Today I share these beautiful words from poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), which reflect my feelings and experiences at this time of year.
I too embrace the liminal times, and this liminal time — the transition from Autumn Equinox to Winter Solstice that we call Samhain. It is the sunset of the year, and the turning of a new spiral in the ever moving wheel of the year. This is a cauldron time for me, a time of both reflection and looking forward.
I am embracing the two worlds around me, as — in Rilke’s worlds — one climbs toward heaven and one sinks to earth. I am releasing the stones that weigh me down and reaching for that climbing star, as I stand high and grow.
Sunset, by Rainer Maria Rilke
Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.
leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs–
leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star