[Mystic Wisdom] Quarterly
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What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
(GowlerMusic) Electroacoustic piece of music set to the poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by the late British poet-soldier Wilfred Salter Owen.
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What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Owen died on the battlefield in WW I after writing "Dulce Et Decorum Est" (ironically "It is Sweet and Fitting [to Die for Patriotism]"). He was a great loss to humanity in light of what Europe might have produced if the youth of that generation had not been sacrificed.
HardFest HARD Day Of The Dead, Nov. 3rd, 2012, LA State Historic Park. Tickets (harddayofthedead.com)
Day of the Dead
Dev and Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
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| Candy Eye (lilminx16/deviantart.net) |
While the world is at war, promoted and prosecuted by the US military-industrial complex like MLK Jr. recognized, all I can do is dance to EDM. And the Mexican "Day of the Dead" (the Latin American Halloween) is being celebrated with a rave.
Next to the old Occupy Wall Street encampment under the occupied Los Angeles skyline, next to China Town, we will gather as in years before. I'm still in search of a peak experience worthy of a Buddhist monastic or the Buddha himself. When the lights are going off and the DJ is dropping a big fat beat, I'm almost there. Almost.
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| Back in the day |
If I leave my body, will I see the larger Spirit World, the realm of devas.? If I dance so hard I can no longer feel my feet, will I elevate into spatial dimensions beyond our limiting atmosphere? In meditation, I close my eyes and see subtle light. I feel the unseen and touch emptiness. Sometimes Buddhism is the only thing that make sense, you know?
The Day of the Dead, when ancestors are honored and there is time to reassess and appreciate current relations, we will be with all our brothers and sisters under the Moon. But somewhere I know war is being fought for corporations and nothing else, no national security, no higher ideals. They're monsters, my brother among them. What can I do but dance, celebrating the Five Precepts while others are negligent, holding my head under a twice-colored cloud and focusing my mind.
The Buddha said, "Not having been, they come to be; once having been, they cease." What was he talking about? Everything, all conditioned-things. There is that Farther Shore beyond the beyond. We wish the killing would stop and the loving start so we could all arrive there. "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O, what an awakening, yes!"
"Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate bodhi swaha!" is the epitome of the Heart Sutra.
The Buddha said, "Not having been, they come to be; once having been, they cease." What was he talking about? Everything, all conditioned-things. There is that Farther Shore beyond the beyond. We wish the killing would stop and the loving start so we could all arrive there. "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O, what an awakening, yes!"
"Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate bodhi swaha!" is the epitome of the Heart Sutra.
