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Vivaldi Four Seasons
“It’s an interesting question as to how to interpret Vivaldi’s design, and part of the charm of the works is that the program is very clear, yet the possibilities are endless: the main challenge is to choose between a mimetic and allegorical interpretation.
In a mimetic interpretation, the performers would use extended techniques on their instruments to imitate as directly as possible the sounds of the program, including chattering teeth, raindrops, wind and stamping feet.
In an allegorical performance, the players would play in such a way as to allow the listeners to use their imaginations to freely recreate the program: each musical line could convey a different layer of meaning…..”
Voices of Music (https://www.youtube.com/@VoicesofMusic)
Out Of The Mouth of A Thousand Birds
Listen—listen more carefully to what is around
you, right now.
In my world there are the bells from the clanks
of the morning milk drums,
and a wagon wheel outside my window just hit
a bump which turned into an ecstatic chorus
of the Beloved’s Name.
There is the Prayer Call, rising up like the sun
out of the mouths of a thousand birds.
There is an astonishing vastness of movement
and life emanating sound and light from my
folded hands, and my even quieter simple being
and heart.
My dear, is it true that your mind is sometimes
like a battering ram, running all through the city
shouting so madly inside and out about the ten
thousand things that do not matter?
Hafiz, too, for many years beat his head in
youth and thought himself at a great distance,
far from and armistice with God.
But that is why this scarred old pilgrim has
become such a sweet rare vintage who weeps
and sings for you.
That is why Hafiz will forever in his verse play
his cymbal and call to you.
O listen—listen more carefully to what is inside
of you right now.
In my world all that remains is the wondrous
call to dance and prayer rising up like a thousand
suns … out of the mouth of a single bird.
from RUMI & HAFIZ: The Mountains Hint at Our Beauty
Spontaneity of the Third Act
“Wu wei is based on knowledge…. at the time.
Wu wei is the art of sailing rather than the art of rowing.
So, one of the most famous sayings in the Lao Tzu book is:
‘Superior virtue has no intention to be virtuous, thus is virtuous.
Inferior virtue cannot let go of virtuosity, and thus is not virtuous.
So one could also say, the real wu wei is not intentionally wu wei and so is wu wei.
But, inferior wu wei so tries to be wu wei that it isn’t.
In other words, Wu wei is not a matter of cultivated passivity or of cultivated spontaneity because there are people who think that they are released, that they have realized that they are the Tao, as all of us in fact are, or in Vedanta terms, every one of us is the Brahman, the eternal self of the universe, beyond all description or classification or form.
And say, “Okay baby I’m that. Now I’m gonna have a ball!”
“Well, what kind of a ball do they have?
Well what they do is they look up the rules on which society runs and do the opposite. Well, that’s still running by the rules of society. It’s the mirror image in reverse. That’s not spontaneity.
You have to be able to realize that you don’t know what you really want to… until you are very quiet and it tells you.
It tells you….that you don’t know what you really want to.
It tells you….that you don’t know what you really want to.
It tells you…that you don’t know what you really want to.
Alan Watts
To know that you do not know … the verb that is the Holy Maybe,
relevant only in its’ particular time and place,
leaving only an impression of what is already passed,
leaving a longing for what is to come,
to sail again the Nameless – “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh”
“I shall become what I shall become”
A gift bestowed or not bestowed on the movements of each breath,
In time.
Appearance Within Our Own Insignificance…
What Is A Poem? The One on the Way to Themself?
A poem…can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the -not always greatly hopeful-belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps.
John Felstiner, Paul Celan (1995)
The poem is lonely and en route. Its author stays with it.
Anne Carson, Economy of the Lost (1999)
Perhaps Moses’ anava (humility) is precisely this deep knowledge of being haunted by history as well as mysteriously attuned to the call of the Other.
Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg
Words Are Life
Anchorites: Sanyasim, Monks, Digambaras, Swetambaras, Fakirs, Tzadiks, Saints
In every religion there are two forms of renunciation, primary and secondary. The majority of us fall in the secondary category, the in-betweeners, grihasthas, unable to renounce our mothers and fathers, our bank accounts, our social ties, our jobs, our identities but nevertheless are humbly called to revere and attempt to find and walk the middle way, continuously performing good works and engaging attitudinal renunciation of expectations, likes and dislikes that impede Self knowledge, knowledge of Love, knowledge of Truth. If one “tries to be” a primary renunciate, one is engaging escapism.
“A sanyasin is not a parasite as some people think. [S]He is a king of the world, the emperor of the three worlds. Even the very sight of him[her] will destroy one’s sins. Every religion has got this band of anchorites. Buddhism has got Buddhist monks. Jainism has got digambaras and swetambaras. Islam and Sufism have got fakirs. [Judaism has Tzadiks. Christianity has Disciples of Christ or Saints.] These anchorites are the glory of every religion. They have disciplined themselves. If you remove these people, there is no essence in religion. These people glorify the religions.
Some people bring the charge that a sadhu or sanyasin is unproductive, is a parasite, is a burden on this earth. They say that there are sixty lakhs of sadhus. This is a false census report. There may be one thousand or two thousand good sanyasins. People lying on the roadside in Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi have been considered as sanyasins by the census reporters, and thus they have given their report to the Government.
The sanyasins write articles. They give lectures. They hold classes. They impart instructions to the men of the world. They do work. They are not parasites. The whole world is maintained by the glory of the sanyasins. They serve them in a variety of ways. Their very existence is a glory, and splendour on the earth. When people are in distress, and when they do not know what to do, these sanyasins speak one word. This one word elevates them, removes their sufferings. The very sight of sanyasins destroys one’s sufferings. Such is the glory of sanyasins.”
from Satsang Bhavan Lectures of Swami Sivananda
In the Sanyasim vows “… subtler and yet subtler constituents of one’s own being are offered as though they are burnt like a cremation. In the physical cremation, only the physical body is burned. Here, symbolically, one burns all psycho-emotional and psycho-spiritual identities.”
Swami Ritavan Bharati
Self Portrait
“I wish I was twenty and in love with life
and still full of beans.
Onward old legs!
There are the long, pale dunes, on the other side
the roses are blooming and finding their labor
no adversity to the spirit.
Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea
shining like a song, like a body
I want to touch.
though Im not twenty
and won’t be again but ah! seventy. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans. –
Mary Oliver
Grandmother Speaks
“Grandma, I’m afraid I can’t make it… “
“My child, your fear is not to fail, but the fear of seeing your dreams come true. We were taught to question our abilities, to not want too much, to settle. And that’s why we fear we’ll actually succeed. Finally letting our inner light shine! Kick your fear, my daughter, and run carefree in the grass of a thousand possibilities! “
“Why would I ever be afraid to see my plans realized?” “
“We do everything not to achieve them, to stay low in our dreams, to put out our inner fire. We constantly fight to keep our will to live at bay. Otherwise everything would explode, inside and outside of us. Relationships, thoughts and gazes would ignite with true passion. And passion scares, my dear, because it is the most powerful tool of love: it accepts no compromises, pushes away any falsehood, seeks only the truth! Are you ready to die so you can fully come to life? “
“The choice is a difficult one… “
“It’s harder to hold back all that life force that’s about to explode inside of you. Do you feel, my child, that arrogant attraction towards your realization? Liberal! It needs to flow, to penetrate every cell of the body, to flow through your blood. Don’t waste your time and energy blocking the flow of your destiny! Breathe deeply, relax your body and listen to the only voice that makes sense to hear, that of your beautiful heart! “
Elena Bernabeu