2. Tears
slowly, softly
3. The compassion of friends
Rilke, Teddy, Toni, Jonathan
4. Contemplation of the truth
I need do nothing.
5. Sleep and baths
slowly, softly
—Saint Thomas Aquinas
Just sit there right now
Don’t do a thing
Just rest.
For your separation from God,
From love,
Is the hardest work
In this
World.
Let me bring you trays of food
And something
That you like to
Drink.
You can use my soft words
As a cushion
For your
Head. —Hafiz
While you believe you are in a body, however, you can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of expression. You can make an empty shell, but you cannot express nothing at all. You can wait, delay, paralyze yourself, or reduce your creativity almost to nothing. But you cannot abolish it. You can destroy your medium of communication, but not your potential*. You did not create yourself.
*capable of development into actuality
— A Course in Miracles
Where each of us may find the sources of consolation when thus afflicted by a loss is a question of personal experience and fate. I hope that somewhere in the thicket of your sprawling pain you may come upon the small spring that has already cried all the tears before, and, indeed, for you in advance. For it is unthinkable that this ever possible, providential pain, which is so often aimed at and inflicted upon human beings, is inconsolable.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
