LONGEST NIGHT

The longest night of the year is a personal holy day for me.

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On this longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, I am reading the Duino Elegies of Rainer Maria Rilke. I have multiple translations of these poems in my home library, but have recently added a translation by William H. Gass (included in Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation) which I rather enjoy and checked out another translation by Edward Snow from the library. I think the latter translation is probably my favorite I've encountered. I may have to get hold of a copy for my own library.

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"Every angel is terrifying."
—from "The First Elegy" by Rainer Maria Rilke, as translated by Edward Snow

"Every Angel is awesome."
—from "The First Elegy" by Rainer Maria Rilke, as translated by Edward Snow

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"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, 'Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.' But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.'"
—Luke 1:26-30

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I'm trying to imagine what this angel, Gabriel, actually represents. What Gabriel looks like. Why these beings, different than we humans, would cause terror—enough that they would have to tell the person they are visiting to not be afraid.

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Or perhaps the terror comes in the encounter with the divine and the darkness.

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Paul Klee imagines what an angel looks like in his Angelus Novus (New Angel).

Walter Benjamin, owning Klee's painting, imagines what the angel of history looks like.

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"A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth hangs open, his wings are spread. This is how the angel of history must look. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage

hurling it before his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."

—from "Theses on the Philosophy of History" by Walter Benjamin, as translated by Steve Naragon

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Are there many annunciations? How many have we missed? Do we miss them as we tremble in our fear?

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William Blake imagines "The Angel of Revelation." His face shines like the sun, his voice is as though the roaring of a lion, and his legs are like pillars of fire. (As per John of Patmos in Revelation 10.)

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Terror. Awe. Other.