Today is a day of new beginnings. Having recently moved, I am fumbling about a new place, using a new keyboard, working with new routines. The ergonomic keyboard is the roughest part, slowing down my writing speed dramatically.

Those first-world woes aside, the joy of today's morning routine disruption was reading poetry from a Rumi collection gifted by a friend. Other than a few poems, I am hardly familiar with the master's work. I was surprised to see such a huge emphasis on sexuality, rife with explicit imagery in his poem "Sexual Urgency, What a Woman's Laughter Can Do, and the Nature of True Virility." Spoiler alert: an erect penis was mentioned far more than once.

The poet is the original mic dropper. There are some lines from this poetry that stand out completely on their own:

"His infatuation is a blackwater wave carrying him away.
Something that doesn’t exist makes a phantom
appear in the darkness of a well,
and the phantom itself becomes strong enough
to throw actual lions into the hole."

"More advice: it is dangerous to let other men
have intimate connections with the women in your care.
Cotton and fire sparks, those are, together.
Difficult, almost impossible, to quench."

"Hidden things always come to light.
Do not sow bad seed. Be sure, they’ll come up.
Rain and the sun’s heat make them rise into the air."

"Spring comes after the fall of the leaves,
which is proof enough of the fact of resurrection.
Secrets come out in Spring, out from earth-lips into leaf.
Worries become wine-headaches."

"A branch of blossoms does not look like seed.
A man does not resemble semen. Jesus came
from Gabriel’s breath, but he is not in that form.
The grape doesn’t look like the vine.
Loving actions are the seed of something
completely different, a living-place.
No origin is like where it leads to.
We can’t know where our pain is from.
We don’t know all that we’ve done.
Perhaps it’s best that we don’t.
Nevertheless we suffer for it."

"If you cause injury to someone, you draw
that same injury toward yourself. My treachery
made my friend a traitor to me. This repetition
must stop somewhere. Here, in an act of mercy."

"The kernel of true manhood is the ability
to abandon sensual indulgences. The intensity
of the captain’s libido is less than a husk
compared to the Caliph’s nobility in ending
the cycle of sowing lust and reaping
secrecy and vengefulness."

"Because a child doesn’t understand a chain of reasoning,
should adults give up being rational?
If reasonable people don’t feel the presence of love
within the universe, that doesn’t mean it’s not there."

"Every emotion has a source and a key that opens it."

I am resistant to change. It represents instability while I have a need for solidity. All good and fine, but change is also a beautiful thing—it leads us down new paths, gets us out of the rut of routines, and allows us a moment to reevaluate and pick up new routines and ideas. Today, I am grateful for the life disruptions that are forcing me to slow down and inviting me to pick up new habits.

Here's my invitation: the next time you find yourself resisting change, ask yourself—what is this change inviting into my life?

You may find yourself discovering whole new ways of being.