…Explain how poetry
pursues the human like the smitten moon
above the weeping, laughing earth; how we
make prayers of it…
Interesting spat going on at the moment – an exam board took one of Carol Ann Duffy’s poems off the syllabus because it might encourage violence. The quote above comes from the poem she wrote in response.
I’ve always enjoyed her work hugely, and I love this particular phrase, which says so much about what poetry is, and can be!
I’ve just come across an amazing website which has a colour- and shape-based search engine for photos. It’s called the Visual Search Lab, and is by Idee labs. If you’re at all interested in colours, go over and enjoy a photo safari! One tool uses flickr photos, so it might be a perfect way of finding a photo for that blogpost!
And when you’re done there, you might like to look at the Colour and Design Blog, where I heard about the visual search lab.
Then go and sit down quietly in a darkened room and dream of colours!
Saturday saw the first voyage of the Carnival of the Elitist Bastards. Despite the name, they’re more inspiring than nasty, and while elitist, are elitist in a very inclusive way. They refuse to accept dumbing down, and proclaim the virtues of intelligence, curiosity and expertise in a most inspiring way.
Definitely worth checking out…
(Happy to say that I was a member of the crew – “Playing Small doesn’t help the world“.)
Couldn’t resist posting this image of Calvin and Hobbes – I just love how it captures the sheer bliss of being utterly immersed in music and dance! Being able to be this spontaneous and unselfconscious is such a gift…
Click here to see the whole cartoon and more like it at gocomics.com
There’s an article on the BBC website at the moment called “Is depression good for you?” about how some people have come out of periods of lowness and depression to a much stronger state. (Emphasis on some people is important here!) Given my own experience of emerging much stronger and more secure from a low period which briefly skirted mild depression, this makes a lot of sense for me.
The article makes some interesting comments on how depressin is dealt with in different cultures:
“Depression can be traced all the way back to the Stone Age, say Dr Keedwell, when close-knit communities of about 50 people would have identified it quickly. The rest of the group would have rallied round and changes followed, such as a new role for the individual… The Banda tribe in Uganda calls it “illness of thought” and those affected are allowed time out from the group, a concession not extended to many with the condition in the UK.“
I think there are many aspects of modern Western society that are conducive to depression – it’s no wonder so many people seem to get it nowadays. Not much exercise, distance from friends and family, pressure at work, the overabundance of choice, the stigma that is still attached to any form of mental illness, and the feeling that you should just “pull yourself together”.
There’s a lot of pressure to have it all, to be a superman/woman who never has moments of doubt or weakness. But that’s so unrealistic.
Sometimes stopping and reexaming what matters to you is painful – but from my own experience it is definitely worth it when the clouds start to lift!
Anyone know some good songs to encourage and console people who are feeling broken-hearted?
I’ve noticed that several people are arriving at my blog by googling various phrases that appear in my post “Songs to heal a broken heart“. So clearly I wasn’t the only one looking for songs about love that give an encouraging message to people whose love lives have fallen apart.
Music is so powerful – sometimes sad music that expresses all the agony of heartbreak is what we need, but I quickly found that if I only listened to that sort of music, it made me feel worse rather than better. So I started looking out for music that gives a more positive message – that it is possible to survive the loss of love, to rebuild your life either happily alone or with someone new. Songs that talk about regaining your strength, of putting yourself and your life back together!
I’d love to collect some more songs about healing the wounds of lost love – it would be a lovely theme for a concert or a CD! (talk about making lemonade when life gives you lemons!)
So please leave a comment with your favourite medicine for the heartsick!
To get you started, here’s one of my favourites – Pink Martini’s Hang on Little Tomato – with a lovely slideshow that someone posted on youtube:
I’ve been looking for songs about healing a broken heart, and as I said a few posts ago, I’ve asked a few singing groups for repertoire suggestions.
In this way I came across an amazing song cycle by Maury Yeston called December songs, essentially the journey of a woman recovering from a breakup. It’s fascinating because it is based on some Schubert song cycles (Winterreise and Schone Mullerin) that are profoundly sad, and portray hopeless despair at the loss of love. But in the Yeston cycle, the heroine seems to find consolation and recovery – the last song is called “What a relief”!
I’ve ordered a CD and the sheet music and am waiting for the deliveries to arrive – in the meantime I found a few MP3 files, one of which, By the river, is currently haunting me, in a consoling sort of way. Here’s the refrain (as far as I can make out the words):
People will be born, people will die
As before you were born and long after you
Young ones will find love and will fight, and hand will find hand
We will flow on and on, on and on
River calling, “Come join my journey
I will ease your burden, I will be your rest
River calling, “Call me, my lover,
I will bring you freedom, flow along with me to the sea!”
It’s strange, because this song is in some ways similar to the last songs of Die Schone Mullerin, Der Müller und der Bach and Des Baches Wiegenlied where the protagonist ends up so desolate that the only place he can find rest is the crystal blue depths of the river i.e. through drowning himself… That’s one interpretation of the words of the Yeston song too, but somehow the Yeston song feels more about staying alive and immersing yourself in the flow of life, with all its ups and downs, tragedies and triumphs.
The Schubert songs are incredibly beautiful, and I have loved them for years. But right now the mood of the Yeston cycle is what I am drawn to. It somehow speaks to the “when life hand you lemons, make lemonade” space I am in now about the breakup.
There are moments now when I am as happy as I was in the first days of falling in love, not just alive and interested in my life, but also exhilaratingly aware of my own strength and worth and lovableness. The dawn is so beautiful after a difficult night!
Can’t wait for the music to arrive.
Posted in linking, living, loving, recovering, singing
Tagged breaking up, broken heart, December Songs, Maury Yeston, Schubert, singing
Have been spending a relaxing Sunday afternoon watching some amazing speakers at http://www.ted.com/index.php
I really recommend people who’ve not visited it take a look!
Some of my favourites:
On music –Evelyn Glennie shows how to listen
On Saturn and its moons – Carolyn Porco flies us to Saturn
On the wonders of the human body – David Bolinsky animates a cell
On the emotions expressed by bloggers all over the world: Jonathan Harris tells the Web’s secret stories
The image above comes from one of the sites mentioned by Jonathan Harris – it’s called “we feel fine” and it depicts the emotions from bloggers all over the world as random dots, as phrases, photos with quotes, or even as wobbling jellies – weird and wonderful!
Having put up my last post, I wanted to put up a link to this amazing speech from the sadly late Douglas Adams – on all sorts of fascinating things about our relationship with the world and the concepts we use to interpret it. As a taster:
“So, my argument is that as we become more and more scientifically literate, it’s worth remembering that the fictions with which we previously populated our world may have some function that it’s worth trying to understand and preserve the essential components of, rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water; because even though we may not accept the reasons given for them being here in the first place, it may well be that there are good practical reasons for them, or something like them, to be there.”
I recently came across a very interesting article on so-called bio-energetic fields by Victor J Stenger.
The article looks at many of the claims made for energy fields, and in particular the idea that these claims are now justified by references to scientific theories such as “Einstein’s theory of quantum mechanics” (sic!). The writer mentions a number of phenomena that are cited as evidence for bio-energy, and comments:
“Once again, like the infrared aura, we have a well-known electromagnetic phenomenon [Kirlian photography] being paraded in front of innocent lay people, unfamiliar with basic physics, as “evidence” for a living force. It is nothing of the sort. Proponents of alternative medicine would have far fewer critics among conventional scientists if they did not resort to this kind of dishonesty and foolishness.”
I must admit that the idea of biological energy is an attractive one. Who would not be drawn to the idea of being able to influence and gain insight into your surroundings, and so becoming able to heal people and understand them better? But the more I look into it the more I recoil.
It’s one thing to have an open mind, and look at the evidence available, but so much of this new age and alternative medicine stuff is incredibly uncritical and undiscriminating, and looks only at the evidence on one side of the story. It is almost certainly true that there are weird phenomena which science hasn’t yet explained – but it absolutely does not follow that all weird phenomena which don’t have a scientific explanation are true!
It alarms and astonishes me just how many of the arguments put forward show lack of critical scrutiny of evidence – often amounting to a real disregard for the truth. I’m particuarly concerned to see no serious consideration of the possibility that energy reading/healing may be wrong (e.g. biased by your expectations or prejudices) or have limitations or ill-effects.
There are some positive dimensions to alternative medicine, particularly the real medical benefits of having the time to discuss all sorts of aspects of your life in a consultation, and feeling that you have been taken seriously as an individual with unique and interesting problems. And some forms of therapy, like acupuncture and herbal medicine seem to have effects beyond placebo.
So it’s important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. But the more I look into this stuff, I seem to find more bathwater and fewer & more elusive babies!
Tagged alternative medicine, energy, healing, new age, scepticism, science, truth
Words that sing 