A FERAL MISCELLANY
This morning's bird songs are various and new and very loud. Unfamiliar. Intricately patterned, and punctuated by distant rapid concussions of flickers. Moving water provides an aural warp for the musical weft, and so an ephemeral fabric almost tactile in its richness and texture weaves itself in open air.
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Amphion and Zethos, twin sons of Zeus and Antiope, were, like many heroes, raised in secrecy to avoid the malevolent forces that sought to destroy them in their infancy. While they were growing up on Mount Cithaeron, Amphion was favored by Hermes with the gift of a lyre. Zethos, the more practical brother, taunted him for his devotion to the instrument, which seemed to prevent him from doing anything useful. But later, when the twins had conquered Thebes and were occupied in fortifying the city, it was Amphion's turn to smile. The music of that lyre caused the stones to slide effortlessly into place, while Zethos toiled to shift them with his own brawn. Thus the walls of Seven-Gated Thebes were raised through the power of music. (Robert Graves, The Greek Myths)
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"[M]usic and poetry can actually be as one, and perhaps really belong together like mouth and ear, the mouth being only a mobile and responsive ear...." (Novalis)
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"Wood is of course the resonant substance par excellence and the primary material of most musical instruments: the viol and violin families, the lute, the harp, the harpsichord, piano, and all the woodwinds, to name only the Western ones. It is remarkable that in so many of these the resonator is of wood while the actual sound-generator is of animal origin. The bowed instruments work through the friction of horsehair on 'catgut' strings (actually sheep's guts). On the plucked instruments the fingers usually touch the gut strings directly, while the medieval psaltery and lute were played with feathers. Quills, or occasionally leather plectra, pluck the strings of the harpsichord; leather or wool (felt) covered hammers hit those of the piano. Drums and tambourines have heads of skin, and the wooden cornetto a horn or ivory mouthpiece. ...[I]n cultures where music is still used as a magical force, the making of the instrument always involves the sacrifice of a living being." (Jocelyn Godwin, Harmonies of Heaven and Earth)
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Four of cups. The hand proffers a goblet. Is it full or empty? Does it offer sustenance or seek it from me?
Both.
The recurring theme--always the Escher hands--I fill and drink in a give-and-take that is at once two actions and a simultaneous single act.
In the dream we see the compassionate grandfather creating, giving homes and nourishment to others, and over time accumulating houses--security and a kind of real wealth--manifesting this distantly and all around, which he neither acknowledges nor values, so absorbed is he in giving. And the sullen grandmother, disappointed and angry, dwelling mute in her disappointment, sickens and withers and loses her power--her right hand--even, and especially, her creative ability. Her right hand. Her writing hand.
(I find it worth remarking that another very powerful dream came to me exactly one month ago, also on the eve of the new moon.)
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Highly Recommended: Read these excellent pieces in the most recent OrionOnline:
What Fundamentalists Need for Their Salvation by David James Duncan--"'Outing' the Right on the Fundamentals of Christian Stewardship"--
and
Wolf Palette, by Rick Bass, in top form here on the spectacular recovery of a wilderness, a revitalized and expanded spectrum of interdependency.
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"Everything takes me by surprise. This is a line from one of my favorite [W. S. Merwin] poems. He once read that poem in Sun Valley and I never forgot the experience of hearing it out loud, in that beautiful voice of his: Everything takes me by surprise. It seemed to me the way a poet might move through the world, in wondrous appreciation, and a state of willed and naked innocence." (Judith Freeman, "Everything Takes Me By Surprise," in Fugue, Summer 2005)
12:01:58 PM 
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