Center for Action & Contemplation
June 27, 2021One of the goals that is emphasized in our culture is finding answers—solving problems, answering questions, removing doubt. We want to know who, what, when, where, and why—and we want to know now. When we listen, we are trained to listen for the answers. . . .
Reflective listening distinguishes a response from an answer. It is a practice to get to know your inner voice, and it takes time and patience.
“Not knowing what to do is the work for you now.” -Francesca
“Live the questions now. Perhaps you then may gradually, without noticing, one day in the future live into the answers.” -Rilke
[Image by Lily Qian, © All Rights Reserved.]
Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
‘What a world you’ve got inside you.’
A new translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet has been released in a world in which his voice and vision feel as resonant as ever before. In ten letters to a young person in 1903, Rilke touched on the enduring dramas of creating our lives — prophetic musings about solitude and relationship, humanity and the natural world, even gender and human wholeness. And what a joy it is to delve into Rilke’s voice, freshly rendered, with the translators. Krista, Anita and Joanna have communed with Rainer Maria Rilke across time and space and their conversation is infused with friendship as much as ideas.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland
“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”
-Ruth H. Hopkins