Khaled Al-assi

“There are thousands of wines
that can take over our minds.

Don't think all ecstasies
are the same!

Jesus was lost in his love for God.
His donkey was drunk with barley.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum. ”
― Erich Maria Remarque

“1:147-148
A KING IN HALF-SLEEP

I wake from sleep within you. I turn and hold you in my arms, as a king in half-sleep thinks himself alone, then feels his bride next to him in bed, smells her hair, and remembers he has a companion.

Slowly waking more, he begins to talk. So I wake inside you, the pleasure, the soft-saying, the elegance of the hours we walk in wonder. I draw closer. When my servants ask of me, tell them I am near (2:186).

Then I remember Moses fainting in the presence, Jesus' face, the mysteries that the saints unfold, Muhammad's sure stance, lovers mixing together in their songs, and I know that I have been given these feet to walk the amazement you gave them.”
― Bahauddin, The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of the Father of Rumi

“The closer the collapse of the Empire, the crazier its laws are.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero