morningambassador’s posthaven

 

Deities live within me

And speak to my ear inside

No particular era or geography

But Now and Here – always on time

The clothes they wear – not important

Their stories reveal paths broken in part

Tonight Athena and Hermes

Came from the basement

Messages, compassion

Stormy temper, craft,

Wisdom bursting from pain

I balance the voices, echoing aspects similar

It’s the stories that are everything

In the end unexpected treasure to gain.

 

 

This post started out as an idea for a poem - digging a hole, something like this:

"The hole I dig grows deeper, the tools more effective.
It's not a burden to remove the dirt from the space;
It wants to leave, seemingly - nothing in its place.
The shovel lifts itself; I barely have a task at all.
I don't want it that deep; someone might fall.
It might be me; should I care about that?
I'm following an odd rabbit; should leave a warning mat.
Imagine what treasures I might've found if I'd paid attention;
... my kingdom for a sieve is the lamenting intention.

What will I leave behind... breadcrumbs to find my way back?
Some memory, imagination or hard cold real fact?
If I allow this hole that wants to dig itself,
Will I find out more about this self,
Or just play around wasting time
Is that really such a crime,
But I'm meant to do, to create, to understand and listen,
It's easy to note the good days; the whole world glistens
But in the hole it will be different; concentration on nothing
And velvet black.
It sounds peaceful; yet I hope to find my way back."

by Morning Ambassador

Then I started to think about what music might support this immature first draft of a poem
I was focusing on the word, 'Dig' - which most recently conjured thoughts of my favorites,
The Brian Jonestown Massacre's film, but I went back further to "Dig A Pony" by the Beatles -
the word play, the radiance, the poignancy and melody.

It took me back to the mid-1970's when N.S. and I rented "Let It Be" for college movie on the schedule.
I watched it all the way through during multiple viewings every day of that week, some of it from the front row of that wonderful theater of my memory. And what I came to see, more and more clearly was that the film being made in reality was not necessarily the film that was envisioned, except for the fact that it was meant to document what was going on those days in the band. And that turned out to be a gradual and bittersweet dissolution by polarization. My opinion, based on nonscientific studies.

People come toward each other and move away all the time. But there are specific incidents when it's more momentous, representing more than a simple parting of the ways. All eyes are focused and there before us unfolds a mythological scene acted out with real people, human beings.

The connection between the way that I dig holes during parts of days or life and the song, "Dig a Pony,' had to do with that scene on the rooftop of the Apple Studio Building. Holes just naturally dig themselves sometimes. The effort or action, the task at hand has more to do with stopping it from happening than doing what comes naturally. And who can say which is better? We do learn from dark places, sometimes even more than from the light where we can 'celebrate anything we want.' But we must come back when all is said and done and 'radiate everything we are.' Or the scene will remain, incomplete.

"Dig A Pony" by The Beatles

"I dig a pony
Well you can celebrate anything you want
Yes you can celebrate anything you want
Ooh

I do a road hog
Well you can penetrate any place you go
Yes you can penetrate any place you go
I told you so

All I want is you
Everything has got to be just like you want it to
Because-

I pick a moon dog
Well you can radiate everything you are
Yes you can radiate everything you are
Oh now

I roll a stoney
Well you can imitate everyone you know
Yes you can imitate everyone you know
I told you so

All I want is you
Everything has got to be just like you want it to
Because-

I feel the wind blow
Well you can indicate everything you see
Yes you can indicate anything you see
Oh now

I load a lorry
Well you can syndicate any boat you row
Yeah you can syndicate any boat you row
I told you so

All I want is you
Everything has got to be just like you want it to
Because-"

Side note: I realized that John Lennon would have been 70 come this October 9th, had he lived. Had he not been assassinated. He is missed. I miss him. Holes. Canary in a coal mine. Sensitivity is a necessary organ of the human race as a whole. One of the first to go in a difficult situation. Easy to fall without reading the mat.

Apparently someone else thought so too.

Too late at night to write so just listening

Times like this take two YouTubes and go to sleep.

The first video is that of Beats Antique performing 'Beauty Beats:'
(Beats Antique Video of Sidecar Tommy, David Satori and Zoe Jakes performing at Lightning in a Bottle and TempleSF 2008.)

Below, I've also included a solo performance of Zoe Jakes since through the first video I was hoping for more of her dancing since creating a musical accompaniment for her is what was the genesis of the band and it's gypsy calliope sound.
That's just my description. For some info on the second video:
(http://www.rachelbrice.com.     May 14th, 2009 Broadway Studios, SF CA.      Photos: http://photos.jenniferyee.com/gallery...

My brother introduced me to their music.
I love the fusion of so many influences, and at certain times lately - it's the only music that fits.
Thanks for the tip, HM!

Deep in the heart of the forest, strains of unique and intertwining instruments play
Waving off the day, welcoming the darkling heated night
The dancers sway, concentrating with all their might
The slightest movement, broad and concentrated: round and tight
Expanding ever outward, sequins in the light
All are watching, enthralled, barely a quarrel or bare knuckle fight
As their eyes are captured by smoky lids opening and closing right
Up until the end, the magic unbroken, far into the early starlit pre-light.

Grandma seemed overwhelmed with the number of requests for money that came every day in her mailbox, for one organization or the other. Small children, certain illnesses, homeless animals. Many of them worthy causes. She learned as a girl in Russia that you help people who ask for it. You never fail to share with those less fortunate. But the sheer volume took space to store until money was available... and more notably it took emotional space.

The more she gave the more frequentl y those envelopes would appear. There were piles of envelopes still waiting on her washer and dryer the day they moved her out of her home.

I remember her standing there, walking from room to room as others decided what was kept and given away, what could be brought to what would be her new home now.

A bit at a loss for how to be supportive during such an important transition; independent decision-making to something else. She was a bit at a loss for how to contain and minimize the impact. I could see it in her face and how she paced into room after room. My darling grandmother.

Recently, following this same lineage of thought that I learned from my grandmother on whatever level/continuum of consciousness, I responded to someone I'd met on the internet. A young woman (supposedly). She was in trouble, and there wasn't anyone who could help. Needed help until next Friday when she could certainly pay me back. Could I do anything to help; it wouldn't be any problem to return the money... just waiting on a check. My heart went out to her, and I couldn't NOT help.

Like Gram I didn't have much, but I gave until it started to hurt. She asked for more. I couldn't give it. She never returned my money. I keep wanting to say, 'At least I learned my valuable lesson,' but I'm not sure exactly what it is yet... Still chewing on it. I love you, Grandma!

Got the Mojo...

Once again it's love that makes the world go
  and it's Love that brings the world-go-round anew
Remember love and then there's Love - so...
  which you got going on right now, blues?

Love the set... rugs, guitars and band make the perfect backdrop to these bouncy blues

Is there an empty mike in honor of someone(s), or is that my miscalculating imagination?

"The official music video for Jefferson Jericho Blues, from the new album Mojo by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers"

We are animals - members of the Animal Kingdom as classified by the classical Carolus Linnaeus. We seem to be the type of animal, like so many others, to draw boxes around groups and lines in the sand to show that we're a better, stronger, or more clever species of animal than some other, even to the extent of measuring percentages of blood lineage or counting bumps on the head or  sizes of various skulls.

It takes a bit of work to reach the level of consciousness and consistency to evolve into a human being. Most of us are not born at that place... or if we are, how quickly most of us forget.

Am I saying I'm there? No, that isn't what I'm saying... Just that it's possible and takes a bit of practice after all to stop drawing boxes and lines in the sand... among other things.

I do think we need to get on it, however... It's late in the day.

Not so we can be better, stronger, or more clever than some other... but so that we can see the equanimity of us all - living things, stones, the rest.

My opinion at 5:57pm on a Saturday evening.

Reading the last book aloud for the benefit of one who hasn't yet had the pleasure, and before the movie comes out, so it will be a richer experience in two mediums and 3 dimensions... :)

I'm especially noticing the many Tolkien references this time around, though I always knew they were there. So many others as well, but in my opinion this does not make a unique work completely derivative. After all there are only so many stories... Variables and a stout wardrobe make all the difference.

Parallel universes.

I can't wait.

  William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

                    When You Are Old 

    WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,
    And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
    And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
    Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

    How many loved your moments of glad grace,
    And loved your beauty with love false or true,
    But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
    And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

    And bending down beside the glowing bars,
    Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
    And paced upon the mountains overhead
    And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

http://www.potw.org/archive/potw12.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Butler_Yeats

"I'm every age I've ever been, and some I've never ever seen... " ~ me

Two things:

Like the Brothers Grimm, Yeats was a walking collector of the stories and legends told in the Celtic oral tradition. Up and down the countrysides, like the Census - only with stories! What could be better?

Shakespeare's "Hamlet:" "And in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we shuffle off the mortal coil must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life."

*********

So you're telling me for the millionth time that "Ode to a Grecian Urn" is Keats, not Yeats. I think I've got it, finally.

All in One. One in All.
Difference, a change in clothing
Shimmer and gone; shimmer back when called.
Out of everything rest as 'no thing'
In the space between breaths.

I feel good when I hear this.