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Muse/ic – Part XXIV: last post
Thank you Mehr for inspiring me to share my muse, as it navigated me through passages.. carrying me onward at pivotal points when all I wanted to do was stop and return to the safety of silence, my haven for over 25 years.
Though this concludes “Journey Through Music”, it’s not the end of the “Muse/ic” series–only a prelude to my next: “From Music to Screen”.
I guess I just gave that away. Into the universe it flows..more on that later.
To new beginnings, new inspirations… starting with Zoe Keating’s latest album “Into The Trees”.
Thank you Mehr!
with love,
Roya
Muse/ic – “Part XXIII: Freedom VII – ‘A Season In Hell’ by Moby
Excerpt for Freedom VII: In time, she sits up, slips the dagger from her boot, and cuts off all her hair. The loose strands drift over the water, and she watches them on the waves until a sea turtle’s head appears from below, devours them, and vanishes.
She leaves the rocks and heads inland through a pasture, the sea behind her, the mountains ahead, and weeps.
“Tell me about the sea,” says a voice from her wet hand.
“Why don’t you look for yourself?” she answers stiffly.
“I can’t.”
“I can dip you in the water,” she says at last.
“Then I’ll no longer be a teardrop.”
Here I dwell with ‘A Season In Hell’, in search for freedom… of a different kind.
Thank you Moby!
Muse/ic – “Part XXII: Freedom VI – ‘Exurgency’ by Zoe Keating
Excerpt from Freedom VI: “Stop!” cries a man from behind.
She turns to the voice and sees him, pale, broad-shouldered, clothed in navy blue colors and wearing a stony face.
“I wish no harm,” she declares. “I only wish to speak to the Hayulah of the Deep.”
The man leads her through a long corridor walled in glass behind which colorful sea creatures are darting amid brightly lit corals. They reach a large door that opens to a vast courtyard filled with fountains of milky water lilies and rows of ivory rose bushes. Beyond a knoll of white tulips, a path bordered in calla lilies lines the approach to the platinum Garden Palace.
And as ‘Exurgency’ pulled me through the first few chapters of the ten year old’s tale, it does so again during my meeting with the Hayulah.
Thank you Zoe!
Muse/ic – “Part XXI: Freedom V – ‘Piano Store Dance’ by Eva Maria Rauter
Excerpt from Freedom V: The djinni is no longer laughing. His eyes glaze over as he looks off into the sky.
“Why were you running?” she asks, drawing the hand away from her boot.
“Searching for my previous master.”
“How did you lose your master?” she asks, and takes a step towards him.
“She freed me from my lamp and disappeared,” the djinni says lifelessly, tears falling down his face.
“Why are you looking for her?”
“Only she can return me to my lamp.”
“But you’re free.”
EvaMariaRauter-PianoStoreDance
Free.. to immerse myself in ‘Piano Store Dance’ and speak to the djinni..
Thank you Eva Maria!
Muse/ic – “Part XX: Freedom IV – ‘Look Back In’ by Moby
Excerpt from Freedom IV: “Who are you?”
“Anar.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because you’ve forgotten.”
The woman weeps.
“Your tears may not save your friend or your land,” the tree assures her, “but they do help to wash away the spell of the peacocks.”
The spell of ‘Look Back In’ taking hold, as I move through the garden, a mosaic of stolen treasures, amidst the whispers of an old friend..
Thank you Moby!
Muse/ic – “Part XIX: Freedom III – ‘Dead Sun’ by Moby
Excerpts from Freedom III: “What lies on the other side of this hill?” she asks the breeze.
“Don’t you hear it?”
“What?”
“I’m carrying the echoes to you.”
The woman stops and listens. “I hear you,” she tells the breeze.
“Which part of me?”
“The part that sounds like a breeze.”
“I bear infinite tones.”
The woman closes her eyes and listens again. “I hear the soft sound of a breeze!” she says dully, and continues her way.
When she reaches the heights of the hill, her gaze falls upon a blue sea. The breeze dances about her.
“I did hear hints of these waves in you,” she whispers to it.
“You listened like most do,” answers the breeze, “perceiving a mere layer of what I carry. And even when you heard beyond, you didn’t trust it.”
Like the breeze, Moby’s ‘Dead Sun’ carries the tones of my conversation with the Sea Woman, the dive into the deep with Kayahn, and beyond..
Thank you Moby!
Muse/ic – “Part XVIII: Freedom II – ‘Whispering Wind’ by Moby
Photo by: Robert Gendler http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/
Excerpt from Freedom II: “How long have you been following these stars?”
“Lost count,” says Hedda, blowing out a stream of white smoke. “Long. Even as a little girl. They’ve lead me here.”
“They speak to you?”
“They speak to you now!”
The younger woman returns to the eyepiece as Hedda sinks onto a rocking chair, releasing another thick puff of smoke. “Every night, they shimmer,” she continues. “Every night, they pour their voices down to us. You’d think they’d be sick of it by now. Sick of us. Yet only a few listen. The birds listen. They look to the Silvery River to lead them.
“Stars unfolding a blindfolded past. I’ve spent countless nights in this very seat, imagining what lies beyond the sky we see now. Ever wonder what today’s stars look like? Which ones are missing? What new formations have formed?
“And even when we find our paths drawn by a sky that was, that same sky cloaks the sky that is, somewhere beyond our reach.”
With those words, the old woman retires to her abode.
The other lies in the grass and feels the night sky pulling her towards its limitless stars.
“Tell me your secrets. You know mine.”
‘Whispering Wind’ pulling me into the vast.. past, present, future, at play–under one sky.
Thank you Moby!
Muse/ic – “Part XVII: Freedom I – ‘Novio’ by Moby
Excerpt from Freedom I: “He comes,” the oak suddenly says wildly. “You must go!”
“I’ll hide inside you,” she says, running back to the oak.
“You can’t!”
“But I always do,” she cries, and falls to her knees.
“No! Get up!” the oak says sharply. “I can’t! My senses are numb. I can’t move a single limb. Run!”
The woman folds her hands over one of the oak’s limp branches, her wet face hidden under her cloak.
“I say run! Do you hear me?” The oak has matched the Deev’s thundering howls. The woman doesn’t move.
“You’ll be ripped into pieces. Get up, I tell you!”
“Enough!” Her words rip through the air. “I’ve been running for more than a century. How long will you have me hiding from the Deev?”
“When Rostam returns—”
“Rostam?” cries the woman in anger. “Where was Rostam all these years? He knew, he saw, yet he always steered his horse down another path. Your Rostam doesn’t fight for me! Let it be done!”
She lets go of the branch she has been nursing and faces in the direction of the screeching sounds.
‘Novio’ transports me to a faraway land I often visit.. where trees talk and mermaids listen.. a place where I go to search..
Thank you Moby!
Muse/ic – “Part XVI: Chapter VII – ‘We Insist’ by Zoe Keating”
Excerpt from Chapter VII: “Guten Tag,” he said in an official tone.
“Guten Tag,” my parents said together as the agent looked through our passports. He turned the pages of one booklet, scanning each page carefully, then flipped back to the first page.
“You’re not finding a visa because we don’t have one,” my father said.
What? I wanted to call out. My mind began to race faster than my heart.
“We’re seeking asylum,” my father said calmly.
The young agent continued to stare at my father; it made me feel we were the Von Trapp family, in the middle of a cathedral cemetery, at the mercy of Rolph’s dilemma. Finally, the agent called out to one of his colleagues to take his position and waved for us to follow him. From the second-floor glass window, we could see the reunited families on the other side of Passport Control. A tall man in a navy jacket and chapeau stood below, alone, looking up in our direction. It’s him, I thought, Pari joon’s brother.
And suddenly, she was there too, her voice washing over me like a wave, her chant as loud as the announcements that were flying over the speakers.
I dive into ‘We Insist’ and become one with the cello beats, my heartbeats..the urgency, the moment.. linking us to our fate.
Thank you Zoe!
Muse/ic – “Part XV: Chapter VI – ‘The Dawn’ by Eva Maria Rauter”
Excerpt from Chapter VI: Why isn’t he coming?” my mother said finally after the third hour had come and gone.
“Maybe,” I said, “there’s a lot of traffic,” a response that only elicited a distracted nod.
Or maybe some secret police followed us from the border this morning, I said to myself, and has stopped him somewhere to question him. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to leave Pakistan and enter India.
“You know how crazy people drive, always cutting in,” I said. “He’s just stuck in traffic.”
Or lying in some car wreck or hospital.
“I think that plane moved,” Joubin said from the window.
“Right,” I said.
“It did,” he said, squinting. “Just a little.”
“Where do you think Layla is now?” I asked my mother.
Probably still in Lahore,” my mother said.
“Wish she was here now,” I said. Her faraway gaze dissipated my questions, adding an extra sixty seconds to each minute we spent within those lifeless walls.
Once again I travel back with Eva Maria Rauter’s evocative music, this time “The Dawn”–destination: a place where I am a child, a grown-up, an impostor, and almost Roya..
Thank you Eva Maria!
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