luca's
luca's
Quaker Meeting Morning with Luke
0:00
-2:48:56

Quaker Meeting Morning with Luke

Is this ASMR, or are we flirting?

Put me on in the background to join me for a silent morning and work sesh. Ambient cooking sounds, espresso making, chewing, humming, and tunes as I grind on some writing. Listen in stereo for highest definition binaural burps.

Plus a poem, because I am in love with Rumi.

An Elephant in the Dark¹

Some Hindus have an elephant to show.

No one here has ever seen an elephant.

They bring it at night to a dark room.

One by one, we go in the dark and come out

saying how we experience the animal.

One of us happens to touch the trunk.

"A water-pipe kind of creature."

Another, the ear. "A very strong, always moving

back and forth, fan-animal."

Another, the leg. "I find it still,

like a column on a temple."

Another touches the curved back.

"A leathery throne."

Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk.

"A rounded sword made of porcelain."

He's proudest of his description.

Each of us touches one place

and understands the whole in that way.

The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are

how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.

If each of us held a candle there,

and if we went in together,

we could see it.

¹ The Essential Rumi, Translation by Coleman Barks.

Discussion about this episode