As the sun illuminates the moon and the stars, so let us illumine one another...

As the sun illuminates the moon and the stars, so let us illumine one another... Anonymous

"Praise be to Nero's Neptune the Titanic sails at dawn And everybody's shouting

"Which side are you on?" And Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot fighting in the captain's tower

While calypso singers laugh at them and fisherman hold flowers" - Bob Dylan

"His work has also veered purposefully into poetry. in 1966, he wrote a book of poems and prose called Tarantula. Many of the liner notes from his 1960's albums were written as epitaphs. And his songwriting is peppered with literary references. Consider, for example, these lyrics from "Desolation Row", released on 1965's Highway 61 revisited.

Professor Ricks is not the only scholar who considers Dylan a great American poet. Dylan has been nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature every year since 1996, and the lyrics to his song "Mr. Tambourine Man" appeared in the Norton Introduction to Literature."

The Poetry of Rock: A Reflection of Human Values, The Center for Humanities Inc. N.Y.

"With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as god gives us to see the right, let us... achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

-Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address

"I hear in the distant fountains babble a long forgotten fairy-tale..."

"The night, scent -heavy, lies on the park and, quiet, her stars look out and see how already the moon's white bark wants to land in the top of the linden tree. I hear in the distant fountain's babble a long forgotten fairy-tale, and in the high, motionless grass the faint sound of an apple fall. From the nearby hill, the night-wind floats past old oaks planted in a line and carries on his blue butterfly wing the heavy scent of young wine."  - Rainer Maria Rilke, Dream Crowned

“We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

night bloom

"At memories undoing, as when the dreamer sees and after the dream..."

As I drew nearer to the end of all desire,

I brought my longings ardor to a final height,

Just as I ought. My vision becoming pure,

Entered more and more the beam of that high light

that shines on its own truth. from then, my seeing

Became too large for speech, which fails at a sight

Beyond all boundaries, at memories undoing -

As when the dreamer sees and after the dream

the passion endures, imprinted on his being

Though he can't recall the rest. I am the same:

Inside my heart, although my vision is almost entirely faded,

droplets of its sweetness come

The way the sun dissolves the snow's crust -

The way, in the wind that stirred the light leaves,

The oracle that the Sibyl wrote was lost.

from the Last Canto of Paradiso, Dante Alighieri

"Or as Sahajo says: "In a dream, in one moment fifty years can pass. When the eyes open it is all false; such is living in the body." Don't immediately agree because one who agrees to it immediately will not have an experience of his own. When it is your experience, only then will it lead you towards the truth. Nothing can happen with borrowed experience.

The world is like the last morning star. Sahajo says: it is fast disappearing like a pearl of dew. it looks like a pearl, but only in appearance; actually it is a dewdrop. How long can it survive? A little passing breeze and the dewdrop will vanish in the dust. Just a ray of sun and the dewdrop will evaporate... like a pearl of dew, like water held in the hollow of your hands. Or it is like when you are trying to hold water in your hands: the hands are filled but soon the water starts falling through your fingers. Not even a moment passes and your hands are empty. When you feel that everything is achieved, your hands are already beginning to empty.

Look deeply at the transitory - that is the first step towards looking at the eternal. One who has not recognized the momentary will never be able to recognize the eternal... Look deeply at all that comes and goes, that exists and disappears, that manifests and vanishes. A Flower blooms in the morning and fades away in the evening. Look carefully at the momentary: now there is beauty, tomorrow it will not be there. Youth was just there and it is gone. Slowly, slowly one thing will become clear to those who look at the momentary - that it is madness to search there for truth. How can there be truth in that which does not endure? The definition of truth is that which is always there... that which is a constant unbroken stream. Nothing can happen to it... there can be no break in its constancy. But to know this, you have first to deeply see the momentary. Recognizing the momentary, slowly, slowly the recognition of the eternal will start to arise. Seeing the futile, slowly, slowly you will start to have a glimpse of the significant. seeing the wrong, you will recognize the right..."

from Showering without Clouds, Osho

"...there is a power of longing which turns the mist in ourselves into sun."

I was deeply drawn to and inspired by the poetry of Shelly, Tagore, Rilke and others, so much so

that some words from their poetry were included in a few songs from the Album Light Breaks. Working in an improvisational spirit, I added some field recordings from my walks in the forested Land of Medicine Buddha. Later in post-production, I worked with Christopher Hedge (best known for his soundscapes and award winning film scores) at The Magic Shop to add layers of additional recordings of the ocean, a drone cello, percussion and lap steel guitar to selected mixes.

Magic Shop 2015

It has been eight years since the release of my first album, Deep in a Dream. Shortly after its release, I was in an accident, from which I developed a concussion. This incident, however, set me on a course of healing and recovery where music, poetry and meditation played a significant role in helping me to transcend the difficulties. Over time, I continued to compose and record songs in my home studio, songs that would later make it to the new album, Light Breaks.

One example of the creation and evolution of the work is the song Blue Butterfly. The song was born from an experience of observing a butterfly in a garden and wanting to capture this vision of the creature’s dance in music. This meditation on the butterfly later deepened and brought to mind its mythological significance; for example, as in the myth of “Psyche,” a word that means both soul in Latin and also butterfly.

In this myth, Psyche, as described by Marion Woodman, “goes through a chrysalis phase. Trust emerges when there is a willingness to die to the old, to be vulnerable and have faith… a time when you know that you have been taken only so far by your own human abilities. Something else must come in to make the soul connect with Eros. And often when we start the transition journey, there is a loss of love, or of our ability to love, we’re depressed. We have had difficulties.'' (Marion Woodman, The Myth of Psyche)

The song Child of Light, on the other hand, was born out of a time of my grandmother’s passing. Not being able to be with her as it was somewhat sudden, I began to pray for her spirit. But a song came first, the words of Child of Light. It was a way of connecting with my grandmother’s spirit and her passing. The song begins with the words,

"Child of Love, Child of light, going home...Hear my song in your heart, you're not alone."

"Only a Child- soul can climb so softly, quite softly to heaven's height..." Rainer Maria Rilke

"The strangest things are the closest to the real truth. In the will of man there is a power of longing which turns the mist in ourselves into sun." Gibran

Seeds of Contemplation...

"When men live huddled together without true communication, there seems to be a greater sharing, and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the genuine meaninglessness of countless slogans and cliches repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking. The constant din of empty words and machine noises, the endless booming of loudspeakers end by making true communication and true communion almost impossible..."

_ Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

"Liberation from the thorny path refers to the path of physical life, and is nowhere more beautifully referred to than by the Christ in his parable of the Sowers where some of the seed fell among thorns. The explanation is given that the thorns are the cares and troubles of worldly existence which succeed in choking the spiritual life and in veiling the true man for so long. The thorny path must lead to the northern path and that in turn to the Path of Initiation. In one of the old books in the Archives, are found these words:
"Let the seeker of truth escape from drowning and climb the river's bank. Let him turn towards the northern star and on firm ground stand, his face directed towards the light. Then let the star lead."

Instructions to disciples, Lucis Trust

photograph Rodney Smith

"Through the black alpine forest thick with furs, it passes like a twilight..."

"Evening bell. From the mountains it gets retold in echoes whose tones grow more and more subdued. And you feel, rising from the floor of the green valley, a fluttering breeze, a cold one. In the white meadow springs, it babbles on like stammering small children saying prayers; through the black alpine forest thick with firs, it passes like a twilight, a century-old one."

Excerpt from Dream Crowned by, Rainer Maria Rilke

“ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A CHILD WHOSE LIGHT SHINED SO BRIGHT…”

"You have been telling your story in personal terms… now tell it in mythological terms,
Take the story past the wounding to the place of transformation. When finished share it, a show put to music and dance [and sing] the living myth” -

Jean Houston explains further that imagining or identifying with a healing archetype In particular, invoking Asklepios , [or Chiron the (wounded healer), or as in the album Light breaks, Prometheus, or Psyche, the Child ....] ..." We move out of identifications with our personal and localized illness and into a relationship in which archetypal forces greater than our illness can come to us to touch, teach, heal and provide meaning."  

"First we struggle and suffer alone. Eventually, with grace or guidance, we identify with the myth... In the myth we labor not for ourselves alone but for all humanity. Our struggles become ordeals in service to the archetypal dimensions of human life that we too are helping into the world. Finally, we accept that the divine is the true power and that divinity's myths are living us. When we enter that consciousness, we gain a true acceptance that there is no way out. There is only the way through. There is only living the myth with willingness and consciousness. Through such living we gain an invaluable and irreplaceable sense of our destiny, purpose, and relationship to our cosmic home and story." - Edward Tick, Dream Healing

In Buddhism there is a teaching called the Four Noble Truths. Thich Nat Hanh says, The first Noble truth is called ill -being , which says when you look deeply into ill-being you’ll find a way out. You will find a way of transformation and healing. You have to begin with ill-being and looking deeply into the nature of ill-being you will find the second noble truth which is the path that leads to the making of ill being… What we discover when we look into the nature of ill-being. i.e. wrong practice, speech, action. When you can see into ill being you can begin to see the path leading out of ill- being.”

This practice goes against society's tendency to avoid looking into one’s pain and suffering .Whether its a physical or emotional injury, there’s really no running away from it, the suffering follows you until you choose to turn around and face it in order to move through it. The third noble truth is well-being. Cessation of ill-being where the absence of darkness means the presence of light. [The light of awareness.] The fourth noble truth is the transformation of ill-being, a path of healing. Joy and happiness are the fruits of the path of well being.”

"May I awaken within this dream and grasp the fact that I am dreaming so that all dreamlike beings may likewise awaken from the nightmare of illusory suffering and confusion" - unknown

 -  H.C.Love, Deep in a Dream Album liner "notes to self"

"The owl was requested to do as much as he knew how..."

He only hooted and told of the morning star,

And hooted again and told of the dawn."

"The Owl Hooted" (Yuman and Yaqui), translated by Frances Densmore

Susan Seddon Boulet