, WA: Wilson Duke Press: 2021), 252. Meher Baba is referred to as the God-Man whose soul had come in previous incarnations and eras as Zoroaster, Ram, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammed, and this time as Meher Baba.
*ibid., 385. Meherabad is the site of Avatar Meher Baba's Tomb-shrine (Samadhi) and site of world pilgrimage. His early primary residence, ashram, and headquarters of His activities until 1944.

Enter The Woods: Part One

At the Farm
1950 – 1954

In the early '50s, visiting in summers at my grandparents' farm in North Newport, Maine, from about ages seven to eleven, the woods that bordered the back field of the farm were part of my childhood.

Those summers . . . I felt quiet and alone, but boredom didn’t quite happen because there were sheds and an attic and doors to the fields. Then woods.*

In the back field, to the south of the farmhouse, I followed Grampa's line fence dividing his mown hay from the neighbor's cows, passing wild strawberries, tiny and green. It was Grammie's stern words, "Don't go into the woods," that I heard again as I drew closer. The first trees were sparse but behind them they were close together, and I knew it was where I could get lost. I'd turn around. Off in the distance, the farmhouse looked far away.

Visiting Anna
1980

Anna and I had met at a small group of writers in Western Massachusetts. As I was new to the area, I was surprised when she offered not only friendship but an invitation to her home in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. Driving up the steep road, as woods appeared on the passenger side of the car, I had felt my excitement rising. Following our visit and now driving down the incline with the woods on the driver's side, spontaneously I pulled to the side of the road and parked. Getting out of the car, I crossed the road and entered the woods. I took a few steps, aware of the dim light, the quiet, and of how far away a late afternoon sky seemed when seen only between the tree tops. With a few more steps I discovered a brook and sat on the bank, with my knees drawn to the side to be as close as possible. I watched as the water covered only some of the stones, finding its way around the banks—its burbling and murmuring part of my contemplation.

Now in the last year of my seventies, knowing the insight of foreshadowing, I can write of how I was in the fourth decade of my life before I accomplished what the little stream had accomplished—finding my own path.

Visions
1990

During the fall of 1990, I began to see faint images of scenes between wakefulness and sleep. I would later call them psychic experiences, but at first they were unexplained, unusual, and unshared additions to my bedtime routine.

An inner child workshop drawing, by Prema’s inner child

In a vision that grew longer and fuller each night, I walked at the edge of a field and then into a forest, accompanied by a growing number of animals. Where I turned, a fat, dusty-golden mare stood with her head up, or sometimes grazing. . . .

In the forest, I stood with the animals in a glade bright with sun. It had a rectangle of earth for a garden, where Jesus first appeared wearing a white turtleneck jersey, planting seeds. Later, he hovered once above me, in a white robe ablaze in light.

Emerging from the forest, I rode my dusty-golden mare bareback, galloping along a country lane through an apple orchard, then up into the blue sky.*

Photo by Scott Cramer

While as a child, I had not felt safe entering the woods, I did now because I had seen Jesus in them as my friend and then as the Son of God.

My realization is, "There may be a comfortable feeling of deep connection when what has been remembered over a lifetime reemerges with new awareness."

*  Prema Jasmine Camp, A Flower for God: A Memoir (Seattle, WA: Wilson Duke Press, 2021). 32.

*  Ibid. 133.