“Some passages change the circumstances of our lives. Others quietly change the person who is living them.”
The Passages began with a recognition that gradually took shape through my own experiences.
After years of writing through illness, grief, transplantation, recovery, and profound inner change, I became increasingly aware of how much of our lives unfolds beyond what others can see.
A diagnosis has a date. A death leaves an absence. A marriage, a separation, or a move marks a change in the circumstances of our lives.
We remember these events. We can often describe exactly when they happened.
The changes taking place within us are more difficult to locate.
There may be a day when we recognize that our understanding of life has changed. A period of waiting during which familiar certainties gradually give way. A quiet realization that the person we were before a particular experience is no longer entirely the person we are today.
These inner passages can unfold over months or years.
Some become clear only when we look back.
I began recognizing them in my own life, and increasingly in the experiences of people around me.
Through conversations, moments of silence, and the ordinary exchanges of daily life, I became attentive to what often remains beneath the words we speak.
A grief that has never been acknowledged.
A question someone has carried for years.
The exhaustion of rebuilding a life.
The changing relationship we have with ourselves.
The tenderness of continuing to love someone whose physical presence is gone.
Each experience carries its own history.
And each deserves to be approached with care.
When the Reflections Began
I had been writing about these experiences long before I gave them a collective name.
My books had grown from different seasons of my life. Through them, I explored faithfulness, grief, healing, and the gradual discovery of wholeness.
As I continued writing, new questions emerged.
I noticed how one reflection often opened another.
A thought about grief might lead toward identity. A question about healing might reveal something about forgiveness, belonging, or the relationship we have with our bodies.
A conversation could remain with me for days before I understood why it had touched me.
At other times, a sentence would arrive unexpectedly, carrying the beginning of something I wanted to explore.
I began gathering these reflections.
One at a time.
I allowed each to develop according to what it seemed to be asking of me.
This was the beginning of The Passages.
A Living Garden
I have come to think of these writings as a garden.
Each reflection begins as a seed.
Some grow quickly. Others remain beneath the surface for a long time.
There are questions I return to repeatedly, discovering another layer of understanding with each encounter.
There are also seeds that change direction while I am writing them.
What begins as a reflection on loss may gradually become an exploration of love. A meditation on silence may lead toward the ways we listen to one another.
I find something deeply meaningful in allowing the writing to develop this way.
The garden grows through attention.
I return to a reflection, read it again, listen to its rhythm, and notice what remains unfinished.
I stay with the words until something settles.
Until the Passage feels at peace.
Then I allow it to rest.
The next reflection will arrive in its own time.
Giving Gentle Names to Human Experience
Many of the experiences that shape us remain difficult to express.
We may feel that something within us has changed while struggling to explain what has happened.
Finding words can bring a quiet sense of recognition.
A person may encounter a reflection and discover language for something they have carried privately.
Another may read the same words and understand them through an entirely different experience.
I value this freedom.
The Passages offer reflections on grief, love, healing, spirituality, identity, silence, and the many transitions of human life.
Each one is an invitation to explore a particular experience with curiosity and compassion.
The reader brings their own history, understanding, and questions.
The meaning that emerges belongs to them.
The Freedom to Find Our Own Way
Our inner lives move according to rhythms that are deeply personal.
We may return to an experience we believed we had already understood. We may discover tenderness where there was once anger, or recognize a new question within an old memory.
Love and sorrow can accompany one another.
Healing may continue alongside grief.
A new beginning can carry both hope and uncertainty.
These experiences remind me of the richness and complexity of being human.
For this reason, each Passage stands on its own.
A reader may begin wherever a title, a question, or a reflection speaks to them.
They may return months later and discover something different.
I hope these writings offer companionship while leaving each person free to recognize what is meaningful in their own life.
From Written Words to the Spoken Voice
Over time, some of these reflections found another expression through narration.
The Passages — Narrations and Les Passages — Narrations grew from the desire to offer the writings in a form that could be heard.
The spoken word carries its own rhythm.
A pause, a breath, a moment of silence can give a sentence room to settle.
Through these narrations, I hope to offer a little room for listening, reflection, and silence.
The written and spoken Passages grow from the same collection of reflections. You can also explore the podcast listening page.
Each offers a different way of encountering the words.
One Passage at a Time
I continue to discover new questions through writing.
Life keeps revealing dimensions I had yet to notice, both in my own experience and through the privilege of listening to others.
There are reflections still waiting to be written.
Others are quietly taking shape.
I welcome this unfolding with gratitude.
Each Passage begins with something that has touched my understanding of life. Once shared, it becomes available to the experience of another person.
I find meaning in this simple exchange.
A few words.
A moment of recognition.
The possibility of feeling accompanied through an experience that may have been difficult to name.
And somewhere within this living garden, another seed is already taking root.
Marie-Dominique Rail
Continue with the reflections
Listen to the bilingual narrations
The books behind the reflections
A passage to accompany this reflection
If you wish to remain with this theme, The Invisible Seasons of the Soul, from The Passages, offers another space for reflection.
Continue exploring la bibliothèque française, at your own pace.