it sings -
a single voice
which penetrates the cobwebbed dust
weaving wings of hidden luminosity
where night shadows
tempt the keeping
of dawn for another day
encased within,
the song of flight in dreaming
ruptures the crimson tinged cloth
of fragility
and only in waiting
in waiting
hears the song of the wind
singing silently
the birth of all things
and their demise
and when released,
all threads entwined,
is it the hope of
things confined
to lose themselves to dance the
ephemeral expanse of time?
or do they prefer to alight upon
hands gently opened
to the beauty of the eternal moment
which no created thing possess
and in a sacred trust
confers to transience
the grace of immortality
Butterflies have always been a symbol of transformation to me. I have had the privilege of walking with many on their paths of inner transformation and in preparation for the final transitus. It has taught me a lot, especially this work with the dying. A radical honesty emerges from those who look death in its uncompromising face and all masks are set aside. But this transformation is made easier when it is practiced the whole of one’s life. Ars vivendi, ars moriendi… I hope to live my life fully in the knowledge that each day is a gift which is given me to use to shape and change my world. I want to tell those whom I love that I love them…
The Awakening of Ophelia
I remember being
a princess…
It seems now
so long ago,
but I remember
As I walk along
the ancient and sacred seam
of time and space
at the river’s edge
where sky meets land and
flows out to the sea
I take grains of sand into my hands
and I remember…
For eight long years
I lay like Ophelia
under the waters deep
and yet…
I did not die
Trapped within the layers
of consciousness,
I did not find holy rest
but reviewed in the water’s mirror
the cycles of what had been
Gradually the sky broke through
and I watched the movement of the world
distorted by the living waves surrounding me
At the cattails and the billowy clouds
and the birds returning for spring
and the bottoms of pleasure boats
with the fine ladies
trailing their hands upon
the water’s surface
while laughing their laughs
which pealed like silver bells
reverberating the depths
I came to the surface
and broke through
When the sweet air rushed into my breast,
it seared like I was breathing in fire
I walked along the water’s edge
collecting in my quiet hands
the threads of myself
which had unraveled
so long before
Instead of a shroud, though,
I wove from them a boat
like my mother had taught me
and set out upon the deep waters
to reach the other side
letting my hand trail
upon the water’s surface
Now and then
To remember…
The poem came to me some time ago following a long period in which I had lost my poetic voice. When one has constructed a house of words within which to live, it can be an experience like being homeless in a vast desert or drowning in the abysmal depths. There is much that is hidden in those depths and sprouting roots which will carry another arm of the spiral from within to the outside world. In the silence of the mind, one begins to see things simply as they are and find beauty in them. The poem is essentially about letting go of the memories that we carry with us which keep us from growing into that which we hope to become… of illusions, so sweet as they may be, that sometimes lead us into a gentle madness which blinds our eyes to the gifts of the present… of treasures too long hoarded, of refuges and safe pathways which we cling to though the danger has passed… including who we think we are, in fact. It was Charles who was the first to pick up the echo from Poe’s Dream within a Dream. While the sand which flows through the hand in his work lends a sense of despair in the futility of holding back the creeping sands, those which run through my hands in this poem are like those which run effortlessly through the hourglass, reminding only of the passage of time. The memories invoked, in the end, are not wistful reminders of former days but those which remind of important lessons learned along the way to keep the mind and heart above the watery depths, sovereign in finding their way to clarity.
Voice: Tilda Swinton excerpt from Hamlet from Derek Jarmen’s film Blue
Music: Vassilis Tsabropoulus – Trois morceaux après des hymnes byzantins – Lechner/Tsabropoulus
Photos: Irena, Nina, L.Swift, Eddie, Receprocity, R.Smith
Dance of the Sacred Flame
The sacred flame
burgeoning within the trees
buries its potential
deep within the silent veins
until the One voice comes to
set it free
There is a dancer there
in the wood
who feels the pulse
hidden in the darkness
It matches that of her heart
as she pulls her own power
deep into the
core of her being
shielding it from the falling snow
There is a hidden meeting of fire
here in the seemingly lifeless
landscape
too pure to be touched
too ancient to be known
A tiny bud wrests its promise
from the bark
A sign of hope in bleak mid-winter
Music: G.I. Gurdjieff – Woman’s Prayer – Lechner/Tsabropoulos
I have always been enchanted by the gifts that each season brings. When a person can learn to discover these treasures by living in accordance with nature’s rhythms, new worlds unfold and reveal pathways unimagined. There is another time… not captured by time pieces nor is the night truly whooshed away by the illusion of electric lighting. The body knows this as does the heart and mind.
Each season carries its own magic… it reveals its own mysteries. I love the deep winter with its severity and bleakness. Not, mind you, because I am given to melancholy undertones, but it is in this stark landscape that hope is most visible. When I walk in the garden among the low trees and see, beyond all expectation in the dour greyness of the surroundings, that the tiniest buds – so fragile as though a small gust of wind would set them adrift – have appeared… my heart is filled with a beautiful hope which is akin to a dance. The first gentle greens of early spring are a feast for my soul. The majesty of high spring with all of its manifold colors does not hold the dignified eloquence of those tender green shades among the dead leaves.
This little poem appeared in my mind a couple of days ago as I contemplated these things as I often do in winter. Blessings to all.
Photos: 1.Collette2.-7.&9.Philippe Sainte-Laudy 8.unknown 10.DppDk
This is another version of my poem “Dance of the Sacred Flame.” The inimitable Mr. Charles Bryant surprised and honored me greatly by giving me the gift of his masterful voice one fair day.
Please visit his collection for more of his own exquisite poetry and readings.
http://uk.youtube.com/user/brychar66
Music: G.I. Gurdjieff – Armenian Song
Lechner/Tsabpropoulos
Tiny Spectacle
A butterfly along the
Airy currents
Feels the brush
Of an angel passing by
One would think the tiny
Spectacle of color
Would be dislodged by
Such mighty pinions
Brushing past
The angel moves
More silently
Than a breath
And perturbs not
The wind in flight
Yet carries
The small butterfly
Adorned with only
Colors and broken spots
Out of the darkness
Toward the light and life
This wee napkin poem is dedicated to my lovely friend tinySpectacle. When I discovered her work some months ago, her name sparked a little poem in my mind which had me reaching frantically for the nearest napkin and writing utensil. Her poems and posts never cease to make me thoughtful or bring a smile to my face.
http://www.youtube.com/user/tinySpect…
The leaves’ colors
Crisp as the wind
Despite the sun
A tale of winter come
Not yet undone
From the leaves
The color
Of the autumn sun
just a bit of whimsey in the utter joy of the seeing the autumn leaves…
The Undine’s Lament
a song so low with voice so sweet
an ancient spell she sang alone
in hours dark her love to meet
and hoped his life would be her home
amidst the lonely breaking tides
the boat lay battered by the rocks
her whisper to his heart confides
a dream of silken jet-black locks
his face grown still, of life bereft
unknown the waters cold contempt
which moved her fingers, soft and deft,
his mortal coil away to tempt
in love her lonely soul sought rest
yet death returned it to her breast
Odilon Redon was one of the greatest of the French symbolists. He was a pupil of Stanislas Gorin at Bordeaux, of Gerôme at the Paris Beaux-Arts, and finally of Rodolphe Bresdin. In 1870 he settled in Paris. Worked at first with charcoal. In 1879, published a first series of lithographs In Dream. Others were to follow. In 1884, he took part in the Salon des Indépendants of which he was one of the founders, and in the Salon of the XX in Brussels (in 1886,1887 and 1890). A friend of Stéphane Mallarmé , Francis Jammes, Jean Moréas and Paul Valéry. He took up pastels and colour in the 1890s. His finest creations are those in which his supple draughtsmanship and rare, phosphorescent colours evoke a mythical universe. It is no coincidence that these evocative images, whose sumptuous line encloses dream-like colours, attracted the praise of the Symbolist writers, from Stéphane Mallarmé to J-K Huysmans. He was admired by painters as various as Gaugin, Emile Bernard, Matisse and the Nabis, who dragged him out of his retirement. Painting was, for Redon, a way of escaping his own psychological problems, problems as “literary” as those of Gustave Moreau, whom he knew and admired.
Biography from the website: http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/art…
List of works as they appeared in the clip:
Lumiere
Underwater vision
The Golden Cell
The Flower Clouds
Ophelia (upside down)
Virgin with Corona
Beatrice
Evocation of Butterflies
An excellent resource online for Redon’s works is:
http://www.odilon-redon.org/the-compl…
Exquisite cello composition, Night in the Cathedral, by Thierry Renard from among many treasures on the album Chartres of my friends, The Catherine Braslavsky Ensemble. I recommend the cd highly… please support these incredible artists.
http://www.naturalchant.com/
