Writing out Rilke poem in my “Quadrat” Alphabet — L Doctor Sketchbook

Only in our doing can we grasp you, only with our hands can we illumine you….

The first line of Rilke’s poem speaks to makers of all kinds, and how our hands can bring us back when we feel off center. Sometimes the hardest question to answer is What do I do? Or to ask yourself, listening deeply, What do I need? As they say in the old world, the veil is thinner now, Covid time reveals with urgency the gravity of the imperative to listen to your inner voice, to your calling. And to be aware, each day, of what you need. What do you need?

Odysseus’s journey was said to take 20 years to indicate it was long. For many, Covid time has shifted from something that felt more spacious, and had some security built in for the unemployed, to a feeling of long, and how can I get through?

*New free coloring book page.* *“O” for Odyssey: a long series of wanderings with danger, obstacles and transformation. And for Oar: knowing what it is you need to bring with you on this adventure.*

The mind is but a visitor, it takes us out of our world…

There are so many distractions with news and this turning world, but often the biggest distraction is one’s own mind, the visitor. That visitor needs to be quiet for awhile, and let the soul emerge. Your gift has already been given. What you are waiting for has already begun. I was listening to an interview with Jordi Savall, a beloved musician, and the interviewer asked him, How did you get interested in ancient music? Jordi replied by saying that this is a misunderstanding, there is no ancient music. There are ancient manuscripts, but the music is just sleeping inside you. Take out your instrument. Begin playing and the song awakens inside you — made new.

This is how I think of the creative pattern, that it is not so much about making something new as it is a kind of discovery, or remembrance. From this perspective, an age-old tradition, you were given your gift, your particular seed, before you were born. What you have is unique to you, and awakening it brings you into relationship with the world, your calling, your true self, and what it is you have to offer. Your gift does not diminish with time, and rises closer to the surface in this moment of epic change. Take out your instrument; only with my hands can I illumine you.

In all adventures, there are those who make it through, and come through changed in ways that could not be known before. There are some qualities that these heroes have in common for navigation in difficult times. One is the ability to take aim, to point yourself in a certain direction.* Choose something you wish to do, and devote uninterrupted time to it each day, until completion. It can be as simple as deciding to make an apple tart, a drawing, or rearrange your sacred space. To focus on one thing, wholeheartedly, from beginning to end, is in itself restoring. It is decidedly different from a day of lateral movement, going from one thing to the next, without any felt sense of gratification. A day without deep immersion leaves me feeling scattered at dusk, and out of touch. That way of operating, facilitated by screens, can lead to depression.

When you are depressed, the smallest thing seems monumental. But you begin anyway, lifting those impossibly heavy feet, visualizing your aim, and taking the first step. Remember this line from Pablo Neruda’s poem “Poetry”?

and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,

The first line, the first step is faint, without substance, pure nonsense, because the essence of creation is to begin to do something without knowing where you are going. A feeling of inadequacy is genuine, and a good place to begin. The maker gets ignited with an awareness of the Unknown, in combination with a yearning for the eternal.

Speak to me from everywhere ….

Is a demand, a prayer, an invocation. When you get still, and listen, there is a moment when a glance to the left opens your eyes, and everything is different. I have had this experience in the natural world, in the desert and the woods … when there is a shift, and the voice is everywhere, manifesting in an unaccountable reciprocity in the trees, birds and stars. This voice comes out of your vertical movement, surprising and enlivening you in unexpected moments. I think everyone has had an experience of connectedness, of forgetting about yourself and belonging right where you are, a part of everything that is. Just take a moment to recall, even as a child, when you had an experience of timelessness. This is a clue about your gift, and about where to begin.

When I go toward you it is with my whole life.

The quality of not holding back, of entering fully into the adventure you have been given, whatever it may be, has nothing to do with success, reputation or ability. It is devotion. Put your whole self in, the light and the shadow, so that whatever you make is an offering.

Only in our doing can we grasp you.
Only with our hands can we illumine you.
The mind is but a visitor;
it thinks us out of our world.
Each mind fabricates itself.
We sense its limits, for we have made them.
And just when we would flee them, you come
and make of yourself an offering.
I don’t want to think a place for you.
Speak to me from everywhere.
Your Gospel can be comprehended
without looking for its source.
When I go toward you
it is with my whole life.
—I, 37 Rilke’s Book of Hours Trans. by Barrows & Macy
Original German:
Du wirst nur mit der Tat erfasst;
mit Händen nur erhellt;
ein jeder Sinn ist nur ein Gast
und sehnt sich aus der Welt.
Ersonnen ist ein jeder Sinn,
man fühlt den feinen Saum darin
und dass ihn einer spann:
Du aber kommst und giebst dich hin
und fällst den Flüchtling an.
Ich will nicht wissen, wo du bist,
sprich mir aus überall.
Dein williger Evangelist
verzeichnet alles und vergisst
zu schauen nach dem Schall.
Ich geh doch immer auf dich zu
mit meinem ganzen Gehn;
denn wer bin ich und wer bist du,
wenn wir uns nicht verstehn?