Saturday 24 March 2012

in the half light

The half light - admit ONE

In the half-light there is a stillness and peace beyond all expectation. Here in the meditative quietitude nothing is permanent and there is no attachment to the objects that create a living death. The God light pops and the sigh of the soft breeze shifts as the wondrous waves spread out across the widest reaches of the Nazareth Plain at the edge of the Wide Meldings. Drag a bow across hair of horse. Beat the medicine drum – a tattoo of scattered utterances made by mind and hand. The waves touch me in the half-light. Like bathing in love. Like falling into life. The waves break over the weak and the powerful alike. Neither discrimination nor selection only a quiet embrace for all who breathe. Breathe well and deep. It is the way of life and love. All governed by rhythm and colour. Every thing touched by the great waves and then all is still.
Drag a plectrum across six tensioned strings. Ignore the rules to make sweet cacophony and grand gesture. Waving a Stratocaster at the rising wind that threatens to scream, shrill and cold. The wind makes the tightened strings chime above the nut, by the tuners that are turned to pitch the thing.
There is choice. Choose to shake a mailed fist against the growing darkness or acquiesce and bend to the inevitable. Banish the anxiety that fills us with dread and reminds us of the demons waiting patiently for us to succumb in fear and self  loathing. Rise up from your safe seat and march into the ringing thrall, into the half-light. I know we can’t stay in the dreamtime. I know that sooner or later we must all go into the velvet dark that waits to wrap us in it’s endless folds, free of all pain and suffering for ever. I will be ready.
A surprised woman opens her mouth and we stand amazed at the lovely sound she makes. She is shocked and cannot make the warm, sweet noise again. She cannot believe she ever did, though it was but a moment ago when she sang so sweetly. She cannot accept what is. Believe in your own power and strength.
When your sorrow is great and your concern founded in reason the night might be long but the morning is there waiting.  Be still and be guided in the quiet. Then after some time let the heart provoke the voice that yearns in you, to yoik some thing and to make good vibration where ever you are. Cry and sing. Sing and cry. Laugh and sing.
A girl singing and laughing lights up the dappled glade where a small stream bubbles across old slate, once traversed by dinosaurs, falling and rushing to the salt flat estuary and beyond into the living ocean. Low and deep like the bass end of the God light pop there is a noise that comes out my own head, through the same mouth that has made love and voiced words that threatened, comforted and tried to explain. The same head and heart that railed against conformity is now more quieted and calm. Still, a strong desire to be a part of change prevails. 
Smash the plectrum down in a slashing arc that makes the speakers sing a strident song for dancing wildly with out restraint of any kind in a place where no king can rule. Let the rippling chords crash out far and wide like chiming gongs of burnished bright metal, like ice on fire and the voices of ancient sages. Let the voices be heard. Let the truth in. 
Here I am as naked, a warrior at your service. The war is forever until the light has penetrated the hearts of the spoilers, until the music has touched us deeply and made us better, conscious and less ordinary. The great sounds that rang out at the beginning of time are still ringing faintly. Listen for the smallest good vibration. Find it in your own slowing; deepening breath as you close your eyes to see. Understand that what was, has passed. What might be is not yet made.
Beside a bamboo screen a drummer stands on the other side of a dream waiting in the near light. We all wait for the small change when silence will give way to expression, that small rolling beginning that rises and crashes across the music giving it life with new intervals between the lines and spaces. Change from a whisper to a thunderous, beating, liberation. Six strings a clanging, six white horses a dancing in sunshine. I feel the far off sway in the half-light. You know we can’t stay in the dreamtime. 
It is green tea time.



peace

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Suddenly the cherries were there,
although I had forgotten,
that cherries exist
and caused to be proclaimed: There never have been cherries -
they were there, suddenly and dear.

Plums fell and hit me;
but whoever thinks
that I was transformed
because something fell and hit me
has never been hit by falling plums.

Only when they poured nuts into my shoes, and I had to walk
because the children wanted the kernels
I cried out for cherries, wanted plums
to hit me - and was transformed a little.

Gunter Grass

Anonymous said...

Magnificent prose. Living and dying are not seperated. Be unafraid in the half light.
x

Anonymous said...

Left out the title of above Gunter Grass poem, in my sleepy Sunday state! It is called 'Transformation' which is how I read the extract from 'Instantanium' as a form of transformation in thought process and perception.

Anonymous said...

Been reading you for ages now - it just gets more and more diverse. I found this strangely comforting.
Great to see you are playing Hitchin Fest. It is my local so I will see you there.
By Myself is my favourite CD right now and what a surprising collection it is.
We love the songs and the simple delivery.
Sam and Jan
xx

Steve Broughton said...

Wow Rob!

Anonymous said...

Extraordinary prose. I guess parts of it are open to individual interpretation. Made me smile and cry but mostly made me want to live. Thank you