a silent friend
our companion into the quiet
Hello dear friend. And welcome to a love poem for a Sunday… or any day, as you wish.
This month, we’ll explore the quiet together and meet on Saturday, March 29 at 10am pacific for an hour-long, online, spring retreat… Questions and Answers for the Quiet. Please send me a note if you’d like to join. To those of you already signed up, thank you!
Before we begin, I want to thank new subscribers and followers… I appreciate your loving presence. And to one reader in particular, a friend named Duke, thank you for your generous support. Your heart encourages my heart; your gift helps me help others. We’re all in this together… If you feel ready to support my work, please subscribe, buy me a coffee, or propose a more creative way to contribute like amazing Duke did!
Today, I share the full text of the poem whose beginning we enjoyed in my last post as an anchor in the quiet. Enjoy the meditation from my post, the sounds of silence, if you haven’t already.
We’ll use this poem throughout the month. It’s by Rainer Maria Rilke, an Austrian poet whose guidance shaped me well before his poetry. Before I get to the poem, let me tell you about Rilke as my teacher.
I was a teenager when I found Letters to a Young Poet. Obviously directed toward me, I stole the book from the library (sorry!) and carried it around like holy scripture. I transcribed this passage in a journal when I was almost 16, and then listed a few important questions, one of which was ‘am I lovable?’:
I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Thanks, Rainer!
I’m grateful to acknowledge that I have lived into some answers to old questions. Lovable? Yes. Loved? Yes. Loving? Yes. Beautiful? Sure. Wealthy? In so many surprising ways. Faithful? By the grace of God.
Other questions continue to arise— here are new games to play. I learn their ways. Like, why does Elon Musk keep appearing in my dreams? No need to answer, my friend. I’ll live into it myself.
Here’s the poem we’ll listen to in the quiet this month:
Silent friend of many distances, feel how your breath enlarges all of space. Let your presence ring out like a bell into the night. What feeds upon your face grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered. Move through transformation, out and in. What is the deepest loss that you have suffered? If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine. In this immeasurable darkness, be the power that rounds your senses in their magic ring, the sense of their mysterious encounter. And if the earthly no longer knows your name, whisper to the silent earth: I'm flowing. To the flashing water say: I am.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
Let’s explore the quiet this month in preparation for our spring retreat. Please mark your calendars for some quiet time together on Saturday, March 29 from 10am to 11am pacific. During this time, we’ll be quiet, listening to our bodies moving gently, to our breath, for our questions, and for our guidance.
Everyone is welcome to join; the retreat is free for paid subscribers or friends are welcome to share $25 to the cause! Please send me a note to RSVP and I’ll put you on the list. I hope you’ll share the invitation with friends.
Thank you for being you.
