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"A gnostic says little, but inside he is full of mysteries."
- Rumi



God I love Rumi. Obviously, I'm not the only one. But beyond just poetry, I have always loved the mystical side of the major religions. Sufism, Zen, the Kabbalists, and gnostic anything. I think there is a truth that floats in the dance and patter of thy mystics that the dogmatic and the bureaucratic impulses of religion miss. Still, it isn't just Rumi's take on God (although I could make an argument that ALL his poems thread back to God), but his take on friendship, love, sex, wine, nature, etc., that all stand out. Rumi feels like a silk strand that connects the earth to the divine. It twists and flutters, but never breaks. His words just dance and remind us that the divine exists and the divine is closer than we imagine.

I read this book right as the Coronavirus hit, but previous to this recent apocalypse, I took my wife and kids to Istanbul and one of the highlights was watching the dervishes in Galata twirl as the poetry of Rumi was chanted in a small, beautiful space, men spinning to God while the world seemed ready to veer into chaos.

* I should also note that I went back and forth on whether to give this translation 4 or 5 stars. It is very approachable, but it also seems (again, I'm not a translator so I'm relying on those who know and comparing poems to other translations) to have muted a bit of the Islamic nature of the poetry. At once, he makes the poems more approachable, but also misses some of the point. So, Rumi I give 5 stars, but the translation drops it to 4 stars. At least on this spin.