Everything terrible is something that needs our love.
Interpretation
Embracing pain and hardship with compassion can transform our experience and those around us.
Rainer Maria Rilke's quote suggests that even the most difficult and unfortunate aspects of life are in need of our love and attention. By acknowledging and embracing these challenges, we can cultivate a deeper sense of empathy, understanding, and connection to the world, ultimately fostering healing and transformation in ourselves and in others.
In practice
To comfort a friend who is going through a tough time, I shared Rainer Maria Rilke's wisdom on loving our challenges.
Spring has again returned. _x000D_ _x000D_ The Earth is like a child that knows many poems._x000D_ _x000D_ Many, O so many. For the hardship_x000D_ _x000D_ of such long learning she receives the prize._x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ Strict was her teacher. _x000D_ _x000D_ The white in the old man's beard pleases us._x000D_ _x000D_ Now, what to call green, to call blue,_x000D_ _x000D_ we dare to ask: She knows, She knows!
Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.
a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude
He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there's another dog.
The only journey is the one within.
And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there; From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear. The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with metry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night; The shaking of its leafy head Has given the waves their melody, And made my lips and music wed, Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
Looking at them now, thought Jim, you'd never believe they weren't in love with each other, and not with a hopeless, doomed obsession like poor Isabel Meredith. This was what love ought to be like: playful and passionate and teasing, and dangerous, too, with sharp intelligence in it.
And may my bronze name / touch always her thousand fingers / grow brighter with her weeping / until I am fixed like a galaxy / and memorized / in her secret and fragile skies.
Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking_x000D_ Can't we give ourselves one more chance_x000D_ Why can't we give love that one more chance_x000D_ Why can't we give love_x000D_ Cause love's such an old fashioned word_x000D_ and love dares you to care for_x000D_ The people on the edge of the night_x000D_ And love dares you to change our way of_x000D_ Caring about ourselves_x000D_ This is our last dance_x000D_ This is our last dance_x000D_ This is ourselves_x000D_ Under pressure
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
My love for the child asleep in the crib, the child's need for me, for my vigilance, had made my life valuable in a way that even the most abundantly offered love, my parents', my brother's, even Tom's, had failed to do. Love was required of me now--to be given, not merely to be sought and returned.
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