Rumi’s introduction to life was not easy. As a teenager, he was forced to leave his home town, Balkh, behind forever. Balkh was a major city in the eastern part of greater Persia, close to the silk road. Rumi’s father, an Islamic jurist, was facing challenges because of his mystical views of Islam. Rumi had to say goodbye to his sister, his beloved teacher, Borhan, leaving his home town at thirteen, joining his parents in a caravan full of his father’s followers, moving into the unknown.

It seems like a good idea to start fresh in the month of March when the Winter comes to an end and Spring begins.

In Persian culture, we celebrate the beginning of Spring as the ‘New Day’ somewhere between 19th and 21st of March. “Nowruz” is the name of the beginning of the new solar year for Persian-speaking cultures...

Rumi tells us a story in the second book of Mathnawi: One day, GOD, the Divine Light told Moses, “I am GOD, I fell sick, and you did not come to console me!” Moses, puzzled replied, “Oh You, the Transcendent Glory, what mystery is this?” To which God said again, “During my suffering, you did not ask kindly after ME.

Closing the mental window of our mind to the old chapter and opening a new window in our hearts to move through a life that lays ahead…How will this work when old fears are still hanging over our heads and new hopes are not yet strong enough to get us through the funk we are in?

It has been a strange hard year that we could have never imagined going through. Our lives have been turned upside-down in so many ways that I can hardly keep up…