HAFEZ: A Poetic Portal Into the Soul

Most books on Hafez translate the words.
Few try to pass through the words,
to the pulse, the presence, the change they bring.

HAFEZ: A Poetic Portal into the Soul
Offers new translations,
and it moves beyond translation
to speak of how Hafez meets a reader
and how that meeting touches the heart.

I write from inside
my own encounters with Hafez,
not from a distance
as an Iranian immersed in his poetry
from a young age
and as a depth psychologist
who ventures into the
realm of psyche and symbol
every day.
I write of the shifts
in heart and in sight
that his poetry creates,
and of the transformation
his verses awaken
in the depths of the soul.

Rather than going poem by poem,
I carefully gather couplets
across Hafez’s poetry
around living centers of meaning,
symbols and themes
from which
currents of deep emotion
and synchronicities
arose for me:

Himmah: The Call Back to Our Roots
On attuning to the will of the heart
and the remembrance that draws us home.

Rend: From Persona to Personhood
On shedding the masks
and standing in the naked truth of the soul.

Night: Encounters with the Unconscious
On walking through darkness, fear, despair
as thresholds of transformation.

Sāqi: Remedies for Fragmentation
On the cupbearer
and transcending the tension of opposites.

Love: Creation and the Divine Child
On existence, ecstasy,
and the embodiment of wholeness.

If you are drawn to mysticism,
poetry, depth psychology,
or simply to the mystery of how words
can move a life from the inside,
this work offers itself as a companion,
an invitation to enter the Garden of Hafez,
to be present where Hafez is present,
and to let that presence
touch the heart.