‘Trust the difficult’, wrote Rainer Maria Rilke, beloved poet of the early 20^th century. Rilke survived the Spanish flu pandemic, we are surviving the Covid-19 pandemic. How? And what can the expressive arts contribute to our psychic wellbeing in a time of uncertainty, when nothing is the same as before?

As our rational mind comes to a dead end, the creative mind wakes up and has us imagine. We can tell stories, we can listen to myths. Like the one from the dragon who transformed into a princess. Through the arts we can change roles, change poetically the perspective. As Rilke puts it:

”Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us act,
just once, with beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that frightens us is,
in its deepest essence,
something helpless that wants our love.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet.