Small Stone for Jan. 13, 2014

The poem for Jan. 13 in A Year with Rilke is titled, “Be Ahead of All Parting”. Rilke here encourages treating a parting as if it had already taken place, and to return from this to connection.

When I decided to buy this book, I really was quite unfamiliar with Rilke’s work, and had no inkling of how closely it would correspond to the thoughts and fears that I’ve been trying to deal with for the last couple of winters. I am hoping, through writing down my responses to the daily readings, to work through my own confusion and fear to find a quiet place inside where I can enjoy life fully. I have included a quote from the poem, the 3rd of 4 stanzas, as that is the essence, I think, of my own struggle.

Jan. 13, 2014

..Be. And know as well the need to NOT be:
let that ground of all that changes
bring you to completion now. —Rainer Maria Rilke

Here is the difficult thing.
To know that death is coming,
to balance knowing with
living fully in the present.