THE GIFT OF FREE CHOICE

What a sound of 'beauty and beast' devilish and angelic all at the same time. Anni Can you make a song that does this? I think we shall have to take some drums and cymbals and the lute the delicate angelic lute, the strange stringed sound of the Viola da Gamba and some tinkling bells so tiny that their sounds only find the cracks in the Devil's head to enter into the cacophony. Then the lowest pipes of the organ where there is only a woof-wooooof of vibration, disturbing and base, and the sharp sound of the piccolo ending with the whole of the organ in a great crash of hands and feet and wheezing pipes. Or the yin without the yang, or like the tea house where nothing must be the same, all must be different and preferably not symmetrical leaving the eye to finish the symmetry itself; or our choice of doing so. This is the dualistic view of life, the basis of the western way of thinking, where good and evil are separate when all the time they are on the reverse side of the same coin. Stong stuff this Longo bardolino mi, Ann of Norway

Rip Van Winkle stuff! Annuccia

from Rachmaninoff Isle of Dead Bachs Toccata in D minor some Link Park tonight Yes the choirs singing many versions of that song Heard it as a child on an album from the movie EASY RIDER should look it up on U Tube it was a profound enough moment another poem thank you Longo!

I've forgotten how it started but we got to talking about the definition of Surrealism. SURREALISTS= idea to rebel against the norm like communism..etc: Delso, an insignificant little man who was a painter in Spain, a lone man put up a theory--'aprés' Picasso who was partly responsible for bringing about "Cubism", Delso decided he had invented "Triangulism" , being a lone 'one man show' it was never developed into anything as was the opposite with the Surrealists, a whole spectre of artists, poets, writers and theatrical people created a movement and debate around that movement--so it was born and developed as a viable "ism". This new ism created a base for the snobs, many of whom were the artists themselves, taking themselves very seriously, a base for the "know alls" of knowledge obscure to the understanding of others, giving these inventors a pompous podium to appear brilliant or show off on expounding the depths of man's unconcious dream world and the absurdity of life--good excuse to become "aparte" and create a stir of wonder in the average mind of everyday living- quite a find for those who wished to dominate the scene and baffle the man in the street. However, fuelled by this new angle on life, the artists, ever wont to go off at a tangent, created some bizzare and beautiful works, all TICKLING (not the word I wanted) the mind to thoughts beyond the perception of the mundane reality of cliché urbanism. Man, who ever seeks to see beyond himself or inside and beyond the immediate powers into the unknown- the mystic- the entertainment of the brains own curiosity and delight............WHAT AN IDEA! TO BE FREE:- Is not having to dominate others with ones so-called intellectual knowledge- to be able to see and understand without having to seek refuge in the theories and magic recipes of the snobs. To take part in the absurd manifestations of human creative imagination with joy and sorrows of passionate despair and yet remain untouched by the exaggeration of reality, of the ordinary- the everyday patterns that the body, the brain, the whole human being enjoys as a carrying out of life. Not wishing to cut out debate and the many angles from which one can see the world by, that is our only entertainment, our hyper super-intensifying of an act of living like the orgasm. We need those moments to make us happy it seems, although the philosophers in the East make of it something else. The denial maybe even enhances the thought in the same way that the rebel is insensed by his cause and raised to heights of passion not reached while eating his meusli at breakfast. To hear this and see, like the mirror (I saw the reflections of a hedge outside in a puddle at this point) of ourselves arguing with itself is amusing, absurd and sometimes wonderful. But to know that it is all a figment of the imagination and plain human is FREEDOM! Maybe a wheen o' blethers but what I thought one day. Not sure that it answers your challenge i shall think some more on the subject but as you mentioned the surrealists, I looked up what I had written about that. Perhaps one could call the Tao(Dao) reality, what is reality, a paradox? What was the Toaist tempel like? It should be a living garden, in through a huge gateway of beautiful grey stone and inside an avenue of gigantic trees leading on and on and on to infinity...perhaps with the light of the distant sky brilliant, at the end of the tunnel of trees, or lit up in the night by huge floodlights; positioned where the landscape drops down from the mountain- yes a Taoist tempel should be among mountains and woods surrounded by the Nature of the Tao- unfathomable, unreal and yet there, now. I am too contented to be a poet or a great painter, as I look now my face pressed against the window at the sunset with its pale yellow-blue sky, and see deep and pale grey clouds against it - I know that I am not frustrated enough, or seeking some mystical or factual goal that will fulfil me. It is beautiful, what is, I need no more. The contentment that is in me has been always in me, an inborn curiosity for the reality of the visual world. Visual is important, as the understanding of other view points is more difficult for me to grasp. What are the other view points? Sensual, how does one define that? Factual, well is not reality the fact itself? Where the objective and subjective meld into one in the experience. I looked at the grey-black of a cloud and felt that I might not see it so 'rosy' if I was sad from some cause, but I am not sad. Does great poetry, painting and writing come from being sad? Not for me, as when I was at my saddest I could not produce a thing, only when fighting the sadness did some poems come, paintings, pottery or other things became hard work and lacked heart. A definite goal should probably be set by me, or someone else, then I might take something to its ultimate and produce something of amusement to others, something that had in it a grain of the truth, or mirror image of a reality that has the power of making man's heart sing and dance with the sheer joy of existence. Oh lordy this is to long? What? Love to all seekers from Ann of Norway.

Each time we define reality it dies a renewed death, to be resurrected again in some other form and die yet again elusive, as when we think we grasp it in our perceptions it has already gone. We see, we think, we ponder definition, we are ourselves undefined, existence is an enigma and we know not from whence it came. How can we then know reality? Each living thing perceives a different reality, how then define this multifaceted shapeless shape? It swings the hammer of truth its all a lie we are bound to die and that's our only reality. The realities evoked by what you speak Longo, its there for all to see, in thee. We humans try to theorise and understand the truth, the mystery, the time all spun up in the mind of man when all the time its there, we exist. Reality is existence, being, as opposed to not being and if that's a duality the whole lot is a lie. The black velvet gown of the night let free dust particles that flew to me and in my little brain of old these particles did there unfold revealing things we do not know but understand them, I don't know how their mysteries will aye remain unsolved till day is here again. Ann humbly, a thought.

Thank you it is such fun weaving around such intangible ideas and when one thinks one understands them, they turn on one and become complicated yet again, the everlasting puzzle of existence. Your Annuccia