We have no reason to mistrust
our world, for it is not against us.
Has it terrors, they are our terrors;
has it abysses, those abysses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them.
And if only we arrange our life
according to that principle
which counsels us that we must
always hold to the difficult,
then that which now still seems
to us the most alien
will become what we most
trust and find most faithful.
How should we be able to forget
those ancient myths
that are at the beginning of all peoples,
the myths about dragons
that at the last moment turn into princesses;
perhaps all the dragons of our lives
are princesses who are only waiting
to see us once beautiful and brave.
Perhaps everything terrible
is in its deepest being something
helpless that wants help from us.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
