A Year With Rumi: Day 4- The Elegance of the Ermine Review

This eight stanzas long poem of Rumi doesn't make any sense to me until I read the last stanza. Each of the first stanzas are a vivid presentation of some moments or thoughts. They look like a puzzle pieces scattered in all direction and I could only make sense that they are talking about life when after reading the last.

The first stanza is about birth of a person which is beautifully presented paralleled with the silence of midnight when a messenger comes out. The messenger is a person like us that has the potential to burn bright. Burning bright means that we have the potential to attend the ultimate love for god and wisdom.

Rumi then moves to another picture where a king knocks the door of a doorkeeper to lead him to a table. I am interpreting king as the god, doorkeeper as a we common human being and table means the life we are supposed to live meaning that from birth god is walking with us to help us live our life.

The third picture is very vivid. Rumi talks about cup placed at table from which when we try to drink we tremble like a drop of mercury. The cup on table to me is the ultimate wisdom we as a human should strive to attain. God leads us to the table and provide us with the opportunity to get it but we are so much occupied with mundanity of life that we tremble to savour it.

Yet God never ceases to support us. Rumi makes it clear in fourth stanza saying the gentleness of the host (god) never change even if we hesitate to do what we are supposed to do. He elegance continues to be like that of ermine.

The next stanza goes about talking of the truth of life where sadness and happiness are like two sides of the coin. In life, we go through everything, we give and take, we smile and cry. Life is just like the way waterwheel turns, it takes water at one turn while in another turn it has to let go of the water.

So Rumi reminds us that the secret of life is within our chest. We need to learn to get hold of that secret and live life in a meaningful way.

The poem that starts with birth goes to the reminder of death saying death is the ultimate truth of life and we are only free when we die. But in saying so Rumi is also referring to ultimate freedom of us which can be gained while we live. But to do so we need to follow god paths and try to attain the wisdom he wants us to attain.

Lastly wrapping up the cycle of life and death, Rumi accepts that he is unable and unfit to write about the life because so much happens in it that the list he comes up with don't even match to it.

About A Year With Rumi Series: I have heard a lot about Rumi and how his writing emancipate truths about life and elements associated to it. I have now embarked on journey to read him via a collection of his work A Year With Rumi. While I embark on this journey, I am starting to record how I decipher his work on this series. I will read a piece each day and write about that piece here. Join me in this year long journey and feel free to enlighten me with your wisdom too as we are to experience the Rumi's work differently in different context.