Give Me Your Hand

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, trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, Riverhead Books: 1996

In a week’s time it will be Solstice, winter in the northern hemisphere with the longest night, summer in the south, with the shortest. Dark and light, day and night, advancing and receding. Never final. May yours bring you hands to hold as you go to the limits of your longing.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.