Springsteen - Thunder Road

Yeah!!! This is the good America! How glorious is this?

Her Determination: Sonnet 3

This is the third sonnet in a sequence beginning with "The Faerie Lover", and continuing with "The Beloved's Confusion", which can be found among previous posts. The painting is by J.W. Waterhouse.


Her Determination

Were I content to love thee from afar,
I would not wait beneath this linden tree
Night after night, in hopes that I might see
Thee passing 'twixt thy dwelling and thy car.

I will not feed upon my heart's remains,
Peering disconsolate into thy world.
Tools have I gathered, ancient scrolls unfurled
Of power to shake the lintels of the planes!

Thy meadows I behold; ye see not mine,
Their azure lilies surging in the wind.
That will I alter after my design,
Glyphs of enchantment tracing in thy mind.

Drowned in the midnight river of my hair,
Thou shalt behold my beauty and despair.

- by Wayward Disciple

Contemplative Prayer 2

Why sit silently? Why set aside precious time - time that might be more usefully spent performing works of mercy for a suffering world - in order quietly to surrender one's heart to God? Is it mere narcissism? Are we simply seeking spiritual experience for our personal gratification, or indulging in a self-centered spiritual therapy?

The answer lies in the biblical notion that humanity is one body, and that what one does, even in the secret recesses of one's own heart, has an effect upon all. Furthermore, the ancients considered that the human being is a microcosm - a recapitulation in miniature of the entire universe - and that alterations in human consciousness therefor have effects in the "external" world. In short, contemplative prayer is a hidden ministry performed on behalf of the entire creation because it is a means of inner healing. "Acquire a peaceful spirit", says St. Seraphim of Sarov, "and around you thousands will be saved."

The anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, the fourteenth century classic on the art of contemplative prayer, says this to his young pupil: "This is the work of the soul that most pleaseth God. All saints and angels have joy of this work, and hasten them to help it in all their might…All men living in earth be wonderfully holpen of this work, thou wottest not how."

It can be a terrible stretch for the imagination of the modern, rationalizing Christian to conceive that the joy of the blessed in heaven might be increased, and all people living on earth mysteriously helped by God through the simple interior act of lifting our hearts secretly and continually to the Divine Presence; that God might will, through the surrendered and silent hearts of contemplatives, to bless every creature in heaven and earth. But there are deeper modes of apprehension than reason. Consider if this idea does not resonate in your heart. If it does, God may be calling you to this work.

Contemplative Prayer

One of the risks of intimacy with God is the confrontation with our own moral and ontological frailty; the poverty and helplessness of the fallen self. Acceptance of that confrontation yields a gradual awakening to the truth that this "self" which struggles to generate moral energy in order to be good, to improve and hopefully merit approbation, is precisely the self which must die so it may become a new creation in Christ.

Contemplative Prayer, insofar as it is a sustained act of self-emptying, self-abandonment and surrender to the Presence of God, is a consent to this death. It is a participation by pure faith in the death and resurrection already accomplished for us by Jesus, and an appropriation of the fruit of the same, namely abundance of life. We can do nothing but die into Christ; but in that death, Christ does everything for us.

Does this sound complex? In truth, contemplative prayer is so simple and easy that the very attempt to explain it gives rise to the fallacy that some technique is involved which must be learned, practiced and perfected. Not so.

Do you remember when, at the Last Supper, St. John rested his head against Jesus' breast? That is all we are doing in this prayer. Sit down quietly. Recollect that the very font and perfection of Love and Beauty is with you; the One Whose love for you is absolutely inextinguishable and eternal. Then simply rest, as it were, against His breast. Goodbye fear, anxiety and self-reliance. What does it matter now if you are "good" or "bad", if you are praying well or poorly? Jesus is doing everything for you.

Water Music: Spring

Water Music: Spring

O my dear Friend, today,
on a mild day of clouds
(and under those clouds
the daffodils hung like lamps)
my soul came so close to the surface of the water,
so close to the light,
that I burst into tears
when I heard the sound of the trumpets.

For I remembered the beauty again
which is the life of things, the heart
of them; the Joy that inheres in the very
structure of all that is.
And that sound glided over
and pierced me all at once,
even to the heart.

No one saw my tears, no one observed
my sobbing; no one leaned her kind head
against my breast to share....
was it Joy or Sorrow?

O Friend, every hour I miss your touch,
your radiant warmth, the golden light that
played around you like a kind of laughter.
And I think of you so often, imagine you
by the lake, the breeze in your light dress,
the sinking sun bathing you in all the subtle fires
of evening....O my heart is in that Sun!

There is a well, my Friend, of deep and trembling water.
Just to think of it eases this aching thirst of mine!


-by Wayward Disciple
(Please respect the rights of the author and do not reproduce original poetry without permission.)

Mid-Summer's Day

Today is Mid-Summer's Day, also known, in churchy circles, as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. In honor of the day, I post one of my favorite paintings by the great French Symbolist, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: "The Decollation of St. John the Baptist." (His nativity unto Eternity.)

Latter Days - Over The Rhine

WOW! Wow! What a soulful, stunning performance! I could watch this a hundred times. Sweet, sweet, beauty and sorrow: I love you so!

(For Piddler and Dana.)

The Beloved's Confusion: Sonnet 2

This sonnet is meant to be read as a sequel to "The Faerie Lover", which can be found four posts back. The painting is by Claude Lorraine.
The Beloved's Confusion

What dizzying scent welled round me in the lane
At shadow-time last evening? In a trance
I thought of lilies, blue as ice. Insane
As it may sound, I swear I sensed a glance,

Behind, of one who knew me; felt the warm
Moisture of living breath upon my ear.
Was it in expectation or alarm
I turned so rapidly? No one was there.

I ask, what reason has my heart for pain;
What injury sustained that it should weep?
Why did I lie last sundown in the lane
And watch the stars until I fell asleep?

Cold dew, gray light and birdsong broke my dream:
Blue lilies carried down a roaring stream.

-by Wayward Disciple

The Song of the Skylark

How about some "profuse strains of unpremeditated art"? More larking around below!

The Lark Ascending - Ralph Vaughan Williams

Summer is here! Beauty and Joy! Be grumpy no more! This music breathes resurrection: sorrow filled with the promise of ecstasy!

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

- P. B. Shelley: To a Skylark

A Very Short List

When one is desperately in love with the beauty of the past, one is inclined to complain too much. Therefore, I thought I would, as a remedy, make a list of those social and technological developments (since A.D. 1400 or so) of which I approve, for which I am grateful, the loss of which, I feel, would impoverish my existence dramatically.

1. The increasing openness to the treasures of beauty and truth in the various spiritual traditions of the world.

2. The increasing acceptance of the humanity of those who differ from the dominant group by virtue of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc., with a concomitant growth of commitment to extend to all the protections and privileges of equal rights under law.

3. Oil paints. (Were oil paints widely used before 1400? I'm not really sure, but I'm still grateful for what's been done with them since.)

4. The printing press.

5. The technologies involved in the recording and playback of sound and moving pictures. (I must have movies and music!)

6. Refrigeration.

That pretty much covers it. The rest is largely rubbish, or already existed in some form or another prior to 1400. I suppose that in the interests of complete consistency, I ought, in support of numbers five and six, to be grateful for the means of generating and distributing electricity. But then, I am not completely consistent.

The Faerie Lover: Sonnet 1

I was inspired by Lily la Sorciere's determination to write a century of sonnets. With trepidation, I offer this first installment. Only ninety-nine to go!


The Faerie Lover

I am thy friend; I haunt thee in the light
That flows between the worlds, in which I dwell:
Hear my voice calling in the rush and swell
Of wind about thy casement in the night.

Feel my hand touch thee in the brush of dew
Young Robin scattered from yon cherry spray;
Or breathe my body's scent when reapers mow
In row on golden row the sun-warmed hay.

Taste my dark mouth like roses steeped in wine,
My throat like marble quarried from the moon;
And slow, O slowly kiss! For all too soon
I shall dissolve into the dazzling shine

Of sunlight on the river's molten stream….
And thou shalt reckon I was but a dream.

- by Wayward Disciple
(please respect the author's rights and do not reproduce original poetry without permission. Illustration by Arthur Rackham.)

Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man

Groovy, man! How I miss this sweet, benevolent vibe! Also, see previous post for more hurdy-gurdy.

An Atmospheric Passage from CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

I'm working my way slowly through Dostoyevsky's novel, Crime and Punishment, and I came today across this striking passage:

Following his old habit, and taking the customary route of his previous walks, he set off straight for the Haymarket. Some distance before he got there, in the roadway in front of a chandler's shop, he encountered a young man with black hair who was playing the hurdy-gurdy, churning out a thoroughly poignant romance. He was accompanying a girl of about fifteen who stood before him on the pavement, dressed like a young lady of the aristocracy in a crinoline, mantilla, gloves and a straw hat with a bright orange feather in it; all of these were old and shabby. In a nasal street voice that was none the less strong and appealing she was singing the romance to it's end in the expectation of receiving a two-copeck piece from the shop. Raskolnikov stopped, side by side with two or three other members of the audience, listened for a while, took out a five-copeck coin and placed it in the girl's hand. Quite suddenly she interrupted her singing on the very highest and most poignant note, as though she had cut it with a knife, called sharply to the hurdy-gurdy player: "That's enough!", and they both dragged themselves off to the next little shop.

"Do you like street-singing?" Raskolnikov suddenly inquired, addressing himself to the elderly passer-by who had been standing next to him listening to the hurdy-gurdy and who had the appearance of a flaneur. The man looked at him in timid astonishment. "I do," Raskolnikov went on, but with an air that suggested he was talking about some subject quite removed from that of street-singing. "I like to hear street-singing to the accompaniment of a hurdy-gurdy on a cold, dark and damp autumn evening, it must be a damp one, when the faces of all the passers-by are pale green and sickly looking; or even better, when wet snow is falling, quite vertically, with no wind, do you know? And through it the gas-lamps gleaming..."

"No, sir, I don't know...Excuse me..." the gentleman muttered, frightened both by Raskolnikov's question and by his strange appearance, and crossed over to the other side of the street. -translation by David McDuff

A picturesque exhibit from the museum of lost images.