Syria O Syria

A while back I wrote a blog entry about Hama (Syria) which you can read here. A year later and I simply cannot believe that things are worse in Syria  than they were then.

 Devastatingly worse!

Such beautiful, kind people: Sweet, embracing children: They owned very little for themselves but they had their families and they had love.
Now what?
Never have I known a country to bring me such joy... and now such deep and inconsolable sorrow.
It must stop now. It must stop today. I know will I  live, even with this sorrow, but what of the Syrians. What of them now.

worm holes

You are the music while the music lasts.  ~T.S. Eliot

As I may have mentioned before I don't believe time is linear. I believe we live our lives in a sort of eternity. It is why some things which happened yesterday feel so long ago and other things which happened a long time ago feel as if they just happened or perhaps are even still happening now. Memories are time in another form.

Well I have now decided that music is one of the worm holes through which time bends and overlaps. Have you ever found yourself hearing a piece of music that transports you some place else so vividly that it is possible you have actually disappeared from the present and are back with the music, living it once again. In fact all that is left of you in the present is a pile of clothes ( since worm hole travel is surely best done naked) and your corporeal self is  enjoying another version of the present. 

The reason why I say this is because it happened to me the other day. I heard a piece of music on the radio that I had not heard in some time (in fact I had never heard it on the radio before) and I truly believe I disappeared. When the music ended I returned back to where I was but I had an unshakeable feeling I had really been someplace else. 
Of course  not every piece of music is like this or everyone would be hurtling naked through worm holes for a good part of each day but occasionally there is a piece of music which  transcends time completely.

Here are some examples of my worm hole music.

  The Swan  : I am eight again, lying under the fan in the bedroom I share with my sister. The evening is humid and I can't find a cool place for my head. In the background I can hear my brother practising the cello, playing this piece of music. Somehow its melancholia suits the damp heat and my restlessness. 

Supergirl : I am wearing my cat print shorts and am running through the forest near Bottmingen. D is riding on a bike next to me trying not to fall off because I run so slowly. I feel strong as I run  - like I could keep running for hours. I feel as if I am breathing with every inch of my lungs.

Movin' On Up : Spaghetti hoops cooking on a portable stove in the corner of a Cricklewood bedsit. There is a warm spring breeze. My Irish boyfriend and I are dancing with tiocfaidh  (pronounced Chucky) and Cousin Spliff,  who are  two plush toy marionette puppets I have at this time.

Black Earth : We are lying amongst twisted bed sheets, my heart is thumping in my ears. The air is thick with heat. I can hear sparrows singing late evening songs out on the street. The music begins ominously and then transforms into a beautiful, passionate  wild dance. Everything is alive.

Hana and Kip : I am riding Elizabetta, my beautiful red bicycle, down Via Del Corso in Florence. It is the middle of summer and I have just had a lemon granita up near the loggia. As I weave my way amongst the people I can hear this music floating out of one of the towers along the way. I stop in the shade and listen. I may even cry.

Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.  ~ Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
 

On speaking the truth...

There have been a few times over the past months when I have been afraid to speak or ask for something but I have done it anyway. Sometimes it has worked out for me. Sometimes it hasn't. Sometimes I play it over and over again in my head. Could I have said something different? Done something different? Even if the answer is yes perhaps I could have  I know it is done now so  instead I remind myself of this wonderful saying

....and I feel brave.

 ****

On a side note, today I walked past a nearby butcher which always charms me with its dazzling array of horse meat products and I saw a sign which could only be translated as ' warm meat cheese - buy  now'. I can't even begin to imagine what this could possibly be but I do  know it should probably be put into solitary confinement with the the key thrown away. blugh!

Passing Time

Because time itself is like a spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year:  The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again.  ~Menachem Mendel Schneerson

So my birthday passed very quietly last Tuesday. I can't say I  felt any special energy to the day ( if anything I seemed to lose a lot in the middle) but I still like the sentiment.

Birthdays should be celebrated.

Especially when you have visiting cats to stay!

Finding inspiration

I am a consistently inconsistent writer.  I go through phases where the words come together,  I believe I can write and everything sounds authentic and original and magical. Then of course this moment passes and I am left doubting that I can even spell words let alone marry them together. I feel fraudulent that I have ever published anything  - like it was some ghastly editor's mistake or something.    Of course I am deeply in the second phase right now which is why I am mentioning it. I feel as if I am lacking inspiration , motivation , self-belief. I know this is no excuse  - as Jack London once said -  "You can't wait for inspiration.  You have to go after it with a club." But sometimes inspiration seems so elusive. I think this is because inspiration is one of hope's many sisters and I wrestle with hope constantly. If I let go of hope I die if I hold onto it I burn. 

Every person..

 - especially those with fragile hearts -  should be kissed by a dolphin....

 hugged by a dolphin

and generally loved....

There must surely be a Sufi poem to capture this purest love.
Ah yes Hafiz.

A Suspended Blue Ocean

The sky

Is a suspended blue ocean.

The stars are the fish

That swim.

The planets are the white whales

I sometimes hitch a ride on,

And the sun and all light

Have forever fused themselves

Into my heart and upon

My skin.

There is only one rule

On this Wild Playground,

For every sign Hafiz has ever seen

Reads the same.

They all say,

"Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,

In the Beloved's Divine

Game,

O, in the Beloved's

Wonderful

Game."