{"id":8996,"date":"2021-04-06T20:49:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T20:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=8996"},"modified":"2021-04-06T20:49:37","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T20:49:37","slug":"coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Coleman Barks: Rumi, Grace, and Human Friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b>\u00a0Welcome to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> produced by Sounds True. My name is Tami Simon. I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True. And I\u2019d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools, such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. If you\u2019d like to learn more or feel inspired to become a supporter, please visit soundstruefoundation.org.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re listening to\u00a0<\/span>Insights at the Edge.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Today is a rebroadcast of one of my favorite episodes. I hope you enjoy.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re listening to\u00a0<\/span>Insights at the Edge.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Today my guest is Coleman Barks. Coleman Barks is a leading scholar and translator of the 13th century Persian mystic, Jalaluddin Rumi. He taught poetry and creative writing at the University of Georgia for 30 years and is the author of numerous Rumi translations and has been a student of Sufism since 1977. His work with Rumi was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers\u2019\u00a0<\/span>Language of Life<\/span><\/i>\u00a0series on PBS. With Sounds True, Coleman Barks has released the audio programs\u00a0<\/span>I Want Burning: The Ecstatic World of Rumi, Hafiz, and Lalla,<\/span><\/i>\u00a0a CD called\u00a0<\/span>Rumi: Voice of Longing<\/span><\/i>, and also a brand-new, beautiful, three-CD collection which is a collaboration between Coleman Barks and cellist David Darling. It\u2019s called\u00a0<\/span>Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In this episode of\u00a0<\/span>Insights at the Edge,<\/span><\/i>\u00a0Coleman Barks and I spoke about the relationship between Rumi and his teacher, whom he called The Friend, Shams Tabriz, and how Coleman received insight into this friendship based on his own relationship with a Sufi teacher named Guru Bawa, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. We also spoke about how Coleman first began translating Rumi and how the translation process involves Coleman falling into a type of trance as part of the process. Finally, Coleman and I spoke about grace, and as part of our conversation, we listened to some new pieces from the recording\u00a0<\/span>Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship<\/span><\/i>. Here\u2019s my very heart-opening conversation with Coleman Barks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coleman, I want to begin just by saying I\u2019m so happy to be speaking with you, because even though we\u2019ve known each other for a long time, I\u2019ve never had the chance to have this kind of conversation with you about your work. So thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coleman Barks:<\/b> You\u2019re welcome. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0To begin with, I wanted to talk a little bit about the process of translation, and your process, what you go through when you take a poem\u2014a poem that was originally written in Persian and then translated into English by somebody else\u2014then you turn it into a Coleman Barks translation. Can you tell us how that process goes for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Well, it\u2019s a little mysterious. I go into a kind of a trance, reading the poem in its scholarly translation, and try to\u2014well, [there\u2019s] nothing marvelous about it, it\u2019s just kind of a trance that any reading involves\u2014where I try to feel what spiritual information is trying to come through Rumi\u2019s images and then I try to put that into an American free-verse poem in the tradition of Walt Whitman and many others. So that\u2019s the general liniments of the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Do you ever have a concern, you know, how much of this is Coleman and how much of this is Rumi? \u201cAm I taking too much poetic license here?\u201d How do you sort that out?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0I try to\u2014I don\u2019t make up images. So I take his images and then try to expand on them. This is not poetry that is word-for-word, of course, and you wouldn\u2019t call it even faithful, because I don\u2019t know the original language, you know? I don\u2019t know Farsi, I did not hear Rumi\u2019s name until I was 39 years old, way too old to learn the language. Besides, I\u2019m lazy. [<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>]<\/span><\/p>\n

I just love the medium that I go into to do this work. It feels like a different kind of something outside the mind. I call it the \u201cheart of the soul,\u201d but it\u2019s somewhere different than my ordinary mentality. It just gives me great pleasure to be able to enter that region of consciousness. It feels like I\u2019m almost being able to breathe underwater, you know? It\u2019s just some kind of\u2014it is a breathing way of\u2014a new way of being in the rapture of being in a body. Rumi says just being sentient, and in a form\u2014in a body\u2014is cause for great great joy. And I agree with that. That part is in my DNA, I just love being alive. And Rumi did too. And I think that\u2019s why we gravitate toward him, because he restores the ecstatic dimension of consciousness, and we may have forgotten about that some.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Now, when you say that you don\u2019t make up images but you work with images that are in the original, I would think it would be tempting that, you know \u2026 one image leads to another image \u2026 that they can cascade.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0That\u2019s the form of his odes, his\u00a0<\/span>ghazals.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0They are just one image after another, usually. And they each are expounding some kind of psychic process, like emptiness, or whatever the moth flying into the flame means\u2014you know, disappearing into one\u2019s love. He is amazing at exfoliating the imagery of that, that idea of surrender. I don\u2019t help him, I don\u2019t make up the images with him, I may be guilty of that sometimes, but I can\u2019t think of one right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0You mentioned that you didn\u2019t even hear Rumi\u2019s name until you were in your late 30s. I\u2019m curious, when you heard his name or you read your first Rumi poem, did you immediately go up into flames or something like that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0[<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>]<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0I mean, the karma of your life was about to be forever changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0That\u2019s certainly true, but not exactly the first one. That was a Robert Bly conference, where he thought it would be a great afternoon writing exercise to take a Rumi poem and a scholarly translation and rephrase it into free verse. And so we did that for an afternoon, and he gave me the book, he said, \u201cThese poems need to be released from their cages,\u201d meaning, the cages of the scholarly language, and made more alive and more free. I\u2019ve been trying to do that, now, for 34 years. But it was after I got back to Athens, Georgia, and got to working alone with the poems that I really felt the freedom\u2014something very new was happening, and also something old and deeply familiar to me. I don\u2019t know how to explain that, but that\u2019s the way it felt. It was like a huge form of relaxation, you know, it\u2019s what it felt like.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0I\u2019m curious if there was a moment when it dawned on you, \u201cI\u2019m going to be spending a lot of time working on these poems; this is really going to become the focus of my life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0I worked on them, just as a practice, for seven years before I even thought of publishing them. It didn\u2019t occur to me that there would be an audience for this. Well, maybe that\u2019s not entirely true, but it was in the back of my mind, I guess. I didn\u2019t publish a book from 1976 when I started until 1984, when Open Secret came out. Then it became apparent that these were useful to people, and so I was going to keep doing it anyway. But it\u2019s a different thing when you have an audience for what you do in your solitude. Finally, HarperCollins got a hold of it in 1995, and now about a million and a half copies have been sold, so it\u2019s a publishing phenomenon that nobody quite understands.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0I\u2019m interested, you said that it\u2019s different when you\u2019re aware of an audience, or when there\u2019s an audience for what you\u2019re doing. What changed? What changed once it was clear there was an audience for these translations?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Well, I got some very educated feedback and some beautiful critiques by people who know this material and these states of awareness much better than I do. And I found a Sufi teacher, too, doing this work. But what I was thinking about was Apir Valait Khan [ph] gave these poems a good reading and said, \u201cThe poems used to be more sensual, and more sexual, but now they don\u2019t seem to be that way.\u201d And I said, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s because I was more sensual and sexual when I was doing them.\u201d [<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>] So of course the voice of the translator does come through\u2014I have to use my own experience and my own voice to do these translations. What I try to do, of course, is to make a valid and a lively poem in American English, and I\u2019m not interested in a scholarly translation. I\u2019m very grateful for the scholars, because they have allowed me to do this work, but I can\u2019t continue that kind of language, I have to make it more alive, more vibrant.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Now, you said, Coleman, that when you started doing these translations of the Rumi poems, there was a sense of familiarity and relaxation into the process. I\u2019m curious, in your inner world, what your relationship with Rumi and Shams feels like?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0[<\/span>Pauses<\/span><\/i>] Now, I want to be sure not to tell you any lies, here. [<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>]<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0That\u2019s good, I appreciate that, thank you. Take your time, I\u2019m happy to wait for the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0[<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>] Rumi and Shams, in my own life?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Yes, what are your relationships like inside of you, with them? Do they feel like legends, do they feel like friends that you have? What [does] it feel like?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0More like that. My teacher Bawa Muhaiyaddeen once told me, he said, \u201cRumi and Shams are, to me,\u201d talking about himself, \u201care not literary figures. They\u2019re not people in a book. I know them, like I know you.\u201d And so that gave me a sense\u2014he allowed me, I think, entrance into the vast identity of those two in friendship. If I hadn\u2019t met him, it wouldn\u2019t be the same. My access to the poems would not be as intimate as it feels now. I\u2019m glad you asked that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0And tell me a little bit\u2014when did you meet Bawa Muhaiyaddeen?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Maybe in a dream, you know, and then a year and a half later I met him in this more solid world, but I have had several precognitive dreams. It\u2019s just, to me, a mysterious fact of existence that the mind and dream consciousness can go forward in time and see something, a scene maybe, that will become apparent on the retina two years afterward. I don\u2019t know how that happens, but it has been my experience, not a lot of times, but it has happened.<\/span><\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what happened with him, that he was able to come to me in dream consciousness. The dreams became lucid\u2014I woke up inside the dream, and became aware that I was dreaming, but I was still asleep. And in the dream that I met him, I was sleeping out on a bluff above the Tennessee River where I grew up, and where the school was where I grew up, where my father was the headmaster, just five miles north of the Chattanooga, on the Tennessee River. It was night, and I woke up inside the dream, and a ball of light rose over Williams Island and came over me, and clarified from the inside out, and a man was sitting in there, with his head bowed, and a white shawl over his head. He raised his head and he said, \u201cI love you,\u201d and I said, \u201cI love you, too.\u201d And the whole landscape filled with dew, or moisture, and the moisture, somehow, was love. It was just spread out through the landscape. I felt the process of the dew forming. This is all very mysterious, but it did, as far as I know, happen to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then, a year and a half later, I met him in Philadelphia and he said, this Rumi work, that it had to be done, and I assume that meant he was going to help me with it. And I think he has, in some mysterious way, been part of the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Did you know, when you had the dream, that it was an important dream?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Oh gosh, yes. Yes. I\u2019d started writing my dreams down in the early 1970s and now have about 90 dream notebooks. I still write them down. Yes, it felt like\u2014I\u2019ve never had a man appear in a ball of light before! [Laughs] Nor since, even. He could visit me in the dreams, and he did, and I would go up to Philadelphia and I would start telling him the dream, and he would say, \u201cYou don\u2019t need to tell me that, I was there.\u201d So he had the ability to do that. There are people who are on other planes of existence. I just got really lucky and met one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0After you had the dream, did you seek him out?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0No, no.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0So it just happened by chance that, a year and a half later, you met this person?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Well, it was somewhat connected to this work, very much. I sent some of these versions, translations, to a friend of mine, who was teaching law at Rutgers University at Camden, and he read them to his torts class, and a man came up out of the audience, Jonathan Granaw [ph], and Jonathan said, \u201cWho did those poems?\u201d And Milna Ball [ph] gave Jonathan my name and Jonathan started writing to me, and he said, \u201cThere\u2019s this teacher in Philadelphia that I think you should meet.\u201d And so, on one poetry reading jaunt up there, I stopped into Philadelphia and met Jonathan and met this teacher, and I realized that he was the one who was in my dream. And nobody would know that except myself and him. But he\u2019s such a distinctive-looking person with these magnificent, deep eyes that he\u2019s very recognizable. That\u2019s the way the meeting actually happened.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Did you feel there was something in your relationship with Bawa Muhaiyaddeen that was similar to the relationship between Rumi and Shams, and that that\u2019s part of what gave you an appreciation of that, a teacher-student dynamic?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0It felt very deep, and still feels deep, at least since he died in 1986, it feels like it\u2019s become more like a friendship than a teacher-student thing. So, yes, I did feel that. That\u2019s a lot to claim, but I feel that, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0It\u2019s wonderful that you bring up the \u201cfriendship\u201d word. You\u2019ve just published, through Sounds True, a three-CD collection along with David Darling, the cellist, called\u00a0<\/span>Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0And in just a moment I want to hear a piece from that three-CD collection. But maybe you could say a few words as a way of introduction about this central idea of friendship, Rumi and human friendship.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Well, he said that a friendship can change from being a relationship. It is that, it\u2019s very specific, and Shams Tabriz is an actual person, from an actual town, and it is a specific relationship, but it can widen and broaden out to include and become a kind of atmosphere that one walks within. In one of his startling metaphors, he said \u201cwhat was just a person is now a holiday without limits.\u201d Suddenly the person in the relationship becomes something like a day off, just a great sense of freedom and expansion, like a holiday. So, in another place he said Shams had become what anybody says\u2014just any kind of conversation going on, it\u2019s like he\u2019s overhearing his beloved, it\u2019s become part of the fabric of his life. Maybe we should hear part of that three-CD set.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Yes, and I do think you might have some precognitive abilities as well, because the track that I\u2019ve cued up, which you wouldn\u2019t know, is called \u201cHoliday Without Limits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0[<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>] Who\u2019s in charge here?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Exactly! And this is from\u00a0<\/span>Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0Let\u2019s listen.<\/span><\/p>\n

[<\/span>Music and poetry<\/span><\/i>]<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Coleman, it seems to me that it has so many layers of meaning, that you created a collection of translations with music on\u00a0<\/span>Rumi and Human Friendship<\/span><\/i>\u00a0with someone who is, in fact, a dear friend of yours, David Darling, the musician. Talk a little bit about that process of working together and how it informed a record on friendship.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0David Darling and I have, for a long time, wanted to make something with the cello and his music and Rumi\u2019s poetry and maybe some of my own poetry that has a kind of orchestral feel to something more vast than the single instrument. So he has created this music, and he would put something on, like a track, and then I would just feel what poem might go with that music. And it seems to work out pretty well. Sometimes it would happen that way, and sometimes I would start reading the poem and he would put the music with it, but it worked both ways, first the poem then the music, and vice versa.<\/span><\/p>\n

His delight in the process and the poetry and then, of course, in the music is apparent throughout. He\u2019s got great freshness and joyfulness about him. I just really enjoy his presence, and I think he likes to hang out with me, too. So we enjoyed being in his sound studio in the woods of Connecticut and putting this together. It was not work; it was very much play. And we loved doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0I think part of what\u2019s underneath my question is I\u2019d love to understand more what friendship means to you, Coleman Barks. Part of the project, you\u2019re exploring Rumi and human friendship, but I\u2019m also interested in knowing what it means for you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Well, what can you say? It\u2019s the opening of the heart, and some kind of feeling of a new way of being, that is\u2014as I say in the notes\u2014a new way of breathing, maybe. That\u2019s not so fearful and not so sad. When you meet a new friend, the world has more light in it, doesn\u2019t it? Things become more spontaneous, and more full of laughing and freedom and novelty, somehow. All that is apparent in this three-CD set. I hope it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0One of the comments you made in the liner notes that I thought was interesting was you were talking about how, in Rumi\u2019s poetry, the sun is often a central image in understanding human friendship.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0\u201cShams\u201d means \u201cthe sun,\u201d so whenever sunlight is mentioned, or the dawn coming up, it\u2019s always a reference to Shams and his friendship and his love for him, and their love for each other. It\u2019s one of the great images. It\u2019s like a little secret he tells, in his poems, that the world is always asking you to open up and be more loving. The candle\u2019s taken by its burning is telling you; the moth by going into the candle is telling you to do that; and music and wine is always telling you to give up the bouquet and the names and all and just run wild and anonymous, through the human brain.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of a poem I didn\u2019t put in this collection, he says, \u201cEverything begs with the silent rocks for you to be flung out like light over this plane\u201d\u2014the presence of Shams Tabriz. So light itself\u2014and probably seeing itself and hearing and seeing\u2014just being alive, is, for him, the presence of a friend, the friendship, the beloved. You can\u2019t say much about that mystery, but it\u2019s certainly central to whatever religion is in these poems. It\u2019s a religion of deep friendship and light and music, too, I think. Also the image of a flute comes in, and the emptiness that has to happen for the flute to make music, and the emptiness of the flute player. And those two emptinesses are somehow related to love, and the merging of the emptinesses are related to this new kind of love that Rumi and Chams are bringing to us. I think it\u2019s new, even though it\u2019s eight centuries old, I don\u2019t know that we\u2019ve lived it out yet. It\u2019s a new kind of way of being, and a depth of inwardness and joy and sharing. But when you try to start talking about it, it just disappears, almost. [<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>] So the best way to talk about it is through poetry and with music. So let\u2019s listen to another one.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0OK. We\u2019ll listen to a piece, this is called \u201cRaggedness.\u201d And this is also from\u00a0<\/span>Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0Maybe you can introduce it for us, Coleman.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Well, this is [about] lots of changes that happen in a student-teacher relationship. You\u2019ll see, \u201cI was dead, and then alive.\u201d So it\u2019s all about the continuous changing nature of a relationship, where maybe a teacher\u2019s involved, but nobody knows who\u2019s the student and who\u2019s the teacher. It keeps changing back and forth. OK, let\u2019s hear it.<\/span><\/p>\n

[<\/span>Music and poetry<\/span><\/i>]<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0I love that, it\u2019s so beautiful, Coleman.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0That image of the flowing shadow of the ground as being silky. It\u2019s just gorgeously fresh, isn\u2019t it?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0It\u2019s so new.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0One of the things I\u2019d love to hear more about, if it\u2019s OK, it\u2019s a little personal, but I\u2019ve never heard you talk, really, about your relationship with Bawa Muhaiyaddeen \u2014Guru Bawa, it\u2019s easier to say that. You\u2019ve told us now a little bit about the initial meeting in the dream, and then when you first saw him. But I\u2019m wondering how that relationship progressed for you, and then at the time of his death and now after his death, 20+ years, what that\u2019s all like for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0He used to come in dreams after he died, but he hasn\u2019t in several years now. I don\u2019t know what that means. But I still feel very close to him, and I love to go and visit his tomb where he\u2019s buried, outside of Philadelphia. Feels very good to be there.<\/span><\/p>\n

He came in a dream once. He was teaching me to take tiny little sips out of a glass of water, I think. So tiny, like a little bee or butterfly drinking. And I said, \u201cWhat does this mean?\u201d And he says, \u201cYou want to be wise too quickly. Just take one sip of wisdom and assimilate that.\u201d So that was good advice. Don\u2019t be in a hurry with the wisdom. Just take it\u2014don\u2019t get greedy with it. I don\u2019t know that I\u2019ve learned that yet. In the same dream, he was teaching me to bow all the way down. He said my back was a little stiff, I needed to bow all the way down. I think I know what that means: a little too much pride. So I need the full prostration. I\u2019m sure other incidents would occur to me, but they\u2019re just not right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Gives me a feeling, thank you. You mentioned, Coleman, in your own writing and translating of Rumi\u2019s poetry, that you began as a practice, and I\u2019m curious if you have any suggestions for people in terms of listening to your readings or engaging with your Rumi translations, the books, how they would approach it as a type of practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0I have a little practice that I have done\u2014I didn\u2019t today\u2014but I like to listen to Stephen Mitchell\u2019s translations of Rilke, I have the text, I have the\u00a0<\/span>Duino Elegies<\/span><\/i>\u00a0out in front of me, so I listen to Stephen read his translations of them. And I just wait with a blank piece of paper to see what might come to me, ideas for writing or for my life or whatever, and that seems to be\u2014to listen to poetry, with the text there and a blank piece of paper next to that, just to see what you might want to put down as a inspiration from the poetry being read out loud. There\u2019s a great connection, I think, between a voice saying the poem and your eardrum and your writing ability, too. So it\u2019s a very intimate thing going on, I think, between a spoken voice and a listening ear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rumi has a poem about listening. He says, \u201cYou should give more of your time to the deep listening.\u201d There\u2019s an implied practice there, that you can go deeper into your own inwardness, your own soul and heart, by listening. I don\u2019t really have a practice except writing the poetry, my own and these rephrasings of Rumi. That\u2019s the only thing that I\u2019m really faithfully attentive to every day. I don\u2019t do meditation. Oh, 20 minutes here or there, but not so you\u2019d call it a practice. I do the writing every day, I give time to that. I would recommend to anybody that wants to do writing that you don\u2019t wait to be inspired, try to coax inspiration out of you. And you can do that listening to any number of Sounds True productions.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0All right, Coleman. OK.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0You do good work, Tami.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0I want to end by listening to a piece from one of my favorite CDs, Coleman. This is from almost 20 years ago that we recorded this\u201415 years ago. It\u2019s called I Want Burning: The Ecstatic World of Rumi, Hafiz, and Lalla. In just a moment we\u2019ll hear that, but before we do, I want to say how happy I am to be speaking with you, especially\u2014some of our listeners may know this, some people may not\u2014but you had a stroke.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0I did, in February.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Yes, less than a year ago, and you\u2019re doing so fabulously!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Well, yes, I can hear glitches and halts in my voice, and I\u2019m sorry about that, but it\u2019s just the way of the world, the way of the body. But I\u2019m very, very lucky to be able to speak with any fluency at all. So I\u2019m proud to be here.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0I\u2019m wondering if the experience changed you in any way. I mean, all experience changes us, but how this experience changed you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0It makes me feel more fragile, more broken-open, less glib, as they say, less proud of myself. It ought to make things funnier, [<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>] but I don\u2019t think it does. Having a stroke is a strange experience because it doesn\u2019t hurt. You don\u2019t know you\u2019re having it unless you happen to be as I was, talking on the phone to my sweetie, Lisa Starr. I was just talking and I became unintelligible. So immediately I drove myself to the emergency room and checked myself in and got that treatment called TPA, I think, that only 2 percent of stroke victims get there in time to have. But it helps you to recuperate and recover much better than you would otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve been very fortunate. That\u2019s part of my sense of things, too, the change since then that I feel. Just very lucky and, I don\u2019t know, I guess sort of quiet. A little quieter than I was before. And I hear it in my voice, and I\u2019m sure the people listening to me can hear the difference between the recorded voice before the stroke and my voice now.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0But it\u2019s very, very minor, Coleman. And I feel so happy that six months later\u2014and, you know, it\u2019s curious, because you mentioned when Guru Bawa came to you in a dream, and you said, \u201cI\u2019m so lucky.\u201d And here you were able to drive yourself immediately and receive a treatment that only two percent of the\u2014\u201dI feel so lucky.\u201d Do you think, I mean, is luck just what it is, on face value?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0No, I mean, I don\u2019t mind using the word \u201cgrace.\u201d It\u2019s a gift. I don\u2019t know what kind of presence we\u2019re living within, but I feel the gift of it more. It is more precious to me because of this stroke. I think the grace is just always happening, it feels like to me. That\u2019s certainly what Rumi\u2019s poetry\u2014it\u2019s just filled with that sense of gratitude and gracefulness and sense of hilarity about the whole thing. Anyway, let\u2019s hear the \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0This is a piece that\u2019s called \u201cLike This.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Oh yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0I just love this piece and this whole actual recording. It\u2019s a live recording where you were performing down in Santa Fe, and I often refer to this production,\u00a0<\/span>I Want Burning: The Ecstatic World of Rumi, Hafiz, and Lalla,<\/span><\/i>\u00a0as a little jewel, the whole CD is a little jewel. Let\u2019s listen.<\/span><\/p>\n

[<\/span>Music and poetry<\/span><\/i>]<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0And Coleman, just like this, this moment, sharing this time with you, I just want to thank you so much for being here with me, for all of the work that you\u2019ve done, really, to bring Rumi to so many of us. There are no words to describe how valuable it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0It\u2019s a pleasure. And thank you for your work. You do such a beautiful job on this three-CD set, it\u2019s just perfectly done. Very lovingly done. So thanks for that, babe.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Coleman Barks and David Darling recently releasing a three-CD collection called\u00a0<\/span>Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship,<\/span><\/i>\u00a0a beautiful, beautiful collection, as well with Coleman Barks Sounds True has two previous releases: we just heard from\u00a0<\/span>I Want Burning: The Ecstatic World of Rumi, Hafiz, and Lalla<\/span><\/i>, and also a previous release called\u00a0<\/span>Rumi: Voice of Longing<\/span><\/i>\u00a0that has Marcus Wise on the tabla and David Whetstone on sitar. Coleman, God bless you. Thank you so much,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CB:<\/b>\u00a0Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b>\u00a0Be well. Bye bye.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for listening to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. You can read a full transcript of today\u2019s interview at soundstrue.com\/podcast. If you\u2019re interested, hit the Subscribe button in your podcast app. Also, if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> a review. I love getting your feedback, being in connection with you, and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program. Working together, I believe, we can create a kinder and wiser world. Soundstrue.com: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-8996","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nColeman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2 - Transcript<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2. Explore teachings on meditation and spiritual\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2 - Transcript\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2. Explore teachings on meditation and spiritual\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sounds True\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"27 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/\",\"name\":\"Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2 - Transcript\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-06T20:49:37+00:00\",\"description\":\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2. Explore teachings on meditation and spiritual\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Transcripts\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Coleman Barks: Rumi, Grace, and Human Friendship\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sounds True\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Sounds True\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/soundstrue-logo-footer-color.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/soundstrue-logo-footer-color.png\",\"width\":1035,\"height\":235,\"caption\":\"Sounds True\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2 - Transcript","description":"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2. Explore teachings on meditation and spiritual","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2 - Transcript","og_description":"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2. Explore teachings on meditation and spiritual","og_url":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/","og_site_name":"Sounds True","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"27 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/","url":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/","name":"Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2 - Transcript","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2021-04-06T20:49:37+00:00","description":"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Coleman Barks Rumi Grace And Human Friendship 2. Explore teachings on meditation and spiritual","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/coleman-barks-rumi-grace-and-human-friendship-2\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Transcripts","item":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Coleman Barks: Rumi, Grace, and Human Friendship"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/","name":"Sounds True","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#organization","name":"Sounds True","url":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/soundstrue-logo-footer-color.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/soundstrue-logo-footer-color.png","width":1035,"height":235,"caption":"Sounds True"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}}]}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/transcript\/8996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/transcript"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/transcript"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}