It's Saturday night and the rain still falls and it's been a good day with plenty of rest and a few things accomplished and there was a nap and the falling rain outside sounded like Buddhist bells, tiny and real and in my bed I felt comforted and stilled and healed and well.
I've just spent well over an hour trying to write something about why I love the Rolling Stones so much and it involved the sexual abuse I suffered and how music freed me to know that my body was my own and for my own pleasure and use and how the Beatles teaching me about love, the Stones teaching me about sex, probably saved my life.
But I can't seem to get it down right, can't seem to say it the way I mean it, can't find the right Youtube videos to illustrate it and god DAMN it, why does every video I watch start out with an advert for Bounty paper towels? Every. Single. One.
All I can say is that human beings are spirit and flesh and I was lucky as hell to come into awareness when there were suddenly teachers, inadvertent as they may have been, to make me know that I deserved to live fully in both, no matter what had happened to me, been done to me, sermoned to me.
I am as grateful for that as I am for anything I know. Because that music, not just of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones but of so many others from Simon and Garfunkel to the Beach Boys and Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and Bette Midler and B.B. King and Bo Diddley and Joni Mitchell and The Neville Brothers and St. Bruce Springsteen and on and on and on and on kept me alive and dancing and sometimes joyful when I don't think anything else could have.
They were all there when I needed them and I'm still here and I still believe with all of my heart the messages I have been given by them and I know that I am still living on this earth partly due to them and any sanity I may have have has to be credited to their messages.
Spirit and flesh. I refuse to be part of any religion which denies or denigrates the flesh and which sanctifies and glorifies the denial and suffering of it in the name of spirit.
It's still raining, gently and sweetly. As gently and sweetly as a thoughtful and respectful lover.
As real and as necessary to the continuation of life as is human touch is to the continuation of our species.
I guess that's all I need to say.
Love...Ms. Moon
This afternoon I was driving about and listening to music and thinking much the same thing minus the beautiful poetic nuance. It is what gets me through my days. Today I listened to a song by Leonard Cohen (You Got Me Singing) over and over again. The I went to The Fray (How to Save a Life) and then Bette Midler (The Rose). Then there was a song my daughter introduced to me (7 Years) and a little bit of Tennessee Ernie Ford and some Twisted Sister and Anne Murray. I have a wide variety on my MP3 player. I swear, I would not be able to do my job without music. (And my GPS!) It helps me carry it all.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that you are one of my teachers?
Gorgeous words.
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Or just google it. No more ads.
Amen
ReplyDeleteI think you said it just fine. I'm with you...spirit and flesh are one. there is a reason that bit of spirit becomes incarnate and that is to be flesh for all the joys and pain of it. I don't get those monks who meditate their lives away, they will have eternity to be spirit. if they keep getting reincarnated, that's why, because they are not being what they fell to earth to be. sex, drugs, and rock and roll!!!
ReplyDeletei agree. music made me feel like i could move my body and be strong. it freed me as well. it made me not feel dirty and used.
ReplyDeleteon a totally unrelated note i mopped the basement with fabuloso (the purple one) today and thought of you.
be well, and may we all keep dancing.
xxalainaxx
Birdie- One of the best things about being human is all of the music. I mean, no matter what- there is music.
ReplyDeleteThank you for what you said. I feel far more like a reporter than I do a teacher but I'll accept your words with thanks.
Jo- Yes. I should check that out.
Joanne- And an "amen" back.
Ellen Abbott- I've never gotten the purpose of that endless meditation either. But, you know- whatever. Thank the gods I'm not that way. I'd have missed an awful lot of joy.
Mrs. A- Ah! I do love the smell of purple Fabuloso! I agree with you totally about the music. We find the kind that works for us to give us what we need.
I like the Stones and Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd because they said something that moved my heart and my mind. But I recently really studied the words to Brown Sugar which set me on my ear. Not only really racist but very sexist too. Mick must have been into something when he wrote that song. He says that he would be embarrassed to sing those lyrics now so he alters them in live performances.
ReplyDelete