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Visual Meditation: “Pour yourself out like a fountain”

 

 

 

Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming
a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, from In Praise of Mortality

(photos taken of a fountain at the retreat center where I was last weekend)

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

** Visit this week’s Poetry Party **

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3 Responses

  1. these photos are very very beautiful! my favorite lines from the poem are “Be inspired by the flame” and “dares you to become the wind”. thank you for the water meditations.

  3. Liquid silver, precious mercury
    escaping from an unknown source

    The cupids giggle, seek shelter –
    Untouched, protected from the tempting shower

    ‘Til the liquid show becomes too much
    They venture to touch and are frozen in time

    Your photos often seem to bring out the VERY hidden poet in me:) Thank you for the visual meditation – lovely.