In the beginning...

One of the reasons I started this blog is because music, art, literature all have helped me maintain my sanity during this busy, messy, labour intensive time in my life. So I thought I'd start a blog featuring some things that I've enjoyed having sit in my own soul a while to keep it company - a poem, a song, a thought, a picture...

On youtube, amoung the comments written about the song below was this one: "My daughter's name is Connie (aged 8) and we have a special place where we go to remember her Daddy, this song has touched us so much."

I really love any effort by humankind to create - it's good for the creator and it's good for...whoever stumbles upon it, identifies with it and has an experience with it. The following song is one of my favorites to listen to - such a fresh little piece.



Colours of the rainbow a new gift with each new sun
Green green and sacred from all its drink
And all its love
Connie stands with pride here
She offers thanks with all her heart
For here in this garden beneath these trees
She is at one,
She is at one

An olive tree for peace selected stones and a totem
The symbols of her blessings to Mother Earth
For all she's done
A precious life was lost here
But spirit grows as time moves on
With each breath of wind his presence felt
Smiling down, Smiling down

Pack your innocence - it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

When reading the two poems in my last post I thought it interesting that Blake gave hope and comfort in God to the innocent but criticism and blame (rightly felt) to the experienced. The innocent find solace, the experienced seek justice.

An old professor of mine (in a Middle English lit class) once suggested that there were powers of high political/religious authority in England who he thought encouraged the writings of the day to favour the principles of submission, duty, obedience, long suffering...not because they were noble ideals to live by but in hopes that the peasantry wouldn't rise up, demand rights, shake up the social order and cause them trouble. Maybe Blake is echoing (and mocking?) that type of rhetoric because when I read the first poem it's powerless, submissive and weak tone bothered me. But the two poems really do compliment each other.

In Songs of Innocence, the boy in “The Chimney Sweeper” sees his situation through the eyes of innocence and does not understand the social injustice. In Songs of Experience, the boy in the poem sees the injustice and speaks against the establishments that left him where he is. Different aspects of one poem illuminate opposing aspects of the other poem. Ideas addressed in Innocence contrast the different views of Experience, as Experience does for Innocence, emphasizing the need for a balance of the two. The fact that these poems can influence the reader’s interpretation of one another confirms Blake’s notion that neither innocence nor experience is a correct view and that one completes the other. - K.L. Reiser

On a trip to Mauthausen - a former concentration camp in Austria - I remember hearing that after it was cleared out someone found writing on a wall that read "When I die, if there is a God after all, he will have to beg for my forgiveness."

I think a lot of people let go of God as they grow more experienced in the pains and heartache of life (many understandably so). But some hold on, tighten their grip, and keep a bit of their innocence even into the rough waters of experience. What a gem to hold on to because I think that our innocence contains fountains of love, forgiveness, faith and hope. Handy things to have when you're sailing on a stormy sea.

Editorial call for: reactions, opinions, analysis...

 

The Chimney Sweeper  - by William Blake
(from Songs of Innocence)

When my mother died I was very young,                                   
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

The Chimney Sweeper - by William Blake
(from Songs of Experience)


 A little black thing in the snow,
 Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!
 "Where are thy father and mother? Say!"--
 "They are both gone up to the church to pray.

 "Because I was happy upon the heath,
 And smiled among the winter's snow,
 They clothed me in the clothes of death,
 And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

 "And because I am happy and dance and sing,
 They think they have done me no injury,
 And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,

 Who make up a heaven of our misery."

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

"Songs of Innocence and of Experience" is an illustrated collection of poems by William Blake.   I think the first edition was printed in 1789.  Five years later he added more poems to the collection.

The book (which I haven't read...yet) is divided into two parts. 
The first part contains his songs of innocence and the second part his songs of experience. 
Within the book there are two different poems with the same title -  "The Chimney Sweeper".  One is placed amoung the songs of innocence the other amoung the songs of experience.

In Songs of Innocence, the boy  in “The Chimney Sweeper” sees his situation through the eyes of innocence and does not understand the social injustice. In Songs of Experience, the boy in the poem sees the injustice and speaks against the establishments that left him where he is. Different aspects of one poem illuminate opposing aspects of the other poem. Ideas addressed in Innocence contrast the different views of Experience, as Experience does for Innocence, emphasizing the need for a balance of the two. The fact that these poems can influence the reader’s interpretation of one another confirms Blake’s notion that neither innocence nor experience is a correct view and that one completes the other. - K.L. Reiser

Clever of Blake, don't you think?  I'll post the two poems tomorrow.

...chim, chim, cheree! A sweep is as lucky, as lucky can be....

"Martin Nurmi discusses the plight of the chimney sweep extensively in his essay “Fact and Symbol in ‘The Chimney Sweeper.’” In 1788, there was an attempt to pass an act to improve the treatment and working conditions of these young children. This would have made many people, including William Blake (author of The Chimney Sweeper), aware of the lives that these chimney sweeps would live. For instance, they slept in cellars on bags of the soot that they had swept (Nurmi 17), and they were poorly fed and clothed. They would sweep the chimneys naked so their masters would not have to replace clothing that would have been ruined in the chimneys, and they were rarely bathed. Those who were not killed by fires in chimneys usually died early anyway of either respiratory problems or cancer of the scrotum. Sweeping chimneys also left children with ankles and spines deformed and twisted kneecaps from climbing up chimneys that were about nine inches in diameter (Nurmi 16). Many people viewed them as subhuman creatures and not a part of human society."  - K.L Reiser

Got an extra 15 minutes kicking around?

I think the pictures in this video seriously detract from the music (you might want to avert your eyes or just shut off the monitor) but there are a couple of cool shots of Moscow at the end.

The first minute and fifty three seconds is my favorite part of the entire piece - it evokes the same feelings that swell when I think of some of my most cherished childhood memories: apple blossoms, my mother's sweetness and the look of sunshine glistening on spring puddles. Then the music loses it's sweetness - tension and struggle enter the scene. I think we all know how the story ends but if you haven't listened to it in a while - why not - what a miracle that you can listen to Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture whenever you feel like it!

I'd love to know what music makes you happy....recommendations anyone?

on a lighter note...

From the movie Wit:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS-m0UAB3uQ&feature=related

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For, those whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me;
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better then thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, death thou shalt die.

This interests me because it paints death -the biggest change a human being can experience - to be just a pause, nothing to be afraid of. Does that mean all the smaller changes we experience (as we approach the peaceful comma that awaits us all) could also be truthfully met with the same grace, calm and serenity? Really? my aging skin? another house move? Oliver starting kindergarten? watching my parents move into their senior years? Arrested Development being cancelled? I'm not that enlightened yet - but I do find this poem encouraging.

"Life, death, soul, God, past, present. Not insuperable barriers. Not semicolons. Just a comma."

Dick van dyke unplugged.

Power
by Carol Lynn Pearson

When she learned that she
Didn't have to plug into
Someone or something
Like a toaster into a wall

When she learned that she
Was a windmill and had only
To raise her arms
To catch the universal whisper
And turn
turn
turn
She moved.

Oh, she moved

And her dance was a marvel.

I think it's kind of scary to unplug - it takes confidence or faith or something gutsy anyway. I guess being a chimney sweep has it's advantages...there aren't as many power outlets to plug into...just you, lots of soot and a desperate prayer that you don't fall off your roof.