This day-retreat invites participants into the poetic vision of Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most cherished spiritual writers of our time. During our day together, we will explore poems included in one of his last works, The Sonnets to Orpheus (1922). Rilke coined the word “heart-work” during this period in order to speak of the heart’s transformative power in shaping the deep ground of our life. He understood his vocation, as a poet, as that of a spiritual guide, and his poetry invites us to engage in a kind of “soul-work,” offering us a means of attending to the heart’s healing power.
The sessions of this retreat probe three dimensions of Rilke’s writings: “Beauty calling”; “Silence speaking”; and, “Ever singing.” We will be using Mark’s recently completed (and yet unpublished) translation of these poems, recently described by another Rilke scholar as “breathtaking and inspired.” Our approach will invite a deep reading of a gathering of these poems, with the chance for conversation with each other in small groups. Each session begins with a meditative “overture,” drawing on music and images related to the poems.

Schedule:
Session 1: Beauty Calling
Session 2: Silence Speaking
Session 3: Ever singing

Bio:
Mark S. Burrows is much in demand as a retreat leader and lecturer in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States. A scholar of historical theology with a keen interest in the poetics of mystical texts, he is also a poet and award-winning translator of modern German literature. He currently divides his time between Bochum, Germany, where he teaches theology and literature at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences, and Camden, Maine. His recent publications include the first English translation of Rilke’s original version of The Book of Hours, published as Prayers of a Young Poet (Paraclete, 2016) and, more recently, a collection of his own poems, The Chance of Home (2018) as well as two collections, written with Jon M. Sweeney, of meditative poems inspired by the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart: Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul (2017) and Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets: Meditations on Letting Go and Finding True Freedom (2019). Widely acclaimed as an interpreter and translator of Rilke’s poetry, he is the recent recipient of the Witter Bynner Prize in Poetry and is a member of the “Bochumer Literaten,” a circle of professional writers in the Ruhr Region of Germany. www.msburrows.com