A View from the Landscape of Time

Landscape

by King's Singers 2006

Listen here.
 

The land and its eternal relationship to time, the seasons have ordered our lives for longer than any society can recollect. As we make way for the times of the seasons, may we joyously make yet another season in time.

"We are all shaped, perhaps unconsciously, by the landscape and time in which we live. This evocative and spiritual programme, which contains five King's Singers commissions, explores the links between human life and its surroundings through the differing personal languages of poets and composers."

Landscape from the site: kingssingers.com

We are all shaped, perhaps unconsciously, by the landscape and time in which we live. This evocative and spiritual programme, which contains five King's Singers commissions, explores the links between human life and its surroundings through the differing personal languages of poets and composers. - See more at: http://www.kingssingers.com/p/cds-aand-dvds/landscape-aand-time/cd18.html#sthash.rMsWU6nH.dpuf

The King's Singers Album, Landscapes-- 2006

Springtime, A Temperate Mood

SONNET 116
by William Shakespeare

view video1
This Love, Sarah Brightman

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds

admit impediments. Love is not love

which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever fixed mark
that looks on tempests and is never shaken;
it is the star to every wandering bark,whose worth’s unknown,
although his height be taken.

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle’s compass come:
love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
but bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

Compare the original above with a modern version here for meaning:

"I hope I may never acknowledge any reason why minds that truly love each other shouldn’t be joined together. Love isn’t really love if it changes when it sees the beloved change or if it disappears when the beloved leaves.
Oh no, love is a constant and unchanging light that shines on storms without being shaken; it is the star that guides every wandering boat. And like a star, its value is beyond measure, though its height can be measured. Love is not under time’s power, though time has the power to destroy rosy lips and cheeks.
Love does not alter with the passage of brief hours and weeks, but lasts until Doomsday. If I’m wrong about this and can be proven wrong, I never wrote, and no man ever loved. "

While casting for a topic, I came upon an intriguing video composition combining the famed novelist, Jane Austin's (there are three novels in the series), Sense and Sensibility, Shakespeare's sonnet 116 and the modern, English soprano singer Sarah Brightman performing This Love. Quite a combination! It's not what one might expect.

Even a simple mind doesn't easily put it all together. But further consideration gives the idea from Jane Austin, that in the middle way, a temperate mood is beneficial to one's life and happiness.There is something to the idea that a calm, steadiness lends itself to prosperity when standing on shifting ground.
The plot of the novel (written in 1811) illustrates this value, strengthened with Shakespeare's words that a true love is real, and remains, unfoundered. And while I can't ascertain the logic or philosophy engaged by the maker of the video, nor the sense or appropriateness of its music or lyric combined with the novel, I think it attracts because of the strong soprano voice of Sarah Brightman and an emotion she conveys when paired to the visuals of the movie. It forms a sort of synthesis which says more than either alone.

And I suppose one must read "between the lines" to find the meaning in it all. Finally, it is the music--maybe-- surely (maybe minus the lyrics) that seems to offer some kind of answer.

Beautiful, the One

Beautiful

by Christina Aguilera

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Everyday is so wonderful, then suddenly, its hard to breath

Now and then I get insecure, 

from all the pain I'm so ashamed

I am beautiful no matter what they say

Words can't bring me down

I am beautiful in every single way

Yes words can't bring me down 

So don't you bring me down today 

To all your friends you're delirious

So consumed in all your doom.... 

Trying hard to fill that emptiness,

The pieces gone,left the puzzle undone, 

Ain't that the way it is?

You are beautiful no matter what they say

Words can't bring you down 

you are beautiful in every single way

Yes words can't bring you down 

So don't you bring me down today

No matter what we do (No matter what we do)

No matter what we say (No matter what we say)

We're the song inside the tune 

Full of beautiful mistakes

And everywhere we go 

the sun will always shine 

And tomorrow we might awake 

on the other side

'Cause we are beautiful no matter what they say

Yes words won't bring us down 

we are beautiful in every single way

Yes words can't bring us down 

So don't you bring me down today

There are many ways to understand the One who is all, the one who is the Beloved, the Creator, the Oneness, the Christ, the Lord of All. And these names are just a few of the descriptions used to understand the Gospel story told about He who came into the world, the son of man, the redeemer.

Music for many, including this simple mind, helps find a way into that same understanding. This song has always led me to that place with its passion, its conviction and its heartfelt meaning-- words can't bring us down. We are beautiful in every single way--we, the beloved, the Lord's own. Celebrate today.

Really an Everyday Thing, Isn't It?

Silly Love Songs

by Paul McCartney and Wings

Listen Here

You'd think

that people would have had enough
of silly love songs

I look around me and see it isn't so

some people want to fill the world
with silly love songs

so what's wrong with that?

I need to know b'cause

here I go again

I love you

I love you...

Many of us hear the word religion and all kinds of thoughts and reactions arise. We tend to make it complicated, intellectual, even. We like to think it isn't about politics, it's about god; it isn't about society, it's about spirituality, and so on. Well, it is about all these things and some more.

It's simple, really. Religion in another view is about lives, human lives living day to day. We all have thoughts, feelings and relationships. What and how we think about ourselves and the world which we are part of, vastly influences the style and quality of that human existence. So religion need not be icky or avoidable, because it's just about life. And all of us have some experience with that.

So a little help from others may just be what makes a community; for some, it sure makes an opening for a spiritual experience, like this song. Do we need to have an organ playing a dirge song to have a religious experience, do bells need to ring or incense waft upward? In my experience, I have discovered that most often I get out of something more or less what I put into it. If a church, temple or community doesn't move me, then maybe I haven't given much of myself. Maybe my pre-existing notions circumvent me from connecting. Sure, I didn't get anything out of it. But what else did I expect? Nothing gets nothing.

Can our everyday coming and goings be a small part of the whole of life? If so, then this and many other songs may too. They touch us in some meaningful way. A simple song can create an awareness, an appreciation that we had not the sense of before. It's all religion, and like an artist, it's a part of my day. Everyday.

Food and the Politics of Eating

Eat this Bread  by the Taize Community, France
CHANTED: "Eat this bread, drink this cup, come to him and never be hungry;

Eat this bread, drink this cup, trust in him and you will never thirst."

This song, a very simple chant to be sung during meditation calls our mind to a basic human need and desire, to be fed.Yet it isn't always so simple. We presume because we have enough others must too, and often they do. Except when they do not. But, doesn't the world produce more than enough to feed one and all. Well, yes it does, but no, it doesn't feed all. They call it food politics. In food politics a very complicated and messy issue becomes more obviously an issue of social justice, of equity and parity for all.

We all have a right to clean water and healthful food the world over, no matter what our status, but not all have the income or the access to obtain what they need, or they cannot produce it themselves. In my simple world there is a place in the country with a garden, an orchard, some livestock, and maybe some chickens-- all on a few acres. Producing good, organic foods for family consumption is as old as the Bible. True enough, but what if you produce food to sell your excess, or produce strictly for sale. Who do you sell to, what is their income and personal resources? Do you sell so that everyone comes to the sale on equal ground, with equal footing. Can the rich man pay the price for home grown, organic foods? Most likely he can and purchases what he chooses. Can that same seller afford to sell to the economically disadvantaged? Can they give to a monk in his begging bowl? Moreover, will the seller even consider to do this?

On a world scale, there is said to be enough land and food production to feed the world, yet millions go hungry. How can this be? Again enter food politics. Control and access to food stores is an old tool, and an ancient weapon. Political factions, party alignments, political will and might often conspire acting together, producing man-made hunger and famine. Again it's as old as the Bible. One group favors or disfavors another and in food politics, very often the losers starve. There seems to be no easy answer to a wide spread problem. And it happens in our backyard, in our town too. Everyday.

Coming to the Simple

We Are One in the Spirit
lyrics by Jason Upton

We are one in the Spirit
We are one in the Lord

We are one in the Spirit

We are one in the Lord

two of several verses:

We will walk with each other

We will walk hand in hand

We will walk with each other

We will walk hand in hand

And together we’ll spread the news

That God is in our land

We will work with each other

We will work side by side

We will work with each other

We will work side by side

And we’ll guard each man’s dignity

And save each man’s pride

This song often sung as a chant in meditation is so simple yet powerful as a reminder of the Oneness of life, one in spirit, one in the Lord, walking hand in hand, working side by side, saving, respecting a man's dignity. As a younger person, though, I had not yet learned this chant, nor entered into anything like it; I did come to learn of the Oneness, quite by accident.

While in college there were the required studies that every student selected from to complete their degree, no matter what their major. Many disdained these classes and I wasn't always too enthusiastic either; one semester, I was short a required study area course; already having taken art history, music literature and drama studies. Well now, what was left? There was in the catalog another course previously avoided. It was a five hour class that met every afternoon, five times a week. That meant lots of work; yet without another better alternative, I took it.

It was a survey course in the Humanities. Tons of reading, short writings and study, but quickly I came to love it. And I came to appreciate the interconnections of our lives; that in some way, somehow we are one, even if we don't always consciously recognize or see it in our own daily travels. I was hooked and have remained with a passion for humanities ever since. Humanities I can say is the study of man and his works. It was been a great good in my life to recognize everything as diverse as Chaucer and Hamlet to The Rites of Spring to the Political movements of the 20th century and the history or philosophy of antiquity have meaning and relevance still, if we can see that; I see it as a good and I am well. We cannot forget those who in the next and coming century, those in want or those in loss when we have a clear view from the past to the present. This makes a way for what comes next.

We Three Kings of Orient Are

The quest of the Magi: " who having heard the king, went their way. And behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was. And seeing the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." --Mathew 2:9-10

We Three Kings of Orient Are

We three kings of Orient are

Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star

refrain:
O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy Perfect Light...

Are we not often questing, looking for something, even if we don't think carefully about it? Observing daily rhythms, noticing what brings us our centered, peaceful feelings; often it is in the process, the search or quest that we find ourselves, in simple absorption of the task. The bible story tells us that the star itself moved! Astounding if so, valuable as a symbol; it has the possibility to inspire and guide us in our daily coming and going.

One other thing: did you, like me, perhaps think the Magi were wise, noble men?
They came from the East. Were they Zoroastrians, were they Kings? What about astronomy as told in the story? The ancients of biblical times celebrated the astral glories as creations of G-d; in these glories were all others, like the glory of creation, of man himself. The response to such a moment was awe and delight. In the Book of Job, astronomy does make a pronounced appearance. But no clear or distinct identity of the Magi is given in the Torah or in the later stories of the christian bible.
And despite their obscure, true identity, their act of worship, of reverence to a new life, a small, undistinguished child,  marks them as both humble and simple; both great and wise. We follow then, that star still.

'Tis a Gift to be Simple, a Gift to Be Free...'

So go the words of the old American Shaker tune, Simple Gifts, written in 1848 by Shaker elder, Joseph Brackett:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.When true simplicity is gain'd, To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd, To turn, turn will be our delight, Till by turning, turning we come round right.

The song is described as a dancing song, or a quick song; however I sometimes hear this song in my mind. It comes to me, lighting my way, the simple way, the dharma way into a practice of no practice; the willingness to just be is how it seems to me.