The Gift of Music

Sunday 9^th December 2012

Maybe it’s after being at Andre Rieu’s concert last night or maybe it’s because I am presently listening to Beethoven’s fifth symphony, the Emperor that I am brought back to my first significant memory of how music impacted on my own life.

  I can remember as a child being sent from the classroom to the school hall to audition for the choir which was called ‘The Young Dublin Singers’.  I was of course delighted to be deemed worthy and  considered to have a good enough voice to be admitted to the ranks where we were trained in rhythm, harmony and canon.

Years later as I was collecting one of my children from a music lesson at their music school,  I happened to notice an article on the school’s notice board about how teachers had found a huge change for the better in the behaviour of the children who were hitherto deemed unmanageable in a tough school in the east end of London.  This free, child centered and fun based musical training had totally transformed the lives of the children.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/sep/10/music-memory-intelligence-behaviour-school

I also reflected on an inspirational nun by the name of Sr. Bernadette Sweeney who had a vision of how she could bring music to her own school and in her own words, “ To give to all what the rich can buy for money."

http://www.iec2012.ie/index.jsp?p=108&n=144&a=2111

An Evening With Andre Rieu

Saturday 8^th December 2012

This evening I attended a concert by Andre Rieu in the 02 Arena, Dublin.  This Dutch man from Maastricht knows how to put on a spectacular show.

We got off to a flying start with a rousing ’76 Trombones’ as he and his Strauss orchestra made a grand entrance marching onto the stage and taking up their places.  The ladies of the orchestra wear colourful ball gowns and the gents are clad in formal evening dress.

The thoughts I came away with were how uplifting and universal music is as well as being the language of harmony amongst people.

Taizè

Friday 7th December 2012

Tonight I was at a special service for Advent, organized by the Taizè group I sing with.
Taizé is an ecumenical monastic order in Taizé Saône-et-Loire, Burgandy, France.
It was founded by Frère Roger in 1940 and there are now many Taizè groups in various Christian  parishes  all over the world.  Brother Roger did a lot to promote Christian unity and was such an exemplary figure.  He was a Lutheran monk, a man of great holiness and prayer and deeply loved by many.


Like many holy people of love and peace he encountered its opposite in the manner in which his life was ended rather brutally when he was stabbed to death during the evening prayer service in Taizè on August 16th, 2005 by a young Romanian woman named Ruxandra Solcan who was later deemed mentally ill.
As I write this I also think of another exemplary figure and man of God, Mahatma Gandhi  who also died a violent death, and I reflect on the mystery of evil and why it is that the very gentle and very good are so often targeted for such a violent death.


The Taizè service consists of beautiful harmonious chants, almost like meditation to music you might say.  There are then periods of silent reflection, two readings from scripture and a reflection from Brother Alois the current head of the Taizè community.  There is a space where the cross is placed on the floor and candles are lit around the altar.  There is generally an atmosphere of profound peace at these services,  and it is a very welcome experience to see both Protestants from various denominations, and Catholics coming together to unite in prayer in this sacred space.  Taizè also traditionally appeals to young people and it is heartening to see many young people being drawn to these services.

More Cheerful Reminders of Impermanence

 Thursday 6^th December 2012

I spent ages here fiddling around with a poem I wrote a while back and while it is not on the subject of impermanence, the concept of impermanence came into the last line and I thought this would be a nice follow on from my reflection for Wednesday 5^th.

I did quite a bit of fiddling with the original poem I wrote, because I know these particular publishers are very fussy about unnecessary words, and clichés are a definite no.  I was pleased with my new version and ready to post it here until I realized that if by any chance they should find the poem on my blog, there would be no chance they would publish it, should they wish to do so.  Instead however, I offer this piece of wisdom on the subject of not just impermanence, but also, love, relationships, security, delusion and flow from Anne  Morrow Lindberg:

“When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.  It is an impossibility.  It is even a lie to pretend to.  And yet, this is exactly what most of us demand.  We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.  We leap at the flow of time and resist in terror its ebb.  We are afraid it will never return.  We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible in life, as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom.  The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even.  Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.  For relationships, too, must be like islands.  One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits – islands surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continuously visited and abandoned by the tides.  One must accept the serenity of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency.”

Anne Morrow Lindberg

Clearing The Ashes

Wednesday 5^th December 2012

Today I was clearing the ashes from the fireplace and thought to myself this will be me one day and so I wrote the following senryu:

winter morning
clearing yesterday’s ashes
i see my own

© Rachael Stanley

Not very cheerful you might say, but unavoidable and no harm to reflect on that reality now and again particularly if it helps us to prioritize and get the things done that are important.

“We have not here a lasting city” Hebrews 13:  14

“Everything flows and nothing abides,
everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.”

Heraclitus

Heraclitus (c 540 – 475 BC)

Kevin Barry Cheered Me Up Courtesy Irish Times

Tuesday 4^th December 2012

I have a confession to make.  I’m addicted to physically buying the newspaper each day, the Irish Times to be precise.  It’s really just habit I suppose but a habit that’s hard to break.

I know it’s possible to find the various articles on line and I keep telling myself this is ridiculous when I start saving a couple of days papers to catch up on articles with a heading that I know will interest me.

The first port of call is the crossword, the easier one and then I usually have to get tomorrow’s paper to check up the clues that eluded me in the previous day’s puzzle.

However today I refer back to yesterday’s Irish Times and am fascinated to see that the writer Kevin Barry  admits that;  ‘A little flush of triumph comes to my cheek if I manage to email someone a photo, or paste a link into the body of a mail – this, after 18 years of internet activity, is the level of it.’

What music to my ears, to read that a bright young spark such as Kevin Barry is proud of his fairly limited skills on the internet.  This makes me, a fifty seven year old woman feel a lot better. Thank you, Kevin.

He also very interestingly sets out very clearly two extreme and contrary arguments regarding the online divide and says that he believes both positions to be entirely true.  Thank you once again Kevin.

I was beginning to think that this was some major flaw in my character that I can very often manage to agree with two opposing sides of an argument.  Being like this does not make life easy, and in fact there are times when I would love to have a more clear cut black and white view of everything.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2012/1203/1224327385679.html

The Pros and Cons of Technology

Monday 3^rd December

My post yesterday spoke about the relentless changes that have come about through technology.  It has brought so many benefits, and yet in some ways I feel something has been lost.

Someone once said to me ‘you just don’t like change do you?’   I suppose in a way familiarity is comforting, but when changes keep taking place, it can be difficult to keep up with all these changes.

I often look back nostalgically to a time when if you had a problem about some product or service, you could ring a number to a central switch board where a real human being would answer your call, and transfer you to speak to another real  human being, but these days you get mostly, press one, for such and such, two, for this and that, three for whatever and so on.

I often think of all the people who’ve been disposed of because using machines is more cost effective, and I recently read that even in a household instead of people sitting around a fire like times past talking to one another, now everyone sits in their own room communicating with others on their lap tops on social sites, we have never been so connected and yet we have never been so isolated and apart.

Virtual communication has so many limitations, but one thing that is certain, we cannot turn back the clock.

But of course I must equally acknowledge all the benefits, the wonderful friends I have made through a shared interest of writing and the publishing opportunities that have opened up for me.