Rilke’s writings have had a shaping influence on readers over the century since his death in 1926. Already a bestselling poet and writer during his lifetime, his influence has grown exponentially over the century since his death. Many readers will remember the epiphanies they experienced when they read his Letters to a Young Poet in which he famously advised us not to seek answers but rather dare to “live the questions.” His poems—from his early Book of Hours (1905) to his last two collections, The Sonnets to Orpheus and The Duino Elegies (1923)—do just this: they invite us to live courageously and faithfully into what he described as “the Open”; to embrace the mysteries that are always close at hand; and to accept the “here-and-once-ness” of our life as an invitation to live abundantly.

Dates and Details
Friday, March 20 – Saturday, March 22, 2026
This retreat begins on Friday at 6:30pm and ends on Sunday at 4:00pm

Facilitator
Rev. Mark S. Burrows, Ph.D., is much sought-after as a retreat leader and speaker on spirituality and mysticism, poetry and the arts. In 2021, he founded and continues to lead a popular online program, “the Julian Circle,” that encourages participants to live into the wholistic wisdom of Julian’s “showings.” A teacher, scholar and award-winning poet and translator of German poetry, his recent books include Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light and You Are the Future: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke (2024). A member of the Iona Community, he lives and writes in Camden, ME. Visit his website at www.soul-in-sight.org.