Just sharing a poem below with you {Scottish Country Dancing musicians} which I shared yesterday with the Soulflash Yahoo email group (many of which poets and readers are in India - and Sivakami there lived in and studied at UC Santa Cruz sometime in the '70s). It's here too ~ http://scott-macleod.
Says a little about why I like Harbin (and wrote an actual-virtual Harbin Hot Springs' ethnographic book about it) ... and will be in an upcoming book of poetry I hope to publish sometime this year :)
Wondering about putting this to music ... but how?
Scott
The blueness of the sky at night: I do choose to write the muse of bliss unfolding
I do choose to write the muse of bliss unfolding
I do choose to write the muse
of bliss unfolding,
Grateful Dead jamming,
I do choose to write the muse
of bliss unfolding,
Grateful Dead jamming,
{of raga, too},
a departure from
Pan troglodytes' fighting,
that common chimp-like,
human wont, -
and eat the flax seed
oil oft for omegas,
and revel in their
harmonies & brightnesses,
of this vegetarian lack,
which, with flax,
an egg or two,
regular, good nights' sleep,
and a multi-vitamin
for B12 and iron,
is balanced out,
and accounted for,
with wellness and
via movement.
O, nonharming,
and goodness!
And so I head for
Harbin,
in its freedom ...
and for contact improv,
and dance,
and back country wilderness,
and world travel,
and the extraordinary,
and music-making,
and loving bliss,
and look to generate
friends, in time,
with fulsome,
social interaction
of & with children,
mine and hers, -
to be.
Affection!
Leaving loneliness
behind, - and freedom, too? -
we talk sympathetically, &
I, too, open to the music of
here & now,
and 'flow,' ...
and all this also, ahead,
still singly,
yet more with friends.
The warmth
of loving,
of trusting,
of familiar bodyminds
in proximity,
who use language
with care,
draws me out of
my solitary freedoms,
from people's upsets
and irrationalities,
and tirednesses,
and my own, -
while seeking
to generate
a freshet of love.
Ah, music, raga,
and the Grateful Dead.
In community,
with friends,
how generate we
both engaged and calm,
raga-like, warm, human,
social interaction?
Writing the muse
of bliss unfolding ...
30 years-playing-together -
having fun -
Grateful Dead improvisations
of their own,
psychedelic music,
with Deadheads who
find ongoing,
communal bliss, -
all together, now.
How grow we
- and practice -
this wonder,
this loving bliss code,
of which the Dead's music
is one example, -
in so many,
new ways?
This seems
noble & worthy, yes, -
and sensible & wondrous, too.
But how, and with whom,
and with which different musics,
both communally & creatively?
Really.
Guidelines for Practicing
Loving Bliss Like
Practicing a Musical Instrument,
to begin?
Traveling on farther now,
through the north end
of the Napa valley,
I play again that
1969 Grateful Dead,
Fillmore music, which
peaks & rises
in, oh, such
hippy-
{almost India-like}
illuminated,
color-filled,
sparkling ways,
emanating forth
from sound speakers.
Coming inwardly &
homeward with music,
I travel on
toward Harbin ...
Intimacy yes,
Bonobos
{Pan paniscus}
not, for me, -
love, yes,
and with words,
awareness & chemistry ...
- a 50 year, Grateful Dead,
fun duet,
I'll cultivate.
Let's innovate,
with pairbonding ...
two hours a day
of massage &
love-making,
much wondrous coitus,
with each other,
for decades ahead -
far less than Bonobos -
... as bodymind,
musical instruments,
practicing and playing ~
with lots of lingering
in contact, together.
MMmmm ...
The eve is warm,
the night is light, -
it's wintertime
in Napa's valley ...
& up over the hill
I go
to Harbin.
These words
do point
to bliss,
yet, as words,
they don't go
unfoldingly -
explicatus -
into this ongoing,
exploratory jam,
which the Dead play,
so enjoyably, -
musicians
communicating
together,
responsively & reciprocally -
listening all the while
to one another -
as their generative voices,
and electric instruments,
in tone, weave a beauty,
for we who listen.
What sounds!
I want to write with -
rock and roll poetry -
synthesizing
into togetherness.
I, writing, writing, writing,
by the side of the road,
on the way
to Harbin,
with the Dead
in my head,
travel on.
Shall we make
music of this poem?
In, on, in, on,
finding that inner
togetherness with
this music,
that inner synchronicity, -
with sounds -
he starts to sing:
'ice petal flowers revolving ...
shall we go, you and I,
while we can ...
through the transitive
night fall of
diamonds' -
what a trip -
and, that word,
sung with harmony ...
harmonizes me further.
Tones in a sequence,
created by
these musicians -
bliss-communicating
with each other,
and us -
lead me to bliss.
Tones in a sequence
are an opening way
for you and I
to realize bliss,
when and as you want it.
Ah, serial tones!
Choose the music you love,
{and help the poor,
and disadvantaged,
as well},
and turn it on.
What music would you
substitute for the
Grateful Dead,
in which bliss rises
- for you -
and with which
to jam together?
The Beatles?
The Doors?
J.S. Bach, four-hands?
... Bliss now, and,
grow this glowingly.
Shall I start singing,
to come more in synch,
by myself, -
as by harmonizing with, -
and, at the same time,
move away
from only their words,
to co-create bliss?
'St. Stephen' ...
and I drive on,
on this trip
... MMmmm :)
This poem is
just one example
of learning how
to explore
bliss elicitation,
in words,
with music, here, next ...
Here, now -
I arrive at Harbin,
walk along the village path -
and, voila, everbody is out
in the sun
on the sleeping deck,
in January,
mid-week -
maybe 20 people -
in northern California,
naked ...
A little haven,
and nest,
of human primates,
and freedom,
in modernity,
high on a redwood deck,
- regenerating -
through ongoing travel to,
and journeying in,
this hot springs,
in the California winter.
With symbols, touch and tones,
how to cultivate
a flourishing,
loving bliss ecology
of human primates,
over 10,000 seasons?
My bliss neurophysiology
is so imprecise! ...
Alas!
Yet, with warm pool, and release,
practice offers ways
to attune it ...
Let's learn to bliss
with language's and
musical scores' sophistication,
from a space of learned
ease, skill & excellence.
Ah, the relaxation response ...
So I turn on again
the Grateful Dead,
or find my way
to these kinds of
natural highs,
naturally,
exploring awareness,
and the musical score
of the Harbin pool area ...
- or via Scottish bagpipe playing,
which I do, ...
to produce tones
a departure from
Pan troglodytes' fighting,
that common chimp-like,
human wont, -
and eat the flax seed
oil oft for omegas,
and revel in their
harmonies & brightnesses,
of this vegetarian lack,
which, with flax,
an egg or two,
regular, good nights' sleep,
and a multi-vitamin
for B12 and iron,
is balanced out,
and accounted for,
with wellness and
via movement.
O, nonharming,
and goodness!
And so I head for
Harbin,
in its freedom ...
and for contact improv,
and dance,
and back country wilderness,
and world travel,
and the extraordinary,
and music-making,
and loving bliss,
and look to generate
friends, in time,
with fulsome,
social interaction
of & with children,
mine and hers, -
to be.
Affection!
Leaving loneliness
behind, - and freedom, too? -
we talk sympathetically, &
I, too, open to the music of
here & now,
and 'flow,' ...
and all this also, ahead,
still singly,
yet more with friends.
The warmth
of loving,
of trusting,
of familiar bodyminds
in proximity,
who use language
with care,
draws me out of
my solitary freedoms,
from people's upsets
and irrationalities,
and tirednesses,
and my own, -
while seeking
to generate
a freshet of love.
Ah, music, raga,
and the Grateful Dead.
In community,
with friends,
how generate we
both engaged and calm,
raga-like, warm, human,
social interaction?
Writing the muse
of bliss unfolding ...
30 years-playing-together -
having fun -
Grateful Dead improvisations
of their own,
psychedelic music,
with Deadheads who
find ongoing,
communal bliss, -
all together, now.
How grow we
- and practice -
this wonder,
this loving bliss code,
of which the Dead's music
is one example, -
in so many,
new ways?
This seems
noble & worthy, yes, -
and sensible & wondrous, too.
But how, and with whom,
and with which different musics,
both communally & creatively?
Really.
Guidelines for Practicing
Loving Bliss Like
Practicing a Musical Instrument,
to begin?
Traveling on farther now,
through the north end
of the Napa valley,
I play again that
1969 Grateful Dead,
Fillmore music, which
peaks & rises
in, oh, such
hippy-
{almost India-like}
illuminated,
color-filled,
sparkling ways,
emanating forth
from sound speakers.
Coming inwardly &
homeward with music,
I travel on
toward Harbin ...
Intimacy yes,
Bonobos
{Pan paniscus}
not, for me, -
love, yes,
and with words,
awareness & chemistry ...
- a 50 year, Grateful Dead,
fun duet,
I'll cultivate.
Let's innovate,
with pairbonding ...
two hours a day
of massage &
love-making,
much wondrous coitus,
with each other,
for decades ahead -
far less than Bonobos -
... as bodymind,
musical instruments,
practicing and playing ~
with lots of lingering
in contact, together.
MMmmm ...
The eve is warm,
the night is light, -
it's wintertime
in Napa's valley ...
& up over the hill
I go
to Harbin.
These words
do point
to bliss,
yet, as words,
they don't go
unfoldingly -
explicatus -
into this ongoing,
exploratory jam,
which the Dead play,
so enjoyably, -
musicians
communicating
together,
responsively & reciprocally -
listening all the while
to one another -
as their generative voices,
and electric instruments,
in tone, weave a beauty,
for we who listen.
What sounds!
I want to write with -
rock and roll poetry -
synthesizing
into togetherness.
I, writing, writing, writing,
by the side of the road,
on the way
to Harbin,
with the Dead
in my head,
travel on.
Shall we make
music of this poem?
In, on, in, on,
finding that inner
togetherness with
this music,
that inner synchronicity, -
with sounds -
he starts to sing:
'ice petal flowers revolving ...
shall we go, you and I,
while we can ...
through the transitive
night fall of
diamonds' -
what a trip -
and, that word,
sung with harmony ...
harmonizes me further.
Tones in a sequence,
created by
these musicians -
bliss-communicating
with each other,
and us -
lead me to bliss.
Tones in a sequence
are an opening way
for you and I
to realize bliss,
when and as you want it.
Ah, serial tones!
Choose the music you love,
{and help the poor,
and disadvantaged,
as well},
and turn it on.
What music would you
substitute for the
Grateful Dead,
in which bliss rises
- for you -
and with which
to jam together?
The Beatles?
The Doors?
J.S. Bach, four-hands?
... Bliss now, and,
grow this glowingly.
Shall I start singing,
to come more in synch,
by myself, -
as by harmonizing with, -
and, at the same time,
move away
from only their words,
to co-create bliss?
'St. Stephen' ...
and I drive on,
on this trip
... MMmmm :)
This poem is
just one example
of learning how
to explore
bliss elicitation,
in words,
with music, here, next ...
Here, now -
I arrive at Harbin,
walk along the village path -
and, voila, everbody is out
in the sun
on the sleeping deck,
in January,
mid-week -
maybe 20 people -
in northern California,
naked ...
A little haven,
and nest,
of human primates,
and freedom,
in modernity,
high on a redwood deck,
- regenerating -
through ongoing travel to,
and journeying in,
this hot springs,
in the California winter.
With symbols, touch and tones,
how to cultivate
a flourishing,
loving bliss ecology
of human primates,
over 10,000 seasons?
My bliss neurophysiology
is so imprecise! ...
Alas!
Yet, with warm pool, and release,
practice offers ways
to attune it ...
Let's learn to bliss
with language's and
musical scores' sophistication,
from a space of learned
ease, skill & excellence.
Ah, the relaxation response ...
So I turn on again
the Grateful Dead,
or find my way
to these kinds of
natural highs,
naturally,
exploring awareness,
and the musical score
of the Harbin pool area ...
- or via Scottish bagpipe playing,
which I do, ...
to produce tones
that generate bliss,
at times, myself -
We can do this ourselves ...
O, for focused, easing,
bliss practices.
Is the 'loving,'
in loving bliss,
neurophysiology elicitation,
the limitation?
The ease of
soaking in the warm pool,
of listening to the Dead,
of practicing bliss,
is unfoldingly
written here now.
When 'flow' comes,
and then more ...
Lift off
... as if in this sunlit world
of warm~water release,
with couples cuddling all around -
naked, free, with a friend,
and, in ease, together -
we might play bliss,
and - especially - love.
My evolutionary biological,
nontheistically friendly,
bodymind neurophysiology
is so imprecise.
A las!
And still I find
this connectedness
at Harbin
all so easy.
A friend to jam with,
who generates bliss for me,
to which I respond, in kind,
I welcome.
So, yes ...
how, further, to get to the
neurophysiology of loving bliss ...
like Ma's cello bow strokes,
playing sweet Bach?
... or 30 years of
Grateful Dead jamming -
a bunch of guys
improvising, playing,
and having fun
with one another,
which Deadheads love -
and making money.
Life is good.
It wasn't always bliss
for them, the Dead,
- they were sometimes 'off' -
or for me,
in this conceiving,
not always ...
- relaxation response,
regularly, ... yes, for
in-tuning our biologies -
but what a lot of
we-create-music-together
bliss ...
and when the Dead
are dialed in,
Jerry and Brent, yes ~
Going Down the Road Feeling Bad ~
they'd rock,
naturally,
happily,
communally, and
creatively,
all of which we, oui,
can grow.
How, now, does the
MDMA-like, cello bow stroke
of loving bliss,
neurophysiology elicitation
work? ...
for I do choose to write the muse
of bliss unfolding.
(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2011/01/blueness-of-sky-at-night-i-do-choose-to.html - January 19, 2011
http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/02/pied-kingfisher-just-haring-poem-i-do.html - February 28, 2017)
at times, myself -
We can do this ourselves ...
O, for focused, easing,
bliss practices.
Is the 'loving,'
in loving bliss,
neurophysiology elicitation,
the limitation?
The ease of
soaking in the warm pool,
of listening to the Dead,
of practicing bliss,
is unfoldingly
written here now.
When 'flow' comes,
and then more ...
Lift off
... as if in this sunlit world
of warm~water release,
with couples cuddling all around -
naked, free, with a friend,
and, in ease, together -
we might play bliss,
and - especially - love.
My evolutionary biological,
nontheistically friendly,
bodymind neurophysiology
is so imprecise.
A las!
And still I find
this connectedness
at Harbin
all so easy.
A friend to jam with,
who generates bliss for me,
to which I respond, in kind,
I welcome.
So, yes ...
how, further, to get to the
neurophysiology of loving bliss ...
like Ma's cello bow strokes,
playing sweet Bach?
... or 30 years of
Grateful Dead jamming -
a bunch of guys
improvising, playing,
and having fun
with one another,
which Deadheads love -
and making money.
Life is good.
It wasn't always bliss
for them, the Dead,
- they were sometimes 'off' -
or for me,
in this conceiving,
not always ...
- relaxation response,
regularly, ... yes, for
in-tuning our biologies -
but what a lot of
we-create-music-together
bliss ...
and when the Dead
are dialed in,
Jerry and Brent, yes ~
Going Down the Road Feeling Bad ~
they'd rock,
naturally,
happily,
communally, and
creatively,
all of which we, oui,
can grow.
How, now, does the
MDMA-like, cello bow stroke
of loving bliss,
neurophysiology elicitation
work? ...
for I do choose to write the muse
of bliss unfolding.
(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2011/01/blueness-of-sky-at-night-i-do-choose-to.html - January 19, 2011
http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/02/pied-kingfisher-just-haring-poem-i-do.html - February 28, 2017)
*
...