A work-in-progress. My title page for my Book of Hours:
My first entry: 
I picked up Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God as I was preparing for this next phase of my 100 scribbles. Creating my own Book of Hours led me to it. These poems are a beautiful conversation with the divine.
There are many poems that lift me up but I wanted to make sure the above poem was included in my Book of Hours.
I feel it now: there’s a power in me
To grasp and give shape to my world.
There are a couple of toddlers here at the cottage this week and I love watching them explore the world. With their little pudgy hands, they hold objects so tightly. They walk as if in a drunken stupor, stopping here and there to investigate the world around them at their level. These Rilke lines are so fitting for them. They are new to this power.
And so am I.
My world is a well-used ball of clay, broken in and malleable. It feels as though it has been reshaped many times over the course of my life. I was not always the sculptor. I have foolishly yielded this responsibility to external events, other people, past experiences; always ready to blame or make excuses for the finished product.
As I loosen my psychological and emotional grasp on things out of my control, the more I grasp what is essential.
I think of my grandparents. After seeing them recently, it’s as if they are loosening their grip to this world. They no longer have the ability to shape it. They are being shaped by it. They lose grasp of time. They lose control of their faculties. They are no longer active participants but witnesses, watching from a place where the day can no longer be seized on their own terms and where memories blend with fantasy.
I want this poem to be a reminder that this hour will come and go and that I will lose this power or forget that I have it. I will remember how life is sweeter when I actively participate, when I carve out my own time, chiselling away the excess.
I feel it now: there’s a power in me
To grasp and give shape to my world.
… to change, to choose and to become.
***
(And in case you are wondering about the supplies I am using for my Book of Hours…I am using beautiful little things from my friend Rowena at Paper Plus Cloth.)
100 scribbles…hurriedly writing the here and now.
#100scribbles
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