Rainer Maria Rilke

Be patient towards all that’s unsolved in your heart
And learn to love the questions themselves.
Like locked rooms
And like books that are written in a foreign tongue.

Do not seek the answers that cannot be given to you,
Because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything.

Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it.
Live along some distant day into the answers.

[Added at the recommendation of Solange Marcotte, 2024-25 Philadelphia Fellow]

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

[Added at the recommendation of Susan Robinson, 2024-25 Philadelphia Fellow]

adrienne maree brown

my intentions are good

but the earth is on fire

and parts of me are running away

from the smoke billow

the way my skin looks burning

i am of a collective dying

praying for rebirth

i say yes to each task

but the stovetop sea boils

– do you hear the whales singing panic

as the ocean rages into new storm

the balance tilts into chaos?

all the normalcy agitates me

my pretense is broken

i set reasonable goals

as the news missiles towards me

nonsensical, hyperbolic, overwhelming

forever monday morning

amongst a people ignoring red flags

addicted to self-destruction

with a smile and a handshake

i set out, valiant

today will be a good day!

but the end of human history

is strewn in the road

and i tremor existential again

feeling so small, so tired

were we ever miraculous?

i get quiet

i listen for the labor of transition

here you are, here we are

we are not alone

we are the million doulas of awakening

spirit deep in this era

of delusion

we remember that grief is love

that our calling is not production but intervention

not performance, but deepest presence

and every birth is a ritual of precipice

so we bear down, and we wail

and once more

we push

Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still for once on the face of the earth, let’s not speak in any language; let’s stop for a second, and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.

Antonio Machado

Traveler, there is no path.

The path is made by walking.

Traveler, the path is your tracks

And nothing more.

Traveler there is no path

The path is made by walking

By walking you make a path

And turning, you look back

At a way you will never tread again

Traveler, there is no road

Only wakes in the sea.

Virginia Woolf

I need solitude. I need space. I need air. I need the empty fields round me; and my legs pounding along the roads; and sleep; and animal existence.

Isaac Penington

O my Friend, mind this precious Truth inwardly, this precious grace inwardly, the precious life inwardly, the precious light inwardly, the precious power inwardly, the inward word of life, the inward voice of the Shepherd in the heart, the inward seed, the inward salt, the inward leaven, the inward pearl, &c. whereby Christ effects this. Distinguish between words without concerning the thing, and the thing itself within; and wait and labor then then to know, understand, and be guided by, the motives, leadings, drawings, teachings, quickenings, &c. of the thing itself within.

James Nayler

There is a spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thoughts to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it, nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.

Stuffy Shufflebum

Anonymous