We tend to live isolated worlds and the boundaries are often rigid rather than permeable. We come in contact with many and absorb something from each. Life is a relational experience whether the relationship is with our self, another person, another being, the Cosmos. It begins inside and emerges. It is blending of all into one that makes us human and allows us to be a part of the macrocosm. We only need to turn to those relationships. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote this beautiful poem about turning points and the need to look inward.
For there is a boundary to looking.
And the world that is looked at so deeply
wants to flourish in love.
Work of the eyes is done, now
go and do the heart-work
on all the images imprisoned in you; for you
overpowered them: but even now you don’t know them.
Learn inner man, to look on your inner woman,
the one attained from a thousand
natures, the merely attained but
not yet beloved form.
Teacher as Transformer 