After the mesmerizing photos of the brave Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir I feel like indulging a bit more in this country of sagas, this last speck of Dreamland, the far north....
And what could be better than the voice of Eivør Pálsdóttir? There was a time in which music was magic, conjuring the elementals, and the voice was the wand which commanded the unknown..
The Libre Vermell found in the monastery of Monserrat is a magnificent example of sacred music with an underlying profane texture.
It is precisely this mix of religious and secular, holy and earthly, that fascinates me to the extreme.
Here is one of the 10 surviving songs, Cuncti sumus conanentes, in the magisterial direction of Jordi Savall.
Earth and Heaven are not that far, if our hearts are open..
Rene' Daumal was no minor fellow: in his brief life he managed to be a mountain climber, a writer, an orientalist, a poet, and most important of all, a Truth Seeker.
Recently I have found a small poem of his which left an indelible impression when I first read it, years ago. Here it is:
Je suis mort parce que je n’ai pas de désir,
Je n’ai pas de désir parce que je crois posséder,
Je crois posséder parce que je n’essaye pas de donner.
Essayant de donner, on voit qu’on n’a rien,
Voyant qu’on n’a rien, on essaye de se donner,
Essayant de se donner, on voit qu’on n’est rien,
Voyant qu’on n’est rien, on désire devenir,
Désirant devenir, on vit..."
*************************
I have died because I do not have desires,
I do not have desires because I think that I own,
I think that I own because I do not try to give.
Trying to give, one see that one has nothing,
Seeing that one has nothing, on tries to give oneself,
Trying to give oneself, one seer that he is nothing,
Seeing that he is nothing, one desires to become,
Desiring to become, one lives...
(poor translation is mine)
*********************************
Now comes the funny part: after I posted it somewhere on the Social Web, Caroline Pradal, a french artist and a contributing member of AristoKracy, wrote this small poem in reply (she of course retains the copyright of this delicious creature), which I found witty and lovely (and I am sure Daumal, were he still alive, would forget her little "impertinence"):
Je suis en vie parce que je n'ai que des désirs,
J'ai des désirs parce que je les possède,
Je les possède parce que je les donne.
Essayant de donner, on voit que l'on a tout,
Voyant qu'on a tout, on essaye de ne rien donner,
Essayant de ne rien donner, on voit que l'on est Tout.
Voyant que l'on est Tout, on ne désire plus Etre,
Désirant ne plus Etre, on meurt...
***********************************
I am alive because I have only desires,
I have desires because I own them,
They are mine because I give them.
Trying to give, you see that you have everything
Seeing that you have everything, you try not to give
Trying not to give, you see that you are All.
Seeing that you are All, it no longer wants to Be,
Desiring not to Be, you die ...
(translation by Caroline Pradal, all rights reserved)
The same friend who prompted me to look into Chesterton is the motor behind my current reading: I am happily finishing The Great Divorce, by Clive Staples Lewis.
It is a small book, so small one can easily carry it in a pocket. Nevertheless, it is filled with wisdom, and uncanny insights. One wonders if it is only the product of a fertile fantasy, or something more..
What I found ironic here is that it was written as a response to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, by William Blake. And yet, as different as their vision of the beyond is, these two bright fellows agree on one thing: the door to Heaven are in forgiveness.
Nay, not just forgiveness, that has been repeated ad nauseam.
Forgetfulness is the right word. Forgetting the evil we received and we imparted, that is the key.
Hell remembers, Heaven forgets..
Scouring Youtube for a recitation of Clarice Lispector 's A dangerous Clarity I found these two videos. Which one to choose? The first one energetic, vigorous, almost dry, the second more intimistic, introspective, refleshingly humid. I feel a tad like Buridan's ass. Well, there is a way out: I shall not choose. They are both right. A poem, a real one, has many identities, it supports an almost endless number of interpretations. A poem is reborn each time is recited. Always the same, always different.
Hear the voice of the most dangerous clarity.
A Lucidez Perigosa
Estou sentindo uma clareza tão grande
que me anula como pessoa atual e comum:
é uma lucidez vazia, como explicar?
Assim como um cálculo matemático perfeito
do qual, no entanto, não se precise.
Estou por assim dizer
vendo claramente o vazio.
E nem entendo aquilo que entendo:
pois estou infinitamente maior que eu mesma,
e não me alcanço.
Além do que:
que faço dessa lucidez?
Sei também que esta minha lucidez
pode-se tornar o inferno humano
- já me aconteceu antes.
Pois sei que
- em termos de nossa diária
e permanente acomodação
resignada à irrealidade -
essa clareza de realidade
é um risco.
Apagai, pois, minha flama, Deus,
porque ela não me serve para viver os dias.
Ajudai-me a de novo consistir
dos modos possíveis.
Eu consisto,
eu consisto,
amém.
my translation:
The Dangerous Lucidity
I am feeling a clarity so great
that erases me as a real and common person:
it is an empty clarity, how to explain?
like a perfect mathematical calculation
which, however, is not needed.
I am as, it were,
seeing clearly the void.
Nor do I understand what I see
for I am infinitely greater than me
and I do not reach myself.
Besides:
what do I do with this clarity?
I also know that this clarity of mine
can turn into a human hell
- it happened to me already-
Thus I know that
- in terms of our daily
and permanent arrangements
resigned to unreality-
this clarity of reality
is a risk.
Quench, God, my flame
for it doesn't help me to live the days.
Help me to consist
of the possible modes.
I consist,
I consist,
amen.
I owe to a great friend the lucky discovery of the austere delights of music for viola da gamba. Amongst the greatest practitioners one must number the Sieur de Sainte Colombe, whose aloofness in life is magnificently reflected in his impeccable music.
Recently I have been taken by the fancy of writing a play. As I have absolutely no precedent to rely upon, I decided to follow the old adage: climb on the shoulders of giants. There is hardly any giant in the world of modern playwriting larger than Henrik Ibsen (just look at his stately face, it tells volumes about the man).
So I have spent a few days reading some of his late plays. It would be quite tempting to indulge in some impromptu ramblings on these monumental works, particularly because I have watched Master Builder in the 1960 interpretation starring E.G. Marshall and Lois Smith, a truly outstanding performance.
I shall leave Ibsen's plays and characters to another time. Reading bits of his biography, I found out about his senile love for the young Emilie Bardach, with whom he corresponded for a while, and to whom the impetuous character of Hilde in Master Builder is perhaps inspired.
Here is his last message to Emile, dated September 20, 1889:
Hohes, schmerzliches Glück , um das Unerreichbare zu ringen
which translates:
High, painful luck, to struggle for the unattainable
Dear old Ibsen....
I am a java fellow, not too keen on web programming (yes, I have done J2EE, servlets, a bit of Spring, and all that jazz, but my core interest is algorithms dev, not web architectures, plus patience is most definitely not my chief virtue), thus I needed something that would get me going real fast.
Rails? yes, but I had no time to learn Ruby well enough, and moreover I had some java code I wished to reuse, without any further ado.
Stephen Jay Gould's book Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle is dominated by a grand theme:
Deep Time
In our age of computers, we talk of billions of years with nonchalance. The fact that we can compute these huge expanses of time fools us into believing that we can grasp them. But, is it so? Can we genuinely understand even, say, a period of mere 100 years? I would answer in the negative. Our entire life experience is confined to a few decades at best, and the age of our grandads is already mythology.
No, we cannot understand Deep Time, beyond a sense of awe. It is thus sobering to realize that this notion is quite new in the history of ideas. Only a few hundred years ago the world was young. Then, Deep Time appeared to hunt us forever.
We are not just microbes in space, our life is ephemeral in time as well. Let us never forget how ephemeral....
Someone once said: Energy is the Eternal Delight.
He most certainly knew what he was talking about. There are moments where you just need this one: sheer, unmitigated, unbridled energy.
When I do need it, I have a single stop to make: Sonny Rollins. Here the old powerful man is playing Tenor Madness. And madness it is, just a bit, but of the most healthy type.
Feel the vibes and be happy
Prompted by a friend's praise, I have recently read Chesterton's Orthodoxy. It has not been an easy reading, perhaps simply because in this quite special period of my life I my brain is so overloaded with my own life, that those written words have (rare event indeed!) little part in it.
I shall refrain from commenting on the book itself, and its scope: some readers will find it sublime, some boring, I suppose. Instead, I focus on what really fascinated me, because it resonated in my soul with a deep echo. Here are Chesterton's words:
The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies; compared with them other things are fantastic. Compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong. Fairyland is the sunny country of common sense.
Outlandish? Perhaps a bit provocative, but, I believe, basically true. We have learned so many rules growing up, so many assumptions, so many prejudices, that the simple candor of children's fairy tales strikes us down with his morning's brightness...
I have been missing in action for a tad too much, time to come back...
In this post I want to make a public announcement:
I do believe in fairies.
To be sure, I believe in much, much more: elves, ogres, sorcerers, witches, angels, demons, and whatnot. My universe (and I say it with pride) is vast and inclusive.
Am I insane? Gullible? Ignorant? I would think not. Quite simply, I believe that there are many pairs of glasses through which you can stare at reality. One of these glasses makes you see the same world you and I used to live in when we were children.
Why not putting them on once again, from time to time? Try, you will not regret it.
PS There is an excellent blog on fairies, definitely worth visiting: Fairish.
PS2 Once you dig up that fabulous pair of glasses from your dusty chest of children toys, you will start spotting fairies amidst humans (they are rare, to be sure, so please do not get irritated if it will take you some time). So far I have positively identified two fairies. When you spot them, they are unmistakable. Trust me.
In Musical Rambling V, I have paid my tribute to a marvellous female voice in contemporary italian pop music, Alice.
But my star is a double one: Alice and Patty Pravo. There is a celestial undertone in Alice, a scent of oriental enlightenments, but I am a man who aspires to be total, to reach out to the completeness of knowledge & experience available to mankind.
Therefore, could I forget the siren chant of Patty Pravo's velvety voice?
Listen to her in the now classic Pensiero Stupendo.
PS If you read italian, you''ll find the lyrics here.
J'ai mis longtemps à comprendre que l'homme né deux fois, la première fois de la mère, la seconde de la femme, s'affronte entre ces deux naissances à ce semblant d'énigme qu'est la féminité hors de lui alors que le seul mystère est la féminité en lui
It has taken me long time to understand that the man born twice, the first time from his mother, the second one from the woman, faces between these two births a seeming enigma, which is the femininity outside of him, whereas the only mystery is the femininity inside of him.
(translation is mine)Today is March 8th, International Day of Women. May the internal woman of the twice-born men finally join hands with the external woman they are bound to face. Then, and only then, the world will be a better place to live.
Franck' s Violin Sonata is an unforgettable piece of music: so sweet, languid, evanescent..
(somehow it captures perfectly my current mood)
Here is performed by the skillful hand of Christian Ferras, whose untimely death adds a sad touch to this phenomenal interpretation.
Candles are recommended.
Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, better known as Novalis, had, in his brief life, many things to say. There is hardly a more abundant book than his Fragments, a bag of startling insights, mad conjectures, fascinating and far-fetched comparisons.
It is difficult to choose a single sentence there. Nevertheless, I shall try. Here it is:
Wir suchen immer das Unbedingte und finden nur Dinge
Which I translate as follows:
We always search for the undetermined and we find always things.
Un-bedingte is an interesting word: the verb bedingen means determine, condition, etc. Sometimes Unbedingte is translated as Absolute, which is also correct, as the absolute is free from conditions.
May we learn the art of looking through things, into the Unbedingte...
Bruce Lee' s fame as a martial artist and as an actor needs no comment. Yet this man, larger than life, has left behind a few pearls of wisdom for the rest of us. None is more famous and more enjoyable than his legendary "Be Water" interview:
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless--like water.
Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup,
You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle,
You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Now water can *flow* or it can *crash*!
Be water, my friend.
She has been for so long my absolute standard of style. It was nice spotting her on YouTube, after many nomadic years along the tracks of the world.
Who? Carla Bissi, aka Alice Visconti, at the very height of her career.
I shall find the inscrutable dimension at the end of the road, wondrous Alice, and before passing over to the other side, a last fleeting thought will be for you.
Yours
PolyMathicus
Nomadi
Nomadi che cercano gli angoli della tranquillità
nelle nebbie del nord e nei tumulti delle civiltà,
tra i chiariscuri e la monotonia dei giorni che passano.
Camminatore che vai cercando la pace al crepuscolo,
la troverai la troverai alla fine della strada.
Lungo il transito dell´apparente dualità,
la pioggia di settembre risveglia i vuoti della mia stanza
ed i lamenti della solitudine si prolungano.
Come uno straniero non sento legami di sentimento
e me ne andrò dalle città nell´attesa del risveglio.
I viandanti vanno in cerca di ospitalità
nei villaggi assolati e nei bassifondi dell´immensità
e si addormentano sopra i guanciali della terra.
Forestiero che cerchi la dimensione insondabile,
la troverai, fuori città,alla fine della strada.
It was in my college years in Pisa. It was perhaps springtime. It was a gorgeous morning.
I grabbed a copy of the Pisan Cantos, and walked along the Lungarno Pacinotti, trying to fathom the arcane abundance of cross-references, of ostentatious unmitigated erudition, of sparkles of divine beauties disseminated throughout this maddest of poems.
Then, as if struck by lightning, I stopped.
Those magic lines from the Canto LXXXI, the lines that redeem forever the sick life of Ezra Loomis Pound, il Miglior Fabbro:
What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee
Hear them, fellow reader, ponder them, one by one, line by line, and never, ever forget them. This is the speck of gold that shined in the darkest of muds
