(Cities Of The Red Night – Ba’dan – Gwyllm)
So… this started out political and kinda jumped away from that.
It really started with a listening to Bombino’s excellent work.(thank you Morgan!) Bombino, who’ll be performing in Portland Saturday Nite at Dante’s! Alas, I shall not see him, but for you my friends I have included 3 songs. He is in my estimation one of the best of the emerging singers and guitarist from the Tuareg peoples.. As I listened to him, I swore that the spirit that inhabits this young man is an ancient and wise one. Just listen to the way his playing and vocals work together. Beautiful.
We have in this editon a brief visit with Meher Baba for quotes, someone who is largely neglected now days. A great sage, and one that people should be aware of. There are stories from Lord Dunsany who is a great favourite of mine, and Poetry from the great Arthur Symon as well.
The art is part of my “Red Cities Of The Night”. a nod to William Burroughs and his Trilogy. These and some of the others may appear in The Invisible College. You saw them here first!
So here is to trying to keep the Acadian Stream flowing, and pushing on intoa long Mid Winter’s Night…
I hope this finds you well, and full of light.
Blessings,
Gwyllm
On The Menu:
Meher Baba Quotes
All You Need Is
Bombino, “Tar Hani” Live
Lord Dunsany: Two Tales
Bombino Concert, Agadez
Arthur Symon – Poet
Bombino (Omar Moctar) – Yamidinine
Art: Gwyllm
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Meher Baba Quotes:
“Don’t Worry Be Happy”
“No amount of prayer or meditation can do what helping others can do.”
“I love everybody. Each one plays the role they have to play…”
“There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires. Thus worry continues to grow into the mental life of man until the ego-mind is burdened by the past. Worry is also experienced in relation to the future when this future is expected to be disagreeable in some way. In this case it seeks to justify itself as a necessary part of the attempt to prepare for coping with the anticipated situations. But, things can never be helped merely by worrying. Besides, many of the things which are anticipated never turn up, or if they do occur, they turn out to be much more acceptable than they were expected to be. Worry is the product of feverish imagination working under the stimulus of desires. It is a living through of sufferings which are mostly our own creation. Worry has never done anyone any good, and it is very much worse than mere dissipation of psychic energy, for it substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life.”
― Discourses
“The book that I shall make people read
is the book of the heart,
which holds the key
to the mystery of life”
“Love God and find him within – the only treasure worth finding.”
“…What will the present chaos lead to? How will it all end? It can only end in one way. Mankind will be sick of it all….”
“Mastery in Servitude”
~~~~~~~
All You Need Is:
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy. (“All You Need Is”)
~~~~~~
Bombino, “Tar Hani” Live
~~~~~
The Giant Poppy
Author: Lord Dunsany
I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear day you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies danced.
But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved in the wind, and as it waved it hummed “Remember not.” And by its oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed that way or anything olden.
He said: “The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it of its beautiful strength.” And I asked him why he sat on the hills I knew, playing an olden tune.
And he answered: “Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have saved Agamemnon.”
Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the poppy’s sleepy petals murmured “Remember not. Remember not.”
~~
The Secret Of The Gods
Zyni Moe, the small snake, saw the cool river gleaming before him afar off and set out over the burning sand to reach it.
Uldoon, the prophet, came out of the desert and followed up the bank of the river towards his old home. Thirty years since Uldoon had left the city, where he was born, to live his life in a silent place where he might search for the secret of the gods. The name of his home was the City by the River, and in that city many prophets taught concerning many gods, and men made many secrets for themselves, but all the while none knew the Secret of the gods. Nor might any seek to find it, for if any sought men said of him:
“This man sins, for he giveth no worship to the gods that speak to our prophets by starlight when none heareth.”
And Uldoon perceived that the mind of a man is as a garden, and that his thoughts are as the flowers, and the prophets of a man’s city are as many gardeners who weed and trim, and who have made in the garden paths both smooth and straight, and only along these paths is a man’s soul permitted to go lest the gardeners say, “This soul transgresseth.” And from the paths the gardeners weed out every flower that grows, and in the garden they cut off all flowers that grow tall, saying:
“It is customary,” and “it is written,” and “this hath ever been,” or “that hath not been before.”
Therefore Uldoon saw that not in that city might he discover the Secret of the gods. And Uldoon said to the people:
“When the worlds began, the Secret of the gods lay written clear over the whole earth, but the feet of many prophets have trampled it out. Your prophets are all true men, but I go into the desert to find a truth which is truer than your prophets.” Therefore Uldoon went into the desert and in storm and still he sought for many years. When the thunder roared over the mountains that limited the desert he sought the Secret in the thunder, but the gods spake not by the thunder. When the voices of the beasts disturbed the stillness under the stars he sought the secret there, but the gods spake not by the beasts.
Uldoon grew old and all the voices of the desert had spoken to Uldoon, but not the gods, when one night he heard Them whispering beyond the hills. And the gods whispered one to another, and turning Their faces earthward They all wept. And Uldoon though he saw not the gods yet saw Their shadows turn as They went back to a great hollow in the hills; and there, all standing in the valley’s mouth, They said:
“Oh, Morning Zai, oh, oldest of the gods, the faith of thee is gone, and yesterday for the last time thy name was spoken upon earth.” And turning earthward they all wept again. And the gods tore white clouds out of the sky and draped them about the body of Morning Zai and bore him forth from his valley behind the hills, and muffled the mountain peaks with snow, and beat upon their summits with drum sticks carved of ebony, playing the dirge of the gods. And the echoes rolled about the passes and the winds howled, because the faith of the olden days was gone, and with it had sped the soul of Morning Zai. So through the mountain passes the gods came at night bearing Their dead father. And Uldoon followed. And the gods came to a great sepulchre of onyx that stood upon four fluted pillars of white marble, each carved out of four mountains, and therein the gods laid Morning Zai because the old faith was fallen. And there at the tomb of Their father the gods spake and Uldoon heard the Secret of the gods, and it became to him a simple thing such as a man might well guess–yet hath not. Then the soul of the desert arose and cast over the tomb its wreath of forgetfulness devised of drifting sand, and the gods strode home across the mountains to Their hollow land. But Uldoon left the desert and travelled many days, and so came to the river where it passes beyond the city to seek the sea, and following its bank came near to his old home. And the people of the City by the River, seeing him far off, cried out:
“Hast thou found the Secret of the gods?”
And he answered:
“I have found it, and the Secret of the gods is this”–:
Zyni Moe, the small snake, seeing the figure and the shadow of a man between him and the cool river, raised his head and struck once. And the gods are pleased with Zyni Moe, and have called him the protector of the Secret of the gods.
~~~~~
Bombino Concert, Agadez
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Arthur Symon – Poet
The Poem Of Hasish
Behind the door, beyond the light,
Who is it waits there in the night?
When he has entered he will stand,
Imposing with his silent hand
Some silent thing upon the night.
Behold the image of my fear.
O rise not, move not, come not near!
That moment, when you turned your face,
A demon seemed to leap through space;
His gesture strangled me with fear.
And yet I am the lord of all,
And this brave world magnifical,
Veiled in so variable a mist
It may be rose or amethyst,
Demands me for the lord of all!
Who said the world is but a mood
In the eternal thought of God?
I know it, real though it seem,
The phantom of a haschisch dream
In that insomnia which is God
–
The Loom Of Dreams
I broider the world upon a loom,
I broider with dreams my tapestry;
Here in a little lonely room
I am master of earth and sea,
And the planets come to me.
I broider my life into the frame,
I broider my love, thread upon thread;
The world goes by with its glory and shame,
Crowns are bartered and blood is shed;
I sit and broider my dreams instead.
And the only world is the world of my dreams,
And my weaving the only happiness;
For what is the world but what it seems?
And who knows but that God, beyond our guess,
Sits weaving worlds out of loneliness?
–
The Opium-Smoker
I am engulfed, and drown deliciously.
Soft music like a perfume, and sweet light
Golden with audible odours exquisite,
Swathe me with cerements for eternity.
Time is no more. I pause and yet I flee.
A million ages wrap me round with night.
I drain a million ages of delight.
I hold the future in my memory.
Also I have this garret which I rent,
This bed of straw, and this that was a chair,
This worn-out body like a tattered tent,
This crust, of which the rats have eaten part,
This pipe of opium; rage, remorse, despair;
This soul at pawn and this delirious heart.
–
Love And Sleep
I have laid sorrow to sleep;
Love sleeps.
She who oft made me weep
Now weeps.
I loved, and have forgot,
And yet
Love tells me she will not
Forget.
She it was bid me go;
Love goes
By what strange ways, ah! no
One knows.
Because I cease to weep,
She weeps.
Here by the sea in sleep,
Love sleeps
~~~~~
Bombino (Omar Moctar) – Yamidinine
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(Cities Of The Red Night – Ghadis – Gwyllm)
