The Western Gate

As the New Moon nears, as I fall to sleep I capture the moment I fall, during these dark lunar times the ‘fall’ is ominous, there is always an element of fear as I descend through a tunnel whose light I cannot see, but at once I am standing in the garden that I know by the western gate. I am in my other home, the world of dream….

He sat there twiddling somewhat with something that neither interested him nor in the present moment captured his attention, his fingers were not crafting an object from that to this, nor was it an exercise to enhance suppleness in his ever twirling digits. It could be said that the older gentleman, hunched over, was flitting his time away with a vacant futile pursuit, a conscious and physical daydream.
The leaves and petals in his hands were squeezed and rubbed, rolled and moulded. There was not outcome in the moulding, and in his mind there was only a vacant stare, obliquity.
Normally perhaps I would assume he was in a repose of serenity, his conscious mind a reverie of calm oceans pondering only the kiss of the gentlest wind.
“What troubles you?” I asked sitting next to him. I asked in such a way that I was not trespassing into what after all could be little more than a routine dance with the follies of time.
He looked at me and seemed as though for a moment he could not place what time or day he was situated nor if the person asking him the question was known or existed at all. In this dream world the subjective and objective realities collide often in dynamism before the resultant is known.
His eyes at once seemed to focus upon me as an object ensnared by the focusing of a camera. “Ah! Beloved Badrue” he said addressing me by those names he had forged for me long ago.
“Blessed Meet,” I offered, somewhat pretentiously and immediately countered with a light-hearted, “are you ruminating Rumi?”
At times I often wonder if my attempt to play at words with this grand chess master of words is met by pity, sometimes he will respond likewise, or likefools more perhaps, and the times when my bumbling wizardry of rhyme is met by silence, I perceive my own fragility and feel as if I should opt to “get my coat” and wander off in shame that I care, let alone dare, to sit in the presence of this wonderful being, to walk onto the stage with Laurence Olivier and sing in contrast a bawdy cockney song.
Rumi spoke, softly and without emphasis, ” The dark Moon hidden as she is, in the season of Annahid (c.Virgo~ apparently) , soon the harvest moon will shine for you again Badrue…”
(In dream world, there are no barriers, I don’t have to tell somebody when I was born, nor how old I will be, it is clear and known for nothing in this realm that would be written is hidden. In this garden we are not naked for that means nothing, we are in fact natural. )
Rumi continued, ” The Third Cycle Keyvan(Saturn) begins for you Badrue”
( This indicates that Saturn will return to the same station it was at birth, happens c28.5 years)
I wondered if this means I should grow a beard and walk with a Gandalf staff, to emulate Rumi somewhat, though the thought was immediately vanquished, what an awful thought to mimic or even attempt to patronize the like of someone, as a cheap covers band cringingly mimicking the great works of a much loved rock band in cheap makeup and devoid of their own confidence of originality. I wondered what it meant. The third Saturnian cycle (28.5 years x2= 57) , that also synchronises again with the position of the moon. (c. every 19 years; 19×3=57) As I was born, Saturn and the Moon would be in the same houses as they were that day I screamed aloud in that hospital in Bow, London, “Not here again !” , soon I would be 57, or as the moon again on that night to morning is full~ 705 years.

“There was!” at once Rumi exclaimed showing me the tangled mush of leaves and petals in his hands, ” a man who lived with an awful wife.”
We both looked at the floral pulp.
“She crushed his beauty, extracted every essence of his being” I offered.
“How so?” asked Rumi though not actually asking but leaving the answer to ponder in the air as the lesson in an ever evolving reason.
” He lived in a place in Anatolia, and all he wanted in life were peace, no spoils or riches, just peace, a perpetual smile.
His wife however, grew up tortured, and though she were born into a house of modest wealth and wanted for nothing she was devoid of self. Self-love. Life to her was won by the capitulation of others, life was a game in which you were either a winner or a loser, and losers are created by winners. This wasn’t by the rod , but by deconstructing the will of each person such that they can only conform to the path set forth by the manipulator, the vicious tongue as sharp and whipping as any taskmasters flay..
“Don’t do the cleaning” she would say to her husband adding, “fool, I will only have to wash it again properly” and later that day would tell all in his presence that she does all the washing, and ‘he’ therefore does nothing.
Now the husband wants peace and is silent.
“Rest a while” she would say to her husband who accepted, pleased at the offer, “you’ve been working all day, go rest” she would say. And then tell all the ears that would listen and even all the ears that tried to avert from the tirade, ” he’s been laying down all these hours whilst I do everything”
Now, he wanted peace, but even now and then would retort, ” my wife, I took it upon myself to heed your advice and rest”
” Have you not eyes?,” she would bark, ” have you not sense?”
So he would always, offer to make her food, or help in the house, or ask her to rest, which all, she would refuse. except the rest when gladly she would lay down with the comforts of confectionary and dreams. The food he made thereafter that she refused was made only, according to the vile tongue to “feed his greedy selfish gut”, the help he offered was always done “begrudgingly and at the last moment in hindsight” she would scorn.
People could say, how would such a person put up with this, how would they allow it as surely they do not deserve it. Now the problem with repetition is that it becomes normality. What startles the eyes in the first moment is of no passing concern when that image is repeated. Our man, who only wants peace would dare not to shout aloud his woes and tribulations, it would only add to the maelstrom.
Each day a chipping away at the image until it resembled that which she required, dust, nothing more, that could be blown this way or that way, or swept under the carpet at will.
Now, In the eyes of everyone of course, she was the life and soul of the party, and he, perhaps the limpet that she describes often, that mistletoe sucking at the Oak sap. Everyone loved her, she was the ears they turned to when gossip needed imparting, when martyrs and the desperate needed comfort, ironically she was the bastion of their confidence, the champion of their causes. Little did they know of the bullying and torment she imparted upon her husband, for the husband said nothing, and she only commented how little he does to help her in the home, so evenso if the truth were outed perhaps he deserved all he got. They did not know the extent of her power struggle games, of her humiliation and relentless denigration.

Rumi squeezed upon the pulp, the colours once so vibrant in the petals now merged with the green blood of the leaves.

“It is not a question of who rules,” continued Rumi, ” he didn’t want to be in charge as it were, just peace, that things co exist. Each moment he found peace it would be swept aside by an onslaught of misery delivered by the tongue and hands of one, who should be his companion through life….and if he were the wife and she the husband, it matters not in the story, for those who belittle do so, not on behalf of man or woman, but on behalf of their own selfish agenda”

Rumi allowed the wodge-welter to fall. There was no finesse as the glutinous mess hit the ground, no floating away as it left his hands, just a wet splat if our ears were that good to hear. He looked upon the palms of his hands, stained green and also a feint hue of flower petals from once vibrant colours that enticed the bee and the maidens, the artists and the poets.

” What was the mans name?” I asked, “Vic?” I offered, it were to be short for Victim in my contrived little whim or joke but Rumi interrupted…
“Oh no,” he said as he stood to wander the garden, “His name was God, and her name was Religion.”

I was startled somewhat, I remember that, Rumi, though I understood him to be a mystic, was also of the Islamic faith. I wouldn’t be able to talk on this matter, it is Haram;-as a non Muslim to talk on matters of God to a Muslim.
“That’s not true,” said Rumi knowing the machinery of my mind,” we cannot talk of the revealed book as given to the last prophet, but as once when brothers alike shared in the great renaissance, ideas on the nature of God were discussed routinely, inter faith…”

I stood up and followed Rumi shuffling slowly abroad the beautiful garden. ” Let us find the unspoilt flowers…” he said.

As I caught the fragrance of a wonderful aroma I also awoke into the waking world…. “Not here again!”