Terri Windling's Blog, page 169

Tunes for a Monday Morning

Today's music comes from four extraordinary singers of Portuguese fado: a genre of songs expressing feelings of love and saudade (or longing), sometimes called "the Portuguese blues." We often listen to fado in our house, but it has particular poignancy for me right now because Howard is in Portugal for the next six weeks. (He's teaching Commedia dell'Arte and mask theatre, once again, at the drama academy in Porto). Tilly is bereft without his presence...and if she could sing, she'd be singing fado at this very moment.

The song above is "Meu Amor Marinheiro," performed by Carminho (Maria do Carmo Carvalho Rebelo de Andrade), an exceptionally talented young fadista from Lisbon. She's released two well-received albums so far: Fado (2009) and Alma (2012).

Youth is not a requiste of fado, however, where many of the finest voicest are richly tempered by time and experience. Below is Mísia (Susana Maria Alfonso de Aguiarin), one of the great fadistas of the last twenty years. Mísia, who comes from Porto, champions a literary form of fado using lyrics drawn from the poetry of writers both contemporary and historic. The song below, "O Manto da Rainha," comes from her 2011 album, Senhora da Noite, with texts written exclusively by women poets and fadistas.

Next:

No posting of contemporary fado can overlook the great Mariza (Marisa dos Reis Nunes), born in Portuguese Mozambique and raised in Lisbon. Ever since her recording debut in 2001, she's been a leading figure in the "New Fado" movement, and she's certainly the best known of the fadistas internationally. The video below is for "Rosa Branca," from her beautiful seventh album, Terra (2008).

And last:

Ana Moura is a "New Fado" singer known for her collaborations with musicians from different genres, ranging from jazz to pop to hardcore rock-and-roll. In the video below, she brings a fado style to her rendition of "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell. (For a taste of Moura singing fado, go here.)

If you'd like a little more fado this morning, you'll find two exquisite songs here.

In praise of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky

"I believe in aristocracy -- if that is the right words and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based on rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke."

- E.M. Forster (1899-1970)

"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common -- this is my symphony."

- William Ellery Channing (1818-1901)

The three paintings above are by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939).

Elemental gratitude

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day —
and to her soil: rich, rare, and sweet
in our minds so be it

Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing light changing leaf
and fine-root hairs; standing still through wind
and rain; their dance is in the flowing spiral grain
in our minds so be it

Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and the silent
Owl at dawn. Breath of our song
clear spirit breeze
in our minds so be it

Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers teaching secrets,
freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk;
self-complete, brave, and aware
in our minds so be it

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
holding or releasing; streaming through all
our bodies salty seas
in our minds so be it

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
bears and snakes sleep — he who wakes us –
in our minds so be it

Gratitude to the Great Sky
who holds billions of stars — and goes yet beyond that –
beyond all powers, and thoughts
and yet is within us –
Grandfather Space.
The Mind is his Wife.

so be it.

- Gary Snyder (after a Mowhawk prayer)

To which I add: Gratitude for all the things that help us through these long, hard winters: warmth and light, friendship and art, good talk, good music, good books, good dreams, good single malt whiskey (hey, whatever it takes). Gratitude for the storms that shake us, and the sweet calm after. Gratitude for it all.

The value of rest

"We who have lost our sense and our senses -- our touch, our smell, our vision of who we are; we who frantically force and press all things, without rest for body or spirit, hurting our earth and injuring ourselves: we call a halt.

"We want to rest. We need to rest and allow the earth to rest. We need to reflect and rediscover the mystery that lives in us, that is the ground of every unique expression of life, the source of the fascination that calls all things to communion.

"We declare a Sabbath, a space of quiet: for simply being and letting be; for recovering the great, forgotten truths; for learning how to live again."

-- from "Only One Earth," published by the U.N. Environment Programme, Earth Day, 1990

Winter

The earth now lies through nights drenched
in the still dark benediction of the rain
and dusky houses and branches stand out bleak
each day in mist, in white, and in the rustling wet.
All, all is rich and restful, with heavy
and secret and rich growth finding its way
through warm soil to every leaf and shoot
and binding everything – near, far – mysteriously
with moisture, fruitfulness, and great desire
- till one clear afternoon suddenly we see
the glistening grass, the tenderly rising grain
and know that life is served by rest.
How could I ever have thought of summer
as richer than this season’s mystery?

- N.P. Van Wyk Louw (South Africa, 1906-1970)

Gradually returning to oneself....

For everyone who has been overworking lately, or trying to handle too many Big Life Things at once (including extremes of winter weather), I offer this lovely poem about weariness and restoration from the late (and much missed) Irish poet, philosopher, and Catholic mystic, John O'Donohue:

A Blessing for One Who is Exhausted

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

The art above: "Flaming June" by Fredrick Lord Leighton (1830-1896), two color studies  and a drawing for the "Legend of the Briar Rose" series by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), and a detail from one of the completed "Briar Rose" panels (bottom right).

Tunes for a Monday Morning

Today, three songs by Vandaveer, an alt-folk band from Washington D.C. whose music is in heavy rotation in my studio lately. I love these guys.

Above: a dark, stylish video filmed for their dark, stylish version of the folk song "Pretty Polly" -- recorded for Oh, Willie, Please (2013), a fabulous album of traditional folk murder ballads.

"The macabre has long held uneasy sway over the human condition," the band's founder, Mark Charles Heidinger, explains. "From ghost stories to creation myths, from CSI to Shakespeare, from cable news voyeurism to Edgar Allan Poe, subjects of death, murder and all things ghastly have fascinated and frightened for centuries. Songs are no exception. From Old World roots to more recent incarnations in America, the murder ballad has traversed, shapeshifted and persevered. Despite our collective desire to be good and virtuous, people do very bad things. And then we sing about them."

Heidinger and singer Rose Guerin explain the project further in the atmospheric little video below.

And third: the video for "Dig Down Deep," a gorgeous song written by Heidinger, from their 2011 CD of the same name.

This last one goes out to all of you who have been as inundated with snow this winter as we've been indundated with rain here in Devon.

Recommended Reading

Here are a few more stormy weather reading recommendations, since the rain and flooding in Devon never seems to end....

* Katherine Langrish's most recent fairy tale article, "Happily Ever After" (Seven Miles of Steel Thistles).

* Gypsy Thorton's delightful "Ask Baba Yaga" advice column (Once Upon a Blog).

* Daniel A. Rabuzzi's interview with mythic poet Sandra Kasturi, author of Come Late to the Love of Birds: Part I and Part II (Lobster and Canary).

* Danny Heitman's "The White Pages," a profile of E.B. White, author of Charlotte's Web, etc. (The Humantities).

* "Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators" by Megan McArdle (The Atlantic). Which, of course, with a few luminous exceptions (I'm looking at you, Jane Yolen), we certainly are.

For my valentines....

And happy St. Valentine's Day to all of you, too.

Images above: Howard & Tilly (2009), vintage valentine (1919),  Howard & Tilly (2014), and my Devon little people.

The dark and the light

In these days of rain, rain, rain, and more rain, I am reminded that loving Nature, respecting Nature, is no simple, easy, gentle thing. She has a dark face too, the goddess of destruction: fierce Kali, the Dark Madonna, the Old Bone Woman, Sedna and Baba Yaga rolled into one. Paradox and contradictions lie at the heart of Nature and myth, of art and storytelling, of a life lived with honest passion and conviction. Water falls as a precious blessing in the desert, water swallows up towns and train tracks here....the same sacred element in different guises: desired and dreaded, prayed for, cursed, and feared.

Today I want to bless, not curse, the rain. I want to bless, not curse, the dark sides of Nature...and of my nature...while striving to keep both sides in balance. This is not to ignore or excuse destruction and suffering, but to acknowlege its place in all our lives...the dark side of the very wildness I love. In his poem "Inversnaid," Gerald Manley Hopkins asks:

What would the earth be, once bereft
of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wilderness and wet;
Long live the weeds, and the wilderness yet.

A blog note: I had a few more desert pictures on my camera that I never got around to posting during our busy time in Arizona, so I went back to those posts and added a few extras (for anyone who might be interested).

We're under the weather today -- literally rather than ...

We're under the weather today -- literally rather than figuratively. Rain, water pouring down our hill, alarmingly high winds, intermittent power cuts. (Poor Tilly, she really hates storms.) I'll be back tomorrow. Stay warm, safe, and dry, everyone.