You know how YouTube will recommend videos? Well one that’s constantly recommended to me actually is illustrated with my photos.
So, when it came up again today, I thought I would take a look. It’s been a while since I last watched it. To be honest with you I found it really quite moving, watching it again. Anyway let me share the brief story of how this all came about.
I’d met folk singers Susan and Colin Parrish through the community radio station I once managed. I loved their music and style right away and now, over ten years later I’m still drawn to their music and listen to them very often.
We became friends and after sharing some of my photos with Colin, I was truly surprised when he used them as the visuals for a video he put together of Sue and his cover of The Rose, a terrific song made famous by Bette Midler.
An extraordinary take on a beautiful and powerful song. And to see my photos accompanying was a real thrill. Then as it is now.
I thought I would share it with you here. One thing I hadn’t remembered: Colin’s description :
I was surprised to see my words there. And you know something? I think this song, my photos and that little forgotten quote from me, are all a perfect match. Love is. That’s it really: love is. We, each of us, all are merely expressions of love made manifest in the material world.
I hope you enjoy watching and listening. My little quote really is only echoing lyrics from the song:
Some say love it is a flower and you it’s only seed
Sarah Bernhardt as Prince Hamlet (Public Domain image)
No, it’s not a quote from Shakespeare. Mind you, now I think about it, there’s a line in Hamlet, where the man himself is monologuing about the human condition and declaims a strong-felt sentiment:
What a piece of work is man! [sic]
The reality is that first quote is from someone far more mundane than the bard: me. The occasion on which I uttered this equally impassioned statement was as I sat holding my smartphone and listening to the music flowing from it through bluetooth fairy land and into the headphones I was wearing.
The truth is I was at that moment just awestruck and a bit overwhelmed with what I was hearing, and just as significantly, with how I was hearing a particular song.
Not being a materialist by any measure, my phone and headphones are nowhere the latest or top of the line models, but still, to me, what I was hearing was magnificent. It’s the only word that fits really.
Anyway, that isn’t exactly what I want to write about today. Reflecting on the experience described above, got me thinking about the actual song I was listening to. And that’s what I want to write about now.
The song in question is written and sung by Australian singer-songwriter Cyndi Boste (died 2018) and is called Cry Down on Me. Here are the lines that have struck me particularly:
I’m not afraid of your tears. Cry down on me I’ll make sure nobody hears Cry down on me.
Before we go on, a short note. Until I started research for this post I had my own idea of what ‘Cry down on me’ means. Seems I got it wrong. However, for this post I am choosing to believe that the songwriter agrees with me. If you look up the meaning and then listen carefully to the lyrics, you’ll see that perhaps I didn’t get it wrong after all.
Essentially here we have the singer/protagonist reassuring another person (friend? lover? sibling? We don’t really find out, but if I had to guess, I’d say they are lovers) that they are safe to share their tears, their sadness, anger, fears and so on. Most of us at some time or another (or always?) have been afraid to express or share our emotions, to show our tears.
So, why is our protagonist going to make sure nobody hears the other’s tears? Well, she is obviously aware that the other is at the very least embarrassed, perhaps afraid of being ridiculed, rejected, or perhaps they’re worried about appearing ‘weak’ or making themselves seem vulnerable.
And how did she come to that awareness? I think she has seen this other with the eyes of her heart, seen their need. And now she’s telling them: ‘Look don’t worry, I am listening to you with my heart and I can hear you.’
We are exposed to so much ‘noise’ from everywhere all the time. Even the tears of a loved one can be lost in the overall din that sometimes threatens to smother us all.
And of course we’re not just talking about literal tears here, and the sound the shedding of them makes: anything said, written or otherwise made known that is of substance, or real importance and meaning, is threatened with annihilation by all the trivia, gossip, advertising, round the clock news, and what I often call the general blah blah, that passes for life in the modern materialistic world.
Of course to protect ourselves from all that noise, it’s no surprise that we so often only listen with our physical ears, see with our physical eyes. Actually having said that, I know from my own experience that even that level of engagement and attention can be a struggle sometimes. And doesn’t that struggle sometimes lead us to closing down altogether?
I guess the answer lies in what Buddha call The Middle Way or Path: The bottom line is that we can choose what we listen to (or look at) and what we don’t. No need to switch off and isolate ourselves completely from the ‘outside’. Nor is it necessary to leave ourselves wide open to all that noise.
Like our protagonist in the song, we can listen with the ears of our hearts; we can see with the eyes of our hearts. It is in our hearts that love lies, where Truth lives. We can say to that other that we are listening and seeing with our hearts, while at the same time reassuring them that nobody, including us, is going to simply be hearing or seeing you only with physical ears and eyes.
The last time I listened to the song (yesterday: it’s become a big favourite) I had the thought that maybe our protagonist is reminding her Self that she’s listening. Sometimes our ‘real’ self can feel like a stranger, as if that Self is someone unknown, and living as a separate entity outside of us can’t it?
It’s at that heart level where we can truly listen, truly see, the other. And whether that other is one’s Self or another person, the truth is there really is no difference: your heart is truth, the other’s heart is truth, and it’s the same Truth.
Welcome again to my blog. It’s always a good feeling when I sit at the keyboard to begin a new post to you.
And for this post,I have some news: this hermit is back on the road again. But, I hear you asking: aren’t you as a pilgrim always on the road, on the move? Yes all true; a pilgrimage like mine (life) is never-ending, permanent. Just a state of being you could say.
So, after a few months in the desert hermitage, we felt lead to move to Sydney, to another cave; another safe haven by the side of road.
This move has felt right and gone smoothly from the first thought, the initial feeling, to the actual trip here, right down to the comfort and contentment we feel in this new hermitage (in reality a small apartment beneath a house with a lovely garden, in a quiet street).
My second piece of news is that I have made another blog, one just for my pictures. Of course my posts here are always illustrated with my photos, but after deleting all my social media accounts (another bit of news I suppose) I felt the need for an alternate place to share my art. It’s on a different platform and it would be terrific if you could follow me there.
The blog is called Pictures from the Heart of a Pilgrim, and you are invited to visit, to follow, to comment. to connect. Just click on the link here.
There are only a handful of pictures on that site so far, but I’m working on expanding it, so please make sure you visit more than once. Better still, subscribe so you can be notified whenever I post.
I think that’s it. Maybe I will post about deleting social media accounts. But, somehow I don’t think I will: they’ve gone and I’m happy about that. I’m not alone I know in making that decision.
We’ve all had this experience I think. I’ll be reading something, and right away I’ll come to a conclusion, become either sure of something or the complete opposite; I can be confused, force myself to ask more questions. I can even have brilliant insights or realizations.
No? Well, maybe it’s really just me then. But, wait there’s more: this is a two part experience. When that second part happens we will come to realise that what we think we read is nothing at all like what the words on the paper (or screen) actually said in a factual sense.
Yes, you’ve probably guessed by now that there’s a story coming. In fact this exact thing happened to me this morning, all the way to the brilliant insight or realisation bit.
In fact it was a brilliant realisation, the only problem was that it was based on only on what I thought I read, not what was actually being said.
Anyway, I was reading the verse quoted below, from my Bhagavad Gita and a sudden flash of insight hit me.
Despite these five lines saying a particular thing in a clear and precise manner, I somehow misread the first three lines to say:
All beings ensue from Me.
Bhagavad Gita Ch 7:12
Somehow my mind skipped the ‘states of’ bit and made a leap that actually lead to a great realisation: Of course, I thought; God is not in us (as in living beings), it’s we who are in God.
Which to me means that we are all part and parcel of God. I’m not saying, I’m God; I’m not saying you are either. What I am saying is that all creation as one, unified whole, is in God. And if that one unified whole does indeed ensue from God, then it follows that all of creation is God.
As individualized, embodied entities, we (along with all life everywhere) are simply manifestations in the material form of that divine energy, that life, that truth; that which we often call God.
Now, this is an instance of a flash of insight leading to a truth, when the receiver of the insight (that’s me) is engaged with what you might call some other factual reality, that is, the actual words on the page.
At first I thought, that’s weird: how did I misread all those words related to states of being? I mean they are pretty clear right? But then I thought, no, maybe not so weird. In fact, it makes sense.
How can my material mind and intellect possibly be expected to always keep its millions of thoughts, ideas, impulses and the rest, in perfect order each thought or whatever following completely logically from the one before and to the one after? It’s never going to happen is it? Not for any of us (Well maybe I’m overstating my case here, but you know what I mean).
And if mind does indeed operate on what seems on the face of it to be a random basis, then it’s perfectly reasonable to suppose that one might be prompted to some momentous insight by, well by anything really. Even if it’s a conclusion jumped to after the misreading of a text.
In this case though, that jumping to conclusions, even though based a misreading, has turned out to be a genuine realisation that I feel on an intuitive level; my instincts tell me it’s Truth.
Strangely for one who lives a life that at least aspires to be outside the mainstream of our culture and society, I have a lot of rules to follow.
What I mean to say, is that, while for the most part I disdain the ‘rules and customs’, and the ‘demands and obligations’ of the dominent culture and our materialistic society, I seem to be quite capable of making up all kinds of rules for myself. I’m then more than able to put the exact same pressures on myself to obey, to comply and to conform.
One of those ‘rules’ is to try not to repeat topics of posts. Obviously there are posts that fall through the cracks of such strictness, but on the whole I like to keep coming up with new things to share with you.
But it’s been occuring to me lately that musings and contemplations don’t work that way. The mind, the heart, know no such rules as ‘no repittion’. (Actually, now I think about it, there are some things the mind likes to repeat all the time that I could do very well without thank you very much)
Sometime, not too long ago I think, I wrote about the beautiful George Harrison song, Just for today. I wrote about how I have a slightly paraphrased few lines from that song written in my Bhagavat Gita, and I read those lines every day:
I know I am not alone in my desire to not be constantly trying to sort out all life’s problems; I know many of us would just like a little peace, a little pause in the ongoing rush of life. Just for today, or even just for a minute.
What George is making a plea for here has resonated with me since I first heard this song so many years ago I can’t remember.
Anyway, this was supposed to lead up to the real topic of today’s post which was going to be about my decision last night to spend the next few days in a kind of retreat. Instead it’s turned into a bit of a rave about breaking self-imposed rules.
Actually though, one of the primary motivations for my decision was the very notion of presence, of being still for ‘this day only’. You know the idea: leave all life’s worries and issues, and worldly concerns out of mind, just for a bit.
In other words, in this case I don’t think I mind repeating myself, breaking my own (really rather silly if you ask me) rule. The retreat is timely, and it’s a good thing to be reminded that it really is about presence.
I’ve been getting too caught up in ‘what’s next?’ kind of questions. As well as the usual and very tedious existential angst over life, the universe, and everything past, present, and still yet to be!
So, at the risk of creating a classic oxymoron, it’s now the time to head off to find a little presence, and a little stillness.
When thinking about a name for this photo I was really tempted to somehow reference the song American Pie by Don McLean. The phrase from the lyrics ‘the day the music died’, kept coming to mind – even as I made the photo of the scene.
And there was that brilliant MASH scene coming to mind. In the scene there is concert pianist who has lost the use of his right hand in battle. One of the doctors attempts to encourage him to not allow the music to die, to find other ways than actually playing piano to share the music.
Both connections seemed obvious: a very old dead piano decaying, returning to old forms of itself. But then it struck me: it was the instrument that had died and was changing forms. All material things change, die, becoming something else.
The music on the other hand, hasn’t died. It not only survived that plane crash and the transition of those three singers, it has thrived. Their music lives on. Music can’t die. Why?
Because music is life. Vibrations, harmony, and sound itself, are the foundations, the roots of ‘life the universe and everything’ (to borrow an old expression). As such, music is not a tangible, physical thing and it needs an instrument to make it manifest in the world; music merely passes through the instrument and emerges into being.
I liked that MASH episode. The doctor (stuffy Major Winchester) says to his patient, the wounded pianist, that as a skilled surgeon he has hands that ‘can make a scalpel sing’. But really, what he’s wanted all his life to is to experience music the way the pianist has.
He says he can play the notes, but he doesn’t have the gift that would allow the music (as in Chopin, Brahms and the rest) to flow through him. He tells his patient, who is depressed and unwilling or unable to consider that the music may not have died:
The gift does not live in your hands. The true gift is in your head, and in your heart, and in your soul.
Major Charles Winchester
Hearing that line again reminded me of Om. There are a number of religious traditions that consider OM (sometimes spelt as AUM) to be the primordial sound, the very source of creation. The word itself, when written is considered sacred.
Then there is the verse from the Christian Bible that makes the exact same assertion:
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
John 1:1-3
Well, music needs an instrument – whether in the form of a voice, body, mind, or in an object made of wood, strings, brass, or something else – in order to manifest into the material world and to be experienced by us.
Just think: the piano in my photo in the front garden of a house in a mining town has most likely allowed many generations to experience music. Accompanied them in celebrations and greivings; helped so many through good times and bad times; witnessed people laugh, cry, and even dance;
Of course, Major Winchester’s gifts as a surgeon are that he is a instrument for the vibration, the music of the universe, to make itself manifest in another way.
And what he is essentially saying to our wounded pianist is: ‘Look you can shut it off forever (his words) or you can continue making your gifts – your Self – available as an instrument that allows that music to come into the world for everyone to share’.
Well dear friends, I have pledged to carry on using my gifts and be available in just that way that allows the music to come through me in whatever form and shape it takes.
By gifts I mean those things that have been granted to every living being: the ability to create harmony; the ability to make and spread good vibrations; and the capacity to appreciate and celebrate beauty.
And when you think of it there is no way to put a limit on the number of ways that the music that is Life might be channelled through each and every one of us
A good place to pick up some good vibes, get into harmony with yourself and appreciate beauty all at the same time
In my own ways I try to make harmony in and around myself as much as I’m able. I am always attempting to cultivate behaviours and attitudes that help to create and spread good vibes. And I constantly seek to appreciate beauty, even when the world seems to be only ugliness.
Of course, as I say I am only the instrument. The music -the beauty, good vibes, and harmony – exist with or without me. But music in whatever shape and form it takes needs an instrument if it is to come into our material world and be there for all of us to share.
So, this is my prayer: that at least every once in a while, every now and then, I can actually be that instrument .
PS Just a little postscript. When passing that particular garden (the piano garden I call it now) I was drawn to this:
Eagle-eyed Garden Guardian
Just as I photographed this lovely creature, I heard my partner’s voice:
‘Did you see the piano?’
Now being in what you’ve heard me call the Zen Zone I was fully focused on and absorbed in, our winged friend. Coming back from wherever I’d been, I did in fact notice the piano.
You see, you just never never know where the music is going to come from. I might not have seen the piano with my own eagle eye but lucky for me music had a ready and willing instrument standing by to remind me of which way to look.
This morning as I do most mornings (trying to make it every morning) I sat for my practice starting with some prayers and reading a a few random verses from Bhagavad Gita.
Then I settled to spend some time in devotional chanting of mantra. For a change this morning, while chanting I listened to a lovely album of devotees chanting the Hare Krishna mantra:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.
I reached for my mala (prayer beads or rosary) and as I mentally repeated these holy names in accompaniment to the recording, I held a bead between my fingers for each repetition, focusing on the chant.
Now, chanting is much like any other human activity: that is to say, the mind is always there. Usually it manages to bring up all kinds of irrelevant fears, memories, questions, you name it. Today, however, one of those supposedly random memories actually caught my attention in a good way and took me along.
As I continued handling my prayer beads I thought about a story I read in India nearly 15 years ago now. The story concerned prayer beads as it happens. Buddhist nuns, imprisoned in Tibet, were forced to resort to making their own rosaries in secret after their meagre belongings had been seized.
Almost ten years later, after another extended stay in India, I finally was able to write about this story. In this instance it came into being as a poem I called Homage to Holiness. May I share it with you here?
Homage to Holiness
Threads harvested from threadbare clothing. Pea-sized bits of bread, sliced from meagre rations, secretly hoarded for sacred purpose.
Mala makers work at night in the dark of the stinking and freezing stone cell. Chewed bits of bread become dough again,
and, by feel, frozen fingers knead the dough until tiny beads are created. An even tinier twig, again by feel, pierces each bead through.
Then in solemn prayerful silence and focus, the nun passes her harvested thread through the first bead. She ties a knot, no easy task with freezing fingers in the frozen dark.
And so it goes; all sacred duties take their own time. One by one; one bead of bread threaded; one knot knotted. The nun nears collapse. But now, at last, her task is done.
As the last knot is knotted, the last bead in its place, the nun sighs and mutters, whispers, a prayer of thanks. One hundred and eight beads – plus one – made, and strung Her Mala Om Mani Padme Hum
Probably the most sacred and significant of all Buddhist Mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, means something like ‘the jewel is in the lotus’. But many would say it goes a lot further than the mere literal translation of the words; It is said to be the actual path to Enlightenment. There is a huge amount of information on the Internet about this mantra, so if you’re interested a good place to start is at this link.
Whatever the actual literal meaning, interpretation, or who chants it, I think we can all agree that the intent of this mantra is to have us focus on the divine, or on the Ultimate or Absolute reality. The same as any mantra one might choose actually. Remember last post? God is.
in any case, I think somewhere above I’ve used the word random. Well I should know better by now: no such thing as random. One of the Bhagavad Gita verses I read – in fact the final one I left marked with my bookmark – seems to me fit very nicely with that ‘random’ memory of a story read years ago, and my humble retelling of the story in a poem many years later
One who knows the Absolute and whose intelligence is fixed on the Absolute is not moved by pleasure or pain, pleasant or unpleasant happenings.
Bhagavad Gita 5:20
Did that nun imprisoned as she was in the dark and the cold feel that pain? Did she feel fear? Of course she did. The thing is, she was, as constantly as her circumstances allowed, fixed on the Absolute: the activity of making the mala, the intended use of the mala, and her prayerful attention and devotion as she worked, all enabling a complete fixing of mind, heart, and attention onto the Absolute.
The cold was still there; the hunger and fear too. But this nun was able to remain centred, you might even say calm and content, despite the dire situation.
Actually content was a word I read in relation to this nun and her sisters (she wasn’t alone in that prison cell): From what I read they were released after some time, and eventually escaped to India where they rejoined friends, family, and of course their leader the Dalai Lama
At the time the story was being recorded for posterity, the Mala Maker reported that she was happy and content and leading a full and fulfilling life. I imagine her as still being fixed on the Absolute.
Thank you for allowing me to share these moments with you Love and peace
I can’t remember when I wrote my last post. And of course it isn’t relevant at all is it? I mean to say that in the contemplative life, time sometimes seems to take on some other kind of character.
Or at least I should say that one’s perception of the passage of time shifts; nothing unusal there I hear you say, and of course you’re right. Just thinking out loud I suppose.
For me, having a right perception of time is an important aspect of my Sadhana, my practice: yes, it’s true: time is seen to fly, or it is frustratingly felt to drag. But my aspiration is to see time as simply a human construction that we use to limit, structure, bind, define, and place all kinds of restrictions on our lives.
Which for me, simply means that there is only presence or Presence; only the ongoing continous moment (what we often call The Now). Easier said than done mind!
Swami Ramdas (known as Papa to his followers)
In any case, here I am, just where God would have me be. Feeling strongly to reach out to you, I remember the poem (it’s not really about time in the sense we’re discussing it so far) that emerged the other day after reading a quote from Swami Ramdas that seemed to be an answer to some thoughts I’d been having.
I’m grateul for this, all of this. And for you too, the reader of these musings offered with humility and thanks.
Peace and love from me to you.
GOD IS MY ALL
Thinking thoughts as if battered by demons. Memories arising of my own evil deeds, selfish and cruel. Right away I turn to God: God is my all; Hare Krishna
Forego repentance, relinquish regrets; you are filled with God, the supreme essence of life. God is my all; Hare Krishna.
Through Papa Ramdas I hear the Universe speak: Forgiveness is from God; and it has been granted. God is my all; Hare Krishna.
Welcome to another musing from the hermits’ cave. It’s been a while hasn’t it?
Mind you, I’ve been busy: settling into the new hermitage here in the desert. Actually, it’s been cloudy since we arrived, and raining sometimes. It’s as if the Subtropics have followed us here, except that it’s been freezing.
And I’ve been busy colouring in as well. Not as in filling in a picture book designed for colouring, but in making my own patterns and shapes with the one aspiration of making colour happen.
Japanese calligraphy masters will tell you that God is in the ink, or in my case in the pigment of the colour pencils I use. I draw designs, sometimes complex, sometimes simple, then fill the spaces with colour. Sometimes just one or two, sometimes multiple colours.
Why? Well, the simple answer is because I like doing it. I like to see colour covering the page, seeing it slowly fill that empty space. I’m not good at ‘drawing’ and painting in the traditional sense, but one thing I can do is make colour. So I do.
And it’s a sacred act: God is in the ink remember? It’s the making of beauty. And that is a holy act. There’s that aphorism isn’t there? It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness?
Or, I could say that it’s better to make colour and patterns than it is to be swamped by the darkness.
There’s a Bhagavad Gita verse I like that I came across again the other day:
If one’s thoughts are fully absorbed in the Absolute all his [sic] spiritual offerings also become a part of that same Absolute
Bhagavad Gita 4:24
In other words, all our actions – and we never cease from activity while we dwell in a material body – are not only prayers or offerings to that Absolute (or you can say to God, to beauty, to art, to love, to the universe, to life. Or you don’t have to name it at all. None of the names and forms are relevant) but in fact become that Absolute.
I am a hermit pilgrim, living a contemplative life devoted to the Absolute we just talked about. I have little to offer, but I offer all that I am. And with my photographs, and with my ‘colouring in’, I try to create a little bit of the sacred, a lit bit of colour and beauty to keep us all away from the darkness.
Today I’d like to share a poem with you. I wrote it exactly a year ago, but it’s about a day many many years ago. At other places on this site I’ve mentioned that cliched but for me ever so real question: Am I running away from something or am I running towards something?
In one of those other places I joke about my answer: ‘Neither. I’m just a journey person’. Well, this poem began life as a story of the day I first met Jesus freaks as I hitchhiked on just one more random excursion.
Then it becomes at the same time a piece about running, or journeying towards. And, there’s more: it then speaks about the journey as the point of the journey; the movement is the thing
But the thing morphed into a rap about journey beginnings, or at least in the sense of my ongoing attempted, and until a lot of years later, futile escapes from the madness of family and circumstance. That’s the running away bit.
You see, there was something holy felt then, as now, about those seemingly random hitching trips (not that I would dream of hitching in these times). Somehow I knew the Road was the escape route from the growing madness and horror.
Of course I was only able to partially articulate this at that time, but I remember even at 17 (no, it was a year earlier when I’d made my first attempt. I’d forgotten about that) feeling a sort of specialness about the covering of new (for me) ground, the movement, then the arrival at new (for me) places, new towns and cities.
Much of this pilgrimming (for that is what it was) was done in solitude – except for interactions with drivers of course (one of whom was on the day in question one of the said Jesus Freaks) and other necessary people along the way.
I felt a sense of belonging when on the Road; a kind of being in place and in sync. A sense of belonging that I kept fucking up as I let the trickster ego with its taunting messages of fear, loneliness, greed for things and status, and the rest, take control of me and lead me on twisting and tricky roads back to madness.
And now, these 50 years later, I survey the damage done, the cost to self and others. Especially others. No use of course, to look back with wishful thoughts of what if things had been done differently, what if other choices had been made. Such is not truth, not real. Well, none of it’s real anyway is it? Samsara is all it is – it’s all a sea of madness and illusion isn’t it?
Anyway, here is the poem. May it speak to you. Peace
The Road Rises Up
I woke up that morning marooned in Albion in a village of warriors, on a street, in a house, going mad in a nest of madness on an island of madness, in a sea of madness. Escape, refuge, safety – waking thoughts. Waking dreams. Looking for a way out.
The Road. The Road rose up in my mind. The Road will save me. Not the shrink the patriarch screamed I needed to see. The Road was waiting; I found it waiting for me. And my thumb in silent salutation and prayer held aloft in supplication as I trudged on that seemingly straight but trickster road.
Welcome to the pilgrims’ way, the Road greeted me as I trod ever more lightly and Babylon’s chariots hurtled past me bound for far nowheres. Or maybe somewheres. All in the fast lanes and howling deceptively of invitations and rejections, attractions and aversions. Then – in time – an invitation proffered and accepted. This pilgrim was on his way.
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 