Kumar Gandharva

 

Today is the birthday of Pandit Kumar Gandharva, the great Indian classical singer.  A musical prodigy from childhood, he refused to be bound by custom, and introduced many groundbreaking themes and styles into his singing, which made him controversial in the eyes of some conservatively-minded music enthusiasts.  He was stricken with tuberculosis as a young man and was told by doctors that he would never sing again.  After much suffering, he recovered with the help of antibiotics, but was left with only one functioning lung.  This didn’t stop him from eventually returning to singing.  He incorporated folk and devotional songs into his repertoire, including the songs of Kabir.  His interpretations of the songs of Kabir are renowned for their artistic beauty and singular spiritual intensity.  Here is a link to his performance of Kabir’s Nirbhay Nirgun Re Gaoonga:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1tXJu-1O8U

Dog Paddling

 

Die meisten Menschen wollen nicht eher schwimmen, als bis sie es können.

Most people will not try to swim before they are able to.

This is probably the most famous line of Novalis, thanks to Harry Haller quoting it approvingly in Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf. The irony is that it is contradicted by the behavior of most would-be writers, who tend to write before they are actually able to do it properly. (Perhaps this is true with all the arts.) I know that, in my own case, I have written for years (grant proposals, articles, reports, newsletters, verse, and finally, after many years, fiction) without ever having the basics of English grammar fully in my grasp. I hated the subject of grammar in school (although I thought that the phrase “vowel diphthong” was funny, and I was glad that some verbs were finally getting the help they needed), but I do have to confess that in the end I found more useful writing tools in the study of linguistics (on my own) and music theory than anywhere else. I’ve picked up a few grammar tips here and there, though I can’t think of a more interesting use of words from a creative standpoint than the reversing of homophones in a sentence: “Nothing compliments a meal like a nice complement on the cooking.” “Of coarse, it’s important not to make it course.” Language play is so important to me! When I write, I find that allusiveness, polysemy, tropes, in-jokes, idioms, and innuendos—as well as the musicality of language—matter more to me than plot and characterization, although they are useful props to hang those other things on. To be honest, I do care about plot and characterization, although I tend to think of the whole more in terms of mood and message than anything else. And those things can best be expressed with the tools of metaphor, intimation, sound play, allegory, and the like. Sometimes, when I’m stuck, especially while editing, I go to composing software (like MuseScore 3) and use my minimal piano skills to compose a little something. It makes it so much easier to return to editing or writing—to find the right word or phrase. As James Joyce wrote in Finnegans Wake, “Bite my laughters, drink my tears. Pore into me, volumes, spell me stark and spill me swooning, I just don’t care what my thwarters think.”

    I’ve always rebelled against certain orthographic conventions (mostly in the realm of punctuation). But as much as one might like to throw out all convention, there are rules that must be followed in order to be able to communicate with the reader. On the other hand, an author like Joyce continually overrode linguistic conventions and gave us something completely amazing and unique. It’s interesting to note, however, that the line from Finnegans Wake, “—Three quarks for Muster Mark!” uses traditional sentence structure, which helps us penetrate its opaqueness. Suppose it had been written as “—Muster three Mark quarks for!” Its meaning would be completely obscured. (Generative grammar theory attempts to give us some good explanations as to why this is the case.) But the truth is that a somewhat more unusual sentence structure could have been employed by Joyce that would still have given us a sense of its meaning, something like, “For Muster Mark—three quarks!” This is not to say that Joyce didn’t break down normal sentence structure in Finnegans Wake—but he did so at a cost to intelligibility, and very few authors can dance on the terrifying knife edge between incoherence and ambiguity as Joyce did. It is usually safer to stay with “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” though I personally prefer “For Muster Mark—three quarks!” because it adds a sense of immediacy to the words.

     Sometimes it’s better to jump right in rather than stand at the side of the pool—but one has to be ready for a little discomfort and a lot of dog paddling.

Words

Ich halte es mit Siddhartha, unsrem weisen Freund aus dem Osten, der einmal gesagt hat:

“Die Worte tun dem geheimen Sinn nicht gut, es wird immer alles gleich ein wenig anders, ein wenig verfälscht, ein wenig närrisch—ja, und auch das ist gut, auch damit bin ich einverstanden, daß das, was eines Menschen Schatz und Weisheit ist, dem ändern immer wie Narrheit klingt.”

                                                                         --Hermann Hesse, Die Morgenlandfahrt

  

I agree with Siddhartha, our wise friend from the East, who once said:

“Words are not good for revealing hidden meanings, everything is always a little different, a little distorted, a little foolish—yes, but it is also right and fitting, and I likewise agree, that a person's treasure and wisdom will always sound like folly to others."

A Journey to Peace

 

A way to peace: to be honest with ourselves about who we really are; to peel back the layers until we really see ourselves and what we need to do—to be decent, to be just, to be generous.  Leaving our petty grievances with others aside, we should always strive for sincerity about who we really are.  Not the image that we want others to have of us, the idealized image that we present to attain their approval, but our real selves, our true mean-spiritedness, dishonesty, and weakness.  How hard it is to be truthful with ourselves!  But how necessary.  To see the plank in our own eyes instead of the speck in others.  A way to peace—and a journey to peace.  

"Poets, slavery still goes on!"

Poets helped to condemn black slavery.  Poets, slavery still goes on!  More than two thirds of humanity are slaves to hunger, sickness, forced labor, despair.  And another third is in slavery to selfishness and fear.

                                                                                              --Dom Helder Camara, The Desert is Fertile, tr. Dinah Livingstone

St. Gregory of Nyssa

 

I have always loved the works of St. Gregory of Nyssa ever since I read The Life of Moses in the “Classics of Western Spirituality” edition.  One of the very first great texts on mystical theology in the history of Christianity, The Life of Moses affected me deeply as a young person.  I remember writing out the lines from it, “He should not inflict upon his soul a heavy and fleshy garment of life, but by the purity of his life he should make all the pursuits of life as thin as the thread of a spider web,” and carrying it with me everywhere.  All of Gregory’s works shine with such a serene and optimistic vision; they seem filled with sunlight and fire and a sense of the grandeur of God and the cosmos.  At the center of his thought is the belief that humanity is made in the image of God, with all the profound implications that this principle carries with it.  Child and sibling of saints and scholars, Gregory lived among a “new humanity” in the making.  His optimism about human destiny was both shaped and reinforced by the struggle against Arianism—Christ’s true divinity and full humanity were at the center of his hope for a redeemed world. For Gregory, we humans were created to partake in divine goodness in the same way that fish were meant to live in water or birds in the air.  (He denounced slavery and the oppression of the poor by the rich in his writings because slavery and oppression were not compatible with our “purple”—that is, royal—status as heirs to the fullness of the kingdom of God.)  Life, reason, wisdom, and immortality were given to us so that we might be true images of God.  Gregory compares human beings to a painting that captures something of the spirit of the model—our attributes are given by God in likeness to Himself. That we are now bemused, weak, mortal, and prone to selfish weakness, as well as suffering, does not change our true destiny. Christ’s incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit among us has accorded to all the opportunity to become children of God. Though humanity has become distorted, it can—and, as Gregory underscores repeatedly, will—be fully restored and healed.

Novalis, Geistliche Lieder, II

 

Fern im Osten wird es helle,
Graue Zeiten werden jung;
Aus der lichten Farbenquelle
Einen langen tiefen Trunk!
Alter Sehnsucht heilige Gewährung,
Süße Lieb in göttlicher Verklärung!
 
Endlich kommt zur Erde nieder
Aller Himmel selges Kind,
Schaffend im Gesang weht wieder
Um die Erde Lebenswind,
Weht zu neuen ewig lichten Flammen
Längst verstiebte Funken hier zusammen.
 
Überall entspringt aus Grüften
Neues Leben, neues Blut;
Ewgen Frieden uns zu stiften,
Taucht er in die Lebensflut;
Steht mit vollen Händen in der Mitte,
Liebevoll gewärtig jeder Bitte,
 
Lasse seine milden Blicke
Tief in deine Seele gehn,
Und von seinem ewgen Glücke
Sollst du dich ergriffen sehn.
Alle Herzen, Geister und die Sinnen
Werden einen neuen Tanz beginnen.
 
Greife dreist nach seinen Händen,
Präge dir sein Antlitz ein,
Mußt dich immer nach ihm wenden,
Blüte nach dem Sonnenschein;
Wirst du nur das ganze Herz ihm zeigen,
Bleibt er wie ein treues Weib dir eigen.
 
Unser ist sie nun geworden,
Gottheit, die uns oft erschreckt,
Hat im Süden und im Norden
Himmelskeime rasch geweckt,
Und so laßt im vollen Gottes-Garten,
Treu uns jede Knosp und Blüte warten.
 
 
From distant east our dayspring grows,
Grey times will be young,
And in the light are shades of rose,
A beverage to rejuvenate,
So that our holy longing knows
The sacred love his presence shows.
 
For us descends upon the earth
Heaven’s fairest child.
From all creation’s song of mirth,
The brightest wind of life itself,
A fiery storm that heralds birth.
Fresh embers to renew our worth.
 
Now from their tombs, the dead arise,
By new life—new blood!
To grant peace for us as the prize,
He dives into the flood of life,
Amidst us with full hands and eyes
And listening for all our sighs,
 
His gaze so tender toward our fall,
Glancing at our souls,
And joyful is his gentle call
For all those longing to be held.
Our hearts and senses now recall
Those spirits dancing with us all.
 
So let our hands stretch forth in grace,
Turning to his help,
Marked by his presence and his face
As flowers after morning dawns.
His heart alone will you embrace;
The faithful lover of our race.
 
All is ripe for our possession,
He, the one we feared,
North and south with great procession,
Germs of stars, which fast awaken
God’s own garden now in session,
Buds that call the rains to freshen.
 
                                                    —Novalis, Geistliche Lieder, II