Some words seem to be born of an inner and shared light…
For me they may arrive after the stillness of meditation; but just as often the softest and most human words are accompanied or are led by a melody. All creation is frequency, is a movement of waves, from the highest vibrations of quasars or atomic particles to the lowest throbbing of stars in their orbits.
Or, in our daily rounds, from the bluest light to the reddest, those frequencies of creation which our eyes perceive; from the whistle of a kettle or the hum of a bee to the drone of a bowed bass or the rumble of thunder, in frequencies which our ears perceive; to the cycles of ocean waves, whose interstices we hear as they crash to the sands, while their slow pulse, like the breath of the planet, moves through our bodies noticed, unnoticed; to the celestial hum of the earth spinning on its poles; to the year-long wave of a planet around its sun; to the millennial arc of a sun around our galaxy’s core, a music so slow that only the Spirit can listen, leaving ourselves to intuit from our cruder senses.
Against the backdrop of these slowest sounds of creation, human departures are regular, and received as sudden silence. I remember hearing of a family member’s death while living abroad, and in my body I felt it as though I had swallowed a stone, and the stone inched slowly and painfully earthward, from my throat to my belly. Life is so short. It seemed I had accomplished nothing with my years, and that I could accomplish nothing, nothing that really mattered. A vida tão breve. A vida tão breve…
And as that phrase repeated itself within me, I found there was music behind it, and with music — with that vibration which runs through all things — the sounds led to another line, and the next line to more song, and this bosso nova melody and words came to me about our place in Light. I wrote it in Portuguese, because the Brazilian tongue was written on the chords of a guitar, and with hands following the rhythmic swaying of hips; and because my heart when it speaks Brazilian Portuguese rides those particular waves, that liquid frequency. I wish I had a place in the South to sing it, that those my other neighbors, whose earth and troubles and joys I shared for seven years and whose children (my children) were born on their soil, could hear it.
If I write it here, maybe some star wandering the Internet finds a few words, and rests a moment.
Drop of Light
Life is so brief
a falling star
that flies from nothing
to land on the earth
light taking shape
of a body and soul
learns embrace and release
learns life is a dance…
Gota de Luz
A vida tão breve
estrela cadente
que voa de nada
e pousa na terra
a luz vira forma
de corpo e alma
que abraça e goza
a vida é uma dançaSerá que esquece
o corpo sua fonte?
Será que o fogo
não mais se ilumina?
O que voa o leva
do dia ao dia
e nunca se cansa
a vida é uma dançaTêm gente que dizem
não sabes da dança
têm gente que chamam
luz escuridão
não se aquecem
na fogueira-vida
seu mundo esfria
como o dorso da mãoA vida é breve
estrela cadente
mas voa que voa
de um mundo pró outro
prá pousar na terra
na forma de um corpo
a chama encarnada
a vida é uma dançaTêm gente que dizem
não sabem da dança
têm gente que chamam
luz escuridão…Mas a vida é breve
prá fechar os olhos
o céu tão brilhante
almas inumeráveis
cada qual na espera
de achar um parceiro
gozar e abraçar-se
a vida é uma dança
…
Do you suppose that the body
could forget its source?
Could it be that the fire
can’t ignite it any more?
What has wings will fly it
from one day to the next
will never grow tired
of life as a dance
There are those who will say
you know nothing of Dancing
those people will tell you
that Darkness is Light;
they find no comfort
in this bonfire-life
their world grows as cold
as the back of a hand
Life is so brief
a tumbling star…
but what has wings will fly
from one world to another
will rest on the earth
in a body’s form
the flame in the flesh
this life is a dance
There are those who will tell you
they know nothing of Dancing
there are those who will tell you
that Darkness is Light…
… but life is too short
to close your eyes
its heaven so bright
with uncountable souls
each of them waiting
to find a companion
to release and embrace
this life is a dance.
Since each language has its own vibration, and each word spoken sets other different ones to ringing, translation can only suggest the outline of a song. Or, if the music is left behind, words miss their heart-companion, and you get only half the story, maybe less. Maybe you get only one story, when music offers hundreds. Nonetheless: we reach out with all of the means available to us, each language a harmonic of the one music in which all things are expressed.
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