Imaginal Journal
Imagination is Medicine
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower by Rainer Maria Rilke
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
“Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower” by Rainer Maria Rilke from Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29.
Translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows.
I’m Darker Than My Daughter. Here’s Why It Matters.
Norma Newton and her daughter at their home in Los Angeles. Photo Credit: Carolina Adame
Powerful reflections on colorism from a mother.
Via: New York Times
Small Truths and Other Surprises with Jericho Brown | ON BEING
Image by DEEN, © All Rights Reserved.
“The poet Jericho Brown reminds us to bear witness to the complexity of the human experience, to interrogate the proximity of violence to love, and to look and listen closer so that we might uncover the small truths and surprises in life. His presence is irreverent and magnetic, as the high school students who joined us for this conversation experienced firsthand at the 2018 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. And now he’s won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Editor’s note: This interview discusses sexual violence and rape.”
Via: ON BEING
Out of Time by Damon Albarn with the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians
Nothing like the balm of music for the tender soul as we approach a year of Coronavirus lockdown.
Lyrics:
Where's the love song to set us free
Too many people down
Everything turning the wrong way round
And I don't know what love will be
But if we stop dreaming now
Lord know we'll never clear the clouds
And you've been so busy lately
That you haven't found the time to open up your mind
And watch the world spinning gently out of time
Feel the sunshine on your face
It's in a computer now
Gone are the future way out in space
And you've been so busy lately
That you haven't found the time to open up your mind
And watch the world spinning gently out of time
And you've been so busy lately
That you haven't found the time, to open up your mind
And watch the world spinning gently out of time
Tell me I'm not dreaming but are we out of time
We're out of time, out of time, out of time
Out of time, out of time