“I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing. For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing, has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more,–is already in our blood. And we do not learn what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing has happened, and yet we have changed, as a house changes into which a guest has entered. We cannot say who has come, perhaps we shall never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters into us in this way in order to transform itself in us long before it happens. And this is why it is so important to be lonely and attentive when one is sad: because the apparently uneventful and stark moment at which our future sets foot in us is so much closer to life than that other noisy and fortuitous point of time at which it happens to us as if from outside. The more still, more patient and more open we are when we are sad, so much the deeper and so much the more unswervingly does the new go into us, so much the better do we make it ours, so much the more will it be our destiny, and when on some later day it ‘happens’ (that is, steps forth out of us to others), we shall feel in our inmost selves akin and near to it. And that is necessary. It is necessary–and toward this our development will move gradually–that nothing strange should befall us, but only that which has long belonged to us. We have already had to rethink so many of our concepts of motion, we will also gradually learn to realize that that which we call destiny goes forth from within people…” Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet
I love the “steps forth out of us to others” bit. So much steps forth out of us into our worlds and to others and so much we can cultivate of the best “stepping forth” through our attentiveness and willingness to trust self, to trust the processes of growth that include everything from intense pain to sheer delight. And how vital it is to allow these contrasts without judgement, without fear as we build our lives.
Of all the authors I cherish, two now intimately acquainted with “the truly inward source” have my unwavering commitment to their works: Alan Watts and Rainer Maria Rilke. And I can’t exclude Erich Fromm. But I digress. They all have one thing in common. They cared about authenticity in love, in living, in every layer of what it is to be alive. And they dedicated their lives to the exploration of the development of soul with their own unique approachs in articulation and in vocation.
J. Ruth Kelly 