I forget why I love Khalil Gibran but there are days like today when I remember and smile. This morning I was once more in tears (I think crying is cathartic and I indulge in it often) one of my friends read me a passage (On Joy and Sorrow) from “The prophet” and I have been reading some passages sporadically ever since and would like to share my favorites on the blog:

On Pleasure
     Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, “Speak to us of Pleasure.”
      And he answered, saying:
      Pleasure is a freedom song,
      But it is not freedom.
      It is the blossoming of your desires,
      But it is not their fruit.
      It is a depth calling unto a height,
      But it is not the deep nor the high.
      It is the caged taking wing,
      But it is not space encompassed.
      Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.
      And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.
      Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.
      I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.
      For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone:
      Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.
      Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?
      And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness.
      But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.
      They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.
      Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.
      And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember;
      And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.
      But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.
      And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands.
      But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?
      Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars?
      And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?
      Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?
      Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.
      Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?
      Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived. And your body is the harp of your soul,
      And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.
      And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”
      Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
      But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
      For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
      And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
      And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
      People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees. 

On Talking

      And then a scholar said, “Speak of Talking.”
      And he answered, saying:
      You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
      And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
      And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
      For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
      There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
      The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
      And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
      And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
      In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.
      When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
      Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
      For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
      When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more. 

On Joy & Sorrow
      Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.”
      And he answered:
      Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
      And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
      And how else can it be?
      The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
      Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
      And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
      When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
      When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
      Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
      But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
      Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
      Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
      Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
      When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.