Let everything happen to you ...

Temma on Earth
Originally uploaded by t i m o
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~


This is one of the most moving pieces of poetry I have ever heard. It came around to me again through a podcast by Tara Brach. I listened to this tonight, as I plodded along the New Jersey Turnpike in bumper to bumper traffic. It was the opening to one of her dharma talks; this one, specifically about the title of the poem: "Let everything happen to you".

There are never coincidences, ever. What seemed like a random selection on my ipod was most definitely my Higher Power in his/her infinite wisdom at work on my behalf. And perhaps my willingness to want to listen to something thoughtful, rather than getting lost in a radio station.

The divinity of the timing of this piece, this podcast was the fact that my drive back home was about letting everything happen to me. Specifically, about allowing all of my feelings to rise and surface and even splash the windows. My plan for this weekend involved driving back from a Kabbalistic classmate gathering with my love, to spend the weekend together after our 6 weeks apart. The weather on her end of the northeast corridor did not permit this. She made a wise decision to be safe rather than an urgent choice to do only what she wanted. There was great healing in this for her. And for me.

I am making a note of my words above: "My plan for this weekend ..." Nothing, I am coming to learn, sometimes painfully so, is my plan. There is a plan for me, that is not of my doing. And to really know this, is to come to a deeper place of acceptance. What I am also learning is that, to come to a deeper place of acceptance, I really do need to let everything happen to me. My beauty and terror, as Rilke poignantly writes. Each feeling. Each thought. Every wave of transference. The poisoned ground of my history. There is both beauty and terror in all of these, if I allow them to really have room to be here. In my longing. In my missing. In my genuine desire to be in the physical presence of the woman I love. In my disappointment. In my sadness. In my gratitude. In my relief for her safety. In the joy of her listening and trusting her instincts. In my loss. In the unmet plans. In the ache around my heart. In the lump in my throat. In the meal not shared. In the candles not being lit.

Beauty and terror everywhere. This is exactly what the Kabbalistic terms oneg and nega represent. One cannot exist without the other; each needs the other to live. I need to experience both in order to feel the fullness of my life. In the past, terror would need to be cut out so that I only could experience beauty. Not to mention the fact that I feared that terror would annhilate me. The beauty for me, today, includes the allowance of the terror. It enables me to be in touch with my broken heartedness. My vulnerability. My tender, small self.

This weekend, G-d made other plans. I surrender. I accept this reality. And I trust that this is exactly where I am supposed to be.
Letting everything happen to me ...