Breathe, Question, Change (a Monday Moving Meditation reflection) December 4, 2023
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Art, Baha'i, Books, Changing Perspectives, Depression, Healing Stories, Hope, Life, Loss, Meditation, One Hoop, Pain, Philosophy, Poetry, Religion, Suffering, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.Tags: 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, Franz Xaver Kappus, Joanna Macy, Masáʼil, Questions, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Temple, Walt Whitman
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May you be safe and protected / May you be peaceful and happy (and curious), during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence (November 25th – December 10th) and on all the other days of your life.
This is just a reflection related to Monday, December 4th. There is no recording for 2023; however, you can request an audio recording of a related practice (as listed below) via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.
Check out the “Class Schedules” calendar for upcoming classes.
“Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable. But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge. You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
— quoted from Letter #4 (dated July 16, 1903) addressed to 19-year old officer cadet Franz Xaver Kappus, published in Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Look back over the years (or check out the links indexed below) and you will see that I often reference and quote Rainer Maria Rilke, who was born today in 1875. I am particularly fond of the aforementioned advice the poet gave the 19-year old officer cadet Franz Xaver Kappus in the fourth letter, dated July 16, 1903. I go back to them again and again, in every season of every year of my life (to paraphrase Walt Whitman); because, I think it is great advice for everyone: “Live the questions….”
Of course, to live the questions requires us to breathe (into) the questions and notice what happens.
“To breathe! Oh poem we cannot see!
Pure space exchanged continually
For one’s own being. Counterpoise,
In which I come to be, a rhythm.”
— quoted from Sonnets to Orpheus, II.1 by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Robert Temple)
Just as there is something divine (universal and sacred) about the breath, there is something divine about questions. I am not sure we can be alive and not have questions. Additionally, in the Bahá’í Faith, each month is named after a virtue or attribute of God. One of the months is Masáʼil, which means “questions,” and it begins at sunset exactly a week after Rilke’s birthday. How serendipitous! So, I think this is the perfect time to ask ourselves questions; to live those questions; to breathe those questions; and to change with those questions.
That, as it turns out, is also good advice from Rilke. It is advice we can take on and off the mat.
“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 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.”
— quoted from Sonnets to Orpheus, II.12 by Rainer Maria Rilke
If you are interested in previous posts (and practices) related to Rainer Maria Rilke, check out the following:
- The very first “First Friday Night Special” was a little “Bedtime Yoga” in 2020.
- The 2021 vinyasa practice coincided with Chanukah… and was part of a series of questions.
- Click here if you are looking for the 2022 vinyasa playlist for this practice.
- This 2018 Kiss My Asana offering was inspired by Rilke’s poetry about breathing (and dealing with life’s challenges, including unexpected grief).
- This 2016 Kiss My Asana offering was the answer to a question (about questions).
A Joyful Practice 