A Lark

Big Sur Coast
My place to get lost
And, yet, found.

 

I am attending a seminar this holiday weekend, on the theme named in the headline.  And after all these years of attempts to avoid the "foaming rush and plunge" of my own emotional waterfall, I am hoping to gain new insight...from a Work prospective.  The following exchange resonated and I thought I would publish it here...this group was lead by Mrs. Helen Adie.

Then someone who had been in groups for 30 years remarked that his chief feature still seemed the same: fear and laziness. The fear, he saw, was often connected with the wounding of his self-image. Yet, he added, even seeing this gave hope, “because if there is something there then it must be possible to be.”

“To begin with”, Mrs Adie said, “I have not to believe in that picture. A long as things are going well, there is no fear. But once that changes, the fear arises. And at the same time, when everything seems to be going to pieces, there is nothing left but me.”

Significantly, she added: “That feeling of me can be very strong. There is something there that nobody can destroy. Only I can destroy it myself, with my own personality."

“Yet, I have to be active outside, too, I have to use my head in a practical way, see the situation for what it is, and use my head to make the situation right, but without this picture. It’s part of my life obligation. But the fear is imaginary. It’s not a fear because I fear I will fail in my life obligation; it’s because it offends my image. Remember, you can’t argue with it. Dismiss it from your mind when you find yourself going over it. "

“But when you are real, nothing can touch you there. There has to be something a little more steady, a little quieter, inside. My head lets me down terribly when I am taken by fear: my thoughts become quite unreasonable. If you could remember a little more often to be more quiet in your feeling: not a lazy quiet, but a bit steadier.”

Spring Mountain
                                            Calls me back with winds
                                                Warm and known.

Recital

Sacred Music of the Eternal Present
Hymns & Prayers of G. I. Gurdjieff

performed by alto and pianist Nancy Caporaso

Click here to view a video trailer!

Thursday, May 21, 2009, 7:00 P.M.

Charles Sumner School Museum, Great Hall

1201 17th St. NW at M St., Washington, D.C. 20036
 

Nancy Caporaso plays Hymns by George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, and sings from the Gurdjieff Prayer Book: Prayers and Hymns in G. I. Gurdjieff's All and Everything. She has performed for many years with the Master Chorale of Washington and the Master Chorale Chamber Singers.

To make a reservation, call (800) 470-3086.

   

Exhilarating Cygnus, the swan, returns to the evening sky this month.  Rising in the northeast around 10 pm, it's brightest star is Deneb, marking the beginning of the tail feathers. The length of the swan stretches south from Deneb through the glowing Milky Way.  Vega is the bright blue star to the swan's left.

(But who was Cygnus?  Cygnus the swan, was not always a swan. Greek legend tells a tragic story of Apollo’s son, Phaeton, who tried to drive Apollo’s chariot across the sky. Apollo warned him not to drive to close to the Earth lest he set it on fire. Phaeton lost control of the wild horses, and to spare the Earth a fiery destruction, Zeus threw a lightning bolt at the young boy, killing him instantly. The horses climbed higher into the sky, scorching a path that became the Milky Way. Phaeton fell into the river Eridanus. Cygnus dove repeatedly into the river to try to retrieve the body of his friend but failed. Zeus was so impressed with Cygnus’ devotion to his Phaeton that he turned him into a swan, enabling him to dive more easily. Cygnus was eventually rewarded for his gallantry by a prominent place in the summer skies within the cloudy path of the Milky Way.)

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   In May the Eta Aquarids appear.  These fast moving, bright meteors are formed from Halley's Comet tail dust. 
   Can you name the famous American wit and writer who said he was born in the year of the Comet, "riding in on the tail in a shower of fire and will, most likely ride out on it, too."  Hint:  Widely quoted as saying, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

   #1  The confessional before the priest pulls back the screen.  Heavy air thick with velvet curtained dust; recrimination glints off the grate, reflecting the penitent in no act of contrition.
    #2  This kitchen after a bitter argument, the air thick with repressed, bitten words; littered with accusations, unsought animosity revealed by ...just one more glass of wine.
    #3  The silence that follows heartbreak tears...choked by a salt sea followed by a deepening sense of loss penetrating, aching in the pelvis as a cried-out quiet grows.
    #4  The awkward silence of an elevator with just two, two strangers taking short shallow breaths, checking wrists without watches, pushing illuminated buttons.
    #5  The blessed silence surrounding a meditation, the rise and fall of the diaphragm, ancient primordial movement, warmth of circulation, sensation of the atmosphere surrounding, surrounding the body growing, expansion, pores opening; the inner merges with the outer...silence.  Precious breath marks  time.

Photo by A Lark...taken at twilight as a thunder storm moved across the Outer Banks, North Carolina coast, July 2008.  Photo is unenhanced.  Question:  Energy exchanged?

    The beautiful Lucy was born with the Lauderdale eyes, bottle green.  The green was not of the land though, but of the sea.  The color that comes after the bottle has been pounded into glittering emerald sea glass.   She shielded her green eyes as she searched the horizon.
    "And then what happened?" Lucy asked her dad, lips trembling but voice steady.
    "Before I tell you, Lucy, I have to believe that you understand this:  You are worthy, deserving of all the happiness in the world...can you tell me... you believe...that, Lucy?  Can you?"

       To be continued...