The Young Woman on the Steps an excerpt from The Drowned Book by Bahauddin
whirl wind of lover sby William Blake
I was trying to invent a new parable about a person in a difficult job that has only material results, some work with no soulgrowth involved. I thought, iron-worker; a blacksmith pounding in a forge surely has no spiritual purpose. Then I wondered what value to the soul this business is that I do. None I know of.
Someone said once that one who takes no pleasure in desire or in having secular powers doesn’t really appreciate the goft of this world, where lust and dominion are staples.
Yes I replied, but there is an infinite variety of pleasures that you’re forgetting. When God closes one door,many others open. Angels take delight in ways we can’t know. Demons do what pleases them. Each animal has it own strange dance.
One day, feeling lethargic and half-alive, I come upon this scene: A young woman sitting outside on the steps of a building. She is surrounded by young men and totally in command of the moment, teasing each in turn in a way that piques his peculiar personality. Their mouths hang open at the spectacle of her attraction, and her vitality visibly brightens with their attention.
It occurred to me that the secret of feeling vibrant may lie in having an audience around you that you can tease and flirt with and lead along the way of slowly falling in love with you.
Jacob's Ladder by William Blake
So I prayed, Dear God, you created me. Some of your essences lives inside me. Show yourself as a group of admirers.I will tease you; you will accept my advances. I will pause.You will eagerly wait what comes next. I will invent new stories and you will listen, rapt with my charisma.
Art as Flirtation and Surrender
In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.
/The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, 1995./