Written by Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated and read by Joanna Macy

Listen I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?

Please call me by my true names by Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.

The mystic's toes Are naked So I study them.

Neither his careful words Nor his clear staring eyes Tell me so much

There are stubby bristles And some callouses I can see where they have been

Kissed many times over The nails groomed to perfection

by bonnitta-roy from https://bonnittaroy.substack.com/p/video-recording-varieties-of-religious-d91/comments

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

There do the birds fly coming going through the roof i am unknown, to me unvisible how can someone like me write like this there is a generative thinginess going something out of nothing, never to be touched directly only metaphorially captured mind a capturating machine extraordinary looking beautifuly maps, explotion diagrams the mind and his partner in crime the psyche looking for and looking at seemingly distant and so close where are they going who is in charge charge a current a vortex a radially living center the only thing the we ever know intimacy at it's core like an onion but never ending going deep and out and above looking outward, silence not named this is it

Stars alight, dawn breaking upon the beach. The seashells turn over, broken air pulls the flowers strewn. Hope turns this way or that, yet the dust alight upon the chair broken into the boulder ancient. Time is the sand, universe into the ocean, waves blue, ponds meandering into the nought.

take a small step you can call your own

Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in the step you don’t want to take…

Start with your own question, give up on other people’s questions, don’t let them smother something simple…

Start right now take a small step you can call your own don’t follow someone else’s heroics, be humble and focused, start close in, don’t mistake that other for your own.

to be steadfast

but not stern

at the bow

knowing that the waves

are endless

and the sea is vast

what can I say

to the little ones

stowed below

grasping at their mothers' breasts?

I'll tell the men

to sing a lullaby

and let the wind

sing the sails

what we seek

is not fame nor fortune

nor a promised land

we seek each other

in just this way

as the water surrounds us

and calls us to the depths

adventure on the high seas!

by Bonnitta Roy

Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mind. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting— over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

titles belong in parentheses of an emotion or moment that can move through you by no other name,

and every sentence needs to apologize for lacking hyphens between its insides, suggesting distinctions improve clarity of outer-space,

and no words should be capitalized to avoid suggesting they are the start of something versus life-overs you can only study and lick your lips,

and there should only be commas, because if you name something that ends you’ve mistaken cessation with a catching of breath,

and since words are about staying alive, what can be said about “and” that would not leave more to be said, and no place where the saying began

(in other words, why not start with words that leave no disconnect, and you be the question mark which never ends a sentence)?

by person.og-rose from https://ogrose.substack.com/p/titles-belong-in-parentheses

shared by Minnow Park on a foster writing session:

Blessed are we, the downtrodden, who must set aside what we are carrying and begin to feel only the weight of our own being.

It is enough for now. Let our shoulders sink from around our ears, our breath grow longer and deeper, taking a minute to notice the way our diaphragm rises and falls without us telling it to.

Blessed are we who cannot go on... not like this, but stand and look and ask, Which is the good way to walk in? Is there an easier route?

Blessed are we who listen for the voice that is both thunder and softest rain.

Blessed are we, at the point of utter stillness that becomes an empty space for that voice to echo and build and resound until it becomes a place to rest and receive and be made whole.

And oh, how blessed are we who are astonished to find that God's strength begins at the very point when ours runs out.

if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it it rises again out of the soil its siblings grow in and in the stomachs of tiny life it takes flight as mushroom spores and it doesn't give a shit if a poet hears it or not

There were three friends Discussing life. One said: "Can men live together And know nothing of it? Work together And produce nothing? Can they fly around in space And forget to exist World without end?" The three friends looked at each other And burst out laughing. They had no explanation. Thus they were better friends than before.

https://substack.com/profile/1691121-bonnitta-roy/note/c-50844686

cool, sahweetness, arising like the perpetual cat at breakfast, sipping cool sahweet milk even angels need reminding why they preferred to be born once, twice, thrice, a thousand times over mommies and daddies, babies born alive, and babies born dead the tantric dirt rises up and swallows us all effort less leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee this too is living this too is dead being here over there is bard ooooooooooo crossing over, like the slip undressing the woman in your dreams is Love. Remember tho Not to make too much of it, Not to give it too much life And too little death. Bee instead, in the grass Among the flow ers Sipping nectar, stealing pollen Out of gratitude for the sun That great pavilion of iridescence Up there, where we look for God.

The Man Watching By Rainer Maria Rilke

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes that a storm is coming, and I hear the far-off fields say things I can't bear without a friend, I can't love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on across the woods and across time, and the world looks as if it had no age: the landscape, like a line in the psalm book, is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights with us is so great. If only we would let ourselves be dominated as things do by some immense storm, we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us. I mean the Angel who appeared to the wrestlers of the Old Testament: when the wrestlers' sinews grew long like metal strings, he felt them under his fingers like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel (who often simply declined the fight) went away proud and strengthened and great from that harsh hand, that kneaded him as if to change his shape. Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.

            --Translated by Robert Bly

Everything is Waiting for You Written and read by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice. You must note the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you freedom. Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity. The stairs are your mentor of things to come, the doors have always been there to frighten you and invite you, and the tiny speaker in the phone is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

From http://www.william-wordsworth.de/translations/Night-Piece.html and first read in books.wild-mind-wild-earth

Ein Nachtstück von

— Der Himmel ist bedeckt von einer Wolkenfläche dicht gewebt, drückend und bleich; es hat sie weiß gemacht der Mond, der durch den Wolkenschleier ist zu sehen undeutlich, ein trüber Kreis, der wie geschrumpft, verbreitend Licht so schwach, dass nicht ein Schatten fällt, zu bilden auf dem Boden Muster von dem Fels, vom Strauch, dem Baum und von dem Turm. Doch dann schreckt auf ein angenehmer momentaner Glanz den grübelnd Wanderer, als einsam er auf seinem Pfad dahingeht, leicht gebückt zur Erd das Auge nur gerichtet: Er schaut auf: Die Wolke hat geteilt sich und er sieht nun über seinem Kopf so klar den Mond mit seines Himmels Herrlichkeit. Dort, in dem schwarzen Blau des Himmelsraums, entlang er segelt, folgend eine Schar von Sternen, alle klein und scharf und hell, vor finsterer Unendlichkeit wie er dahin sie treiben: Fort sie drehn sich schnell, doch bleiben sichtbar noch! Der Wind ist hier im Baum, doch sie sind stille, – noch dahin sie ziehen unermesslich ferne, und die Himmelswölbung, die umbaut ist von den weißen Wolken dort, gewaltigem Gewölk, vertieft noch, was unfassbar tief. Vor der Vision der Vorhang zieht sich zu, und das Gemüt, nicht unberührt vom Glück, das es noch fühlt, sich langsam richtet ein in friedevoller Ruhe wieder, – ist nun überlassen ganz sich selber, nach- zusinnen jenem feierlichen Vorgang.

Wordsworth sagt 1843 dazu in den Fenwick-Notizen: „Aus dem Stegreif verfasst auf der Straße zwischen Nether Stowey and Alfoxden. Ich kann mich genau an den Moment erinnern, als ich, wie beschrieben mit Er schaute zu den Wolken auf usw., überrascht wurde.“ Dorothy Wordworth beschreibt in ihrem Alfoxden Journal im Eintrag zum 25. Januar 1798 mit ganz ähnlichen Worten wie ihr Bruder dieses Ereignis; auch hier bewegen sich Mond und Sterne und nicht die Wolke.

Is there hatred among stones? Like us, they were born of stars Colliding, spectacularly in the Voiceless depths of space. Think of them, Once so majesticRoaring through space Casting light. Now they simply lay lowly on the beach Waiting for a child To skip them over the lake Or for a root (to grasp it) Or a lichen (to call it home) Or a poet ... Is there wisdom among stones? Like us, they are not yet arrived Coming and going through Intergalactic time Will they still be waiting A hundred million years from now For a child, a tree, a lichen A poet? Is there love among stones? They say no, I say yes. For love is in the way of seeing Of grasping, of casting light Of calling one's home. And yes, of waiting Of waiting for ... If even a hundred million years. And what did the man save from the rubble After the bombs destroyed the world? A stone That reminded him of his son. Seeing him now Wandering among the dead Clutching... no caressing his stone He promised to protect. And he became a prophet of the ruins: "Stones will outlive us, like flesh outlives our bones. The record of man will be erased, and the stones will once again, learn to speak." Can this be true? Are we the stones That learned to speak Only because one man Carried his out of the rubble And dreamed somethingImpossible?

I am who I am, Through the webs that I swim. Families, communities, Lovers and friends. A biosphere so near and dear Smiling sun and ocean tears. Microbiome melodies Gyrating golden galaxies Mutual co-arising Is the name of the game. I am no Island, Nor an isolated brain. Embodied as spacetime. Mixing kairotic space rhymes This self sings with silence, Grateful for how grace shines.

This is the ending of 'Sirius Star Boy' - Full version here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/116T8Z9tT_blG2LJDBReRGr95UnJtjV4k/view?usp=sharing

A man was walking through the woods and in time came upon a ravine. Near the ravine was a man who, after a few moments, ran full-tilt at the ravine and leapt into the void over it as if to clear the entire gulf in one mighty jump. But as the man observed the jumper, he also noticed that he was dragging a parachute; this slowed the jumper’s running as he approached the ravine. As the Jumper leapt, the parachute filled with air, stopping his forward motion completely. He then fell into the ravine; the parachute slowed his fall enough to make sure he wasn’t seriously injured, but he still scraped and banged against the sides on his way down. The man watched as the jumper climbed back out and attempted the jump again with the same results. He approached him and asked “Why are you doing that?”. “Because I want to jump the ravine”, the Jumper replied. “No, I mean - why are you using the parachute when it keeps you from being successful?”. The Jumper looked at him like he was insane, and replied “That’s to minimize the damage from the fall.”.

– form person.justin-noppe

William Stafford

A Course in Creative Writing

They want a wilderness with a map— but how about errors that give a new start?— or leaves that are edging into the light?— or the many places a road can’t find?

Maybe there’s a land where you have to sing to explain anything: you blow a little whistle just right and the next tree you meet is itself. (And many a tree is not there yet.)

Things come toward you when you walk. You go along singing a song that says where you are going becomes its own because you start. You blow a little whistle—

And a world begins under the map.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Mary Oliver Wild Geese http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html https://youtu.be/6Ykr2XLpPXE?si=z6JXDDegZuYhitK6 @1:19

Notes

Lookup