The Music of the Spheres: a poetic adventure resumes

The Music of the Spheres

A number of years ago I was given an interesting poetic commission.

I had come to know the composer Marty O’Donnell, who is famous, amongst other things, for having composed the music for Halo, and for Destiny, two major games for the computer game company Bungie. When he was working on the music which would help to frame the game Destiny, a game whose narrative and architecture draws on the classical and mediaeval idea of the heavenly spheres, each with its own character and distinct music, he composed a beautiful new suite of music called ‘The Music of the Spheres’, and as we had talked together about the ‘seven heavens’ of the mediaeval world-view he asked me if I would compose a suite of poems to go with the music.

I came up with a sequence called ‘Seven Heavens, Seven Hells’. It consists of fourteen poems, arranged in seven pairs, which I composed in direct response to Marty’s music but also drawing inspiration, as we both did, from the mediaeval ‘seven heavens’, the crystalline spheres of the planets with their different characteristics and influences.

The whole approach, both to the poetry and the music, which Marty and I discussed early was a response to the idea, based in mediaeval astrology of ‘opposing pairs’. Each of the seven spheres has a certain cluster of associations and influences, Venus with Love, Mars with war and martial valour, the Sun with gold, but also poetry and inspiration etc. But equally it is possible for each of these celestial influences to become corrupted and malign, for, as St. Augustine says, good is primal and evil is always a corruption of some original good. Astrologically this is expressed in the idea that there is a diurnal, or good and light-filled aspect of each sphere, but also a nocturnal or dark aspect. Michael Ward, whose work Marty and I both admire, draws this out brilliantly in Planet Narnia, his account of the Seven Heavens in the thought and writing of CS Lewis.

A group of enthusiasts for Marty’s music, have, with his and Bungie’s blessing made a series of videos incorporating both the music and my poems. a while ago I posted a link to the first of these for the moon

I’m happy to say that the complete suite has now been posted. These poems will also appear in print in October as part of my next collection with Canterbury Press which will be called ‘After Prayer’. You can click on This Link, to go straight to a page which has links to all eight videos in what they are calling the Golden Age Anthology. Or you can scroll down and enjoy each of the videos embedded here:

The Divine Image by William Blake

Image created by Linda Richardson after Matisse

For January 6th (the feast of epiphany) in my  Anthology from Canterbury Press, Waiting on the Word, I have chosen to read, as the final poem in the collection The Divine Image by William Blake. The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the visit of the magi to the Christ-child, and so the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Gospel story: and not simply the Gentiles in some generic way, but all the distinct races, cultures and religions of ‘the nations’, which is why the tradition of depicting the three kings as representing three different races is so helpful. On this Feast Day, it might seem obvious to choose one of the well-known poems that recall or describe that familiar scene: Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi’, or Yeats’ poem ‘The Magi’. But I wanted in this final poem to move from the outward and visible picture which already adorns so many of the Christmas cards we will be taking down today, and as those outward images fade away, to come through poetry to the inward and spiritual truth which they proclaim. And that spiritual truth is that in the Incarnation Christ, in taking on human nature, takes on, becomes involved in, visits, redeems the whole of humanity, not just the chosen people to whose race and culture he belonged. And what is more, when the fullness of God comes to dwell in the fullness of Christ’s humanity, then that mysterious ‘image of God’ in which all humanity was made (Genesis 1:27) is at last restored. And we can see that the Light who so uniquely and particularly became the Christ-child at Bethlehem is also, as John’s Gospel clearly proclaims, ‘The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world’ (John 1:9). It seems to me that it is William Blake’s poem ‘The Divine Image’, rather than any specifically Christmas or Epiphany verse, that goes to the heart of these things.

You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. The image above was created by Linda Richardson, for the unique book of responses to Waiting on the Word last year, and again this is one of my favourites. As we finish this series of posts I would like to thank Linda for allowing me to share these beautiful images with you and for making such a rich and creative response to my book in the first instance. She will soon be establishing a website for more of her art and when she does so I will write about it on this blog. about this final image Linda writes:

Once again I return to Matisse and his dancers. The little figures are naked and in a trance of wild woodland worship. They are unselfconscious and free, not arguing a doctrinal point but holding tight to each others hands as they whirl around a Divine tree. Our minds and thinking can ensnare us like a flies on a spider’s web, but our bodies do not lie. If we are stressed, we can talk ourselves into believing we are relaxed, but our jaw may be tight and our brow heavy. In the same way we sometimes mistake ‘correct doctrine’ for love, and wonder why we feel so angry when our doctrines are attacked. In the image, the little figures are ‘every man’ and ‘every woman’. They are lost in the present moment, and the only government is the beauty of the silent tree around which, with all their hearts, they dance.

There exists only the present instant… a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence. Meister Eckhart

You can find the words, and a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle

The Divine ImageWilliam Blake

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

All pray in their distress;

And to these virtues of delight

Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is God, our father dear,

And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,

Pity a human face,

And Love, the human form divine,

And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,

That prays in his distress,

Prays to the human form divine,

Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,

In heathen, Turk, or Jew;

Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell

There God is dwelling too.

Rocky Mountain Railroad, Epiphany by Luci Shaw

Image by Linda Richardson

For January 5th in my  Anthology from Canterbury Press, Waiting on the Word, I have chosen to read Rocky Mountain Railroad, Epiphany by Luci Shaw. this poem makes an interesting contrast and parallel with Coleridge’s psalm-like outpouring of yesterday. Both poems are a response to the beauty of nature, and specifically to the sight of snowy mountains, and the whole play of light on snow and ice. In both poems we have a sense of glory and of the sublime rising ‘reaches of peak above peak beyond peak’.

You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. The image above was created by Linda Richardson. She Writes:

Luci Shaw takes a subtly different approach to Coleridge as she describes, ‘in a net of words’, her transcendent experience. She uses herself as a mirror to describe the effect the experience has on her. ‘I imbed it in my brain so that it will flash and flash again…an alternate reality…my open window mind is too little,…I long for each sweep….’

 In the image I made, the words open and condense in the lines, sometimes clear, sometimes hidden in the ink, indicating the fleeting glimpses we see as we hurtle along in a train. Life reflects the train journey. The Divine is always around us, sometimes clearly visible in love given and received, sometimes only glimpsed as we speed by. And often, if our focus is too close, all we see is our own reflection in the window.

You can find the words, and a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle

Rocky Mountain Railroad, Epiphany   Luci Shaw

The steel rails parallel the river as we penetrate

ranges of pleated slopes and crests—all too complicated

for capture in a net of words. In this showing, the train window

is a lens for an alternate reality—the sky lifts and the light forms

shadows of unstudied intricacy. The multiple colors of snow

in the dimpled fresh fall. Boulders like white breasts. Edges

blunted with snow. My open-window mind is too little for

this landscape. I long for each sweep of view to toss off

a sliver, imbed it in my brain so that it will flash

and flash again its unrepeatable views. Inches. Angles.

Niches. Two eagles. A black crow. Skeletal twigs’ notched

chalices for snow. Reaches of peak above peak beyond peak

Next to the track the low sun burns the silver birches into

brass candles. And always the flow of the companion river’s

cord of silk links the valleys together with the probability

of continuing revelation. I mind-freeze for the future

this day’s worth of disclosure. Through the glass

the epiphanies reel me in, absorbed, enlightened.

The Bird in the Tree Ruth Pitter

 

Image by Linda Richardson

For January 2nd in my  Anthology from Canterbury Press, Waiting on the Word, I have chosen to read The Bird in the Tree by Ruth Pitter. On New Year’s Eve we considered Hardy’s almost reluctant glimpse of transfiguration ‘when Frost was spectre-grey, and ‘shrunken hard and dry’, and Hardy’s heart, bleak as the world through which he moves, nevertheless hears for a moment the ‘ecstatic sound’ of his darkling thrush. And even though he wanted to end his poem with the word ‘unaware’, something of the transcended has ‘trembled through’ his poem. Today’s poem, also about hearing a bird in a tree, also addresses the question of how the transcendent might for ‘a moment of time’ ‘tremble through’ into the immanent.

You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. The image above was created by Linda Richardson and is one of my favourites from the beautiful book of responses she made to Waiting on the Word, it is so full of life, movement and energy. Linda Writes:

A few years ago I was walking up the hill behind our house. I had an extraordinary experience of feeling myself dissolve into the land around me, of being one with the trees, the insects below the earth and the sky above me. When I got home I attempted to paint the experience and reading Ruth Pitter’s poem brought it back to my mind.

Throughout this Advent, Malcolm has offered us poems that invite us to ‘see’. We believe we know what a bird is like, what a tree is like, we have heard the Christmas stories so often that we think we know them, but if we give ourselves time to ‘see’ anew, we will be able to glimpse eternity shining all around us and within us. We can find God manifest in the finite and the infinite, in time and eternity. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says, ‘split the wood, and I am there. Turn over the stone and there you will find me.’

You can find the words, and a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle

The Bird in the Tree   Ruth Pitter

 

The tree, and its haunting bird,

Are the loves of my heart;

But where is the word, the word,

Oh where is the art,

 

To say, or even to see,

For a moment of time,

What the Tree and the Bird must be

In the true sublime?

 

They shine, listening to the soul,

And the soul replies;

But the inner love is not whole,

and the moment dies.

 

Oh give me before I die

The grace to see

With eternal, ultimate eye,

The Bird and the Tree.

 

The song in the living Green,

The Tree and the Bird –

Oh have they ever been seen,

Ever been heard?

 

The Milky Way: a little burst of midwinter glory

The Milky Way from an Indiana back road

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am working on a new sonnet sequence responding to each I turn of the twenty-seven images in George Herbert’s glorious sonnet ‘Prayer’, and today I have come as far as ‘The Milky Way’, the twenty-second image. I have thought a little of what made the Milky Way an emblem of prayer for Herbert, but I have also availed myself of images he could never have seen, but would have loved: the glorious pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. So here, in a dark time of year, but as part of the glory of the twelve days of Christmas is something that might offer us all a little burst of light and colour. I hope you enjoy it. As always you can hear me read the sonnet by clicking the title or the ‘play’ button.

The view from Hubble (courtesy of NASA)

The Milky Way

It’s always there, but when our lights are low,

Or altogether out, we see it shine;

Only when things are darkest here below

Do we discern its soft pearlescent sheen,

Gracefully traced across the midnight sky,

In whose light Herbert saw the path of prayer.

Though pale and milky to the naked eye,

The view from Hubble, far above the air,

Shows us a star-field rich with many colours

‘Patines of bright gold’ and blue and red,

Abundance of a hundred billion stars

Whose centre lies in Sagittarius,

Darting their glory, like the myriad

Of saints and angels who all pray for us.

 

Nativity by Scott Cairns

Image by Linda Richardson

We return to Scott Cairns in my series of readings of the poems in my  Anthology from Canterbury Press Waiting on the Word.The poem I have chosen for December 27th, is  Nativity, a beautiful reflection on an icon of the Nativity and how it draws us in. You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. the image above was created by Linda Richardson. Linda writes:

As I read this poem I discerned a kind of radiance and inwardness that fascinated me. Again there are glimpses of the Divine that may be missed if we are not attentive or prayerful. We lean in and see a “tiny God.. slip briefly out of time.. miss the point or meet there”.

In the image, I created a fissure in the virgin blue, and beyond that there is a brightness that cannot be touched. It is a secret brightness, obscure and transcendent and cannot be possessed by us. All of life is potentially prayer that deepens us and makes our ‘ordinary’ time more loving and creative. But prayer is not an intellectual activity but an activity of love where we learn to be near God and learn too, never to leave the holiness of his nearness as we go about our daily duties.

You can find you can find the words, and a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle As always you can hear me read the poem by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button

Nativity

As you lean in, you’ll surely apprehend

the tiny God is wrapped

in something more than swaddle. The God

 

is tightly bound within

His blesséd mother’s gaze—her face declares

that she is rapt by what

 

she holds, beholds, reclines beholden to.

She cups His perfect head

and kisses Him, that even here the radiant

 

compass of affection

is announced, that even here our several

histories converge and slip,

 

just briefly, out of time. Which is much of what

an icon works as well,

and this one offers up a broad array

 

of separate narratives

whose temporal relations quite miss the point,

or meet there. Regardless,

 

one blithe shepherd offers music to the flock,

and—just behind him—there

he is again, and sore afraid, attended

 

by a trembling companion

and addressed by Gabriel. Across the ridge,

three wise men spur three horses

 

towards a star, and bowing at the icon’s

nearest edge, these same three

yet adore the seated One whose mother serves

 

as throne. Meantime, stumped,

the kindly Abba Joseph ruminates,

receiving consolation

from an attentive dog whose master may

yet prove to be a holy

messenger disguised as fool. Overhead,

 

the famous star is all

but out of sight by now; yet, even so,

it aims a single ray

 

directing our slow pilgrims to the core

where all the journeys meet,

appalling crux and hallowed cave and womb,

 

where crouched among these other

lowing cattle at their trough, our travelers

receive that creatured air, and pray.

Christmas and the Common Birth by Anne Ridler

image by Linda Richardson

The poem I have chosen for December 15th in my Advent Anthology from Canterbury Press Waiting on the Word, is Christmas and the Common Birth by Anne Ridler. You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. the image above, is once more from the beautiful book of art which Linda Richardson made in response to Waiting on the Word.

She Writes:

The image for today looks, from a distance, like a peaceful, sleeping face. On closer inspection you will see it is made up of hundreds of intense scribbled lines. We can, from a distance appear calm to those around us, but perhaps our inner lives are in turmoil, those inner voices utterly draining and our value comes from what we ‘do’, not what we ‘are’. In the poem we hear that, “Christmas comes at the dark dream of the year that might wish to sleep ever…birth is effort and pain.” Our busy-ness is often a way to stay asleep, to avoid the call that Jesus and all the mystics make on our lives to wake up to a greater vision of life where we are children of God, the beloved of the Father.

Our prayer today may be of a harried or sick person. This is the person God wants to be with and we come to God in the reality of what we are and with all the scribbles and scrawls that seem to make up our life. We bring all our addictions and anxieties with us and turn away from them to God, because the space inside us is the same space that contains the cosmos. One moment of true silence will find us in loving heart of the Great Silence out of which everything is and has its being.

You can find you can find a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle

Christmas and the Common Birth

Christmas declares the glory of the flesh:

And therefore a European might wish

To celebrate it not at midwinter but in spring,

When physical life is strong,

When the consent to live is forced even on the young,

Juice is in the soil, the leaf, the vein,

Sugar flows to movement in limbs and brain.

Also before a birth, nourishing the child

We turn again to the earth

With unusual longing—to what is rich, wild,

Substantial: scents that have been stored and strengthened

In apple lofts, the underwash of woods, and in barns;

Drawn through the lengthened root; pungent in cones

(While the fir wood stands waiting; the beech wood aspiring,

Each in a different silence), and breaking out in spring

With scent sight sound indivisible in song.

 

Yet if you think again

It is good that Christmas comes at the dark dream of the year

That might wish to sleep ever.

For birth is awaking, birth is effort and pain;

And now at midwinter are the hints, inklings

(Sodden primrose, honeysuckle greening)

That sleep must be broken.

To bear new life or learn to live is an exacting joy:

The whole self must waken; you cannot predict the way

It will happen, or master the responses beforehand.

For any birth makes an inconvenient demand;

Like all holy things

It is frequently a nuisance, and its needs never end;

Freedom it brings: We should welcome release

From its long merciless rehearsal of peace.

 

So Christ comes

At the iron senseless time, comes

To force the glory into frozen veins:

His warmth wakes

Green life glazed in the pool, wakes

All calm and crystal trance with the living pains.

 

And each year

In seasonal growth is good– year

That lacking love is a stale story at best

By God’s birth

Our common birth is holy; birth

Is all at Christmas time and wholly blest.