August 7 - Fearful of the New
The tendency of people to be fearful of those experiences they call apparitions or assign to the "spirit world", including death, has done infinite harm to life. All these things so naturally related to us have been driven away through our daily resistance to them, to the point where our capacity to sense them has atrophied. To say nothing of God. Fear of the unexplainable has not only impoverished our inner lives, but also diminished relations between people; these have been dragged, so to speak, from the river of infinite possibilities and stuck on the dry bank where nothing happens. For it is not only sluggishness that makes human relations so unspeakably monotonous, it is the aversion to any new, unforeseen experience we are not sure we can handle.
Borgeby gärd, Sweden, August 12, 1904
Letters to a Young Poet
July 11 - Transforming Dragons
We have no reason to distrust our world, for it is not against us. If it
has terrors, they are our terrors. If it has an abyss, it is ours. If
dangers are there, we must try to love them. And if we would live with
faith in the value of what is challenging, then what now appears to us
as most alien will become our truest, most trustworthy friend. Let us
not forget the ancient myths at the outset of humanity's journey, the
myths about dragons that at the last moment transform into princesses.
Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting
to see us act just once with beauty and courage. Perhaps every terror
is, in its deepest essence, something that needs our recognition or
help.
Borgeby gärd, Sweden, August 12, 1904
Letters to a Young Poet
July 26 - No Worthless Place
If your daily life seems of no account, don't blame it; blame yourself
that you are not poet enough to call forth its treasures. For the
creative artist there is no impoverishment and no worthless place.
Paris, February 17, 1903
Letters to a Young Poet
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment