“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.”
Rainer Maria Rilke – Book of Hours, Love Poems to God (Translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows)
Just keep going…just keep going…these are the words that grab me today, speaking particularly to and of the heart. Whatever the changes, the stalls, the back up against the wall one more time story, the edging away from that wall, the vision of beyond and deep within, whatever the story…just keep going (even in your moment of collapse, be in it, go into it knowing you will cycle back up onto your feet and one day they will dance). Tom Cowan has a workshop for shamans that focuses on the spiritual practice of shapeshifting (no, you don’t fly over your ex’s house as a crow on a mission…). One of the elements of the workshop I appreciated probably the most details the 3 cauldrons of the soul. One in particular speaks today in this poem, in the one phrase: Just keep going. As one of the cauldrons Cowan details, the heart says “I act!” I respond. I go forth into the world from this amness (the cauldron of the belly or gut). And then: “I know” says the cauldron of the mind or, more accurately, the crown. But this knowing is not the knowing of logic. It is the knowing resonance with the Divine pattern of one’s life and of humanity in the grand eternal scheme of love. It’s an intuitive unfolding knowing into that daily reality as we “just keep going.”
And that’s my world lately. I wanted so many things to be accomplished by now and yet, the time hasn’t made room for those things to emerge. Other things are growing, emerging slowly. More precious, deeper knowings of purpose, of resonance, of acceptance of this path. When healing the amness layer of self, the heart cries out to act, to do, to express in the life what is brewing deep within. But timing can make the difference between a fractured movement and a whole flowing vision-in-motion.
On. With. It.
J. Ruth Kelly 
I love this, JRuth. I have decided that the mind races faster than time wishes to move. It is the simple way I put it to myself when all is not unfolding as “I” deem it should. Another thing I do is breathe deep and pause, reminding myself that here is not that bad. 🙂 When I was little? Christmas never arrived fast enough. I have learned, a little better, to enjoy each day happy or sad, but live it. Thank you for this reinforcement.
so true…if the mind drove time, we’d all be flattened and unable to live. such awesome power to be mastered and channeled into a life-receiving/giving force. thanks for adding the wealth of your own perspective to this, leslie. i think it’s a great and precious thing to be both in the moment and yearning for beyond (but not so much we lose the moment). 🙂
Just perfect today, what I needed to read–the poem is perfection, sublime beatuy…and knowing that the very human “amness”–the good and the not so good of it–is shared with others…is a thread worth grasping today.
blessings, my friend,
jane
we’re in this great big rainy amness ride together (but the sun is shining here today dear… ;))…
Speaks to my heart… Doesn’t happen overnight; and yet, we must keep going.
That’s it, isn’t it? Detached, desireless, disinterested, unmotivated and yet…one foot, then the other. Trust life, trust the process… (glad for you, Pierre)
I’m glad to have you as my friend J. Ruth