Although I’ve never been the most consistent blogger, today, I’m posting after about six months. The world has been through so much this year. During this time of uncertainty, I hope you’ve been well, and able to take time out to do all the things that feed your soul and help you cope.

One of the things I did during my hiatus from blogging was take a few online courses at the Rumi Center for Spirituality and the Arts, such as The Book of Love (about the teachings of the Quran), An Ocean in a Drop (about Rumi’s poetry), Opening the Eye of the Heart (a poetry writing course), and, currently, Awakenings (about the 99 Names of Allah). Each course created a safe space for me to write and reflect, and share my thoughts with a community of like-hearted individuals. The courses were lovely and I would highly recommend them to anyone out there who’s interested in poetry and spirituality.

I wanted to share some of the poems I’ve written during these past six months. The first one, below, is entitled, I Used To Live For Words.

I used to live for words,
the sounds they made 
when strung together,
the epic tales they told,
the deep emotions they evoked.
But with the passage of time,
I find I want to speak less,
breathe more,
and just be.
I want to use fewer words
to speak larger truths,
distill the essence
of my awareness
into a bottle
like a love potion,
to be passed on to others,
from one mouth to another,
till we’re all entranced and intoxicated, 
left speechless by Your magical presence.
I used to live for words,
but now I’m the one who
breathes life into language
and must speak from the soul,
hoping each word builds a bridge
towards the One I live to find.