Turkey, Greece and Go to the Limits of Your Longing, Back From the Fields, The Moment

I'm on a threshold,  right now,  as I mentally and physically pack my bags for our pilgrimage to Turkey and Greece on Friday. I've been hungry for this trip, for its preparation, for the people I've met through this wonderful little church who have streched my mind and challenged me to dig deep to find my gifts and goals, and I'm hungry to get going!

Maybe I feel just a little time pressed too...maybe, but I have a deep feeling that my years of agitation, of stewing in my own juices, of feeling that there is so very much more, but not having a clue what this "more" is or how to pursue it has reached a threshold. I love how Rilke puts this feeling of longing, "Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror...".  And so, I am perched upon this threshold, one hand on the handle, one foot here, and one foot just about to find the unknown ancient Roman road on the other side. I go holding a sense of possibility and wonder, and gently holding open the opportunity for deeper experience and growth. Who knows? Hopefully I will blog throughout, so I'll report back in words and pictures, but this feels like a beginning for me, and I'm eager for it.

What about a little poetry? I will include the whole Rilke poem thanks to Clover and two others that have come my way lately. I love the idea of walking through ancient, foreign lands and having some of that land come back with me--mentally and physically (Back from the Fields).  And I love the stillness in the third that I don't feel just now, but I am going to cultivate tomorrow!


Go To the Limits of Your Longing (R. Rilke)

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 a 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.

Back from the Fields (Peter Everwine)
Until nightfall my son ran in the fields,
looking for God knows what.
Flowers, perhaps. Odd birds on the wing.
Something to fill an empty spot.
Maybe a luminous angel
or a country girl with a secret dark.
He came back empty-handed,
or so I thought.
Now I find them:
thistles, goatheads,
the barbed weeds
all those with hooks or horns
the snaggle-toothed, the grinning ones
those wearing lantern jaws,
old ones in beards, leapers
in silk leggings, the multiple
pocked moons and spiny satellites, all those
with juices and saps
like the fingers of thieves
nation after nation of grasses
that dig in, that burrow, that hug winds
and grab handholds 
in whatever lean place.
It’s been a good day.

The Moment
by Marie Howe 

Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment

when,   nothing 

happens 

no what-have-I-to-do-today-list 


maybe   half a moment 

the rush of traffic stops. 

The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be 

slows to silence, 

the white cotton curtains hanging still.