Birthdays...

The Swan
This laboring through what is still undone,
as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,
is like the awkward walking of the swan.

And dying-to let go, no longer feel
the solid ground we stand on every day-
is like anxious letting himself fall

into waters, which receive him gently
and which, as though with reverence and joy,
draw back past him in streams on either side;
while, infinitely silent and aware,
in his full majesty and ever more
indifferent, he condescends to glide.
                                                Rainer Maria Rilke

This year as I celebrate my birthday I am grateful to have discovered the ability to let go. Although I so often feel I am hobbling along, I also know the majesty of letting go into the stream of life.

Rilke, with a magnificent gift of words, describes the swan in a way I can so easily picture myself. I look forward to this next year with joy and reverence, with awe and wonder, with contentment and compassion.