And yet, though we strain
against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery:

All life is being lived.

Who is living it then?
Is it the things themselves,
or something waiting inside them,
like an unplayed melody in a flute?

Is it the winds blowing over the waters?
Is it the branches that signal to each other?

Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances
or streets, as they wind through time?
Is it the animals, warmly moving,
Or the birds, that suddenly rise up?

Who lives it, then? God, are you the one
who is living life?
~Rainer Maria Rilke

(Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)


All I can say today is this: there is a great longing within today. So I speak it, and bless it, and carry it quietly with me into busyness.