Willing To Share Healing Poetry/music/etc.?

[Schubert]

The first and second movements of the B flat sonata by Franz Schubert. To me, this music is almost magically healing, provided it is played slowly enough (Richter on YouTube is good).

 

[Hope4Now]

he first and second movements of the B flat sonata by Franz Schubert.

Thank you. I haven't listened to this for a long time. It is wonderful. Ended up with Brendel.

 

[Hope4Now]

Here's one for today, "Dharma" by Billie Collins. Especially for those who like or live with a dog. It makes me laugh.

Dharma
The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her dog house
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Ghandi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

 

[Hope4Now]

Maybe this one's not-so-healing but it captures my mood today:
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves, but worse.

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

[Hope4Now]

And here is my all-time favorite by Dougie MacLean. It is about ever so much more than sailing. I've been singing this many times a day for months now, trying to convince myself that I am ready for the storm and that the light will eventually shine out. I think I'm in the storm but not at all ready if that makes sense. And I wish I had a "you" to love me in a way that makes me not feel frightened anymore. I am having a very dark day.

 

[Hope4Now]

My father-in-law just brought me two bunches of daffodils! Out of the blue! They put me in mind of this old chestnut of a poem from the Lake District that has always pleased me. I never did make it to the Lake District in England when I lived there. Perhaps someday I will do the cross-country walk, an old dream of mine. I like the last lines particularly.
Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

--William Wordsworth

 

[Hope4Now]

This song made me smile this morning. Better Things by Dar Williams. Am sending the hopes of this song out to all my forum connections. And hoping the better things come sooner than tomorrow as well.

 

[Hope4Now]

Wow. This spoke to me today.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
--Mary Oliver

 

[Hope4Now]

I just keep posting these. If anyone else is still looking, post away! Here's one I love. Makes me feel that I need to go find a place to reconnect with horses. Maybe that would help! I'd like to "break into blossom."

A Blessing
James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

 

[Rie]

This is from Jake Bugg, a new singer from Nottingham - he's only 18 or 19, younger than my son, but what a songwriter!

"I'm on my knees, turn off the darkness please" really speaks to me.

"Storm Passes Away" by Jake Bugg

As the clouds roll by
I can see the sunshine
Mmmhmmm

'Cause it's sad and slow
And oh so close
We fell together and made our way
But now it seems
You don't need me
Where will you go when the storm passes away

'Cause I'm on my knees
Turn off the darkness please
Where will you go
And they keep telling me
I'm older than I'm supposed to be
You will go when the storm passes away

I'll keep the storm if I can keep you
I'll live in the rain if you will too
We can ride together
We can ride the weather

'Cause I've lost my stance
Just like a fallen man
Oh the things I've hoped you would say
Your radiance runs deep
In my colour scheme
Where will you go when the storm washed you away

'Cause I'm on my knees
Turn off the darkness please
Where will you go
'Cause they keep telling me
I'm older than I'm supposed to be
You will go when the storm passes away
Where will you go when the storm passes away

 

[Hope4Now]

I haven't posted for a while here. Not sure why. But this poem came via a friend on my facebook page this morning, and it felt so apropos of life.

INITIATION
byRainer Maria Rilke

Whoever you are, go out into the evening,
leaving your room, of which you know each bit;
your house is the last before the infinite,
whoever you are.
Then with your eyes that wearily
scarce lift themselves from the worn-out door-stone
slowly you raise a shadowy black tree
and fix it on the sky: slender, alone.
And you have made the world (and it shall grow
and ripen as a word, unspoken, still).
When you have grasped its meaning with your will,
then tenderly your eyes will let it go…

 

[Hope4Now]

And, another Dougie MacLean song I've been listening to a lot. I think about the "she" as being my core self. I'm going to see Dougie live in April. It is one nice thing I have done proactively, just for myself, and just for fun (not for therapy!) Although, it is sort of like therapy. I found the schedule, bought the tickets, and I can't wait.