Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

Rainer Maria Rilke

Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell.
As you ring, what batters you
becomes your strength

~ Rainer Maria Rilke from "Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29" translated by Joanna Macy in A YEAR WITH RILKE

A Year With Rilke

sophia

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In a talk about compassion, a former teacher of mine once said that practice prepares the mind, but suffering prepares the heart. Perhaps the final step in the healing of all wounds is the discovery of the capacity for compassion, an intuitive knowing that no one is singled out in their suffering, that all living beings are vulnerable to loss, attachment, and limitation. It is only in the presence of compassion that we can show our wounds without diminishing our wholeness. For those who have compassion, woundedness is not a place of judgment but a place of genuine meeting.

~ from MY GRANDFATHER’S BLESSING by R. N. Remen