Make a Joyful Noise!

Jazz Fest weekend! New Orleans is saturated with sound - sensory overload! I end my day listening to classical music, unwinding, when the Cambridge Singers rush through airwaves into my living room. I'm overwhelmed. Tonight, I salute the masters of music, inspired at this hour by

When Mary Through the Garden Went by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.

My God, what sweet sounds -
the choir’s timbre, voices
too pure to be mortal, these
unseen waves, sonic vibrations -
scintillating ephemeral
glimpses of the Spirit
formed by human lips
from the depth of human hearts.

The artist transfers a vision
from his mind’s eye
to canvas or clay,
using colors and textures
with masterful command
to create a tangible, tactile,
temporal object to hold
and behold. . .

Dancers leap and sway,
moving to the rhythms
and currents of musical scores,
creating visual expressions
of lyrical themes,
the pageantry of passion, life,
and death intersecting space
leaving no trace. . .

Ah, but, the composer’s gift
mystifies me most -
bringing order to the cacophony,
capturing and combining airs,
from inside his head, translating,
then encoding melody, harmony,
and tempo for other voices -
a sorcerer-magician whose
work exists in ether.

Try to remain with a feeling and see what happens. You will find it amazingly difficult. Your mind will not leave the feeling alone; it comes rushing in with its remembrances, its associations, its do’s and don’ts, its everlasting chatter. Pick up a piece of shell. Can you look at it, wonder at its delicate beauty, without saying how pretty it is, or what animal made it? Can you look without the movement of the mind? Can you live with the feeling without the word, without the feeling that the word brings up? If you can, then you will discover an extraordinary thing, a movement beyond the measure of time, a spring that knows no summer.

J. Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living

Untitled

My soul is one
with the sun and sky,
the wind and mother sea.
My ancestors’ souls
intertwine with mine
beyond the galaxy.

How blessed I am
to have this time
to feel the sun’s warm rays,
the wind’s soft breath,
the sea’s salt waves,
on endless summer days.

I see my parents
and hold their hands,
in loving memories.
I’m thankful for
this mortal taste
of God’s Infinity.

We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea.

- Paul Tillich

A Gentle Awakening

After an unusually severe winter, Spring has arrived; not suddenly or abruptly with the turning of the calendar or the change to daylight saving time. No, Spring slipped in – as is her habit - softly, delicately.

As the days gradually grow longer and the temperature tiptoes toward lukewarm, the leaf buds on the oak appear - only the size of a squirrel’s ear at first. Clover blankets the still dormant lawn. A patch of sweet peas volunteer, seeded by last year’s vines, to bedeck the lattice fence behind the statue of St. Francis with pale green foliage and fragrant lavender blooms. The bulbs I planted in February pierce the soil with their slender blades – some will be daffodils, but I can’t remember what else I chose for the patio.

The azaleas show new leaves, but, within weeks, their greenery becomes obscured by pink and white blossoms. Over the course of the same weeks, I remove the remains of potted avocados and other casualties of winter, and trim back the ginger lilies and the banana that was a gift from a St. Louis guest. I place tiny begonias, petunias and impatiens in the planters and hanging baskets. The roses awaken, their new foliage almost wine-red, gradually moving across the color wheel to shades of green. The wisteria, still without leaves, fills vacant branches with cascades of sweet-scented blooms.

This Spring, we take measures of other subtle changes. Over the past three months, my grandson has mastered the arts of crawling, standing alone and walking. His first teeth emerge and give new character to his smile. He celebrates his first birthday in City Park’s Storyland. For myself, a long-awaited-not-entirely-new job moves me from the ranks of self-employed; it is my first full-time employment (with benefits) in over a decade. This change is imperceptible to the clients with whom I work.

As I rake the leaves for the last time, and dust off the lawn mower, I realize how precious these days are and how much I will miss Spring when she steps aside for Summer to take her place.

The sacred is in the ordinary, in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends and family, in one’s backyard.

- Abraham Maslow