Salka Wind Blog

Posts on the Andean Cosmovision

The Path of the Poet

On my journeys down the path of heart into the Andean Cosmovision my intellect cannot lead, it cannot even follow.  It can, however, let me go and it can welcome me back.

Prose cannot guide me, but at times poetry can be a window to that place that blossoms, and even give hints on how to journey there .  The poems of Rumi, in particular,  and I have quoted Rumi in this blog.  Recently a friend of mine suggested that I read Letters to a Young Poet, a collection of letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke, during the years 1903-1908, to a young poet with whom he was in correspondence.

“Here, where an immense country lies about me, over which the winds pass coming from the seas, here I feel that no human being anywhere can answer for you those questions and feelings that deep within them have a life of their own; for even the best err in words when they are meant to mean most delicate and almost inexpressible things. But I believe nevertheless that you will not have to remain without a solution if you will hold to objects that are similar to those from which my eyes now draw refreshment. If you will cling to Nature, to the simple in Nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance. You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”  Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. Translated by M. D. Herter Norton. Revised edition, 1954. W. W. Norton & Company. pp 34-35

The post The Creature and It’s Creations also address’s the poetical nature of the path of heart.  If you enjoyed this post you might enjoy it as well.

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3 Comments

  1. Beautiful words. And perfect for those Andean adventures of the heart. I will carry Rumi’s guidance as we arrive in Cusco tomorrow. Thanks, Oakley.

  2. Love it, waiki. Indeed, the mind does not go in those places.

  3. Beautiful. And true.
    “be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves “.

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