1.12.2026. Buy Bewilderment
Hello dear Friends,
“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”
– Rumi
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What an interesting translation of the 13th-century Persian Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Rumi’s words: “Sell your cleverness.” Not donate. Not give away. Sell.
Perhaps dear Rumi—the ecstatic poet and teacher of divine love, longing, and spiritual union—is appealing to our own wild inner madness. Inviting, asking, perhaps even demanding of us as only a spiritual wisdom teacher can skillfully do—beseeching us to “sell our cleverness.” Sell our need to know and to control; let go of whatever we think we are very “good” at—our clever “smarts”—and put it all up for sale on the open market!
Then, immediately take the revenue of that sale and run out the door as only a person spellbound by love, caught in the raptures of Eros, can do. Buy the lure of wonder, awe, curiosity, and the “don’t know.” Buy the holy wilding of the Unknown—and then get down on both knees and ask the Beloved for its hand!"
The root of “bewilderment” comes from the verb bewilder, from be- (“thoroughly”) + the archaic wilder (“lead astray, lure into the wilds”).
What if we allow ourselves to be struck—to be lured by confusion, by the unknown, by the “don’t knows,” and by the wonderment and the awe of this world?
What if, every day, we let ourselves be bewildered: by redwood trees wearing green, mossy, fur coats; by the sound of whales breaching; by the smell of donut peaches—velvet-smooth, dripping in flawless pleasure between the press of our own two lips; or just by the touch of our own hand on our own heart—our own body breathing breath?
What if we ask to be opened by bewilderment—making this our daily prayer, a spiritual practice for this new year?
Here we are in this inward, sacred, harsh and tender midwintering season of January where, like the two-headed Roman god Janus after whom this month is named, one head looks back and one forward. Oh, I wonder what we would each see and feel through the eyes and heart of bewilderment. Perhaps the lure of our own heartbeat—of what is true, good, and beautiful in us.
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Come Practice & Be In Community
Drop-in Meditation Today. All are welcome; no prior experience is needed—just bring an open heart.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: 20-min Guided Movement Meditation & 25-minute Metta Meditation Practice
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Conversations and Nourishment for the heart, for your practice of Meditation. Note: Bring a journal. We may play with “Ask for a Word”–a word to guide your year. This is private, no sharing needed.
Dāna: Pay What You Can. (suggested donation $10-$40)
Location: 778 West Frontage Road, Suite 111, Northfield, IL.
Gratitude pouring & Happy New Year!
Love, Wini
PS …more goodness below, made with ♥️
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🌸 Two Poems. “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” ― William Wordsworth
Variation On A Theme By Rilke | Denise Levertov
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me—a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic—or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
a song with no end | Charles Bukowski
when Whitman wrote, "I sing the body electric"
I know what he
meant
I know what he
wanted:
to be completely alive every moment
in spite of the inevitable.
we can't cheat death but we can make it
work so hard
that when it does take
us
it will have known a victory just as
perfect as
ours.
🍃 What a poem to begin the new year with—a call to arms to seize our light, our lives! I am here with Dylan Thomas’s poem, too, “Do not go gentle into that good night” —
“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
🌸 Three Quotes | Gunilla Norris. Jan Chozen Bay. Sayadaw U Tejaniya.
“We do not need to be experts or geniuses to remember that all of existence is precious. We do not need cathedrals to remind ourselves to experience the sacred. We need only to be deeply respectful of what is fundamentally true; and that is what we rediscover when we center ourselves in silence.” — Gunilla Norris, Inviting Silence: Universal Principles of Meditation
“What we call “meditation” was natural to us during our evolution, as we sat around a fire in the quiet darkness, or lay on the ground looking up into the stars, or tried to make ourselves disappear so an animal would come near.” — Jan Chozen Bays, a Zen Roshi, “Endless Practice”.
🍃A treat to watch, a very useful simple practice: Practicing Gratitude (10:48 min), a practice to perhaps take on for a month, for 10-weeks as research suggests–the benefits are huge!
Or actively practice, get an accountability friend and practice for a few months, a year–important to note, a gratitude practice is an antidote to negative emotions.
“YOGI: I feel tense all the time, what should I do?
SAYADAW: Breathe deeply, and follow the breath. When you breathe in you will feel the tension increase; when you breathe out you will feel some relaxation. Track that sense of relaxation over and over, not just while sitting in meditation, but all day long. If you are continuously aware of your state of relaxation, you will become even more relaxed.” — Sayadaw U Tejaniya
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🌸 Two Things to Inspire | Are You Following…
The Monks Walking for Peace? They are on day 77 of their 2,300-mile journey. Two dozen Buddhist monks are walking from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C.
It is nourishment for the heart to watch how the crowd of support keeps growing around them—this breeds hope!
Do a Google search and you will find so many lovely videos (like this one) taken along their trek, their path of peace.
Follow them online via Instagram. Here is their live map; if you live along their route to D.C., please come out to witness this beauty, this vow. I’m following on Instagram: @walkforpeace.usa
Did You Know Julie Burns Walker Has a New Audiobook? I know many of you who are beloved, longtime Metta Letter readers know Julie’s incredible work in the world—and know how special a medical intuitive reading is with her.
Her new audiobook is Unlock Your Purpose: Reconnecting with Who You're Meant to Be. It is a great listen! What provides such a deep pleasure is that Julie herself is reading; it is her own voice, which alone informs a transmission of oneness and wholeness.
“If you knew what you had was rare, you would NEVER waste it,”
— Julie Burns Walker
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🌸🎶 Closing Song | “May We know This Together”
If you are in need of some goodness, (it has been a seriously troubling time) and are in need of the touch of remembering our kinship to each other, to your own light— Let this song open you, and open you and then open you some more–put it on repeat, and listen like a contemplative prayer.
Let Odetta & The Holmes Brothers voices take you. This Little Light Of Mine
🌸🙏 Dedicate Merit | In all Mystical traditions, there is a closing prayer – prayers of blessing, gratitude and protection.
It’s Raining (Praise)
I.
His eyes are a roundkind brown
His scar like mine, mine like his
Our common language cut skin
II.
Soft rain pings:
an aluminum gutter-band plays a solo set,
water pools on hydrangea leaves.
I inhale the world.
III.
Cotton candy pink peonies
bat their soft petals, I soak in
my backyard belles of the ball.
IV.
Fat rabbits go to town, nibble down all the lettuce
in my garden. The insects drill holes in every basil leaf, too —
Perhaps it's just business, not personal.
V.
My heart is wet paper limp, I turn to old cuts and calluses
thinking they must know the way through this mess of muddy pain –
they whisper, pray.
– Wini
Have a blessed day 💖
🌸 PS. You can find all the newsletters archived on my website.
These newsletters will always be free—and if you appreciate receiving these weekly offerings grounded in tender-goodness please consider offering support through Buy Me a Coffee, 🌸 venmo (Winifred-Nimrod) 🌸 or zelle (wininim@gmail.com) 🌸
Thank you, I am a one-woman, two-finger typing, unfolding her thousand-petal bloom.
✨ May we bloom more Light.
💞 May we grow more Goodness for the healing of all.
🌎 May each of us thread our heart-tenderness, our Beauty, into the fabric of our planet.
….Until next week. 💖 ✨
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
- Mary Oliver
Website: https://www.wininimrod.com/
