October 12, 2026

Meet Grief At The Door

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.

Rumi wrote in the years after his teacher and dearest friend Shams-e Tabrizi vanished without explanation, a loss that left him wandering and searching for years before it turned into some of the greatest poetry ever written. Rather than treating his grief as an intruder to be fought off, he came to see it as a visitor arriving at his door, there to teach him something no comfortable feeling ever could. He pictures the self as a guest house, where sorrow and joy and even meanness each take their turn as honored callers. Eight centuries later, his instruction to welcome what arrives instead of barring the door still speaks to anyone carrying a loss they did not choose.