It is cold and rather wet outside. Tonight is a full moon – a Blue Moon – and the expression 'once in a blue moon' could certainly be applied to today in the life of this little Flower Alchemist: myself.
It is the last official full day in the studio, as the process of bringing this record into being is coming to a completion. And today I met an amazing composer, arranger and orchestrator, Joel McNeely. It was a very special blue moon meeting, you may say.
Tonight is also a lunar eclipse. It is rather unique because it also falls on a Winter Solstice.
Last two days were pure poetry, and San Francisco was luminous. London has a rival now for my heart, and a young, charming one. Still, Ol' Blighty will always have me because of his underlying darkness and hidden scars. He tugs on the Russianness of me. San Francisco made me feel like a kid.
I bought books and fell in love with the city, as well as an Arabic poet, discovered randomly in a wonderful bookstore called City Lights Bookstore. The poet's name, interestingly, is Adonis. I will surely post some of his writings on here soon, because now I am a proud owner of a volume of his poems, which are translated, of course, but are still achingly beautiful, which is a mighty rare thing.
Speaking of poetry. As this is the Winter Solstice, here is an appropriate poem to share with you on this longest night. It is by another poet I found by accident on the Internet and promptly tracked down on Amazon. He says what I want to say much better than I ever could. Or at least it suffices for tonight, because I am missing words, and so I will borrow his, instead..
The Winter of Listening
No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.
All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.
What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.
What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,
what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.
What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.
Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.
All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.
(David Whyte, from The House of Belonging)
