“What if we all have a rumored woman awaiting an invitation for a conversation, for an ongoing relationship. ”

I love reading, music, poetry, writing, provocative questions, and making connections that help people pursue their passions. That’s why the Rumored Woman Series, while fictional, is written with “real” links for readers to follow their curiosity. May you enjoy the exploration.

Initially, I wrote under the pen name Morgan Magauran, assuming that publishing an allegorical fiction would detract from my business career. Upon retirement, I considered dropping it and discovered what had begun as an act of privacy had enabled me to claim an aspect of my shadow I’d shunned for decades. Morgan embodies the archetype of the artist, capable of prioritizing a creative life. Dismissing her, after finally welcoming her, felt like one of the false choices that Sarah, the protagonist in the series, learns to recognize. So, congruence, for me, means transparency and embracing my rumored woman. I’ve also begun a Substack, ENTHRALLING: Exploring the mysterious ties between our inner and outer lives.

I’d like to suggest that reading the Rumored Woman Series is not about me, the author; it’s about you, as the reader, and your experience of the characters, their tensions, and what it invokes in you. I believe what we pay attention to matters. Attention is the holy grail. I also believe that living with questions, as Rilke advised, enhances our lives. Some of the central inquiries of the series include:

  • How important are the things we can not see?

  • What does having faith mean, not the ‘religious’ kind, rather faith in ourselves, each other, and the world?

  • When do we experience belonging—with each other, in community, and to the land?

  • How do our inner and outer landscapes inevitably shape our lives?

  • How does one continually honor the commitment to ‘know thyself’? 

In my experience, a powerful question can rearrange the molecules of my life. While unsettling at times, I welcome this discomfort. If you enjoy living with questions, check out Rilke Circles. I hope these questions work their magic on you and that reading Rumored Woman re-sources you to fully inhabit your life and enjoy your evolving story.

Blessings,
Morgan Magauran

Photo by Jeremy Hynes on Unsplash

TWO Kinds of INtelligence

by Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others in regard to your competence in retaining information. You stroll with this intelligence in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one already completed and preserved inside you. A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness in the center of the chest. This other intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid, and it doesn’t move from outside to inside through conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead from within you, moving out.

Translated by Coleman Barks