Many years ago, I heard someone quote these words on the radio. I have never forgotten them.
Vom Herzen,
möge es wieder, zu Herzen gehen.
This reads, literally:
From the heart,
might it again, to the heart go.
My reading of it is this:
This comes from my heart.
Would that it might, in your heart, find a home.
Where does the desire to write, sculpt, paint, compose come from? Who knows!
All we can say, if we have that desire, is that it is there and longs to be fulfilled.
Our lives may be crazy, mixed up, certainly far from perfect in all sorts of ways, as was Beethoven's, but this does not seem to prevent us from wanting and being able, to some extent at least, to bring some small or large, or in his case, achingly beautiful, powerful and moving work of art into being.
I can think of no words that, for me, could possibly come closer to the heart of artistic creation than those of Beethoven's. He encapsulates, in eight short words, all that I could ever hope for; that is that words which have come from my heart could find their way into another's.
Wednesday 18 February 2015
Thursday 12 February 2015
About why 'no comments'
This may not really require an answer but I feel I'd like to try and explain.
It seems that many people expect a blog to be a two-way communication but, for me, as I said at the outset, I always intended my jottings to be messages in a bottle, to be sent out to who knows whom.
I imagine that people who like to look at blog-posts, make a decision to read or not to read, based on a title and maybe a sentence or two. The hope is that someone who is attracted to follow a particular blog is in tune with the sort of things that the author likes to commit to the e-waves.
So why no comments then; two simple words may explain; they are EGO and FEAR. Ego is somewhat of a failing in my background and I know I've been tarnished with its brush. (I'm fairly good at hiding it because I know it's a most unattractive quality but I know it's there!)
If I received complimentary comments, I know they could so easily go to my head and I could become even more carried away with myself than I am already. As to fear, uncomplimentary or even rude comments would upset me more than I can say and certainly more than they should, and possibly/probably cripple and stifle the truest voice that I strive to find and use.
So I hope that explains my choice. To anyone who has read anything I've written and has felt a sense of communication and understanding, I say, I couldn't be more pleased. It is, after all, why anyone wants to write, surely; to give and to be received.
It seems that many people expect a blog to be a two-way communication but, for me, as I said at the outset, I always intended my jottings to be messages in a bottle, to be sent out to who knows whom.
I imagine that people who like to look at blog-posts, make a decision to read or not to read, based on a title and maybe a sentence or two. The hope is that someone who is attracted to follow a particular blog is in tune with the sort of things that the author likes to commit to the e-waves.
So why no comments then; two simple words may explain; they are EGO and FEAR. Ego is somewhat of a failing in my background and I know I've been tarnished with its brush. (I'm fairly good at hiding it because I know it's a most unattractive quality but I know it's there!)
If I received complimentary comments, I know they could so easily go to my head and I could become even more carried away with myself than I am already. As to fear, uncomplimentary or even rude comments would upset me more than I can say and certainly more than they should, and possibly/probably cripple and stifle the truest voice that I strive to find and use.
So I hope that explains my choice. To anyone who has read anything I've written and has felt a sense of communication and understanding, I say, I couldn't be more pleased. It is, after all, why anyone wants to write, surely; to give and to be received.
Wednesday 4 February 2015
Some thoughts which have come to me over the years
Life should be something which you build ;
not just something which you allow to happen to you.
Do you sometimes feel that you are
walking on the eggshells of life?
We are all figures
in the landscape
of each other's lives.
Greed is the spectre
at the feast of my life.
The world is full of flawed folk
(and I'm one of them).
About the copper beech tree - and a poem on trees in winter
I have always loved looking at the sky through the branches of trees.
Walking to school as children, we passed a beautiful copper beech tree, just around the corner from our street. I used to love the blue and white of the sky and clouds through the copper coloured branches and leaves of that tree especially.
I remember my dad explaining that these trees first appeared in the 1800s after a period of particularly strong sun activity. I don't know if that's true but I was fascinated by it, long before I'd heard of Charles Darwin and his theories of evolution. It seemed perfectly logical to me, especially as my dad had told me and I had great faith in him.
Many years ago, while looking through my then front window, across the green to the flats and the trees which lay beyond them, this poem began to form itself in my head as I gazed at them.
Trees in Winter
You, in your world of black, skeletal structure,
Etched in rare fragility,
Against the pale, winter-blue sunlit sky.
How you move on my horizon,
Beyond the angled outline of homes,
Their brick walls warm and clay colourful
By the sun's good grace.
Walking in these February days, I feel the same love for the trees, gauntly spread across the sky, and find that they mean as much to me today as they did all those years ago.
Walking to school as children, we passed a beautiful copper beech tree, just around the corner from our street. I used to love the blue and white of the sky and clouds through the copper coloured branches and leaves of that tree especially.
I remember my dad explaining that these trees first appeared in the 1800s after a period of particularly strong sun activity. I don't know if that's true but I was fascinated by it, long before I'd heard of Charles Darwin and his theories of evolution. It seemed perfectly logical to me, especially as my dad had told me and I had great faith in him.
Many years ago, while looking through my then front window, across the green to the flats and the trees which lay beyond them, this poem began to form itself in my head as I gazed at them.
Trees in Winter
You, in your world of black, skeletal structure,
Etched in rare fragility,
Against the pale, winter-blue sunlit sky.
How you move on my horizon,
Beyond the angled outline of homes,
Their brick walls warm and clay colourful
By the sun's good grace.
Walking in these February days, I feel the same love for the trees, gauntly spread across the sky, and find that they mean as much to me today as they did all those years ago.
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