An Ode to Rilke this week…
As I have been spending so much time in my own subconscious I have not been consuming too much content, other than re-reading some beautiful passages from Rainer Maria Rilke whose writing my soul came in adoring.
Here are two beautiful passages for you…
“…someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being.
This advance (at first very much against the will of the outdistanced men) will transform the love experience, which is now filled with error, will change it from the ground up, and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be between one human being and another, no longer one that flows from man to woman. And this more human love (which will fulfill itself with infinite consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and releasing) will resemble what we are now preparing painfully and with great struggle: the love that consists in this: that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.”
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“It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation…. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for a long time ahead and far on into life, is: solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances.”
and One More Thing
Pisces Season – 19 February to 20 March
Mercury Retrograde through Pisces + Aquarius – 16 February to 9 March
We are swimming in deep deep waters right now. Nearly to the point of drowning at times. Pisces sensitizes us without regard for boundaries, seeping into those deepest recesses that we otherwise cannot or will not go into.
It asks that we bring our empathy to the fore, not only for ourselves but for those around us and for the collective. For those who already feel life deeply, we are ever more aware of that which isn’t ‘ours’, although remembering that being part of the collective it is all ours anyway. If you can be kinder, more compassionate, gentler and more considerate then do so. Pisces seeks emotional availability, vulnerability, attuned to the suffering of others and asks that we heal through connection.
It is a beautifully creative and dreamy time, perhaps not a season to hold on to all of these ideas though. Letting them come in and flow out, knowing that those which are meant to stay will come back around.
The lesson – do not try to hold on to that which must slip through.
With Mercury retrograding there is an emphasis on the “re..”. There is so much rebirthing happening in the collective, ego deaths happening in every moment, be gentle with yourself and those around you. Re-imagining, re-remembering, re-wilding…there is so much ground to cover. Don’t expect everything to filter through with clarity, partial messages abound, there is no need to hook into everything.
For me lessons have been coming and dissolving so quickly and mysteriously I have barely been able to keep up. Flashing images that pass momentarily lifting old patterns quickly to be replaced with something else to be cleared. Old things, new things, redoing so much work I believed I had “completed”, but there is always more. I frequently forget and then there is always more, a new way of looking at the same story, a new lens through which to see the now. And I have to laugh. We have to enjoy this neverending spiraling process, or else why do we do it?
Pisces is in my 5th house on my birth chart highlighting what brings me pleasure, how I am relating to my creative energy, and sexual energy, among other things. If you are curious to dive deeper, take a look at what house Pisces is in your chart and see how it could relate to themes in your life right now.
And that’s not all…watch out for the New Moon in Pisces coming on Sunday and take time for reflection and planting seeds. Set intentions without expectation and don’t be surprised if clarity is not forthcoming for another couple of weeks.