I had to ponder this poem for a while. I wish I knew how you do it, come up with this stuff week after week and always write about something that speaks to us on a deeper level. Thank you.
So, it seems to me that in this poem, Trapeze Artist, you’re talking about the game of life: “you chose to be up here… you chose to play at this game…” I’ve often heard it said that we do chose the circumstances of our lives before we even get here, but we forget. My friend says, “remember, we signed on for this gig.” So, I guess we might as well go with it. There must be some reason we’re here when we consider the quadrillion probabilities of our non-existence. I read a quote by Joanna Macy that said, “There’s a song that wants to sing itself through us. We’ve just got to be available.”
Your pal, Rilke, said in his poem: “Go to the Limits of Your Longing”:
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
Book of Hours, I 59
I stumbled on this poem just yesterday. I had never read it before. It gives me goosebumps, considering what I had just written above.
Rocket, I don't even know what to say. Rilke's poem takes my breath away. It is so perfect, so right, and it fills me with gratitude for all that we are -- beauty and terror both.
Thank you for stumbling upon it and offering it here, and thank you for being here. You have no idea.
You are very welcome. I'm so glad you hadn't read that poem before. I agree, the poem is just stunning.
So, one of the things I wanted to share with you, and anyone else who's listening, is this newsletter I subscribed to called the Marginalian, another 'thing" I stumbled on, haha. I do a lot of stumbling. This woman, Maria Popova, who single-handedly puts this journal out every week is truly amazing. She has a topic each week that she focuses on and then she references all these other pieces of literature including children's books, that also address the topic, many of which are classics from famous authors from all time periods. She provides links to these pieces within the essay that she writes. You have to see it yourself to envision it. Her whole site has different links all over the place, on the sidebars and such. Just about every one of them takes you someplace that you feel you've always wanted to go but didn't know how to get there. She publishes the Midweek Newsletter on Wednesdays which I've subscribed to, and she also does another one on Sundays. She addresses Nature, Love, Friendship, Science, and more.
So, since we've talked about Rilke, check out this issue from Oct. 6th. "Rilke on the Lonely Patience of Creative Work". https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/06/22/rilke-patience-solitude-art/ Of course, she refers to "Letters to a Young Poet", as you'd expect, but I'm sending this one just as a sample. I would imagine that you can relate to this "Lonely Patience"... being a creative writer as you are, and a wonderful one at that. Well, see what you think. I hope it resonates with you, but not to worry if it doesn't.
Subscribed! Thank you for placing her into my constellation of wisdom-purveyors. I love what she does and how she does it. Her persistence inspires me, too.
And oh, the quote that Popova lead with: “The most regretful people on earth,” the poet Mary Oliver wrote in contemplating the artist’s task and the central commitment of the creative life, “are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
A knife in the heart, in the best possible way. Thanks, Rocket, as always... xox
Hi Mary,
I had to ponder this poem for a while. I wish I knew how you do it, come up with this stuff week after week and always write about something that speaks to us on a deeper level. Thank you.
So, it seems to me that in this poem, Trapeze Artist, you’re talking about the game of life: “you chose to be up here… you chose to play at this game…” I’ve often heard it said that we do chose the circumstances of our lives before we even get here, but we forget. My friend says, “remember, we signed on for this gig.” So, I guess we might as well go with it. There must be some reason we’re here when we consider the quadrillion probabilities of our non-existence. I read a quote by Joanna Macy that said, “There’s a song that wants to sing itself through us. We’ve just got to be available.”
Your pal, Rilke, said in his poem: “Go to the Limits of Your Longing”:
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
Book of Hours, I 59
I stumbled on this poem just yesterday. I had never read it before. It gives me goosebumps, considering what I had just written above.
Rocket, I don't even know what to say. Rilke's poem takes my breath away. It is so perfect, so right, and it fills me with gratitude for all that we are -- beauty and terror both.
Thank you for stumbling upon it and offering it here, and thank you for being here. You have no idea.
You are very welcome. I'm so glad you hadn't read that poem before. I agree, the poem is just stunning.
So, one of the things I wanted to share with you, and anyone else who's listening, is this newsletter I subscribed to called the Marginalian, another 'thing" I stumbled on, haha. I do a lot of stumbling. This woman, Maria Popova, who single-handedly puts this journal out every week is truly amazing. She has a topic each week that she focuses on and then she references all these other pieces of literature including children's books, that also address the topic, many of which are classics from famous authors from all time periods. She provides links to these pieces within the essay that she writes. You have to see it yourself to envision it. Her whole site has different links all over the place, on the sidebars and such. Just about every one of them takes you someplace that you feel you've always wanted to go but didn't know how to get there. She publishes the Midweek Newsletter on Wednesdays which I've subscribed to, and she also does another one on Sundays. She addresses Nature, Love, Friendship, Science, and more.
So, since we've talked about Rilke, check out this issue from Oct. 6th. "Rilke on the Lonely Patience of Creative Work". https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/06/22/rilke-patience-solitude-art/ Of course, she refers to "Letters to a Young Poet", as you'd expect, but I'm sending this one just as a sample. I would imagine that you can relate to this "Lonely Patience"... being a creative writer as you are, and a wonderful one at that. Well, see what you think. I hope it resonates with you, but not to worry if it doesn't.
Subscribed! Thank you for placing her into my constellation of wisdom-purveyors. I love what she does and how she does it. Her persistence inspires me, too.
And oh, the quote that Popova lead with: “The most regretful people on earth,” the poet Mary Oliver wrote in contemplating the artist’s task and the central commitment of the creative life, “are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
A knife in the heart, in the best possible way. Thanks, Rocket, as always... xox
Oh, how I know this balancing act! 🤗
This is lovely.
Thanks, Tonika. I'll bet you do... 😉