zoofence.com

I really love this one, hope the translation is not too coarse.

---
Stiller Freund der vielen Fernen, fühle,
wie dein Atem noch den Raum vermehrt.
Im Gebälk der finstern Glockenstühle
laß dich läuten. Das, was an dir zehrt,

wird ein Starkes über dieser Nahrung.
Geh in der Verwandlung aus und ein.
Was ist deine leidendste Erfahrung?
Ist dir Trinken bitter, werde Wein.

Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermaß
Zauberkraft am Kreuzweg deiner Sinne,
ihrer seltsamen Begegnung Sinn.

Und wenn dich das Irdische vergaß,
zu der stillen Erde sag: Ich rinne.
Zu dem raschen Wasser sprich: Ich bin.

---

Quiet friend of many a remoteness, feel
how your breath is still augmenting space.
In the woodwork of dark belfrys
let yourself be rung. What gnaws at you

will turn strong on such a nutriment.
Freely cross the lines of transformation.
What makes you suffering the most?
If your drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

Be within this night out of abundance
charming power at the crossroad of your senses,
convey a meaning to their strange encounter.

And once the earthly loses sight of you,
say to the quiet earth: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I am.

---

(Thanks to Ingrid Haselberger for giving me a start on the translation.)

And once the earthly loses sight of you,
say to the quiet earth: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I am.

Good stuff.

As it happens, the past several days I have had occasion to think about physical death and its meaning, if any.

This morning, I posted some of my musing on this subject at TZF's page The Gazebo. Here is the text of it.

The more I think about it, the more apparent it becomes to me that physical death changes nothing. We "wake up" on the "other side", and continue living much as we are now. Death is not the way out of the separate and separative environment defined by the egoic perspective "I am me, and you aren't me".

The world each of us perceives ourselves to be living in is a projection. We project outwardly what we are inwardly, and we perceive that projection as "the world" and as "my life". The inner and the outer are one and the same thing.

It is the mind that is doing the projecting. If (admittedly, a big if) the mind continues to exist at the death of the body, and I am increasingly convinced that it does, then presumably the projection continues as well. Which means what? After death, we "wake up" to find ourselves still living because we are still projecting on the outer what we are on the inner.

Presumably the death of the body will generate some inner differences and alterations, and those will be reflected in our projection. Thus, the "after life" will seem different; but it will only be different because we are different to the extent that the "loss" of the body has generated a difference within us. In other words, our inner differences will be reflected in the "new" outer projection. But it will still be much the same as it is now.

The spiritual process is about Self-Realization. That has nothing to do with physical death.

Physical death (death of the body) is irrelevant. It changes nothing. We live our lives in worlds that reflect ourselves, and that fact continues to be true as long as we perceive outselves to be selves ("I am me, not you").

Mind, this is about life not Life. Life with a captial L is eternal. No beginning, no end, no interruption.

Think of Life as a spectrum. At one extreme is profound ignorance. Here, there is no understanding whatsoever of the nature of reality, of what life is about, and there is no interest in discovering any such understanding. Everyone and everything is perceived to be separate and separative: "I am me, and you aren't me", "what is mine is mine and not yours"; and that is perceived to be just fine, to the extent it is perceived at all … that is, to the extent that we are even the least bit introspective, even aware of being alive. This is, let's say, the primeval position. At the other extreme is Self-Realization, Total Awareness, Christ Consciousness: no trace of separate and separative self exists. All is One. This is undifferentiated, spontaneous Union. Here the spectrum itself dissolves and disappears.

The spectrum passes through a variety of, let's call them, conditions or positions. Among these are the living bodily state each of us refers to as "my life" or "being alive" and the death state; that is, what we consider to be the opposite of being alive.

These conditions or positions have no impact on Life itself, which always is what it is. The only impact these conditions or positions have is on our understanding or awareness of them and of ourselves and therefore ultimately of Life itself. All of these conditions or positions offer us opportunities to discover who and what we are. We are free to accept these opportunities or to ignore them. Which way we choose makes no difference to Life. Life always is what it always is.

Life passes through these conditions or positions, or passes along this spectrum, like water through a sieve or through a series of sieves. The sieves may be of different color, different texture, different shape, and these differences may seem to affect or alter the water, but in fact the water is unchanged. The impact or effect is always only apparent, only an appearance. The water is never really altered or even affected in any meaningful way.

Ditto Life.

Reading your translation of von Rilke's lines this afternoon reminded me of my post this morning at The Gazebo.

a wise person once said to me that we die evry night and make a new world every monring. i didn't get it at first but then later i did.

This poem is the last of Rilke's "Sonets to Orpheus".

Orpheus, the singer, crossing the line to the land of the dead and coming back.
But the last poem is not directed to Orpheus - it is directed to the listener
but adressing him as going through the same metamorphosis,
losing himself to gain everything - but not for a "me" anymore.

This is like leaving an infinitely open space where all the words that have been said come to an end.
Whether it is about death or transcendence, I could'nt say
(and what's beyond I don't care thinking about, with "me" starting to get lost in that space).


The opening poem of the second series of sonets is reciting the experience of breathing very literally.
And in the infinite, breathing is creating the space for the words to follow.
This is like a meditation:


Atmen, du unsichtbares Gedicht !
Immerfort um das eigne
Sein rein eingetauschter Weltraum. Gegengewicht,
in dem ich mich rhythmisch ereigne.

Einzige Welle, deren
allmähliches Meer ich bin ;
sparsamstes du von allen möglichen Meeren, -
Raumgewinn.

Wieviele von diesen Stellen der Räume waren schon
innen in mir. Manche Winde
sind wie mein Sohn.

Erkennst du mich, Luft, du, voll noch einst meiniger Orte ?
Du, einmal glatte Rinde,
Rundung und Blatt meiner Worte.



Breathing, you invisible poem!
Space, always in exchange with my own being,
Counterweight,
In which rhythmically I'm happening.

Single wave, slowly creating
the sea which I am;
you most frugal of all possible seas -
space expanding.

How many of these locations in spaces
have already been within me.
Some winds are like my son.

Do you recognise me, air, still filled with places
once being mine?
You, having been the smooth bark,
the round and the leaf of my words.

Re-reading these posts today, the line "If your drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine" jumped out at me.

With your permission I hope, I am going to post it tomorrow (Sunday the 19th) as this week's Here A Thought. I say "with your permission" because, unable to translate German into English myself, I will use your translation of the line. I will include the German, too. I will also link it to this thread at Open Forum.

Please, feel free to quote anything from these translations.

With the help of Yahoo! Babel Fish, I say, vielen Dank!