If there is nothing you can share with other people, try to be close to Things, they will not abandon you; and the nights are still here and the winds that move through the trees and across many lands; everything in the world of Things and animals is still filled with happening, which you can take part in.
Interpretation
Find connection and solace in nature and the world around you when human relationships seem absent.
Rainer Maria Rilke’s quote emphasizes the importance of finding companionship and meaning in the natural world when one feels disconnected from other people. It suggests that the richness of life can be found in the presence of nature and animals, which offer a sense of belonging and participation in the ongoing events of existence, even during times of solitude and isolation.
In practice
During a nature retreat, one could share this quote to inspire a deeper appreciation for the environment.
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
Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.
I have no hostility to nature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons.
I would I were alive again To kiss the fingers of the rain, To drink into my eyes the shine Of every slanting silver line, To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze From drenched and dripping apple-trees. For soon the shower will be done, And then the broad face of the sun Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth Until the world with answering mirth Shakes joyously, and each round drop Rolls twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
I started following the news and seeing what was happening around the world with the polar ice caps melting and temperatures breaking records. I became concerned as an animal on this planet but also as a father.
The tropical rain forests are a telling example. Once cut down, they rarely recover. Rainfall drops, deserts spread, the climate warms.
Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me.
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