I have been studying the occult of late. This word caused me a great deal of anxiety when I first encountered it in relation to my life because it initially meant all kinds of trouble to my mind. Ghastly evil things like cults, delusional ideologies, and shady intentions were attached to the word occult. It was perceived by me to be contrary to a spiritual nature which is what I was raised to recognize as good and wanted to be tending towards. Life had other plans for me. I wasn't getting what I thought that I wanted, I was getting what I needed. The occult, it turns out, is just the other shadow side of all reality in this three dimensional life. Everything that catches the light casts a shadow. As an adult we mature into an acceptance of subtle variations of our experiences. This includes the more difficult - or different - aspects of lives lived. In other words, the occult is everything that goes on outside the walls of Disneyland and most cultural and religious ideologies. The occult brings us a depth of experience and is outside the parameters of the things that are carefully curated and consistently supported by our minds to give us the sensation of feeling safe, warm and brilliant.
Once I let go of the superficial adopted definition of the word, I became aware that there was an entire aspect of my own personality that had been locked up behind my ignorance. So, that is how I've been studying the occult of late. I released the lock on my philistine perspective on the matter and I walked out to find a vast field of experiences revealed. I evolved into having a fuller grasp of the depth of what is happening to me and around me.
In this poem, Hafiz brings up a phrase that can illicit every feeling from comfort to deep resentment. The phrase is ...the Christ's breath. There is a temptation to commit a reverse prejudice here at the mention of Christ and leave the room. It happens. We forget that we are but instruments that move through these dogmas in concert creating entire scores that the world must listen and dance to. Our choices are made and yet all the other choices are still suspended awaiting their time and the invitation of our decision.
Thank you for listening.
https://pixabay.com/music/world-muslim-13410/
Music: Channeling and spiritual matters can be difficult topics to tackle without having some direct, personal point of reference. In this video we have a person of great talent and proven to be a person of integrity, Paul Simon, going into what I would consider matters of the occult. He doesn't state that he relates to his unusual experience that way but all that he says about his process of writing his latest work, Seven Psalms, is to my mind, given to a surrendering to another energy. He agrees to let it use him like an instrument to flesh out and harvest from his vast talent to deliver to us a work of art in the name of Paul Simon. Age has refined his muse and the veils have become thin for him. Perhaps they are getting thin for us all. This is what I see here in this interview with Tom Power. What do you see?
Here is a video of the actual work in album form, Seven Psalms.
...When the cold wind blows
The seeds we gather
From the gardener's glove
Live forever
Nothing dies of too much love...
...The sacred harp
That David played to make his
Songs of praise
We long to hear those strings
That set his heart ablaze...
Here are the words to all of these songs on Seven Palms for you lyrics freaks out there.
Photograph Inside a Saxophone by Adrian Borda
The original post in this series of poems by Hafiz (including an addendum regarding the authenticity of these poems) can be found here. Also, my thoughts on this series a year into these poems, HERE.
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz and translated by Daniel Ladinsky can be purchased here.