John O'Donohue, author of "Beauty: the Invisible Embrace" distills some ideas of silence and sound that deeply resonant with me. Chapter 3 of this book is titled: "The Music of Beauty". For me this work is best absorbed a little at a time. To re-read many more times will likely be a joy for me.
Being physically absent from this world, the deep beauty of John's voice warms and illuminates, deep areas of my heart. The journey of Being is one of the greatest intrigues. We are gifted a life-span to explore Being.
Today being the 13th of May: "I see myself"....
I've expressed some of my thinking on silence (Silence Listening to Silence). Silence is part of music. All music begins and end with silence as Schubert puts it. Music is a poetic form that means something personal to me.
For me music is almost indescribable. I can say things on the keyboard, depending on the instrument, that cannot be penned. I still love the deep expression of pipe organ music. The grandness and volume, the airiness of 2' flute stop, the thundering of 64' double diapason...the voice of the pipes, there is no sound that compares. Its voice is unique.
I've played pianos that had personality, character, and resonance. The individuality of the instrument lives on in my memory many years after the experience of playing the instrument. The simple melodies that I can still get out of my lovely digital grand is meaningful to me and my family.
Just the other day, my meditation flowed out of my fingers in the form of music. Inspiration of creativity formed from the youth of the early morning, the youth of my ten year-old, sleepily awaking from his repose, going through his morning ablutions, the small habits of waking up...his sitting on the couch peering out on the new day; I gently gifted him a song of his own. It was a moment unscripted as the morning light playing on the distant horizon of the Rockies.
It was a perfect gift. Unrepeatable. Sacred in it's own right. Wordless, but etched in time. A memory of unity, harmony, beauty. To recreate would be sacrilegious. It was a momentary experience created for that moment in time. It emerged, greeted us both, held us for a few moments, and gently withdrew. This is the definition of beauty. It cannot be captured, or tamed. It is wildly beautiful. Appreciated by just me or just my son or by both of us, the music of beauty revealed itself.
This space, "Water", is a journey of exploration. There are spaces of silence, then their is the eruption of thoughts and the music of Being suddenly harmonizes and springs out of Nothingness.
To articulate is such a gift. Marooned in silence and stillness, the center of Being has for it's life force: Nothingness. On the surface perhaps Nothingness seems incomprehensible. There seems to be a lot of uncomfortable territory that is grounded in nothingness. I like to know stuff. It's not a comfortable experience over-all to feel lost in a void. There may be a common human vertigo to Nothingness.
Overall no light is sensed. Anxieties seem to take flight into this empty space on benighted wings of doom. The vortex as a black hole sucks us into a place of great dis-ease: hopelessness consumes all. The irony of the questions themselves seem useless.
If some have explored this uncharted area, they have done so for their own good and to send back a signal that it's a place worth personal discovery. It's a place we don't want to go, because something resonates too deeply, we know it's a real place. Is it possible that most spend a life-span doing all but becoming friendly to this deep home of the soul?
Nothingness is possibly as unavoidable as death itself. Death and Nothingness hold a kinship that is all too well felt in our bones. Nothingness: is it the place of eternal repose? Nothingness might describe the end of one's own Beingness--perhaps one good reason why so little attention is paid it in the life-span. Perhaps this is an encounter best left to a very brief and last-minute acquaintance on expiration.
I tremble.
To face the unknown, to journey to the end of despair, to be able to come back from the dead, to survive, to thrive, . . . . these are things that haunt Being. It's senselessness, but senselessness that grounds the very life-springs of sense. It is the space of groundlessness that gives some contrast to the meaning of grounded. Would life have any meaning without death? Beingness without Nothingness?
Being physically absent from this world, the deep beauty of John's voice warms and illuminates, deep areas of my heart. The journey of Being is one of the greatest intrigues. We are gifted a life-span to explore Being.
Today being the 13th of May: "I see myself"....
I've expressed some of my thinking on silence (Silence Listening to Silence). Silence is part of music. All music begins and end with silence as Schubert puts it. Music is a poetic form that means something personal to me.
For me music is almost indescribable. I can say things on the keyboard, depending on the instrument, that cannot be penned. I still love the deep expression of pipe organ music. The grandness and volume, the airiness of 2' flute stop, the thundering of 64' double diapason...the voice of the pipes, there is no sound that compares. Its voice is unique.
I've played pianos that had personality, character, and resonance. The individuality of the instrument lives on in my memory many years after the experience of playing the instrument. The simple melodies that I can still get out of my lovely digital grand is meaningful to me and my family.
Just the other day, my meditation flowed out of my fingers in the form of music. Inspiration of creativity formed from the youth of the early morning, the youth of my ten year-old, sleepily awaking from his repose, going through his morning ablutions, the small habits of waking up...his sitting on the couch peering out on the new day; I gently gifted him a song of his own. It was a moment unscripted as the morning light playing on the distant horizon of the Rockies.
It was a perfect gift. Unrepeatable. Sacred in it's own right. Wordless, but etched in time. A memory of unity, harmony, beauty. To recreate would be sacrilegious. It was a momentary experience created for that moment in time. It emerged, greeted us both, held us for a few moments, and gently withdrew. This is the definition of beauty. It cannot be captured, or tamed. It is wildly beautiful. Appreciated by just me or just my son or by both of us, the music of beauty revealed itself.
* * * *
This space, "Water", is a journey of exploration. There are spaces of silence, then their is the eruption of thoughts and the music of Being suddenly harmonizes and springs out of Nothingness.
To articulate is such a gift. Marooned in silence and stillness, the center of Being has for it's life force: Nothingness. On the surface perhaps Nothingness seems incomprehensible. There seems to be a lot of uncomfortable territory that is grounded in nothingness. I like to know stuff. It's not a comfortable experience over-all to feel lost in a void. There may be a common human vertigo to Nothingness.
Overall no light is sensed. Anxieties seem to take flight into this empty space on benighted wings of doom. The vortex as a black hole sucks us into a place of great dis-ease: hopelessness consumes all. The irony of the questions themselves seem useless.
If some have explored this uncharted area, they have done so for their own good and to send back a signal that it's a place worth personal discovery. It's a place we don't want to go, because something resonates too deeply, we know it's a real place. Is it possible that most spend a life-span doing all but becoming friendly to this deep home of the soul?
Nothingness is possibly as unavoidable as death itself. Death and Nothingness hold a kinship that is all too well felt in our bones. Nothingness: is it the place of eternal repose? Nothingness might describe the end of one's own Beingness--perhaps one good reason why so little attention is paid it in the life-span. Perhaps this is an encounter best left to a very brief and last-minute acquaintance on expiration.
I tremble.
To face the unknown, to journey to the end of despair, to be able to come back from the dead, to survive, to thrive, . . . . these are things that haunt Being. It's senselessness, but senselessness that grounds the very life-springs of sense. It is the space of groundlessness that gives some contrast to the meaning of grounded. Would life have any meaning without death? Beingness without Nothingness?
* * * *
In my view, O'Donohue with a manliness of character finds a path through Nothingess. Part of that path is found in his "Music of Beauty. I am everywhere, an always surrounded and embraced by beauty.
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