I’m struck by how close Rumi’s language and ideas are to those of the Jewish mystics, who also frequently use water as a symbol of life, fire for the spirit, etc. — and “the breaking of the vessels” is the image with which the Kabbalists explained creation!

There is something odd, though, about the fit between Rumi’s stories and you, the storyteller retelling them. A lot of _Blankets_ seems to be about the attempt to get past the theology of dualism, with its sharp division of body from soul, at the expense of the former, to the profit of the latter. I’m among those who find that dualist legacy both oppressive and dangerous. So I always squirm a little when I read things like “The body itself is a screen . . .”

But maybe this is just me seizing on the one thing about which I have misgivings. So much of the rest of these stories is about repudiating the kind of asceticism that treats embodiment as an obstacle to spiritual life: “A feeling of fullness comes, but usually it takes some bread to bring it.” The counsel here is self-nurturance, not self-denial.

What do you think? What do you take from these stories, these images?

Pardon these ramblings. I’m just an excitable academic who loves your stuff. Good luck bringing _Habibi_ to the world . . . and don’t forget to take care of the storyteller.

First,
the fish needs to say
“Somethin ain’t right about this damn camel ride,
and I am feeling
so
damn
thirsty.”

-Hafiz.

I also love this one (also Hafiz):

Even after all these years
the Sun never says to the earth
“You owe me.”

Look at what happens with a love like this
it lights up the whole sky.
-Hafiz.

Sending you blessings in your continued work. I know i feel inspired by your process to keep working in my own.

~bird.