The Woman Behind The Dream: Chopin and the Timeless Tuning

“Because perhaps to my misery, I already have my perfect one whom I have without saying a word, served faithfully for a year now. Of whom I dream and in whose memory the adagio of my concerto has been written.” Chopin, The Women Behind the Music

In the memory of such early genius as Chopin, our cultural continuity glorifies bygone eras with a creative resurgence only known to Western opulence. And looking out from the window of one's own, the sparks of desire light. At first, softly, the Earth burns. Then, the air plumes in a haze of smoke. The bonfire of magic absolves the moon of its light, and the stars become mere smoky display. Inside, and from underneath, the imagination fires the kindling of co-unity with the mind.

___________

And in such as a bout of unspent night, where slumber is deep and each morning fresh, I woke into dream. The longing test of emotive fire, the blinding seed of passion instilled. To work, and to find solace in worldly accomplishment deceived! The wakeful night spun an inglorious frost, a loosened hold on the sunless firmament. 

The Night with the Genii of Study and Love by Pedro Américo

A summit revealed the greatest of depths as the wounded sky bled rain and ice, brewing over the darkening clouds. We traversed impossible concave stone, sharp as a split mirror, the ice moved our flesh towards the brink. In a vivid flash, I saw memory itself, bear unto the apex of Earth. The stars crowned the lonely top as we gazed into our battered arms with hands of ice and stone. 

Storm in the Mountains by Albert Bierstadt

From the greatest of heights, the shadow of a man fell to die. Scattered in the colourless flush of snow, the piercing rock dashed all hope. Still, with chests full of heart, we climbed on and to the frozen prison. Alone, I emptied my eyes and climbed the last step. The day sped past in a hearse, as a vision of unity stung my heart with its sole truth: alone with the Alone. 

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To close the album, "Evocations: district.Columbia" the track, "Untrained Timeless Tuning" consists of improvisations on piano (keyboard) and xaphoon (bamboo sax). The age-old American sound of piano and woodwind hearkens to the unique sonic fusion that is completely unique and characteristic of the country. Especially in the use of a certain type of improvisation, the classic sounds evince an internal discovery of not only the human soul, but the soul of the land known to Americans as home.

In such a time as today, when war after war knocks at our doorstep, we can be reminded of the cultural heritage that more prominently identifies us as a unified people: music, the one common language of humanity. So, the sound is masked with electronic innovation into the 21st century, where the piano sound is a controller, and the woodwind is a recent invention. The first xaphoon was made only forty years ago on the island of Hawaii.

Further, the title, "Untrained Timeless Tuning" speaks to that harmony that is basic to all regardless of class, education, ethnicity or religious identification. There is a way to shared harmony, and it emerges through a music untrained by the classism and privilege of modern higher education. Whether speech, or instrumentation, the music that is untrained, while in tune with the essence of human life as pain, raw and blunt, is the very timelessness that high art seeks to capture. That timelessness is bred in every interaction and exchange whether within or between us always.

When we speak of Re-Writing our STORY, as in the chapbook wherein this piece is written, this very realization is the voice that carries our experience to such wonderful stretches of the imagination; present and transformational. So, the traditional keyboard and woodwind sound is transformed into an electronic movement of triumph in contemporary sound creativity.  

The following six-poem chapbook, Re-Writing our STORY, is the final series of works from the district.Columbia collection. The pieces reflect the penultimate phase of true revolution as a spiritual transformation of one's narrative. That is, one re-imagines their perspective through a revolutionary act of storytelling. This kind of storytelling reflects personal truths, daily experiences and common points of view with regard to the larger narratives and mythologies that consume unknowing minds through belief, propaganda and pride. The feature piece, Untrained Timeless Tuning, was published with Poydras Review in August of 2012.

Re-Writing Our STORY

Noocide and the Community Within: Legendary Voices on Ego-Dissolution

“I had a dream once that I was at an international conference, debating economics…” by Gilberto Gil, in support of Xingu+23

Dreaming, conscious & active, increases our potential for empathy and curbs egotism. The lucid consciousness of the dream sees from all perspectives through one perspective. The actions and emotions of every dream character are essentially rooted in the dreamer. This is our natural engine of empathy, and our natural organ of humility before the great diversity of human life, and the infinite spectrum of mental expression.

"You want to reclaim your mind," said Terrence McKenna, "and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world." In this talk, McKenna also goes on to convey how we have lost touch with Chaos, and how older forms of ego-dissolution, such as ecological meditation and entheogenic use, are essentially about the meaning of sacrifice, which is the only thing that will solve our current problems. Ego is adamantly focused away from sacrifice, the role of contemporary humanity is to realign ourselves to a renewed sense of the diminished ego, and a healthy sacrificial attitude towards the greater reality, which is our immediate now of earthly presence. 

Chaos is within us, known through the act of dreaming, where the mystery-engine of narrative is spurred on through the natural inborn creative imagination, our promised birth-rite. The inner worlds of nature mirror this internal intelligence, which constantly breathes as an inhale and exhale of sacrificial flow, a reciprocity with the spiritual presence of subtle energy, generated through the noosphere. At once, as there is a crisis bearing towards ecocide and ethnocide (see my earlier post: Genocide and Extinction), there is also a crisis of what I will call "noocide", or the extinction of our natural capacity to think for ourselves, and look past the egotism of individuated consumer consciousness.  

Attention for the contents of dream narrative allow the mind to reorient within, to the source of dreaming that so inevitably follow outwards with the chaotic madness of global consumerism, expensive vacations, and a whole slew of energy misuse in the wake of ego-manufactured externalized dreaming. The inertia of internal dream substance, awakens the mind to the archetypal community that all share. As Jung said, "Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." We can also look for community within. 

Read my recent article on Media Co-op: Resistance to Canadian Oil Extraction in the Amazon Continues

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Can you hear life? by RK

Read the signs by RK

Flightless Cubism by RK

National Isolation by RK

Inner Light Cityscape by RK

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The forthcoming album, "Evocations: Exotic Settlers" is an evocative musing on the sound language nestled deep within the poetic substance of orated selections from a collection of works under the same title. In continuity with the theme of "exotic settlers", the album is an experimental narrative-sound art exploration into the imagination of a journey of settlement, both archaic and modern. Here, voice soundings are mixed with one instrument at a time, to convey a sense of the traveler, whose light pack is ideal for the road ahead, and whose voice traverses the simple grandeur of sonic revelry from a single instrumental accompaniment. Themes of travel are juxtaposed with settlement, both in the settlement of tradition and ecology, and the inner and outer journey to that destination. To settle on one instrument at a time is a metaphor for the inward/outward experience of settlement for the migrant, who eventually becomes an "exotic settler".

The choice to accompany the voice with a single-reeded bamboo saxophone or xaphoon instrument is based on my affinity for the African sound of the reeded instrument, as in African-American jazz roots. I put an old vinyl effect on the first improvisation to hearken to these early recordings. Also, the xaphoon is originally from Maui Hawaii, and so, the great waters of the Pacific Ocean that separate the North American continent from Hawaii, with its deep Aboriginal heritage, mirror the poetic river offering through the sound of the instrument as a metaphoric nostalgic passage across the western ocean.





Beginning with a reminiscence of life in Africa, poetic reflections written on hillsides in rural central Mexico, overlooking a wide lake in a small village, I remembered Africa. The words allude to Africa as the Mother of all Humanity, as Mother Africa, where all people can know their origins as one human family. If wondering, "What has Africa given to the world?" The answers are many, including the soul of contemporary music, but also our very biological evolution, as humankind. Africa has given us ourselves, our poetry, our music, our spirituality, our creative eye, as well as other aspects of ourselves not so likened to evolution such as our politics. Yet in the words I have chosen in "I remember Africa", I ruminate on the spiritual origins, beneath the flesh, "our skeletal humanity" where we are all one, where we are one with Mother Mater.

The second haiku-like oration, "Selflessness is the father of human survival" was written down after an impromptu spoken word over a city bridge, overlooking the grandiose ice sheets concatenate and break into the singular northern landscape. In Aboriginal folklore, passage across a river is a time of deep meditation in gratitude and honour for the life-giving waters. Traditionally, a sacrificial offering of tobacco, or a ceremonial smoke, is offered to the sacred life source of all creation. Yet, here, I offer the clear smoke of my worded breath, enunciating an egoless passage of impromptu heart resonance.

The other pieces featured in this chapbook draw from the barebones intensity of visceral experience re-felt through memory and the act of writing. In that process, the emphasis becomes one of awareness that drives one to act. To reflect, ruminate and contemplate the living significance of Africa in our own lives is to be moved onward in the struggle for life and for our humanity.

I remember Africa

A Birth Dream Frees The World Soul With Visionary Art

Birth Dream by Johfra

A full exhibition of Johfra's monumental career of works can be found on Visionary Revue, a publication by Laurence Caruana devoted to the history and future of Visionary Art. The most well-known Visionary Artist in America is Alex Grey. His artworks spurred on my fascination with this new wellspring of artistic creativity. A break from surrealism, visionary artists utilize all triggers available to the human body and soul, toward transcendent & transpersonal spiritual unity. The Birth Dream ignites the power of noetic states to trigger the breath of novelty into the mind of the seer. Completed in 1945, this painting marked the very beginning of Johfra's career. He is today known as the principle pioneer of painting techniques that today are the impetus for creative gatherings of all kinds, celebrating the breadth of wonder that the Visionary World Soul inspires in and through us all.  

_________

I hid in triumphant bedrooms of young fear and coarse humor, watching my love’s eager tongue, to lick night’s end with a tearful silent dimming of conscience and the earth’s bounteous tune of motion, she stopped and looked at the drug-stung gang of princely wealth. 

The Mahant Offers Child Birth Medicine to Elokeshi by Unknown

They passed around a newly synthesized batch of 2C-I, a wrongly attributed artificial form of mescaline, and into the innocent palm of my blue-pill eating love. She sang in the company of the greedy minds that drank Smiles in a worshipful torrent of a sleep-lust rush, yet I knocked the beady teardrop-shaped tablets from her hand and mind in an instant of tough self-worth. 

A Portrait of Frankie Howerd by StuartHampton

I drew her character near, and as dawn waded in the shore-sent horizon, I pointed outward, to an island off the lakebed shore, where the upstairs cottage-lights roamed out onto the moonlit waters, faintly giving way to the sun’s scintillating swarm of heat and meaning. We walked, silent as the ether out onto shore, and for the first time, I saw her swim. 

Shore Landscape by Fanny Churberg

I witnessed her smooth body glean the uncanny movements of a dolphin’s glowing visage as her inward celebration of life met with my dusty ruminations on the natural way, the right road home, without minding the needful eyes of that ghastly rush that now lay strewn over the colonial walls of a midsummer cottage, alone in the wilderness of one natural hallucination. 

Painting of Sohni Mahiwal by Unknown

The samsaric fish swam with the mermaid intelligence of true human pride, and I saw her, she knew as I, that the metaphysical dome of the potent seed can dry out the natural host of our musing otherness already freed by the practice of our unique and artful sanity. 

_________

"with true knowledge of her leaving,

the door closes behind you twice,

            without word,

            in absolute Love,

a vacuous throat

                        shaped by the corridors walked

and now stared through

            sitting in the awesome lesson of the moment’s own home,

                        a dream over 10 years,

                           that this cave is positioned to open towards a passage,

                                                one’s only point of departure

            and perceptual environment is no more or less than passage,

                                                whether through the mixed celebration

of alcohol and music

in Iquitos jungle vibrancy

on the neon drug night

of America’s wandering life"

excerpt from "Blakean Consciousness on a Rainy Day"

Dream, or Intoxication: Nietzsche and the Tradition of the Master Singers

The Ravens (For a poem of Nietzsche) by Margaret Hofheinz-Doring

"...dream and of intoxication, physiological phenomena between which we can observe an opposition corresponding to the one between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. According to the idea of Lucretius, the marvellous divine shapes first stepped out before the mind of man in a dream.* It was in a dream that the great artist saw the delightful anatomy of superhuman existence, and the Greek poet, questioned about the secrets of poetic creativity, would have also recalled his dreams and given an explanation similar to the one Hans Sachs provides in Die Meistersinger.*

My friend, that is precisely the poet’s work—
To figure out his dreams, mark them down.
Believe me, the truest illusion of mankind
Is revealed to him in dreams:
All poetic art and poeticizing
Is nothing but interpreting true dreams.

The beautiful appearance of the world of dreams, in whose creation each man is a complete artist, is the precondition of all plastic art, and also, in fact, as we shall see, an important part of poetry."

Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy (e-text)

One night I had been tirelessly searching for this very stanza by Hans Sachs, however I'm unable to read German so my stalwart online efforts proved futile. After glossing over Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" a few times within the body of other texts on mythology, psychology, dream and poetry, I have now found a predecessor to Nietzsche, Hans Sachs, embedded in his monumental philosophical work. This is one of my favourite tracts of literature, and yet I've still to read it in its entirety. I continue to draw from this work the kind of lucid understanding of our inner being as it has moved and developed since the first pages of history unto time immemorial. Such an exhibition of prime thought beckons one's mind, as a lure into the opaque night of isolation and longing, yet when nostalgia dissipates the true character of one alone breathes the kind of truth that is our universal whole, a cosmic constancy of holism, triumphant in its lasting mystery. 

_________

The air, invisibly opaque, opaque in its emptiness, invisible in its bodiless humor, I gaze through the sheathed firmament, a room, a body, jacketed in the empty dark. Forcing my eyes to move, I see a slight pitch in the cruel nothingness, a fleck of something in a bruised vacuum of light. Where am I? 

View of an Etruscan Tomb by Henri Labrouste

I am upraised, I am raised above ground, on a bunk, on an old bunk of childhood longing, bedside window staring, the endless bunk of isolated raised up childhood. On my head, a Viking helmet… It’s sheer weight, it’s ridiculous… My arms flail under a body weighed by the lowering ceiling, and a head crowned with a horned and vast slate of crudely nailed metal. 

Viking Saga: The path of the Vikings to the Greeks by Айвазовский И.К.

And as I look up, the ceiling, lowering, eyes me back with a staring mushroom, with an elongated stem, a fungal growth, upside-down, to stare at me with its sexual head of strange and auspicious gloom, a vivid flight of the hallucinating noesis, the natural misplaced in a mind-born hell of undone pain, to sleep and writhe, in a landless bed of the upright bunk, swollen helmeted head. 

Winter by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

And at once, I toss the disfiguring crown over the edge! It dings off the edge of a television perched on a dresser, and the reverberation is near-unending, an unnatural sound emits, and sends my unconscious flesh storming at the gate. 

_________

One proud, unseemly yet everlasting hoary wind

Escaping into the breathless fold of a storm-brought love

Escalating above the tumult of grounded trees

Lowered to rest in the silent play of her touch

With Mother Nature in lust at the American shoulder-sculpted God

President of inveterate honor

Failing to maintain true gaze

Into the outpouring blind Persian mystic call

Excerpt from "Untrained Timeless Tuning" [featured on Poydras Review]

Sufi Poetics: Spontaneity and Oration in Rumi's Verse

(Found at "Awakening the Dreamer")

“Someone may be clairvoyant, able to see the future, and yet have very little wisdom. Like the man who saw water in his dream and began leading everyone toward the mirage…Sleep deeply wherever you are on the way, maybe some traveler will wake you.” – Rumi, translated and read by Coleman Barks

“Be loyal to your daily practice keep working and keep knocking on the door, as you’ll remember as it is said in one of Rumi’s most pithy moments that the door we’re knocking on opens from the inside...These poems were spoken spontaneously.” - Coleman Barks

The generation of dreaming is the door opening from the inside, the spontaneous voice is the mysterious wisdom reminding us that at the moment when the way is clear, it is not we who enter.

_______

At an outdoor music festival, there is chaos. My wife and I gear up to perform together, though there is tension. As we sit and watch the festivities surrounding, we are as encased in a fog gloom. I forecast a no-show or gong show somewhere between us, usually from my end, the weak one. We see likely faces around, old friends at work on their instruments, in bands, invigorating the public eye. One of our friends, a burly Latin man sits at our spot with us. I walk away, fading. I begin to overhear their conversation. “He’s unwilling to learn from any classical training…” In my high paranoia, I only hear my depressed interpretation. I wallow in self-pity before confronting my love. She is already up on stage, interviewed in the drinkable light, interred in a media pandemic. Defeated, I find our Latin friend, and talk about my troubles. He is extremely accepting and friendly. I am comforted by his freewill offerings of friendship in numerous forms as he helps me overcome my difficulties. I become excited again to play purely improvisational music. Our music is from the spontaneous breath of the heart, an instantaneous intuitive wresting of the mind from earthly clamor. My love sits fixated, unwilling to go about her interview smoothly, she points me out in the crowd. Soon I am onstage. She holds me up, a flamingo above the shallow water, with a stilt leg, barely seen in the shimmering gold seascape horizon.

______ 

Performing
"In general, to dream of performing means you have been dishonest, with others or yourself. If it's a pleasant dream, lying has worked in your favour, but it could have bad consequences. This is also a common dream of performers who are 'practicing' a routine in their sleep." (iDream)

Stage
"If you dream of being onstage, you crave more attention and drama in your life. Good times are coming, but you will have to work hard to get there." (iDream)

In light of the Sama'a or the Sufi practice of listening to supernal harmonies through various meditative means, mostly through music and poetry, the practice of turning the ear to hear the inborn harmonics of spirit, i.e. listening to the one listening, may be an antidote to the psychological sufferings of the performing artist.

______

whose secret existence frightens no one
...instantaneous
...insignificant
yet to always be present,
in the moment,
never born nor witnessed by any thing manifest,
whispering from a most minute creation,
a passing glut,
forgotten by the entire visible universe,
only to return through a remembering

heard in voiceless rhythm,
to create from nothing!
an identity beyond the mimicking mold,
shaped by more hands.

- excerpt from "shaped by more hands"

Training Our Brain to Welcome the Spirit of Dream

"In the altered state of consciousness of people who meditate, we often see theta activity appear. Theta activity is associated with dreams. It is a relaxed state, but something is happening in terms of cognition. It's not easy to maintain theta activity for a long time. It takes a lot of training to do that."

- from "Mystical Brain" by Isabelle Raynaud

________

Meditation with Mahakrishna 

Transcendence transpires. The transpersonal takes effect, dryly in the humid gathering. With rich clothes and frayed seams we sit before the elephant-headed Krishna. Ganesha-Elephant man! Seated before, equally clothed, he prefers to be addressed Mahakrishna. I vanish!

_______

Krishna

"To see Krishna in your dreams, denotes that your greatest joy will be in pursuit of occult knowledge, and you will school yourself to the taunts of friends, and cultivate a philosophical bearing toward life and sorrow." (iDream)

_______

we create

inspired music
unheard by earthly tones       nor human ears
harmonious voices                calling towards a presence

a welcoming home
within the space known as I
an eternal resting place
where through our music we share that space

with peoples     creatures      beings      spirits
places ways times and manifest ideas
through instinct's thoughtful mentation
recognizing all as one
we sing and play an emergent force
calling all forth
from within shells
hardened through travel

- excerpt from "Celestial tONES"

Engineering the Unconscious

“…there exists a barrier in you, all our minds, which prevents these hidden and unwelcome impulses of the unconscious from emerging.” (Dr. Ernest Jones) 

“…the very idea of examining and analyzing one’s inner feelings was a threat to their absolute control.”

“By analyzing dreams and free association he had unearthed, he said, powerful sexual and aggressive forces which were the remnants of our animal past. Feelings we repressed because they were too dangerous.”

“If human beings were driven by unconscious irrational forces than it was necessary to rethink democracy.” 

- from the film, "The Century of the Self" (Part One on YouTube)

________

We wait aimlessly. The school cafeteria transforms into the living room at my grandparent’s house. The light brown rug gives off a beige boredom, as I sit amongst friends and family, waiting, so patiently, as if for the return of Christ. Eating is drudgery. There is an unlikely foment of pleasing silence about, precipitated by my power-hungry relatives. I have had enough. I clasp my hands and in a manner to mock Christian prayer, I bowl over carelessly in front of my father and uncle. “Christmas is within you!” I say to them with lifted humor. They smile with vagrant attention as my grandmother proceeds to welcome me to sleep downstairs. As I take up her offer, the entire upstairs rumbles with festivity. Smoke pours in dreamily as brass instruments are uncased and steamed with the strong breath of celebratory music. “Is it time?” I ponder, wistfully.

________

Christmas

"Symbolizes family togetherness, reunions and celebration. It is also representative of new beginnings and fresh starts." (iDream)

________

There are four deities.
Each represents a characteristic prevalent in creatures, stones, places, and thoughts.

Creatures are animals, plants, water and air.
Stones are celestial bodies, crystals and money.
Places are meaning, stories, songs and art.
Thoughts are actions which emanate from the center of being, the heart.

Each of the four deities has an age,
and each has a name with which it is remembered
by People.

The first deity is called,
Haumah; Nation,
the second is
Hakhalah; Community,
the third is
Mishpachah; Family,
and the fourth is,
Aahtzmi; Self.

Today, we are in the age of Aahtzmi.

- excerpt from "Deadly Vision Part I"