gifts

The things we really need come to us only as gifts, 

and in order to receive them as gifts, 

we have to be open. 

In order to be open we have to renounce ourselves, 

in a sense we have to die to our image of ourselves, 

our autonomy, our fixation upon our self-willed destiny. 

We have to be able to relax the psychic 

and spiritual cramp which knots us in the painful, 

vulnerable, helpless “I” that is all we know of ourselves

~ Thomas Merton

sketch by catherine doherty

On this day in 1941 Thomas Merton arrived at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani 

and on this day in 1968 he died in Thailand while participating in a conference of Benedictine and Trappist monks. In the 27 years between those two events he wrote a succession of books which have touched many lives.

the whole of love

We learned the whole of love,

The alphabet, the words,

A chapter, then the mighty book--

Then revelation closed.

But in each other's eyes

An ignorance beheld

Diviner than the childhood's,

And each to each a child.

Attempted to expound

What neither understood.

Alas, that wisdom is so large

And truth so manifold!

~ Emily Dickinson

breithlá sona, Emily

night

I

If I think of a horse wandering about sleeplessly

All night on this short grass covered with moonlight,

I feel a joy, as if I had thought

Of a pirate ship ploughing through dark flowers.

II

The box elders around us are full of joy,

Obeying what is beneath them.

The lilacs are sleeping, and the plants are sleeping;

Even the wood made into a casket is asleep.

III

The butterfly is carrying loam on his wings;

The toad is bearing tiny bits of granite in his skin.

The leaves at the crown of the tree are asleep

Like the dark bits of earth at its root.

IV

Alive, we are like a sleek black water beetle.

Skating across still water in any direction

We choose, and soon to be swallowed

Suddenly from beneath.








~ Robert Bly
photo by david edwards

one's not half two

one's not half two.  It's two are halves of one:

which halves reintegrating,shall occur

no death and any quantity;but than

all numerable mosts the actual more

minds ignorant of stern miraculous

this everytruth-beware of heartless them

(given the scalpel,they dissect a kiss;

or,sold the reason,they  undream a dream)

one is the song which friends and angels sing:

all murdering lies by mortals told make two.

Let liars wilt,repaying life they're loaned;

we(by a gift called dying born)must grow

deep in dark least ourselves remembering

love only rides his year.

                                    All lose, whole find

~ e.e.cummings

photo by Shreve Stockton

.

complete letting go

Perhaps you have never experienced that state of mind 

in which there is total abandonment of everything, 

a complete letting go. 

And you cannot abandon everything without deep passion, can you? 

You cannot abandon everything intellectually or emotionally. 

There is total abandonment, surely, only when there is intense passion. 

Don't be alarmed by that word because a man who is not passionate, 

who is not intense, 

can never understand or feel the quality of beauty. 

The mind that holds something in reserve,

the mind that has a vested interest, the mind that clings to position,

power, prestige, the mind that is respectable, which is a horror;

such a mind can never abandon itself.

J. Krishnamurti

from  The Book of Life

art by rodin

auguste rodin

"Farfallettina"

Shaking all over, she arrives near the lamp, and her dizziness grants her one last vague reprieve before she goes up in flames.  She has fallen into the green tablecloth, and upon that advantageous background she stretches out for a moment (for a unit of her own time which we have no way of measuring) the profusion of her inconceivable splendor.  She looks like a miniature lady who is having a heart attack on the way to the theater.  She will never arrive.  Besides, where is there a theater for such fragile spectators?.... Her wings, with their tiny golden threads, are moving like a double fan in front of no face; and between them is this thin body, a bilboquet onto which two eyes like emerald balls have fallen back....

It is in you, my dear, that God has exhausted himself.  He tosses you into the fire so that he can recover a bit of strength.  ( Like a little boy breaking into his piggy bank.)

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

taken from Four Sketches, Uncollected Poems

translation by Stephen Mitchell

going

No longer for ears...: sound

which, like a deeper ear,

hears us, who only seem 

to be hearing.  Reversal of spaces.

Projection of innermost worlds

into the Open... temple

before their birth, solution saturated with gods

that are almost insoluble...: Going!

Sum of all silence, which

acknowledges itself to itself,

thunderous turning-within

of what is struck dumb in itself,

duration pressed from time passing,

star re-liquefied...: Going!

You whom one never forgets,

who gave birth to herself in loss,

festival no longer grasped, wine on invisible lips,

storm in the pillar that upholds,

wanderer's plunge on the path,

our treason, to everything...: Going!

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from Unpublished Poems

translation by Stephen Mitchell

art by Picasso

ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life

In the savage state, every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter.  In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of a whole.  The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live.  I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford to hire....An average house ... will take a man ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life.

~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walden, "Economy,"  1854

contemplation

Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself. 

Contemplation does not feed the hungry; it does not clothe the naked… 

and it does not return the sinner to peace, truth, and union with God. 

But without contemplation we cannot see what we do… 

Without contemplation we cannot understand 

the significance of the world in which we must act. 

Without contemplation we remain small, limited, divided, partial; 

we adhere to the insufficient, 

permanently united to our narrow group and its interests, 

losing sight of justice and charity, 

seized by the passions of the moments… 

Without contemplation, 

without the intimate, silent, 

secret pursuit of truth through love, 

our action loses itself in the world and becomes dangerous.

~ Thomas Merton

sketch by the author

in church

Often I try

To analyse the quality

Of its silences.  Is this where God hides

From my searching?  I  have stopped

to listen,

After the few people have gone,

To the air recomposing itself

For vigil.  It has waited like this

Since the stones grouped themselves

about it.

These are the hard ribs

Of a body that our prayers have failed

To animate.  Shadows advance

From their corners to take possession

Of places the light held

For an hour.  The bats resume

Their business.  The uneasiness of the pews

Ceases.  There is no other sound

In the darkness but the sound of a man 

Breathing, testing his faith

On emptiness, nailing his questions 

One by one to an untenanted cross.

~ R. S. Thomas

from Parabola (winter 2011-2012)

the way appears

As you start out on the way,

the way appears.

As you cease to be,

true life begins.

As you grow smaller,

the world cannot contain you.

You will be shown a being

that has no you inside it.

~ Rumi

translation by Coleman Barks

from The Big Red Book

Joyeux anniversaire, Monsieur Rilke

I would like to sing someone to sleep,

to sit beside someone and be there.

I would like to rock you and sing softly

and go with you to and from sleep.

I would like to be the one in the house

who knew: The night was cold.

And I would like to listen in and listen out

into you, into the world, into the woods.

The clocks shout to one another striking,

and one sees to the bottom of time.

And down below one last, strange man walks by

and rouses a strange dog.

And after that comes silence.

I have laid my eyes upon you wide;

and they hold you gently and let you go

when something stirs in the dark.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Images

translated by Edward Snow

passport picture 1919

ravens hiding in a shoe

There is something men and women living in houses

Don’t understand. The old alchemists standing

Near their stoves hinted at it a thousand times.

Ravens at night hide in an old woman’s shoe.

A four-year-old speaks some ancient language.

We have lived our own death a thousand times.

Each sentence we speak to friends means the opposite

As well. Each time we say, “I trust in God,” it means

God has already abandoned us a thousand times.

Mothers again and again have knelt in church

In wartime asking God to protect their sons,

And their prayers were refused a thousand times.

The baby loon follows the mother’s sleek

Body for months. By the end of summer, she

Has dipped her head into Rainy Lake a thousand times.

Robert, you've wasted so much of your life

Sitting indoors to write poems. Would you

Do that again? I would, a thousand times.

~ Robert Bly

from Poetry (February 2010)

the sympathies of the long married

Oh well, let's go on eating the grains of eternity.

What do we care about improvements in travel?

Angels sometimes cross the river on old turtles.

Shall we worry about who gets left behind?

That one bird flying through the clouds is enough.

Your sweet face at the door of the house is enough.

The two farm horses stubbornly pull the wagon.

The mad crows carry away the tablecloth.

Most of the time, we live through the night.

Let's not drive the wild angels from our door.

Maybe the mad fields of grain will move.

Maybe the troubled rocks will learn to walk.

It's all right if we're troubled by the night.

It's all right if we can't recall our own name.

It's all right if this rough music keeps on playing.

I've given up worrying about men living alone.

I do worry about the couple who live next door.

Some words heard through the screen door are enough.

~ Robert Bly

art by van gogh

Vermeer

It’s not a sheltered world. The noise begins over there, on the other side of the wall

where the alehouse is

with its laughter and quarrels, its rows of teeth, its tears, its chiming of clocks,

and the psychotic brother-in-law, the murderer, in whose presence

everyone feels fear.

The huge explosion and the emergency crew arriving late,

boats showing off on the canals, money slipping down into pockets

– the wrong man’s –

ultimatum piled on the ultimatum,

widemouthed red flowers whose sweat reminds us of approaching war.

And then straight through the wall — from there — straight into the airy studio

in the seconds that have got permission to live for centuries.

Paintings that choose the name: “The Music Lesson”

or ” A Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.”

She is eight months pregnant, two hearts beating inside her.

The wall behind her holds a crinkly map of Terra Incognita.

Just breathe. An unidentifiable blue fabric has been tacked to the chairs.

Gold-headed tacks flew in with astronomical speed

and stopped smack there

as if there had always been stillness and nothing else.

The ears experience a buzz, perhaps it’s depth or perhaps height.

It’s the pressure from the other side of the wall,

the pressure that makes each fact float

and makes the brushstroke firm.

Passing through walls hurts human beings, they get sick from it,

but we have no choice.

It’s all one world. Now to the walls.

The walls are a part of you.

One either knows that, or one doesn't; but it’s the same for everyone

except for small children. There aren't any walls for them.

The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall.

It is like a prayer to what is empty.

And what is empty turns its face to us

and whispers:

“I am not empty, I am open.”

~ Tomas Tranströmer

translation by Robert Bly

from The Winged Energy of Desire

art by Vermeer