The Soul and The Sea

 As if summoned by seagulls, we come back to the beach 

where we can cast of the shoes and our everyday cares

tell time by the tides and live in the moment 

Our search for shells an echo of childhood

and the surf's refrain is music remembered 

-       -  author unknown

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

  - W. H. Auden

Everything dies, baby that's a fact

But maybe everything that dies some day comes back.
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic city.

   

                         - Bruce Spingsteen

_____________________________

The Soul and The Sea

What is this attraction of the sand and the sea?

The gulls gliding the beach while sandpipers

Chase the waves, in and out

And the soft sweet wind blown breath of the divine

Carries the sacred incensed salt air

Serving as a communal mystical magnet 

Of solace and solitude.

Is it that upon the birth of the light of day

And the darkness of night

The master artist thought is best 

To make the Sky complimented by Sea

That is a measure of the ocean’s significance

In the scheme of everything?

Scientists discern that the human hymn to water

Can be found in rising of dopamine

And the effects of negative ions

And multiple almost unexplainable

Interactions on one’s senses and the brain .

There was that infamous expert 

Of the workings of the brain

Who surmised that we admire and are touched

By in the miraculous around us is because

The source of that beauty and serenity

Resides somehow deep within our own psyches.

(Reminding us that “Psyche” is the ancient Greek

Term for “ Soul.”) 

How wonderful it is then that the Divine Source

Of this magnificent sand and sea 

Considered that this place needed 

Humans to make it complete .

  -JF Sobecki

 ______________

"The sea does not reward those who are anxious, too greedy , or too impatient. To dig for treasures

shows notonly impatience and greed, but lack of faith, patience, patience, patience ,is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty,open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea."

 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From The Sea

The Sandpiper

The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.

The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.

- Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,
he stares at the dragging grains.

The world is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear. The tide
is higher or lower. He couldn't tell you which.
His beak is focused; he is preoccupied,

looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst. 

                  

                         - Elizabeth Bishop

At The Beach – Avett Brothers

 

https://youtu.be/pKFJ8V5CNJQ

Atlantic City – Bruce Sprignsteen

https://youtu.be/Y1pZjyJyAIQ

And welcome Bernie and Barb to Shore Life!

Amdg

“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”

        - Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”

       - Jack Kerouac

Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC

Onward - ( a reflection inspired by the movie "Youth" )

"Contained in Everything I Do
There's a love I feel for you
Proclaimed in everything I write
You're the light, burning brightly
Onward through the night
Onward through the night of my life."
 - Onward , "Yes', C. Squire

 “We were talking, about the love that's gone so cold and the people, 

Who gain the world and lose their soul  Then you may find, peace of mind, is waiting there  And the time will come when you see we're all one, 

And life flows on within and without you”

       - Within Without You, G. Harrison

"You say that emotions are overrated.Emotions are all we've got."
               - Mick, "Youth"

Someone once suggested that that light at the end of this long meandering up and down tunnel doesn’t get any smaller with the passage of time. At what point did that original innocence fade from view behind us? What is it that tries and sometimes succeeds to dampen that once holy flame of enthusiasm? Where did that trusted lifelong companion go? Was there a specific voice that encouraged or tempted me to take that one specific path and he another? How is it that some continue to hold the hands of a loved one while others feel they need to traverse every step alone? Are we quick to forget the power of touch? Are we quick to forget the simple songs? Were not the simple songs all we have? Can we keep our heads up and hearts opened as we move onward through the night of our lives?

No thing lasts forever does it? Some trees fall more quickly than others. Broken barren branches, remnants of a glory that once was, are now strewn across the field and is fuel for the next pilgrim along the way eventually becoming ashes to nurture the earth where that roaming fire had burned through the days and nights. Some giving-trees seem to continue to grow strong and grand with seasonal rebirth. Others are cut down in their prime becoming trunks of rest for tired worn out pilgrims. Still, other trees perpetuate constant leaves as shade source of freedom for launching for Frost boys swinging as they lean towards heaven. He prayed that he could be one of those branches on a tree of Merton.

His meditation “There is no fear for my own last day but the heart trembles with the slightest consideration of the passing of the one’s I love and for the last breath of those who may have loved me. “

The purest innocence of babies and youth at honest play; the intoxicating freedom discovered in boundless music; the presence of love, and the egoless carefree resilience of an uncorrupted authenticity are what we need to keep spirits alive while making way in our time worn weathered vessels. Listen to the larger voices calling and suddenly consideration that all this is just coincidence and strictly chance -  is proven to be naïve.

___________________________________________________________

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right 

Across the lines of straighter darker trees, 

I like to think some boy's been swinging them. 

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay 

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them 

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning 

After a rain. They click upon themselves 

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored 

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. 

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— 

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away 

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. 

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, 

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 

So low for long, they never right themselves: 

You may see their trunks arching in the woods 

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground 

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair 

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 

But I was going to say when Truth broke in 

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm 

I should prefer to have some boy bend them 

As he went out and in to fetch the cows— 

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, 

Whose only play was what he found himself, 

Summer or winter, and could play alone. 

One by one he subdued his father's trees 

By riding them down over and over again 

Until he took the stiffness out of them, 

And not one but hung limp, not one was left 

For him to conquer. He learned all there was 

To learn about not launching out too soon 

And so not carrying the tree away 

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise 

To the top branches, climbing carefully 

With the same pains you use to fill a cup 

Up to the brim, and even above the brim. 

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. 

So was I once myself a swinger of birches. 

And so I dream of going back to be. 

It's when I'm weary of considerations, 

And life is too much like a pathless wood 

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs 

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping 

From a twig's having lashed across it open. 

I'd like to get away from earth awhile 

And then come back to it and begin over. 

May no fate willfully misunderstand me 

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away 

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: 

I don't know where it's likely to go better. 

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 

But dipped its top and set me down again. 

That would be good both going and coming back. 

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. 

    - Robert Frost

You Got the love ( Intro scene to the movie “Youth”)

https://youtu.be/vANd9o22j5Y

Onward - Mark Kozelek , (Youth)

https://youtu.be/GKC5prLGXx0

Just  - D. Lang (Youth)

https://youtu.be/WTGtgvMQFm8

Simple Song #3 – D. Lang (Youth)

https://youtu.be/Bi-MrEoRMGk

Youth – The Movie Trailer

https://youtu.be/gZTp4nRrRaU

For a member of the band….

“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”

        - Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”

       - Jack Kerouac

Amdg

Copyright All Rights Reserved 2017 JF Sobecki LLC