attended a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony: “Resurrection”
The combined forces were impressive. More than 80 choir members glided onto the stage, clothed in black, as if they were wraiths, now summoned to writhe before the Final Judge, before whom no one can be found blameless.
And I, a shame-faced mortal, sat with my flesh, (which is unceasingly beset with attacks of urine and excrement), awaiting the Strings section to stab the air with dramatic statements of tension and unease.
Sudden moments of gaiety punctuated the 90-minute Symphony, as if a butterfly in a remote rainforest was dancing over a sweetly-decaying pile of jaguar's dung, while, far away, bloodthirsty pimple-faced urban teenagers, armed with knives, clashed over rival-gang territory, in a neglected street, in a rubbish-strewn city.
Beauty in chaos. The sun stares down blankly on the smoking aftermath of an earthquake in Bangkok. Cries of despairing humans flare into the unseen recesses of Cyber-space.
From behind stage doors, an unseen Brass section plays a eerie melody over a desolate rubble of civilisation.
Suddenly the Pipe Organ bursts into life! All choruses and Strings join the triumphant blast! The night has passed, the Dawn-light has come! The Morning Star did not deceive this solitary individual, in her promise of more light to come! Unstoppable, undefeatable light!
The audience leaps to their feet, erupting into cries of “Bravo!” The applause lingers, and then melts into the humid night air as urine-laden humans file out of the concert hall.
Tonight, what change will I see in the Moon? Yesterday's moon is dead, while tomorrow's moon is not yet born.
This world is not my home.
As Marcus Aurelius said, “soon you will be like Hadrian: nobody and nowhere”. (circa 180 A.D.)
And, as Paulo Coelho wrote in The Alchemist: “The wise men understood that this natural world is only an image and a copy of Paradise. The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand His spiritual teachings and the marvels of His wisdom.” (circa 1988 A.D.)
Who can have enough penetrating insight to see through the veil that encloses this entire cosmos?
Image Credit
Gustav Klimt. (1910). “Death and Life”. Source: Wikimedia Commons.