The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation
By: Rainer Maria Rilke / Translated By: Ulrich Baer / Narrated By: Rosanne Cash, Ulrich Baer
Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
Exquisite translation of words so beautiful they make you sing even as you hold sorrow ever closer before letting it go
The Dark Interval, the time in between birth and death, and we exist solely in between two of God’s breaths, is such a glorious book with such beautiful words of comfort. They are a compilation of letters Rainer Maria Rilke wrote friends and loved ones to offer solace as said individuals coped with the loss of dearly loved friends and family. Don’t look for words of consolation here, however, as Rilke strongly condemns such consolations to be detrimental to mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Why make yourself feel passive when life and death and pain and joy are to be actively embraced?
Rather, his words, oh such poetry to be had in mere prose! offer ways for a person to reframe life experience, sorrow, regret, and anger, and change them into cosmic bliss. I tell you, I was holding onto my current sorrow, even believing as I do that my loves remain around me, when I got to the part where he rejoices to find that the passed individual, no longer on this earth, is within himself, surrounding his heart with stars. I could feeeel that! I felt a Universe open inside myself, and there was my Miss, warm, loving, gone on but pure bliss as she exists now for herself, as she exists now for me.
And there’s a snippet where he offers that after someone dies, perhaps it would be good to stop being the taker and to use all that love, share it amongst others. We’d been loved so well, for so long; time to be the person who steps forth and loves wholeheartedly another (Or others!) who could use it and who would cherish it and grow. You ever feel crippled by the emptiness someone leaves behind? Fill it, and fill it quickly. You’re not replacing that person, and you certainly aren’t even doing a mind trick, trying to fool yourself that the loss didn’t hurt; you’re simply giving back some of the love into the Universe and all its creatures.
Ulrich Baer does a masterful job with the translation. I first read one of Rilke’s works, and I was left scratching my head, wondering why everyone was so moved. Then I gave a different translation a shot and was clubbed over the head by the Cosmic Two-by-Four: All is love; and language and art are distillations of pure essence, capable of inspiring, capable of healing. Baer takes a language not my own and captures Rilke’s pure essence, translating divine art into words that comfort, words that heal, turning the greatest sorrow into a dance of joy, and it leaves you singing, dancing, even as tears choke you.
Don’t think of The Dark Interval as something about only sorrow, though he does tutor some people in acts they can perform when they’re Grieving (He tells one person who’s been crippled by pain and regret to get into the closet and touch her brother’s things, to remember he was THERE, to get in touch where he is now… right by her, within her even). Think of the book as a guide to seize life, all life, to exist in all planes of time and space. Where Ram Dass speaks of being here only in the Now, Rilke joyfully advises us to be everywhere, all over the place. Seize it; embrace it all.
I have one itty bitty minor gripe, and that’s about the narration. Putting a date on myself, I’ll say that I was in my formative years when narrator Rosanne Cash’s song “Seven Year Ache” came out, and heaven help me if her tones, the smooth way she spoke and blended one sentence/concept into another, made me just wanna burst into song. It was like it was 1981 all over again, and I was caught with that song stuck in my head after hearing it on “American Top 40” or something. Other than that, and other than the idea that it really would’ve been nicer to have a male narrator perform a male poet’s words (Simon Prebble, anyone?), I guess I can settle down and say that she did a fine job with the performance. I just had that itty bitty pebble in my shoe the whole time.
I dunno; maybe you’re not ready for this book. But look within yourself, and see whether you feel as though your beloved departed might want you to start remembering what joy feels like, might want you to start sharing all that love they gave you that you’re holding onto so tightly. If the answer is Yes to either of those, give this audiobook a good and willing listen.
Drop dead gorgeous, and maybe you’ll find yourself looking at the moon and stars, the flowers that dot your surroundings with a smile playing on your lips the whole time.
Isn’t it about time?
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.