Rumi Archives - Improvised Life

By viewing time as something incredibly delicious, would we feel like we have more of it?

A random sign got us wondering if shifting our view about time would, in fact, make us feel like we have more of it.

Tiny Word Bombs That Take the Top of Your Head Off

We’ve collected some two-or-three-word clusters from our readings that “take the top of our head off”, Emily Dickinson’s definition of a good poem.

4-7-8 Breathing: “most powerful anti-anxiety measure I’ve found” (Dr. Weil + Rumi)

Andrew Weil demonstrates a simple breathing technique he calls “the single most powerful anti-anxiety measure I’ve found”. We don’t know anyone who wouldn’t benefit from it.

An Analog Productivity Tool Like No Other

In writing the very digital Improvised Life, I rely daily on analog magic.

How to Rid Your Mind of Thoughts of Death and Doom

The great Joseph Mitchell reminded us that “thoughts of death and doom” are part of the human condition, and of ways to rid our mind of them.

Don’t Know What You are Doing? You are Not Alone (Rumi + Chuang Tzu)

We’ve lost count of the times we’ve thought “We don’t know what we are doing!” as we work, pursue ideas, navigate crises, move through our day, week, year. We are heartened to see that we are not alone, and that it can yield great rewards.

The Day After, via Rumi, William Saltman, Beckett, Ali, Lucien Freud

We’ve collected a few bits of wisdom and thoughts on……the clear…..next…..steps….

Pain-in-the-Ass Poetry Chain Letter: Our Guilt-Free Hack

After we received the same poetry chain letter from two different friends, we felt ourselves resentful and beleaguered by the work it took. But we love the idea of emailing poems to friends. So we created a guilt-free, no-obligation, joy-based email.

Brilliance: Email Signature with a Poem Attached

Today I got an email from a Rachel Fleishman, a therapist I met recently. Attached to the usual email signature with her name and link to her website, was a short poem by Antonio Machado in tiny print. Ahhhh…such a swell idea: to send along some image-producing/light-bearing poetry, or a particularly great quote, that would surprise…

How a Computer Crash Yielded a Vacation with Rumi

My recent week-long hiatus sans computer proved to be tremendously healing, slowing things down in the studio…while giving me permission to…become deliciously – literally – powerless..

‘Be a Spot of Ground Where Something Might Be Planted’

Stumbling on this fragment from Rumi’s wondrous poem The Fragile Vial got us thinking about seeds… Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it. Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing, where something might be planted, a seed, possibly, from the Absolute. Images of seeds viewed through an electron microscope…

O is for ‘Onward’ and Moving Through Fear

At Brain Pickings today, we stumbled on this wonderful illustration from Oliver Jeffers’ charming kid’s book, Once Upon an Alphabet. It’s a sign we’d like to print out and hang on our wall, a quiet, potent reminder. ONWARD! is the word we find helps most in times of fear, anxiety or overwhelm — a new project or an exhausting one, an idea…