Heart-Work and the Art of Loving: Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Sonnets to Orpheus”

Led by Prof Mark Burrows

Saturday 1 June

10.30 - 4.00 pm

Cost £30 Concessions £20

Please bring a packed lunch.  Coffee and tea provided

These sonnets by the poet Rilke stand as one of the masterpieces of German poetry. Written near the end of his life in a brief period of intense creativity, the poems invite us to open our lives to the depths and to find new courage to indwell the world with creative passion. Our exploration of these poems will invite us to answer the poet’s call to “do the heart-work” with the memories and experiences of our lives, since—as he suggests—“the world, the more we observe it, wants to flourish in love.” As do we! The question is, how? This meditative day will engage this question, offering participants a chance to engage these remarkable poems slowly, and engage them in the depths. We will use a new translation of these poems by the retreat leader.

Mark S. Burrows is a frequent presenter at the Meditatio Centre and is well known internationally as a retreat leader and speaker. He is Professor of Religion and Literature at the University of Applied Sciences in Bochum (Germany). His academic work explores the mystical literature of Christianity with a special interest in the intersection of mysticism and poetics. He edits poetry for the journal Spiritus and Arts. His publications include: Rainer Maria Rilke’s Prayers of a Young Poet (Paraclete Press, 2016), SAID’s 99 Psalms (2013), Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul in collaboration with Jon Sweeney (Hamden House, 2017) and most recently a collection of his poems, The Chance of Home (2018). www.msburrows.com

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