Embrace The Fire

Hey Friends! This is Dixon Kavanaugh, and welcome to another episode of Outloud With Dixon where will explore wisdom, get creative, and better appreciate this fun, chaotic, and beautiful world that we live in.

Important for today’s reading is going to be two images, two moving pictures. The first visual is that of a flame, a single hot fiery flame flickering around, maybe giving off some sparks. The second visual is that of a large blue ocean. Now that you have those moving pictures in your mind, a quick explanation!

We think in images, and these images of the sacred fire and the ocean of life can act as magnets that attract and absorb the information contained in today’s reading! Today’s reading is The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran , and I’m very grateful that I get the chance to read it and I am deeply humbled by its message.

I will not pretend to be able to fully plumb the depths of today’s reading. Definitely not in 10 minutes, let alone 10 hours. Every poetic line has the potential to be its own book, its own universe open for exploration. It’s pure art, and like beautiful art it should be appreciated. Understanding and analysis can come later, but first let us create space to appreciate the message of The Prophet, a message unique and compelling to all of us, and let it seep into our bones and blood and take root there. It’s in that sense, the only true sense, that it will transform the way we love and breathe.

In today’s reading, we find ourselves with our main character Almustafa. Almustafa has been exiled on an island for 12 years, and the day has finally come for him to return home across the sea. As he makes his way out of town, he is approached by all of the townspeople who mourn his leaving, and they ask him about LOVE and GIVING.

Like I said earlier, we learn and remember best in pictures, specifically pictures charged with emotion and meaning. The passage we are about to hear is loaded with meaning, some inspiring, some terrifying, and all of it beautiful. Without trying too hard, allow the information you hear and what you feel flow into these images we’ve created in our minds eye. The sacred fire of Love and the Ocean of life of Giving.

So gather around, and listen close, and join me as we journey into the terrifying world of “The Prophet.”

“Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth.

And in the twelfth year, on the seventh day of Ielool, the month of reaping, he climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship coming with the mist.

Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul.

But as he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart:

How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city. 8Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?

Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.

It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.

Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.

Yet I cannot tarry longer.

The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.

For to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.

Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?

A voice cannot carry the tongue and 9the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether.

And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.

And when he entered into the city all the people came to meet him, and they were crying out to him as with one voice.

In your aloneness you have watched with our days, and in your wakefulness you have listened to the weeping and the laughter of our sleep.

Now therefore disclose us to ourselves, and tell us all that has been shown you of that which is between birth and death.

Then the Crowd Spoke: Speak to us of LOVE

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and 16caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover 17your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. 18To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstacy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Then said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving.

And he answered:

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the 24much which they have — and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;

And to the open-handed the search for 25one who shall receive is joy greater than giv ing. And is there aught you would withhold? All you have shall some day be given; Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors’.

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you. And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?And who are you that men should rend 26their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life — while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness. And you receivers — and you are all receivers — assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives. Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings; For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the freehearted earth for mother, and God for father.

And we are back! Does the imagery exercise we did at the beginning make more sense now? Those pictures can act as mental baskets that we can place our memories, our favorite quotes and feelings into. And I think you would agree that the Prophet is fully loaded with powerful quotes and emotions.

And like I said earlier , any in depth analysis would take hours if not days, and even deeper personal meditation. But there are two things I want to highlight. The first is from the section on Love — that love is both the source of our laughter and our tears, our purest joy and deepest pain. And it is through this surrender that we learn of ourselves. And in more closely seeing ourself, we see our connectedness to others.

Which leads us to the section On Giving — and Gibran does something really cool, some mental gymnastics. He reverses what most people take for granted — instead of asking whether someone is worthy of your gifts, worthy of your attention, we should instead ask whether we are worthy of being GIVERS, for to be a giver is to be a conduit of love, and to be a co-creator in the spirit of life.

But like we’ve learned from our episodes on Siddhartha, words only go so far. What matters is whether our personal experience can reflect what we know intellectually.

So taking a moment, we can relax our jaw and our forehead

Let this tension melt — melting — melted away

As we let go, we nurture a feeling of courage.

Courage to embrace the pain of the fire. And we nurture a feeling of thankfulness, thankfulness to see and know our belonging in the vastness of the ocean of life.

Breathing in, and breathing out

Back into the present moment

Thank you for joining me for today’s episode of Outloud With Dixon.

I really appreciate you for joining me and listening in.

And above all else, remember,

Live with Presence Confidence and Love