Today I wish simply to share this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet:
In one creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love come to life again and fill it with majesty and exaltation.
And those who come together in the nights and are entwined in rocking delight (even if they have made a mistake and embrace blindly), perform a solemn task and gather sweetness, depth and strength for the song of some future poet, who will appear in order to say ecstasies that are unsayable.
This to me is the cycle of beauty. Were I to have a religion, this could be its credo. How thrilling to find it expressed so perfectly, over 100 years ago.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Loving Kindness
Dinner with a friend recently spurred the following musing in my mind: what if no matter what do, we embody loving kindness?
Mostly, I’ve thought of the practice of loving kindness as an effort, a mindfulness, a way of regarding and treating people that is different from my normal reactive way. But assuming we are indeed divine creations, can any of our actions not be loving?
I’ve been spared so much by turning away from people who were mean. In a sense, they were guard dogs against danger. Every time I’ve been hurt or angered, I’ve also been spurred to move on to a truer place, impelled to find a job/lover/home/perspective where/with whom I could best become who I want to be, who I believe I was born to be.
I think of the Zen koan, ‘Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.’
What if loving kindness were not so much about altering how we behave or perceive others, and rather accept that there is nothing we can do that does not become fuel for our own or others’ eventual evolution and greater capacity for love and awareness? What if we all are (and all we are is) loving kindness, and our only task is to accept that?
Am I on to something here, or is it just another grease fire in the brain pan?
Does this make sense outside my head? Pray do tell.
Mostly, I’ve thought of the practice of loving kindness as an effort, a mindfulness, a way of regarding and treating people that is different from my normal reactive way. But assuming we are indeed divine creations, can any of our actions not be loving?
I’ve been spared so much by turning away from people who were mean. In a sense, they were guard dogs against danger. Every time I’ve been hurt or angered, I’ve also been spurred to move on to a truer place, impelled to find a job/lover/home/perspective where/with whom I could best become who I want to be, who I believe I was born to be.
I think of the Zen koan, ‘Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.’
What if loving kindness were not so much about altering how we behave or perceive others, and rather accept that there is nothing we can do that does not become fuel for our own or others’ eventual evolution and greater capacity for love and awareness? What if we all are (and all we are is) loving kindness, and our only task is to accept that?
Am I on to something here, or is it just another grease fire in the brain pan?
Does this make sense outside my head? Pray do tell.
Monday, November 3, 2008
This Moment
Like many of you, I’m thrilled and anxious when considering the outcome of tomorrow’s election.
By some grace, though, a joyous, steadying thought keeps coming back: we made it this far. Through the campaign, through the last fifty years, last four hundred years.
The past two elections disappointed me deeply, not only for the resulting administration, but also for the alienation I then felt from the rest of the country.
Now I’m looking around, and I like what I see. While nothing is certain, one thing is clear: an African-American man has a very clear shot at becoming our 44th president, less than fifty years after young men and women of his skin shade had to protest for the right to vote (not to forget the open savage violence when they attempted to register).
Has this been pointed out enough? Can it be?
1963
By some grace, though, a joyous, steadying thought keeps coming back: we made it this far. Through the campaign, through the last fifty years, last four hundred years.
The past two elections disappointed me deeply, not only for the resulting administration, but also for the alienation I then felt from the rest of the country.
Now I’m looking around, and I like what I see. While nothing is certain, one thing is clear: an African-American man has a very clear shot at becoming our 44th president, less than fifty years after young men and women of his skin shade had to protest for the right to vote (not to forget the open savage violence when they attempted to register).
Has this been pointed out enough? Can it be?
1963
2008
I like the new signs better, don’t you?
I’m not saying racism is over in this country. I just want to say I’m proud of us. I look across the ocean to France: the Algerian Revolution ended in 1962, and Arabs in France have made few real gains in status. Not to oversimplify, as that is a multi-dimensionally different situation, but look at us.
Just look at us.
I don’t know how I’ll feel on Wednesday; emotions are riding high. But right now, for the first time in a long time, I am proud to be American – not just a New Yorker!
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