It’s the week of Thanksgiving, and the interns have all headed for the hills to enjoy some much needed and well-deserved restorative time with their friends and families. Hopefully they will be able to replenish their Kidney stores over these next few days.
So, the general hum of purpose and activity inherent in intern classes has ceased. Administration is quiet, too, as we try to catch up on projects that were pushed aside to help with more immediate concerns. And soon, we’ll be on our way towards our own Thanksgiving restoratives.
In the lull of this week, I wanted to leave a short rumination on Thanksgiving, but as I began to write, I realized I couldn’t summarize the various kinds of holidays people will be sharing this week. Not everyone has family to go to. Not everyone likes turkey and mashed potatoes (and the general over-consumption of rich foods over the course of the day tends to fly in the face of what our students learn about dietary therapy). And as we hear more often at this time of year, food and warmth are in short supply for many.
So, I invite you to take a moment and embrace the humility of moments like these- where we have the opportunity to think about what is around us and what others are doing. And I’m going to let Rumi, that mystic master of eloquence, send a message of thankfulness to the universe.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
What Was Told, That
By Jalal al-din Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest. What was told the cypress that made it strong and straight, what was whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made sugarcane sweet, whatever was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in Turkestan that makes them so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush like a human face, that is being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in language, that’s happening here. The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude, chewing a piece of sugarcane, in love with the one to whom every that belongs!Copies of this poem can be found at www.poetry.org