The Bird

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“The bird is a creature that has a very special feeling of trust in the

external world, as if she knew that she is one with its deepest mystery.

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That is why she sings in it as if she were singing within her own depths;

                                    that is why we so easily receive a birdcall

 into our own depths; we seem to be
                                           translating it without residue into our emotion;

             indeed, it can for a moment
                                                

    turn the whole world into inner space,

               because we feel that the bird does not
                                                     

   distinguish between her heart and the world’s.”
                                     

  -Rainer Maria Rilke
   Letter to Lou Andreas-Salome
   February 20, 1914

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