Hello All,
This one is to send a salut and merci beaucoup through Time-Space to a dear one who passed away recently.
Lyn is mom to Leigh-Anne and Tom Stanton and is Murray Kinsley’s mother-in-law. Murray and Leigh-Anne are our Wicked Grin band friends.
In the days after Lyn died I thought of her and wanted to write a nice song in her memory. Each life is a story with many lines. And like all stories there is much to a life that is written between the lines. We are each far more than we appear to be. Also, it seems that we are separate when ultimately all lines of division dissolve. I shall let you read between the lines of my song lyrics below. Lately I have been singing them often. Salut Lyn.
Between The Lines by john russell redmond
In your eye
There will have been
Sights only dreamed
By such a one as you
Uniquely reading the lines
When your eye
Be gently closed
We’ll be dreaming too
Between the lines
A story that you told
There’s fine lines running through our mind
There’s a fine line between our worlds
Walking the line
Love that binds
Resolving, dissolving the lines
Now all the lines
Around our eyes
Straight, cracked, serpentine
When were they drawn
In secret forgotten time
There’s fine lines running through our mind
There’s a fine line between our worlds
Walking the line
Love that binds
Resolving, dissolving the lines
Converging lines
Carved in moments blind
Finger flutings; sign
May we ever really know
The meaning of their code
There’s fine lines running through our mind
There’s a fine line between our worlds
Walking the line
Love that binds
Resolving, dissolving the lines
And while we walk a crooked mile
Moment to moment in reeling time
Maybe there’s a hope and a memory – awake
Between the lines, between the lines
Between the lines, between the lines
There’s fine lines running through our mind
There’s a fine line between our worlds
Walking the line
Love that binds
Resolving, dissolving the lines
Between the lines, between the lines
Between the lines, between the lines
Between the lines, between the lines
Between the lines, between the lines . . .
This morning, before I began making this posting, I came upon a video posted by a Facebook friend. I was present when Ralph Stanley sang, ‘Oh Death’ at the Ottawa Bluesfest a few years ago. It was amazing. I’m including one of his performances of that song as well as the rendition I found today performed by some young women.
The notes attached to the video of Ralph Stanley indicate, “Ralph Stanley, aged 82, singing "O Death" a cappella at the Hills of Home festival near Clintwood VA in May 2008. On the hillside behind him lies the grave of his brother, the great Carter Stanley, as he petitions the grim reaper to spare him over till another year. Raises the hair on your neck!” Indeed. And even more when heard live. It is a moment I will not forget.
Here is the version I found posted this morning.
The late Joseph Campbell is one of our modern sages. He shed light on world mythologies and the myths we live by. Campbell distilled his wisdom to a phrase, “Follow your Bliss'.” He shared many thoughts about how to live; how to remain in relationship with the well of life. That man knew how to read between the lines.
“In the wheel of fortune, wisdom points to the center. Youth points to the rim.”
We live in a one-dot world.
In the book, "A Joseph Campbell Companion – Reflections on the Art of Living” which is a collection of Campbell’s writings; he points out the need for ‘Sacred Space’. “A sacred space is any space that is set apart from the usual context of life . . . You really don’t have a sacred space, a rescue land, until you find somewhere to be that’s not a wasteland, some field of and where there is a spring of ambrosia- a joy that comes from inside, not something external that puts joy into you – a place that lets you experience your own will and your own intention and your own wish . . . “
Campbell continues; “Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous joy.
What you have to do, you do with play.
I think a good way to conceive of sacred space is as a playground. If what you’re doing seems like play, you are in it. But you can’t play with my toys, you have to have our own. Your life should have yielded some. Older people play with life experiences and realizations or with thoughts they like to entertain. In my case, I have books I like to read that don’t lead anywhere.
One great thing about growing old is that nothing is going to lead to anything. Everything is of the moment.
When Jung (Carl) decided to try to discover the myth by which he was living, he asked himself, “What was the game I enjoyed when I was a child?’ His answer was making little towns and streets out of stones. So, he bought some property and, as a way of playing, began to build a house. It was a lot of work, utterly unnecessary for he already had a house, but an appropriate way to create sacred space. It was sheer play.
What did you do as a child that created timelessness, that made you forget time? There lies the myth to live by.”
“We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” Campbell’s writings shed light on mythic images of the hero’s journey. We are the hero. “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.” Our personal sacred space gives us the bliss, in the space where life’s lines dissolve. “The Hero’s return is the integration and sharing of that bliss.”
The famous speech attributed to Chief Seatle is quoted by Campbell, “The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors . . . Each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father . . . the wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh . . . The wind also gives our children the spirit of life . . . All things are connected like the blood which unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.”
Oh Great Provider; here is a performance by Brent Titcomb.
One final song thought from myself;
When a flower becomes a seed
Seed becomes the flower’s need
Where you go is where you been
Rustling leaves become the wind
Salut Lyn . . . we miss you and we all shine on . . .
Sincerely
Your friend,
John Redmond
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