Heart in the Shape of a Begging Bowl by Honora Foah At Mythic Journeys in June, the themes of the day will be the elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Here, Co-Prez and Creative Director Honora Foah ruminates on the elements and desire.

Heart in the Shape of a Begging Bowl

Today's story is about hum. Humus, human, humor, humiliation. A fine looking family, don't you think? They are cousins and maybe kissing cousins. I like seeing them there together, each standing with drink in hand, exchanging small talk at a cocktail party or a wake. Or no, maybe pulled together in intimate conversation around a fire, nestled into wingback chairs, reminiscing about the old days. Possibly smoking cigars. Humor recalling its childhood as umor: liquid, Humus and Humiliation of humbler origins as earth. Humans are by way of homo, man, as related to homage, and then gradually winding also home to Humus and earth.

The heart like a begging bowl is an image from Leonard Cohen, beloved poet and it swings the monkey of my mind to another branch in the forest, beloved poet, Mevlana J'allaludin Rumi, who has left us such immortal pictures as

Love comes with a knife.
Running through the mountains, tearing off his clothes.
Drinking poison.

I've been wondering lately why it is that desire, especially unfulfilled desire, can feel so humiliating. Rumi encourages us to just live in the perfect burn of want. That is ecstasy. What we want IS who we are. Why is it so devastating to have people know? Why is it so hard to stand there with your begging bowl in your hand? Especially for love, right? Especially. I want you.

Rumi empathizes, but says, ah, there is no you. You want..what you want is what is inside and behind what you want.

And we hum a little tune-
'The open palm of desire wants everything
Wants everything'.*

Rumi laughs, warmly, joyfully, a little bitter and sad, too. And Humor brings her jug of cool water and restores proportion. Humor rues and sympathizes and softens the humiliation, as the wetness softens the earth. God it hurts. Humiliation, may be crumbling back into humus, but first it burns. That's how the old begging bowl gets hollowed out.

Then there's room.

Love flows down!!
The ground submits to the sky and suffers
what comes.
Tell me, is the earth worse
for giving in like that?**

Oh fellow humans, humor me in my humiliation. As the rain pours down and the humus is enlivened, is the earth worse for giving in like that?

Cheryl Sanders-Sardello, who will be coming to Mythic Journeys in June, gave one of the most amazing talks I've ever heard a few years ago. She was talking about Gawain, the great knight, and she quoted Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parsifal , which describes Gawain as the very best of the knights because he possesses the virtue of Shame.

Not very psychologically correct nowadays. When James Hillman was here in September with the War, Peace and the American Imagination event, he rather bitterly remarked in passing that Psychology and therapy had done away with shame-and what a shame that is.

What could Eschenbach possibly mean, that Shame is the most important virtue? My money's on the hum's. Gawain is so hum, he doesn't even need the profound and devastating level of defeat that Parsifal, for instance, needs before he can see the Grail.

The gift of the Grail (the demeanor of the Grail is often in dispute; my vote is on the heart-shaped begging bowl) is only visible to those who have found their way hum.

Love, Honora

* Paul Simon
**Rumi

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