“curiouser and curiouser” cried K. and she dug deeper…the rich earth of new discovery collecting in the lines of her hands…
How to start? It’s been a lovely day of thinking, and interesting things falling into my lap to contemplate. All to do with this current tangent and exploration of the cycles of safety, retreat, suffocation, restitution, hope and venturing forth. It is all swimming around dizzyingly in my head – and makes a pure and pristine sort of sense to me – but I am sure will spill out on the page rather muddled, and not at all what I want.
I have been busily reading The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired in which there is a lengthy section on the poet Rilke and his muse Lou. Although I have read Rilke’s work before, it had been years upon years, and so inspired by the book I did a quick google search to be able to immerse myself in some of his poetry. I only had a few minutes, as the everyday mundane tasks of feeding both horses and people were calling, so I only managed to soak in a handful of his poems to mull over while I did my barn chores.
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The poem that stood out for me, and that I re-read several times was Lament:
O how all things are far removed
and long have passed away.
I do believe the star,
whose light my face reflects,
is dead and has been so
for many thousand years.
I had a vision of a passing boat
and heard some voices saying disquieting things.
I heard a clock strike in some distant house…
but in which house?
I long to quiet my anxious heart
and stand beneath the sky’s immensity.
I long to pray…
And one of all the stars
must still exist
I do believe that I would know
which one alone
endured,
and which like a white city stands
at the ray’s end shining in the heavens.
It has been in the back of my mind ever since… just mulling it over, allowing the imagery to sink in…
Anybody who has been in my workshop lately will quickly come to realise that I have become consumed – obsessed even – with music. It MUST be playing. It is better when it is playing loudly enough that it fills my head. It is even better when it is the same artist’s body of work played over and over again. When the music must be turned off briefly for the sake of necessity I get a bit antsy. When it is on, I am in my groove – I can work, my fingers fly over metal and tools – all is in a good place in my brain. This is , I admit, a bit odd – but I’m ok with it. (My family is likely being driven to insanity.) This has also sparked my interest, and is the topic of another one of my current pet projects – researching music and the brain – the neuroscience of music (and I’ll talk about that in other blogs) – and how what I listen to may affect my creative process. Anyways…
My current music of choice is Brendan Benson. I had heard his music here and there in the past. But somehow, when I heard it again recently it just clicked. It was just so right. It has been all that has been playing while I work for the past several weeks. I am totally immersed in it.
How to describe it? His work embodies everything that I have been mulling over lately. His songs contain such a balance of vulnerability and withdrawal – of sadness, anger, depression, combined with a sense of humour, a sweetness of spirit, they contain strength and weakness. They can be utterly dark, and yet contain a thread of hope. They are utterly human – and in being so very human, they are so very authentic. The Brendan contained in his music could be my best friend any day…
I am so enchanted with the music that I actually checked out the website (which seemed embarassing somehow, but I needed more music, so some things must be done.) And resourceful K found new songs on his
webpage and his
myspace page. H’ray!
So I was listening to Lesson Learned from his
myspace page, and just absorbing it, and the lyrics popped out at me -
“forget what is right
forget who you are
when you see the light
it’s no longer a star”
And the whole song just seemed to resonate with much the same as the above Rilke poem I had read yesterday. This made me interested… so I googled Brendan Benson and Rilke for the heck of it, and lo and behold was rewarded with what appears to be an old version and bio from his website’s previous incarnation:
” I could happily spend the rest of my days doing something with music,” Benson says. “If I’m not working on music, anxiety sets in. Maybe it’s not so healthy-to stay locked away in a studio–you’ve gotta live a life to write a song. But in Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke said if you were in jail, cut off from the world, with nothing but a view of the sky from a small window, you’d still have your memories to write about. I love that.”
And then thinking on it for a while, I found many similarities between Rilke and Benson’s work – the themes of solitude, and longing for connection, while simultaneously withdrawing from what is most wanted. How heartbreakingly vulnerable their work is at times. And then I was even more enchanted.
Now I have no idea if Brendan Benson intended the Rilke reference in Lesson Learned at all, or if it was all just a happy coincidence. But it doesn’t really matter. There is just a bit of magic in the way that the mind finds ways to make connections and tie ideas together. How you can start in one place and end up in another one altogether, and be better for it – or humbled by it. How you can find inspiration in other artist’s works, but the tangent you take it on contains your very own unique imprint.
On another note altogether – check out the About page, as I have written the history of K (the abridged version), the story of yours truly – and posted some self potraits – which I will talk about tomorrow.
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