Thursday, July 30, 2009

For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
. . . or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Saturday, July 25, 2009

My friend, this body is His lute.
He tightens the strings and plays its songs.

If the strings break and the pegs work loose,
this lute, made of dust, returns to dust.

Kabir says: Nobody else can wake from it that heavenly music.

-- Kabir (translated by C. Milosz and R. Haas)
from The Enlightened Heart, edited by Stephen Mitchell

Saturday, July 18, 2009

"So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning."

- Aaron Copland

Saturday, July 11, 2009

As the Source strikes the note,
Humanity sings --
The Holy Spirit is our harpist,
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.

- Mechtild of Magdeburg (13th C. mystic)

from Women in Praise of the Sacred, ed. by Jane Hirshfield

Saturday, July 4, 2009

We rarely hear the inward music,
but we're all dancing to it nevertheless,

directed by the one who teaches us,
the pure joy of the sun,
our music master.

- Rumi

from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks