Tower of Song

Tower of Song w/ GS #1

Tower of Song w/ GS #2

Tower of Song w/ GS #3

Mixing and re-mixing argument & song–high academic culture and low pop-culture–the GS, made for another office and practicing Orphic scholarship, abandons the Ivory Tower in favor of that “tower down the track.” (“I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low.” “Ah ye old ghosts! ye builders of dungeons in the air! why do I ever allow you to encroach on me a moment; a moment to win me to your hapless company? In every week there is some hour when I read my commission in every cipher of nature, and I know that I was made for another office, a professor of the Joyous Science, a detector & delineator of occult harmonies & unpublished beauties, a herald of civility, nobility, learning, & wisdom; an affirmer of the One Law, yet as one who should affirm it in music or dancing, a priest of the Soul yet one who would better love to celebrate it through the beauty of health & the harmonious power of music.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson) Thus, this “Joyous Science” (gai saber) means that the “Troubadour of Knowledge” puts scholarship in the service not of thanatos (“murders to dissect”), but of eros–love, imagination, insight, connexion, synthesis, celebration.

In the lonely, dead of midnight
In the dimness, of the twilight
By the streetlight, by the lamplight . . .
In the sunlight, in the daylight
And I’m workin’, on the insight . . .
(Van Morrison)

Given the “Re-Vision Radio” nature of the program, the broadcast and the cyberspace presence of the Tower of Song are integral parts of one another; they are in fact synergistic, because the thematic images (on the “Playlist & Images” page of the website) go with the Essay-with-Soundtrack for a synaesthetic (audio-visual) experience on radio. >>>>>>

Because station business announcements are edited out of the broadcast (and oftentimes songs added that weren’t played due to lack of time), making for uninterrupted listening, the GS recommends that you bypass the recorded program on the Music Show Player and instead go directly to the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” link to the right. >>>>>>

This is to announce that part 3 of the GS’s “Beltane / May Day 2012″ musical essay series (in flowers of discourse) is now available for listening 24/7 on the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” page. (And don’t forget to check out the thematic images that go with the musical essay on the “Playlist & Images” page.) Click on the “Archived Essays” page link to the right (not the Music Player) >>>>>>>>>>>

This is to announce that part 2 of the GS’s “Beltane / May Day 2012″ musical essay series (in flowers of discourse) for “Lunar Beltane” (5/5/12) is now available for listening 24/7 on the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” page. (And don’t forget to check out the thematic images that go with the musical essay on the “Playlist & Images” page.) Click “Archived Essays” link to the right. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This is to announce that part 2 of the GS’s “Beltane / May Day 2012″ musical essay series (in flowers of discourse) will be broadcast/webcast at midnight Sunday night/Monday morning (5/7/12, PDT). Saturday was the true Beltane (15 degrees Taurus, May 5th, with a full super-moon; “Lunar Beltane”). Don’t forget to check out the thematic images that go with the musical essay and have a synaesthetic experience! “Playlist & Images” page >>>>>>>>>>>>>

This is to announce that part 1 of the GS’s “Beltane / May Day 2012″ musical essay series (in flowers of discourse) is now available for listening 24/7 on the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” page. (And don’t forget to check out the thematic images that go with the musical essay on the “Playlist & Images” page.) To listen to broadcast for May Day, which has an extra song added, click “Archived Essays” page link to the right >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This is to announce that part 9 of the GS’s “Troubadours & The Beloved” musical essay series is now available for listening 24/7 on the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” page. (And don’t forget to check out the thematic images that go with the musical essay on the “Playlist & Images” page and have a synaesthetic experience.) Click on link “Archived Essays” page to the right >>>>>>>

The face of the Beloved

Check out the Bob Marley song played in the musical essay in honor of the new “definitive” documentary of his life by his daughter Cedella. (See cover story in current Good Times, 04.19.12)

This is to announce that part 8 of the GS’s series of musical essays, “Troubadours & The Beloved: The Secret Pagan Love Cult,” is now available for listening 24/7 on the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” page. (And don’t forget to check out the thematic images that go with the musical essay on the “Playlist & Images” page.) Click on link to the right >>>>>>>

{ From musical essay on the Troubadours: “… there was in sunny Mediterranean Provence a survival of a pagan fertility religion associated with spring, what Pound called an “inextinguishable source of beauty maintaining song in Provence,” which he attributed to the “light of Eleusis,” the Eleusianian Mystery religion of ancient Greece. }

{ From personal reflection from Sunday afternoon preparing for the program. Posted Monday 5:45 am } Spring was finally here! So I just sat there in front of my computer, taking it all in. We have this giant lavender wisteria growing on the south side of the deck. In full bloom, giving off its intoxicating perfume. Honey bees buzzing a lulling drone in the incensed air as they hover over the flowers. Beauty and light. The sun’s warmth radiates down to your soul, and the drifting, billowy clouds are ideograms signifying “let go.”

{ The GS’s opening song for the musical essay. }
Let go into the mystery
Let yourself go
There is no other place to be
Baby this I know
You’ve got to dance and sing
And be alive in the mystery
And be joyous and give thanks
And let yourself go

As regular listeners know, the GS has been keeping track of the correspondences (“harmonies” and “synchronicities”) in subject matter between his program and the 7th Avenue Project, which is originally aired Sunday afternoons and repeated immediately after the Tower of Song. (See second half of “Program Guide” page on website for complete list.) The GS recorded a synchronicity last week, and this week another one followed. The 7th Ave. Project’s guest was a cosmologist, who talked about the nature of the universe. The GS couldn’t help but hear a correspondence between this general topic and the end of his musical essay on Ezra Pound’s vision of Troubadour poetry/song and how it relates to a view of the universe (not withstanding that the materialist paradigm is at odds with the poet’s animistic view of the universe):

The arts must “interpret;” they must interpret something hidden to the wider public, which at this stage Pound figures as the “vital universe,” or the “universe of fluid force.” We find this “interpreted” in the poetry of the difficult school (trobar clus), from Arnaut Daniel to Dante: “Paganism, which at the base of its cosmogonic philosophy set the sexual phenomena whereby Life perpetuates itself mysteriously throughout the universe, not only did not disdain the erotic factor in its religious institutions but celebrated and exalted it. precisely because it encountered in it the marvellous vital principle infused by invisible Divinity into manifest nature.”

This is to announce that part 7 of the GS’s series of musical essays, “Troubadours & The Beloved: The Secret Cathar/Troubadour Love Cult,” is now available for listening 24/7 on the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” page. (And don’t forget to check out the thematic images that go with the musical essay on the “Playlist & Images” page.)

This archived musical essay has a song added (after extraneous talk taken out of broadcast). To listen on the GS’s “Archived Essays” page, click link to the right >>>>>>>>

Note.
As regular listeners know, the GS has been keeping track of the correspondences (“harmonies” and “synchronicities”) in subject matter between his program and the 7th Avenue Project, which is originally aired Sunday afternoons and repeated immediately after the Tower of Song. (See second half of “Program Guide” page on website for complete list. The GS doesn’t get a chance to listen to the program on Sundays, or he would have given a heads-up on his own program to listen for the synchronicity.) This week was a repeat broadcast of a Carolyn Burke interview on her new biography of French singer Edith Piaf. In his musical essay for this week, the GS had been discussing the troubadours and their achievement of reconciling sacred and profane love and how this came about because of a secret love cult that was directed towards spiritual fulfillment. The GS didn’t have to wait long for the stunning synchronicity. Less than 10 minutes into the program, Ms. Burke talked about what inspired her to take on a challenging biography of Piaf and stated:

I felt that her music spoke on so many levels. It could be taken as being about a spiritual yearning–a kind of spiritual love–along with the obvious worldly love. It was filling the immensity of that range …

She also later talked about Piaf’s journey to the “south of France,” which is, of course, the home of the troubadours and trobairitzes (women troubadours).

The dating of Easter is complex and a result of using both lunar and solar calendars. The precise date of Easter has at times been a matter for contention for the Church. The rule since the Middle Ages has been phrased as “Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the Vernal Equinox.” Among the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant denominations, Easter Sunday falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 20, the nominal date of the Spring Equinox. Easter Sunday can fall on any date from March 22 to April 25th. Eastern Orthodox churches sometimes celebrate Easter on the same day as the Roman Catholics and Protestants. However if that date does not follow Passover, then the Orthodox churches delay their Easter—sometimes by over a month. In Western Christianity, Easter marks the end of the forty days of Lent, a period of fasting and penitence in preparation for Easter, which begins on Ash Wednesday. In Western Christianity, Easter always falls on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25 inclusively

Modern-day Easter is derived from two ancient traditions: one Judeo-Christian and the other pagan. Both Christians and pagans have celebrated death and resurrection themes following the Spring Equinox for millennia. Most religious historians believe that many elements of the Christian observance of Easter were derived from earlier pagan celebrations. The Spring Equinox’s ancient linkages to sun and moon worship are obvious. As recognized by all historians of religion today, the Christian holy day of Easter had its origins in the pre-Christian pagan religions, especially those called the “mystery religions” of the Hellenistic age, which worship a goddess mother and her dying-and-reborn son-consort. Many, perhaps most, pagan religions in the ancient Mediterranean region had a major seasonal day of religious celebration on, or following, the Spring Equinox.

There is scholarly debate over the derivation of the name Easter. Some historians believe that the name comes from the ancient Norse word eostur or ostar which mean “season of the growing sun” or “season of new birth.” Other scholars, while agreeing with this derivation, also believe that source of “Easter” ultimately comes from the Anglo Saxon goddess of dawn and springtime—Eostre or Ostara, whose principal festival was kept at the Vernal Equinox and whose symbol is the hare. (The English monk and historian Bede, d. 735, recorded that the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre had a festival lasting several days, and that this name was adopted in England for the Christian holiday of Easter.) She was worshiped by the Anglo-Saxons during pre-Christian times. The Latin and Greek word for Easter is Pascha, which is simply a form of the Hebrew word for Passover—Pesach.

No matter which source is the origin for the word Easter, most authorities seem to accept that Easter definitely refers to the east, the rising sun, and the spring season. So if we look further back to the pagan past, we discover that there is most probably an ancient pagan fertility goddess behind the Christian Easter—Eostre, springtime sacrificial festival derived from the Anglo-Saxon Mother goddess of dawn, fertility, and spring, whose rites were celebrated at the Vernal Equinox. She was also known as Ostara, a northern form of Astarte, a predominately Phoenician mother-goddess, and goddess of the evening star; 1500 BCE. In any case, some scholars believe the name is derived from the Proto-Germanic austrôn, meaning “dawn, east” and “illuminate daybreak”. Her sacred month was Eastre-monath, the Moon of Eoster. Saxon poets apparently knew Eostre (a form of the West Germanic goddess called Ostara) as the same Goddess as India’s Great Mother Kali. The epic poem Beowulf spoke of “Ganges’ waters, whose flood waves ride down into an unknown sea near Eostre’s far home.”

Ostara

Ostara

This is to announce that part 6 of the GS’s series of musical essays, “Troubadours & The Beloved, The Troubadours & Cathars: The Heretics of the Provence,” is now available for listening 24/7 on the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” page. (And don’t forget to check out the thematic images that go with the musical essay on the “Playlist & Images” page.)

This archived musical essay has a song or two added, after extraneous talk taken out of broadcast. To listen on the GS’s “Archived Essays” page, click link to the right >>>>>>>>

This is to announce that part 5 of the GS’s “Troubadours & The Beloved” musical essay series is uploaded to the Tower of Song “Archived Essays” page. Click link at the right-hand of this page. And check out the “Playlist & Images” page for thematic images that go with the musical essay, which is also the link at the right.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sacred and Profane Love

A program note about “Philosophy.”

As the GS has been keeping track of the meaningful coincidences of content between his program and the one that follows it, Robert Pollie’s 7th Avenue Project, this week the GS noticed another of what he calls “harmonies” or “synchronicities” between the two programs. (For list of these, see “Program Guide” page on the Tower of Song website.)

Opening the musical essay with a quote from Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy, the GS discussed the Troubadour concept of “love” (fin’amor) in relation to an esoteric tradition of eroto-spiritual practices that were designed to overcome the separation of sacred and profane love. It was pointed out that the tradition of eros (love) could be traced back to Plato or Platonic philosophy (which defined philosophy as “the love of wisdom”) and later Neo-Platonism. It was further noted that certain erotic philosophers were directly responsible for shaping the poetic love-cult called the Fedeli d’Amore (of e.g. Dante). These were called “lovers of wisdom” (philo-sophia).

The guest on the 7th Avenue Project’s “Philosophy Fights Back” was academic philosopher Colin McGinn, who argued that philosophy is a kind of science and those other sciences would do well to pay it some mind. McGinn wants to bring back the relevance of philosophy not only for science but in our daily lives, a view that has been the topic of musical essays from the GS in the past: “Man cannot live without philosophy. This is not a figure of speech, but a literal fact …. There is a yearning in the human heart that is nourished only by real philosophy and without this nourishment man dies as surely as if he were deprived of food or air. But this part of the human psyche is not known or honored in our culture….” (Jacob Needleman) Although McGinn doesn’t like “the love of wisdom” as a definition of philosophy, he does discuss Plato and Socrates and the enduring relevance of Platonic philosophy, even for some scientists.

As the GS listened to Pollie and McGinn (even though he found serious limitations), he couldn’t help recalling the lyrics from one of the last songs he played out of his musical essay: “Oh, oh, Socrates and Plato / They praised it [eros] to the skies / Anyone whose ever loved / Everyone whose ever tried.”