December 14, 2011

Echoing the Ocean's Vastness

View of the Sea from Villerville

The silence must be immense where you are living right now, immense enough to allow such tumult of sound and motion. And if you think that in the ocean's vastness there exists not only the present moment but reverberations of primordial harmonies, then you can be patient and trust the great and indelible solitude at work in you. This will be a nameless influence in all that lies ahead for you to experience and accomplish, rather as if the blood of our ancestors moves in us and combines with ours in the unique, unrepeatable being that at every turn of our life we are.

Paris, December 26, 1908
Letter to a Young Poet

4 comments:

  1. "...as if the blood of our ancestors moves in us..." is almost literally a true statement in the context of only the mothers in our maternal ancestral path.

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  2. that didn't come out right, it's true for all of us. We were all born with a mix of our mother's life giving blood and our mother with her mothers' and so on.

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  3. Almost everyday, I find something in Rilke that deeply resonates with me. Today, the relevant words are : " . . . be patient and trust the great and indelible solitude at work in you."

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  4. It seemed so clear. Almost like a conversation. The part with "indelible solitude' hit me too. Kind of like sweet wilderness.

    So cool about Caillebotte. I thought a lot of the Impressonists shunned photography. It seems he actually took some of the camera's ability and applied it to his paintings.

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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!