1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

Please join in for Round 8 of Writing From The Inside Out by attending the November 2020 read-around sessions on Friday afternoons (it’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Next Read Around is November 6, 2020 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

The Guest House may be the most beloved and well-known of all of Rumi's poetry and for good reason. Who has not been troubled by intrusive thoughts and emotions? Who has not battled the tyranny of one’s own inner world? The opening line, this being human is a guest house, reframes our relationship to ourselves from one of dominance and control to one of service and hospitality. Such a shift in relationship to ourselves is perhaps one of the most powerful changes we can make in our lives because a change in relationship to ourselves carries over to every aspect of our lives.

It is profoundly liberating to realize the guest house does not need to be defined by the guests that pass through it. When we no longer need to board up our windows and doors, We are free to let life flow through. Yes, it may cause a great disturbance, but in that rearranging, Rumi assures us, is the gift of some new delight or some greater guidance in life. 

Week 30 Prompt Menu

  1. Write a poem based on your own metaphor for human life. You can use the prompt: this being human is…. Give yourself the freedom to start several stanzes with the prompt line and try on different metaphors.

  2. What is your relationship to the new? Do you prefer new and different or would you rather things stay the same? What areas of life are you open to the new? Or write a poem about your relationship with change in general.

  3. Identify some “intrusive” recurring thought or emotion. What would happen if you truly let it in? Write a poem welcoming it, inviting it in, and and describe what happens. What might you learn from this interaction?

  4. Think of a time when a crowd of sorrows or some other great disturbance swept through you or emptied you. How did that event rearrange you or rearrange your life?

  5. Describe a time when you were able to laugh at misfortune. Or consider an experience that was terribly stressful at the time, but you can now look back at and laugh about.

  6. Imagine a guide from beyond arrives at your door in disguise. What are the clues or signs that this stranger is actually your guide?

  7. What unwanted intruder is knocking at your door at this time in your life. What are you barring from the guest house?

  8. What internal shift would you need in order to feel grateful toward your own dark thoughts, shame, or malice.

  9. Write from whatever else in the poem inspires you or from elsewhere in your life.