Rumi composed a small eruption of a poem about love’s most beguiling and dangerous qualities. This gem of verse marks out, like a Morse code, the action, the alchemy of love. I’ve revisited this poem many times, and with each close reading new facets are revealed, sharper insights gleaned. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Love comes sailing through and I scream.
Love sits beside me like a private supply of itself.
Love puts away the instruments
and takes off the silk robes. Our nakedness
together changes me completely.

The opening conveys abrupt immediacy. Things are one way one minute and then — a surge: “Love comes sailing through…” Sailing evokes being on an ocean, perhaps the Sargasso Sea where we often drift in the humdrum trance of our day-to-day life. But then the majesty of love glides in. Also, the word ‘sailing’ connotes a particular sound, the movement of Cupid’s arrow perhaps?

Love’s entrance — and then: a scream. Not a yell or a shout. A scream. A kind of fright or terror. The shock of love. Rumi is writing about the ego’s perception and reaction to love. Unnerving, startling — a harbinger for what exactly?

P.D. Ouspensky wrote in Tertium Organum: “Love is the potent force that tears off all masks, and men who run away from love do so in order that they may preserve their masks.” I guess that would explain the screaming.

Should we endure, there’s the promise of an intimate alignment, a regulation that calms the initial shock: “Love sits beside me like a private supply of itself.” This line enchants me, the image it calls forth. “…like a private supply of itself.” This speaks to the notion that we are each a localized, unique expression of love — and when we experience love we’re given the opportunity, through the mirror of the Beloved, to remember, to see this condition. We relax, perhaps unaware of the disarming that will follow.

“Love puts away the instruments and takes off the silk robes.” Now Rumi’s describing another love action — the revealing, the stripping — making naked. The initial reading is a prelude to sex, and this can work in the poem too. But there’s something more; the instruments, the clothing — the ways the ego displays its talents, or how it hides behind a facade — all of that’s got to go in the presence of love. Nakedness implies as much. Read more

The exact moment of this year’s Winter Solstice occurs early morning tomorrow, here in Washington, though many of us will celebrate tonight.

I created this mix several years ago — a collection of hymns, chants, Medieval carols and songs — a music compendium to mirror and celebrate this sacred moment in the Earth’s time cycle.

The Solstice, the night of the longest night, also marks the return of a slowly growing luminosity, as Winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere and radiance gains in prominence.

Light has always symbolized awareness and consciousness, as well as life-giving, creative properties. And in a very real sense we are each bodies of light, with the Sun Absolute as both our source and sustainment. And that link is not simply symbolic, it is literal.

For many astrologers the Winter Solstice is a demarcation that defines the start of the New Year. How we experience this evening (and tomorrow morning) provides an essential hint as to the theme or signature of the year ahead. Both universally and personally.

I will take a more sporadic approach to posting on Astro Inquiry in the coming week, as travel and gatherings with friends will shorten my time on the computer.

Solstice Blessings to each of you!

If you would like to hear more details pertaining to the Solstice, from an astrological perspective, I highly recommend my friend and colleague, Jessica Murray‘s recent radio interview (from December 19) where she shares a slew of insights into this magical moment — and the upcoming year, 2014.

The art work featured on this mix is by the talented Krista Hout. Ms. Hout spent her formative years in the forests of British Columbia, where she trained in fine arts and classical animation. Her paintings explore the relevance of archetypes in folklore, using inspiration from storybook illustration, folk art, animation and vintage kitsch. Krista’s work has been shown at galleries throughout the United States. You can explore more and order prints directly from her website Kristahout.com.

“To a man who is searching with all his being, with all his inner self, comes the unfailing conviction that to find out how to know in order to do is possible only by finding a guide with experience and knowledge, who will take on his spiritual guidance and become his teacher.

And it is here that a man’s flair is more important than anywhere else. He chooses a guide for himself. It is of course an indispensable condition that he choose as a guide a man who knows, or else all meaning of choice is lost.

Who can tell where a guide who does not know may lead a man?

Every seeker dreams of a guide who knows, dreams about him but seldom asks himself objectively and sincerely—is he worthy of being guided? Is he ready to follow the way?

Go out one clear starlit night to some open space and look up at the sky, at those millions of worlds over your head. Remember that perhaps on each of them swarm billions of beings, similar to you or perhaps superior to you in their organization.

Look at the Milky Way. The earth cannot even be called a grain of sand in this infinity. It dissolves and vanishes, and with it, you.

Where are you? And is what you want simply madness?

Before all these worlds ask yourself what are your aims and hopes, your intentions and means of fulfilling them, the demands that may be made upon you and your preparedness to meet them.

A long and difficult journey is before you; you are preparing for a strange and unknown land.

The way is infinitely long. You do not know if rest will be possible on the way nor where it will be possible. You should be prepared for the worst. Take all the necessities for the journey with you.

Remember where you are and why you are here. Do not protect yourselves and remember that no effort is made in vain. And now you can set out on the way.”

–G.I. Gurdjieff
Views from the Real World: Early Talks of Gurdjieff
 

“Human beings are attached to everything in this life; attached to their imagination, attached to their ignorance, attached to their fear, attached even to their own suffering — and possibly to their own suffering more than anything else.

A person must first free himself from attachment. Attachment to things, identification with things, keeps alive a thousand false I’s in a person. These I’s must die in order that the big I may be born.

But how can they be made to die?…It is at this point that the possibility of awakening comes to the rescue.

To awaken means to realize one’s nothingness, that is, to realize one’s complete and absolute mechanicalness, as well as one’s complete and absolute helplessness…So long as a person is not horrified at himself, then a person knows nothing about himself or life.”

— P.D. Ouspensky quoting G.I. Gurdjieff
 

Part of the extreme sport-like difficulty of being a music mixer is attempting to blend contradictory styles of music. The segues must remain germane to the integrity of the entire playlist. It’s no easy feat, and often, like painting a painting it’s the accidents that turn out to be best parts of the canvas.

On this second volume of yuletide tunes (even more so than on Volume 1), I attempted to do just that: Have happy accidents. So you’ll hear Big Band blasters dovetail into country songs that shift into solemn carols, and classical instrumentals giving way to polychromatic pop numbers.

Some words about some of my choices:

The Carpenters‘ Merry Christmas Darling is, to me, the last really stellar Christmas song to make its way into the honorable holiday music canon. The title alone calls back to the 40s or 50s; and Richard’s arrangement makes it work in ways that other contemporary Christmas tunes can’t duplicate. And anything with Karen’s vocal is transformed instantly into something golden. Instead of featuring a cut from the last truly great modern Christmas album, 1963’s A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, I chose this song.

The most beautiful non-secular Christmas song is O Holy Night, from the French Cantique de Noël. And its history and transformation over time is fascinating. The elegance of the melody married to such compelling lyrics: Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices! O night divine, the night when Christ was Borne — makes for something astonishing. We’ve heard the song so many times — usually delivered with blaring glory notes and glissandi — that the song’s impact has dulled. But country singer Martina McBride, with her open, clear tone and natural annunciation brings everything that’s mystical about the song into high relief. This is the finest version I’ve experienced. Read more

“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.” ― Joseph Campbell