Tonight, Rilke

Wicker Weaving, "Lotus" by Chaa

I found this poem tonight for the first time. I felt it at once, but not in a way I could describe. So I closed the book and took to writing a blog entry filled with the ill-matched threads of my currently frayed emotions. But that was not something I wanted to send out into the world. Too much personal angst. Just because one needs to vomit doesn't mean others want to watch or smell it. (Unfortunately, sometimes friends get it anyway, when they least expect it.) So after that purge, I am coming back to the poem to see what is there for me. I have no idea where this is leading, or if it will have anything to do with my mood today.


She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gracefully
into a single cloth--
its she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, from Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God,
translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

First question, who is "she"? The feminine God? The Self? Soul? (I will use all these words to refer to the mystery in the poem, not because I think they mean the same thing, but because I don't want to pin "her" down.) I see her sorting through what has been lost, discarded, rejected from the psyche, making good use of each thread as she weaves a unified whole. Her weaving is like a meditative state that banishes the incessant fears and worries of the mind--the loudmouths of the hall. She then receives "you"--and who are you? Who are you to her?  Human to God? Ego to Self? Body/Mind to Soul?

"You are the partner of her loneliness".

Ah, this is the heart of it...even SHE feels lonely, and your presence does not erase that loneliness, though you share it with her. This reminds me of a statment of Rilke's from Letters on Love,  "I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other."  Is the poem saying that even God is lonely? (Yes, actually, he says that a lot...probably because he was very lonely.)

The last lines hold the key to something bigger though.

"With each disclosure you encompass more"--the human mind/ego/psyche is enlarged by witnessing her as she reveals herself. This we know, listening to the small, still voice within, the voice that is able to maintain composure and silence and softness when everything outside is filled with chaos and despair, does bring a greater sense of well being, a greater ability to encompass all with equanimity (or something approaching that...)  And, as the you in the poem grows, "she stretches beyond what limits her, to hold you"; so this is how God/Self/Soul grows and...dare I say...evolves? By being seen and heard by YOU...the small, 'insignificant' human self, willing to be a part of the conversation. 

Rilke makes this point at the end of another poem, "...inside human beings/is where God learns." ("The Winged Energy of Delight", trans. Bly). This is also a major tenet of Process Theologians, but I'll let others carry that thread.

Nice work! We've gotten to the essence of the poem, I think. At least one layer of it. The big question remains...what does this have to do with me? Today? Something in the book's preface pops up, written by one of the translators who is a Jungian psychotherapist (a woman after my own heart!). She talks about the core principle of "reciprocal individuation, which means that a deep and loving encounter generates development": the very act of meeting and witnessing another in an authentic way changes BOTH beings.

Depth therapists know that we are not "doing therapy" to people. If we are genuinely showing up with our whole selves,  "therapy" or healing happens between us and our clients--we both get to have a share of goodness, we both develop, we are both enlarged and stretched beyond what limits us. 

The witnessing of things and people, as a means of making them real, is a deeply spiritual concept and I feel it's great presence settling near me. This truth is what drives me.

It drives me as a healer, certainly. But it also drives me as one in need of healing: the need to be witnessed, to be mirrored, to be seen and heard is powerful and strong, and as ancient as my bones. (BTW--the first sentence and the second are all the same process. Yep, it works that way. We give what we need in order to get what we need.) It happens in any relationship when we have the courage to show up as ourselves and are met by someone with the capacity to take us in and hold us for awhile without trying to change, deny, suppress, or defend against what we lay before them. This is a very tall order for one human to another, but it is essential that we keep striving for it.

I feel like I'm missing a thread here and there, not able to tie it all in and up neatly. Perhaps you can help...