Aad guray nameh
Jugaad guray nameh
Sat guray nameh
Siri guru devay nameh
I bow to the Primal Guru,
I bow to the Guru woven through time
I bow to the True Guru, the true
identity of the self.
I bow to the Great Guru whose great
glory will always be.
Guru: that which brings us from darkness
(GU) to light (RU).
There is a crack, a tiny hole in the once impenetrable walls.
And though the guards have not noticed and the king sits calmly on his throne,
The engineer is worried.
Silently he measures, calculates and waits.
Waits to tell them the inevitable truth, a truth they do not wish to hear:
The structural integrity has been compromised.
It sounds cool and calm but in his mind he is really saying:
We’re fucked.
One day- not right away, the wall will crack and then crumble
And eventually fall down, all because of that tiny hole.
How could this happen? He had been so vigilant, planned and tested it a thousand times.
Maybe it was the foundation or the mortar
Or an unforeseen wind or movement of the ground.
Be that as it may the whole was there and no amount of plaster could cover the truth.
The wall would fall and they would be left defenseless.
ac 2012
Honu,
I have traveled so far out into the ocean that I cannot find the land. I have forgotten the path my heart used to know, the light that guided me through the vast darkness.
I swim on endlessly, not knowing in which direction I travel. No compass star light the darkness above me, no patch of land provides me rest.
And still I wonder…would I rest if grace afforded me a place? Would I follow if the stars were bright above me? I think not. I drove myself into these deep waters, I ran from all I knew.
Who am I to lament my choices, to change my mind.
ac 2012
I am breathing again…but only as such.
My heart shutters and tries to rouse itself from this long sleep
But my will casts the spell to keep it dormant.
I fear my heart, I fear being alive.
Learning to accept joy, trust and love again.
I know the spell I cast cannot last.
I feel my heart stir no matter how powerfully
I speak the words to silence it.
One day I will wake and find myself again in the world of the living-
Trusting some part of myself to another.
But for now I stay safe, I stay asleep.
AC 2012
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our borne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
I
Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?
II
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb’d I would sing and say,
‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.
III
But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss’d by all who would list
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea.
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry-pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.
When I think about the things that made me who I am I would be remiss not to mention singing. From a young age I was taught to sing by my mother. Not in a professional or aggressive way but to sing because it makes one happy and is pleasing to God.
I was home schooled through the 8th grade. When I went to high school few things in my life transferred but singing and art never made me feel awkward or out if place, in fact they became the two places I felt safe and at home in school. I must thank the wonderful choir teachers that I had. Though you cannot change how your voice is physically a teacher has the gift to encourage and mold you into the best that voice can be.
I stayed in choir all though high school and college and most of my favorite memories happened on choir trips with my sister and best friend. After college I sang with church and local choirs but I missed the challenge of difficult music, tight harmony and a capella singing. I am by no means a “great” singer, but the confidence I have came from teachers and directors with the ability to inspire and choose songs that would move the harts of their choirs as well as the audience.
And this is how I stumbled on Robert burns. An amazing poet in his own right, I wanted to know who had written the words that moved me so much as I read them. In college I read his poetry for class as well as Yeats, Tennyson and Frost (I’m a romantic what can I say). Something in me understood the painful and amazing qualities of life and love long before I experienced them myself.
Now I find Burns in my head at the most profound and simple times, Kayaking with friends or walking along in the woods. I do believe that the course of “Farewell to the Highlands” is one of the great themes of my life. I feel it every day sitting in my office and longing to see the sun.
So…Here are a few of my favorite Burns poems. Click on the titles to (hopefully) go to a musical version of the poems. Many of them are the one’s that I sang all those years ago.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.
Ye banks and braes o’ bonie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu’ o’ care!
Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed never to return.
Aft I rov’d by Bonie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine:
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And fondly sae did I o’ mine.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Fu’ sweet upon its thorny tree!
Any my fause luver staw my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.
I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy;
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met -or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken-hearted.
Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.
Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
Oh my luve is like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!
1 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
2 Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise;
3 My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
4 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
5 Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds thro’ the glen,
6 Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
7 Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear,
8 I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.
9 How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,
10 Far mark’d with the courses of clear winding rills;
11 There daily I wander as noon rises high,
12 My flocks and my Mary’s sweet cot in my eye.
13 How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
14 Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
15 There oft, as mild Ev’ning sweeps over the lea,
16 The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
17 Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
18 And winds by the cot where my Mary resides,
19 How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
20 As gathering sweet flowrets she stems thy clear wave.
21 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
22 Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;
23 My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
24 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
Chorus – For auld land syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
Chorus…
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit
Sin’ auld lang syne.
Chorus…
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us briad hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.
Chorus…
And there’s a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
Chorus…
