Dreaming of Rumi in Beirut…

This is the entrance to the tomb of Rumi in Konya, Turkey. I’d love to show you the entire tomb complex, but I think I’ll wait until December 17th (the celebration of Rumi’s “Wedding Night”) to usher this caravan inside of the shrine. For now, I must sleep, and perhaps visit even more places related to Rumi in my dreams…

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief.

A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived,
and he dreams
he’s living in another town.
In the dream, he doesn’t remember
the town where he’s sleeping in his bed–
he believes the reality of the dream town.
The world is that kind of sleep

— Rumi