Apropos today's session in Pathways to Enlightenment, I just wanted to share a beautiful Swedish poem by Karin Boye. I am Norwegian, but our languages are close enough for easy mutual understanding. However, most of you will not understand Swedish, so I have taken the risk of translating it into English. Here it is:
Indeed it hurts, when buds are bursting.
Why else would spring hesitate?
Why would all our hot longings
be bound in the frozen bleakness of bitterness?
The bud lay cushioned all winter.
What is this news force tearing and searing?
Indeed it hurts, when buds are bursting,
hurts for what is growing, and what is resisting.
Indeed it hurts, when drops are falling.
Trembling with fear they hang heavily,
clinging to the twig, swelling, gliding,
gravity pulls them downwards, no matter how they clutch.
hard to be uncertain, fearful, and divided
hard to feel the abyss pulling and calling,
yet sitting there, just shivering.
hard to want to stay, and want to fall.
Then, when it is worst and nothing helps,
the buds of the tree jubilantly burst
Then, when fear can no longer hold back,
the drops fall glitteringly off the twig,
forgetting that they feared the new,
forgetting that they were frightened of the journey,
feeling for one second their greatest safety,
resting in the trust that creates the world.
Now, that last line, a beautiful picture, no? Except my heart tells me it is not a metaphor, it is the literal truth, no less. This whole vast universe is in fact created by and through trust and love!
My trust and love to you all!
Thor
