Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change...
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent Earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
~ from SONNETS TO ORPHEUS, Part Two, XXIX by Rainer Maria Rilke
Mystical wisdom derives from an ardent desire to abandon normal intellectual functions so that divine insight may enlighten this ardor and add to it another fire, much stronger, which lifts the burning soul towards an even deeper wisdom.
~ Hugh of Balma in LISTENING TO SILENCE, compiled by Robin B. Lockhart
