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Epistle on Cosmic Unification
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Folder-2005 From my insufficiency to my perfection, and from my deviation to my equilibrium
From my sublimity to my beauty, and from my splendor to my majesty
From my scattering to my gathering, and from my rejection to my communion
From my baseness to my preciousness, and from my stones to my pearls
From my rising to my setting, and from my days to my nights
From my luminosity to my darkness, and from my guidance to my straying
From my perigee to my apogee, and from the base of my lance to its tip
From my waxing to my waning, and from the void of my moon to its crescent
From my pursuit to my flight, and from my steed to my gazelle
From my breeze to my boughs, and from my boughs to my shade
From my shade to my delight, and from my delight to my torment
From my torment to my likeness, and from my likeness to my impossibility
From my impossibility to my validity, and from my validity to my deficiency.
I am no one in existence but myself, so—
Whom do I treat as foe and whom do I treat as friend?
Whom do I call to aid my heart, pierced by a penetrating arrow,
When the one who shot the arrow is my eyelid, striking my heart without an archer?
Why defend my station? It matters little to me, what do I care?
For I am in love with none other than myself, and my very separation is my union.
Do not blame me for my passion. I am inconsolable over Him who has fled me.
***
Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi
Translated from the Arabic by Angela Jaffray
