She who reconciles…

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
Of her life, and weaves them gratefully
Into a single cloth –

It’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
And clears it for a different celebration.

~ Rilke ~

if it were voices…

Everything is blooming most recklessly;

if it were voices instead of colors,

there would be an unbelievable shrieking

into the heart of the night.

~ Rilke ~

taking good care…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s clear to me that it’s time to take a break from posting over the holidays, so I am leaving you these words - perhaps my favorite Rilke piece – to keep you company while I am gone.

I hope you will be merry and happy and safe and know that you are so very good.

Take exquisite care of you these next couple weeks and I’ll be back to close out the year.

 

Being called…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tactful, they let us live life undisturbed

as we conceive it and as they fail

to understand it.

They wanted to blossom,

and blossoming is being beautiful.

But we want to ripen

and this means being dark

and taking pains.

~ Rilke ~

 

Sometimes, it’s not so easy, this walking in the world with your heart open.  This living authentically.  This being in the moment.

Rilke knew that.  I know, too.

And still, we do it, because we are called.

the view from above…

 

 

As once the winged energy of delight

carried you over childhood’s dark abysses,

now beyond your own life build the great

arch of unimagined bridges.

 

Wonders happen if we can succeed

in passing through the harshest danger;

but only in a bright and purely granted

achievement can we realize the wonder.

 

To work with Things in the indescribable

relationship is not too hard for us;

the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,

and being swept along is not enough.

 

Take your practice powers and stretch them out

until they span the chasm between the two

contradictions…For the god

wants to know himself in you.

 

~ Rainier Maria Rilke ~

 

Progress…

And again my deep life rushes louder,

as if it moved now between steeper banks.

Objects grow ever more akin to me,

all images more intensely seen.

I’ve become more at home amid the nameless:

With my senses, as with birds, I reach up

into the windy heavens from the oak,

and in the small ponds’ broken-off day

my feeling sinks, as if it stood on fishes.

~ Rilke ~

Finding hope…

The great renewal of the world
will perhaps consist in this,
that man and maid,
freed of false feelings and reluctances,
will seek each other not as opposites,
but as brother and sister,
as neighbors,
and will come together
as human beings.

~ Rilke ~

I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the campuses of small (but hugely impressive) liberal arts schools over the past few months. I have to say that I feel more hope within the grounds of these colleges than any other place I’ve been lately. The bright eyes, the open minds, the diversity on so many levels.

It makes me optimistic. It really does.