The Overview Effect Travel gives you the chance to leave your comfort zone and emerge yourself into the unknown. The experience itself opens your eyes to a sense of oneness and an overwhelming feeling of bliss. It has been said that as a traveler, you have seen more than you remember and remember more than you have seen. You do not forget that understanding of coherence and unity. As a result, your whole perspective on life changes and you continue viewing the world through new lenses.
Stepping outside of your own world (literally or figuratively) can lead to this sense of thankfulness and oneness, an emotional surge of compassion for just about everything. I can only speak to me, but that is how I feel on those days where the whirring stops and I can focus only on the broader picture, instead of the broader picture and all its infinite components. And the longer I’ve travelled, the more frequently the feeling crops up. Jodi Ettenberg
It's only the beginning now ...a pathway yet unknown At times the sound of other steps ...sometimes we walk alone
The best beginnings of our lives May sometimes end in sorrow But even on our darkest days The sun will shine tomorrow.
So we must do our very best Whatever life may bring And look beyond the winter chill To smell the breath of spring.
Into each life will always come A time to start anew A new beginning for each heart As fresh as morning dew.
Although the cares of life are great And hands are bowed so low The storms of life will leave behind The wonder of a rainbow.
The years will never take away Our chance to start anew It's only the beginning now So dreams can still come true.
Today we are being reminded that for every ending there is indeed a new beginning. New friendships will undoubtably be formed. Others will be more deeply bonded and we all will learn the value of community on a whole deeper level.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson fom In Memoriam A.H.H.
I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold: But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more. Alfred, Lord Tennyson fom In Memoriam A.H.H.
In writing the poem, Tennyson was influenced by the ideas of evolution, touching on many subject while still practicing lyric verse like that of the Romantics before him. The poem as a whole deals with morality and science and the tensions and implications of impersonal nature functioning without direct divine intervention.
O Radiant Dawn by James MacMillan O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, Sun of justice: Come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light For those who dwell in the land of gloom, a light has come Come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. Amen, amen, amen .....
"Besides my other numerous circle of acquaintances I have one more intimate confidant-my melancholy. In the midst of my joy, in the midst of my work, she waves to me, calls me to one side, even though physically I stay put. My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known, what wonder, then, that I love her in return." -Søren Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard inherited, from his father, a love of argument and imagination, but also a melancholy and dread, the result of a Calvinistic upbringing. Later he broke off his engagement with his great love, Regine Olsen. We feel melancholic about a lover or friend, or a meaningful place in our lives, perhaps somewhere we have once lived. There is some pleasure felt in recollecting the good times, but along with it, almost in equal measure, comes sadness from missing the place itself.
Søren Kierkegaard on melancholy
"Father in heaven! Help us never to forget that you are love, so that this full conviction might be victorious in our hearts over the world's allurement, the mind's unrest, the anxieties over the future, the horrors of the past, the needs of the moment. O grant also that this conviction might form our minds so that our hearts become constant and true in love to them whom you bid us to love as ourselves." Journals And Papers
Søren Kierkegaard asks, What is in your heart? He says, “When evil lives in the heart, the eye sees offense, but when purity lives in the heart, the eye sees the finger of God... When fear lives in the heart, a person easily discovers the multiplicity of sin, discovers deceit and delusion and disloyalty and scheming, discovers that; Every heart is a net, Every rogue like a child, Every promise like a shadow. But the love that hides a multitude of sins is never deceived...When love lives in the heart, a person understands slowly and does not hear at all words said in haste and does not understand them when repeated because he assigns them good position and a good meaning. He does not understand a long angry and insulting verbal assault, because he is waiting for one more word that will give it meaning.” Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses
The Flight of the Bumblebee from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, based on the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin The story is about three sisters. The youngest is chosen by Tsar Saltan (Saltán) to be his wife. He orders the other two sisters to be his royal cook and weaver. They become jealous of their younger sister. When the tsar goes off to war, the tsaritsa gives birth to a son, Prince Gvidon (Gvidón.) The older sisters arrange to have the tsaritsa and the child sealed in a barrel and thrown into the sea.
The sea takes pity on them and casts them on the shore of a remote island, Buyan. The son, having quickly grown while in the barrel, goes hunting. He ends up saving an enchanted swan from a kite bird.
The swan creates a city for Prince Gvidon to rule, but he is homesick, so the swan turns him into a mosquito to help him. In this guise, he visits Tsar Saltan's court, where he stings his aunt in the eye and escapes. Back in his realm, the swan gives Gvidon a magical squirrel. But he continues to pine for home, so the swan transforms him again, this time into a fly. In this guise Prince Gvidon visits Saltan's court again and he stings his older aunt in the eye. The third time, the Prince is transformed into a bumblebee and stings the nose of his grandmother.
In the end, The Prince expresses a desire for a bride instead of his old home, at which point the swan is revealed to be a beautiful princess, whom he marries. He is visited by the Tsar, who is overjoyed to find his newly married son and daughter-in-law.
The Flight of the Bumblebee from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5. “The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treason, stratagems and spoils.” William Shakespeare in E-flat major, Op. 73 "Emperor"
Poyraz (Boreas) by Belma Bas: Living with elderly relatives in a remote old house in the mountains a young boy reticently observes the daily routine of rustic life and glimpses the mysteries of life and death. A poetic short film set in an idyllic landscape which evokes the "vision splendid" of childhood,somewhere between dream and reality.
Fyodor Dostoevsky - Letters and Reminiscences
On December 22, 1849, Fyodor Dostoevsky was led before the firing squad, following a Russian court sentencing him to death for his allegedly associating with a circle of intellectual liberals, but received a last-minute reprieve and was sent to a Siberian labor camp, where he worked for four years. On Christmas Eve 1849 he commenced the long journey to Omsk, and remained in Siberia, "like a man buried alive, nailed down in his coffin", for four terrible years. In a letter to his brother he determines to make the most of whatever chances lies ahead in exile and confinement: "How many imaginations, lived through by me, created by me anew, will perish, will be extinguished in my brain or will be split as poison in my blood! Yes, if I am not allowed to write, I shall perish. Better fifteen years of prison with a pen in my hands!" (Letters and Reminiscences)
All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 This Christmas is the centennial of this beautiful, amazing event. One-hundred years exactly since these men on opposing sides lay down their weapons of war to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. If they could do it then - even if it was only for one day - could we not do it again now? It would be nice to start a Truce Day... and then extend it to a week, then month, then a year, and eventually forever. “So you have to believe and open yourself up to the possibility of that transformation...people can find it in themselves to transform and become their best selves. These men found the best of their own humanity and were able to share that together.” Erick Lichte “I am interested in creating performance where the content dictates the form. In the creative process I continually ask myself: If the characters were left to their own devices, how would they tell their story? What language, what tools were available to them?... music and text. The music ranges from trench songs to patriotic and sentimental tunes, as well as Christmas music from the participating countries. The text is taken from a wide range of sources including letters, journals, official war documents, poetry, grave stone inscriptions – even an old radio broadcast.” Peter Rothstein
All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, By Peter Rothstein, Music Arrangements by Erick Lichte
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
“I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream... The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom’s Dream, because it hath no bottom…” William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare weaving in all the crazy elements of love: blindness, recklessness, jealousy, treachery, and foolishness) Is Shakespeare "Bottom" get it all wrong. Eyes can’t hear, ears can’t see, hands can’t taste and tongues can’t conceive? What is Shakespeare trying to convey here? "He was not of an age, but for all time" To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare by Ben Jonson The Shakespeare Plays are not what they seem. Since the beginning they have held a secret. Each play is an example of the operation of a very singular logic device, designed to guide the human mind to the discovery of new arts and sciences. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Chamber Play (directors, Peter Sellars) venture into the inner realms of the play’s supernatural elements. “One of the things I love the most in Dream is that it is a perfect representation of the Buddhist cosmology, the six levels of beings,” says Mr. Sellars. These include not only humans and animals, but also gods and demi-gods, hungry ghosts and hell-beings. We all know the relationship with your partner where you’re kings and queens, then the next moment you’re animals, and the next you’re hell-beings. I call it a “chamber play”. In Buddhism “all these ‘spirits’ are with us all the time. We don’t see them, but they’re totally present. So to sense them is not to be mad but actually to be perceptive and wise. “That’s Shakespeare’s point: the people who can see only the visible world are missing everything, because the invisible world is the world that counts, the world that is influencing events.”
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To you we cry, the children of Eve; to you we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this land of exile.
Turn, then, most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy toward us; lead us home at the beginning and show us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus: O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Amen.
Arvo Part - Salve Regina (Da pacem Domine -Give peace, Lord)
Mozart concerto 20 in d, K.466
Mozart Piano Concerto No 27 B flat major K 595 Mozart's final piano concerto, its mood is frequently described as autumnal or valedictory (farewell, goodbye). That impression are enhanced by Mozart's choice of theme for the rondo finale: he uses the melody of a little song called "Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling" (Longing for Spring)
