The rose is without 'why'; it blooms simply because it blooms. It pays no attention to itself, nor does it ask whether anyone sees it. Angelus Silesius
The rose of which Silesius writes is simultaneously the model for both God and the soul as these are portrayed by Meister Eckhart. In blossoming without why, the rose exemplifies the fullness and plenitude of devine being, which stands in need of nothing outside itself. The rose also portrays the soul which lets God enter and become the internal source of its life.
The ultimate technologization of man and earth is the "doing" of Being. The world is posited and framed for us as the realm of the manipulable, and we are ourselves posited as the masters of the earth, those who manipulate, calculate, and accumulate. Who today has not felt the pull of Being's withdrawal?
This is what Martin Heidegger had in mind when he wrote in The Principle of Sufficient Reason:"What is unsaid in the saying, and everything depends on this, is rather that man, in the most hidden ground of his essence, first truly is, when he is in his own way like the rose, without why."
The rose is without 'why'; it blooms simply because it blooms. It pays no attention to itself, nor does it ask whether anyone sees it. Angelus Silesius
Martin Heidegger - The Principle of Sufficient Reason
When I Was The Forest -by Meister Eckhart When I was the stream, when I was the forest, when I was still the field, when I was every hoof, foot, fin and wing, when I was the sky itself, no one ever asked me did I have a purpose, no one ever wondered was there anything I might need, for there was nothing I could not love. It was when I left all we once were that the agony began, the fear and questions came, and I wept, I wept. And tears I had never known before. So I returned to the river, I returned to the mountains. I asked for their hand in marriage again, I begged—I begged to wed every object and creature, and when they accepted, God was ever present in my arms. And He did not say, “Where have you been?” For then I knew my soul—every soul— has always held Him.
Diamond Sutra
Diamond Sutra Keeping the mind in perfect tranquility and free from any attachment to appearances by unlearning any preconceived, limited notions of the nature of reality and by not holding in mind any arbitrary conception of forms or phenomena. "Thus have I heard" So you should view this fleeting world: As stars, a fault of vision, or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream, A dream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud. Is this how all things should be seen?
The 'Diamond Sutra' urges devotees to cut through the illusions of reality that surround them. Names and concepts given to both concrete and abstract things are merely mental constructs that mask the true, timeless reality lying behind them. The four main points from the sūtra are giving without attachment to self, liberating beings without notions of self and other, living without attachment, and cultivating without attainment
Thus I heard, "Come, ..., do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with a liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone else's ability or with the thought 'The monk is our teacher.' When you know in yourself 'These things are unprofitable, liable to censure, condemned by the wise, being adopted and put into effect they lead to harm and suffering,' then you should abandon them. What do you think?" Buddah on Freedom from dogma and finding the truth for oneself.
Buddah on Freedom from dogma and finding the truth for oneself.
Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.” Albert Einstein
I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence - as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature. The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science... To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. - Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
Erik Satie - Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire
60 Days Collage Journal 2014 - Mary Ann Reilly inspired by the art of Peter Jacobs “The Collage Journal has become integrated in my daily life as a meditation, contemplation and re-evaluation of culture and identity.”
Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Tennyson (as part of a larger work called In Memoriam. It is a call for release and renewal. Tennyson calls us to let go of old griefs, mistakes, grudges, and wars, and embrace new light, love, joy, and peace.)
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.
If every living soul on earth were dropped into the deep, would it even raise the level of the oceans? Would a great tidal wave be engendered that would sweep across the sea and flatten everything, including islands and coastal cities that stood in its path? And, even if that did happen, it would make no difference. The oceans of the world could absorb mankind entire and still the tides would roll in and out, the sun would rise and set, the moon wax and wane, pulling the waves to the shore. from The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin
“Voice” in fiction is language plus character. Valerie Martin employ multiple voices, styles and points of view, even interpolated genres, from poetry and court records to newspaper clippings, letters and diaries; a novelist who sees everything at once and finds a common tongue in these disparate voices. Her book becomes an omnium-gatherum, a mix-and-match scrapbook of journals, documents, narrative bridges and stories within stories. Martin’s novel, with its cacophony of points of view and its sometimes contradictory personal accounts, stirs up uncertainties — these accounts could be hoaxes. Through her ingenious weaving of fiction and fact, she both solves and deepens the mystery as we experience the story as if through shattered glass whose fragments can’t be pieced back together.
The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin
Gabriel Faure, Pelleas & Melisande Suite, Op. 80, III. Sicilienne
The main theme is the cycle of creation and destruction. Pelléas and Mélisande form a bond of love, which, step by step, cascades to its fatal end. Maeterlinck had studied Pythagorean metaphysics and believed that human action was guided by Eros (love/sterility) and Anteros (revenge/chaos). The juxtaposition of these two forces brings about a never-ending cycle of calm followed by discord and then change. Pelleas and Melisande are so much in love that they disregard the value of marriage, provoking the ire of Anteros, who brings revenge and death, which restores order.
Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella looks outward with compassion, kindness and courage without being self-righteous or pious or victim and doesn’t indulge in self-pity or her own pain.
My pillow gazes upon me at night. Empty as a gravestone; I never thought it would be so bitter to be alone, not to lie down asleep in your hair. I lie alone in a silent house, the hanging lamp darkened, and gently stretch out my hands to gather in yours, and softly press my warm mouth toward you, and kiss myself, exhausted and weak --Then suddenly I'm awake and all around me the cold night grows still. The star in the window shines clearly --Where is your hair, where your sweet mouth? Now I drink pain in every delight and poison in every wine; I never knew it would be so bitter to be alone, alone, without you.
Depart and Eternity Theme (Eleni Karaindrou)
Un retard - Claude Léveillée
Erik Satie - 3 Gymnopédies, 6 Gnossiennes
Aram Khachaturian - Masquerade - Waltz "How beautiful the new waltz is! ... something between sorrow and joy gripped my heart." Nina
Phyllis Dorothy James was a champion of the detective mystery, which she called “a literary celebration of order and reason.” She considered it a modern morality drama by virtue of its affirmation of enduring social values. In turbulent times, she said, people turn to detective stories for reassurance as much as entertainment “because they do affirm the intelligibility of the universe, the moral norm, the sanctity of life. I love the idea of bringing order out of disorder, which is what the mystery is about." For all her fidelity in depicting the dark side of human nature, Ms. James took no joy in the chaos of criminality. “I think I’m very frightened of violence, I hate it. And it may be that by writing mysteries I am able, as it were, to exorcise this fear, which may very well be the same reason so many people enjoy reading a mystery. I like the way in which it affirms the sanctity of human life and exorcises irrational guilts."
"Elegy" musical work is usually of a sad or somber nature which contains “serious meditative” as in poems such as “The Wanderer” that conveys the meditations of a solitary exile on his past happiness, his present hardships and the values of forbearance and faith in the heavenly Lord. The wanderer vividly describes his loneliness and yearning for the bright days past, and finally as the man wise in mind who has come to understand that life is full of hardships and impermanence and with this exile he comes to understand human history, his own included. In this respect, the poem is a "wisdom poem."
Return to the Land of the Head Hunters: Edward S. Curtis
O let me weep (The Plaint), from Henry Purcell - The Fairy Queen
Ash Prakash - Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery dealing with an eternal question, eternal theme, which is more embedded in the Canadian psyche: "Change defines time and time itself is a function of change."
Concierto de Aranjuez (2nd movement)- Joaquin Rodrigo (nearly blind since age three, was a pianist and claimed that his blindness'll take the "Light" through music)
Concierto de Aranjuez (2nd movement)- Joaquin Rodrigo (nearly blind since age three, was a pianist and claimed that his blindness'll take the "Light" through music) The second movement "represents a dialogue between guitar and solo instruments, cor anglais, bassoon, oboe, horn etc.". Rodrigo described the concerto as capturing "the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains" in the gardens of Palacio Real de Aranjuez. A feeling of quiet regret permeates the piece. Ornamentation is added gradually to the melody in the beginning. An off-tonic trill in the guitar creates the first seeds of tension in the piece; they grow and take hold, but relax back to the melody periodically. Eventually, a climactic build-up starts. This breaks back into the main melody, molto appassionato, voiced by the strings with accompaniment from the woodwinds. The piece finally resolves to a calm arpeggio from the guitar, though it is the strings in the background rather than the guitar’s final note that resolve the piece. Rodrigo's wife Victoria, in her autobiography, declared that it was both an evocation of the happy days of their honeymoon and a response to Rodrigo's devastation at the miscarriage of their first pregnancy.
The Adagio is an example of arch form and builds on a melody that first ascends, then descends in stepwise fashion. Barber subtly manipulates the basic pulse throughout the work by constantly changing time signatures. After four climactic chords and a long pause, the piece presents the opening theme again, and fades away on an unresolved dominant chord. As Johanna Keller from The New York Times put it, Adagio for Strings creates "an uneasy, shifting suspension as the melody begins a stepwise motion, like the hesitant climbing of stairs."
Adagio for Strings ( from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11) -Samuel Barber
Solstice Carole - Wyrd Sisters
Arvo Part - Spiegel Im Spiegel (Mirror in Mirror) where the tonic triads are endlessly repeated with small variations as if reflected back and forth.
The Anniversary Song (Dinah Shore) a lyrical adoptation of Iosif Ivanovici - Waves of the Danube
Oh how we danced on the night we were wed. We vowed our true love though a word wasn't said, The world was in bloom, there were stars in the skies, Except for the few that were there in your eyes,
Dear, as I held you close in my arms- Angels were singing a hymn to your charms Two hearts gently beating, murmuring low, My darling, I love you so. The night seemed to fade into blossoming dawn The sun shone on you but the dance lingered on Could we but relive that sweet moment sublime, We'd find that our love is unaltered by time Dear, as I held you close in my arms- Angels were singing a hymn to your charms Two hearts gently beating were murmuring low, My darling, I love you so...
