Saturday, November 30, 2013


Immerse yourself in the rapture of music.
You know what you love.  Go there.
Tend to each note, each chord,
Rising up from silence and dissolving again.

Vibrating strings draw us
Into the spacious resonance of the heart.

The body becomes light as the sky
And you, one with the Great Musician,
Who is even now singing us
Into existence.

-- Sutra 18, Vijnana Bhairava Tantra (The Radiance Sutras)
(translated by Lorin Roche)

Saturday, November 23, 2013


A flower is a smile of God,
A distant echo of heaven,
A single, fleeting note
Of God's own music,
A perfectly-formed note
In his all-making harmony,
A voice full of mystery, dear Saviour,
That sings of your great power:
     Infinitely melodious,
     Sweetly harmonious
Silence of flowers,
Telling God in his grandeur.

-- St. Therese of Lisieux
(in  Invincible Spirits:  A Thousand Years of Women's Spiritual Writings,
compiled by Felicity Leng)

Saturday, November 16, 2013


Give me the flute and let me sing,
And through my soul let music ring;
For music opens the secret of life,
Bringing peace, abolishing strife.

-- Kahlil Gibran
(in A Treasury of Kahlil Gibran,
translated by Anthony Rizcallah Ferris)

Saturday, November 9, 2013


Give me the flute and let me sing,
And through my soul let music ring;
For music is a heart that grows
With love, and like the spring it flows.

-- Kahlil Gibran
(in A Treasury of Kahlil Gibran,
translated by Anthony Rizcallah Ferris)

Saturday, November 2, 2013


Give me the flute and let me sing,
And through my soul let music ring;
For music is the heart's great bliss,
From heaven a joy, from God a kiss.

-- Kahlil Gibran
(in A Treasury of Kahlil Gibran,
translated by Anthony Rizcallah Ferris)