The Rumi Prescription: How an Ancient Mystic Poet Changed My Modern Manic Life

This is an incredible read. I couldn’t put it down and devoured it in two days. It left me feeling inspired and connected. It’s work like Melody Moezzi’s that changes the world. The power between these pages will leave any reader transformed. The translations of Rumi’s poetry and how to apply it to life’s hardships resonated somewhere deep within me. Read this book because it will uplift you and it will change you. The Rumi Prescription has heart, and it moved me through all of the emotions, distilling an ignited spirit. I’ll keep this one close by and return to it during times I need reassurance or some light. This is a book for everyone.

There's nothing that heals like soul like Rumi. Cannot thank Melody enough for penning this thoughtful book that adds so much to the cannon of Sufi lit, self-help, and memoirs. A much-needed gem. We all need to figure out how to life this modern life without losing our minds and souls. Rumi, as inspired by the Quran and Islamic spirituality, has a universal and timeless message for all.

Melody Moezzi’s THE RUMI PRESCRIPTION is a curious little book. For one, the twice-published author/attorney/speaker/scholar is insanely curious, which is partly what led her to write this book about turning to a 13th-century Sufi mystic poet for serious mental health problems. Secondly, the book arrives at a most curious time: the age of the coronavirus, even though it was written long before the pandemic.“’In medicine, a cure does not come from nowhere,’” she quotes her physician father at one point. “’The disease teaches you the cure. You ask any physician and they will tell you we are nothing compared to one tiny virus. If you want to stop a virus, you must appreciate its genius. Only then can you learn from that.’”She’s been through the disease, all right, and through her four-year work on this book, she learns plenty and teaches us her takeaways. Ms. Moezzi’s treatment of Rumi here is, in fact, about treatment for her “modern manic life.”Despite huge obstacles (or perhaps because of them?), she has made her mark as a nationally sought-after speaker and writer; she’s sort of a Brené Brown, but Ms. Moezzi uses for inspiration her Persian roots and Rumi’s sagacious verses as opposed to Brown’s leveraging fact-based studies.In that same Brownian vein, it’s Ms. Moezzi’s vulnerability — as when she talks about being locked up in a mental institution — that marks her work’s finest passages. Likewise, moments with her father provide the loveliest set pieces here; she calls him by his first name, adding yet more intimacy.Serving as her guide, her father knows plenty of Rumi and his 50,000 lines of couplets and quatrains to recite many of them in medieval Persian, as well as in English translation. Dr. Moezzi is also perhaps responsible in part for the book’s structure, having “prescribed” for his thirty-something overachiever 10 Rumi stanzas as antidotes to her/our ailments: isolation, fear, disappointment, pride and so forth. (As for the just-right Rumi passages she included, I’ll let the reader discover those on her own*.)Of those prescriptions, however, anger seems to be one Ms. Moezzi needs most to refill. She has plenty to rail against: racism, especially being brown and a Muslim in a country that’s especially now unwelcoming to both. She reminds us — frequently — that she is the daughter of Iranian-American immigrants (exiles of the Islamic Revolution, to be more precise) and a member of other minorities chronically oppressed. She also goes off, in one for-instance, about the white man’s theft of Washington state’s stunning Cascades, as well as rants about homophobia, misogyny and, in not so many words, organized religion. In a word, she is an activist who’s not afraid to use her book as a platform.Rumi’s lessons could be better served without these, but, still, she pulls off an effort few would have the courage to tackle with aplomb, including some stunning turns of phrase: “When raindrops land on my face like installments of hope,” they are, she writes, “reminders that disappointment and desperation can end.”Indeed, she weaves a largely lovely Persian tapestry. So much so that she inspires: not only with Rumi’s mystic, thought-provoking, even life-changing verses and her own musings, but, perhaps unwittingly, challenging the reader to try one or two of his or her own verses. Here’s a couplet that came to me:Novels seem more accessible, less opaque, than poetryBut books use forests; verse needs - and contemplates - a single tree*Thus, and on second thought, I’ll share one of her Rumi verses, a joyful favorite:Though the song of the nightingale you may learn to composeYou still can’t know what it sings to the roseIn her PRESCRIPTION, Ms. Moezzi sings out a most timely centuries-old prescription, a medicine one we need even more desperately now … and beyond.

The Rumi Prescription: How an Ancient Mystic Poet Changed My Modern Manic Life is a tonic that inspires hope and positivity—precisely the book the world needs right now. With the same humor and searing honesty that made her previous book, Haldol & Hyacinths, a compelling, un-put-down-able read, in Rumi Prescription Melody Moezzi brings the reader smack-dab into her quest for solutions to issues that plague us all—wanting, isolation, haste, depression, distraction, anxiety, anger, fear, disappointment, pride.Who knew a 13th century mystic poet would have the answers? Ahmad Moezzi did. Ahmad, Moezzi’s dad, worked with Melody to translate Rumi’s poems and reveal the simple answer to overcoming chaos and confusion.Rumi Prescription is not merely a memoir about an author’s spiritual journey or a Persian poet. There are lessons and food for thought here about fathers and daughters, mental health, love, patience, and politics. Moezzi’s excellent writing grabs the reader immediately and never lets go. You’ll read it in one sitting, then read it again.Rumi is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Sitting with this beautiful book, with a cup of tea, I felt I was sitting in the family room with Melody jan and her father Ahmad and all the great wisdom carried by the words of Rumi.The true story which touched every part of me, a true story that spoke truth even when it was hard and at times shameful (in front of those that may judge).Through the words of Melody, I learned that beauty is hidden within each and every one of us.This she learns from Rumi, and her father but also from her own realization. Indeed, this is a sacred journey and I feel honoured to have been taken along.Praise to those who give words to the voices never heard. Praise to Sheerzanha ( lioness, also courageous and spirited woman from my mother to my daughters to Melody and our mother land and Mother Earth.Yours humbly,Bahareh

I don't think I would recommend this book to a friend. Maybe it's because the book I read before this one, The Forty Rules of Love kind of left me drunk on Rumi and Shams. Perhaps I was looking for something to help me prolong that feeling. I feel like both books use completely different storytelling techniques to teach us about Rumi and how we can apply his wisdom to our every day lives. The Forty Rules of Love accomplished that more elegantly. I found myself nodding in agreement with everything Melody wrote about Trump and his 70 million racists and bigots and the experience of being a minority in America. I felt I could definitely relate to Melody ideologically, but I found her father to be way more interesting. It's obvious that this book is also a well-deserved tribute to him. I think I may have enjoyed it more if it was from his perspective or his life story. I don't regret the time spent reading it, because I try to appreciate every moment I get to read about Rumi (directly or indirectly).

I've always wanted to read and discover Rumi's poems. I always knew that I will at the right time and it was through Melody's book. She allowed me to establish my first connection with Rumi and I feel that I can start learning about his profound message. Melody's personal experience with Rumi and also with her own father is very inspirational. This book resonates deep within me and I know, now, that I will find many answers in Rumi's poetry.A must read.

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL BOOK, WAS A GIFT FOR A LOVELY FRIEND. I COULDN'T HAVE ASKED FOR A MORE INSPIRING STORY.