Words and music  

The following are poems, words, music and ideas that resonate well with our philosophy.

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The Peace of Wild Things -

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

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Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away into the next room,
I am I and you are you;
Whatever we were to each other, That we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used,
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we shared together.
Let my name ever be the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant,
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well.

-Henry Scott Holland, Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London 

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 "Appalachian Round Up"

Take me back oh hills I love,
Lift me from this lonely bed,
Light my way with stars above,
Curl soft winds about my head,
Wash my feet in crystal streams,
Cradle my arms in boughs of oak,
Breathe the scent of pine for dreams,
Wrap me tight in earthen cloak.

 - traditional folk song

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‎”Nothing ceases to exist- there is no example of this in nature.. There is an entire mass of things that cannot rationally be explained. There are newborn thoughts that have not yet found form. How foolish to deny the existence of the soul. After all, that a life has begun, as it can be demonstrated that the atoms of life or the spirt of life must continue to exist after the body’s death. But of what does exist, this characteristic of holding a body together, causing matter to change and develop, this spirt of life.

I felt it as a sensual delight that I should become one with - become this earth which is forever radiated by the sun in a constant ferment and which lives - lives and which will grow plants from my decaying body - trees and flowers - and the sun will warm them and I will exist in them- and nothing will perish - and that is eternity”

— Edvard Munch

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Parta Quies

Good-night; ensured release,
Imperishable peace,
Have these for yours,
While sea abides, and land,
And earth’s foundations stand,
And heaven endures.

When earth’s foundations flee,
Nor sky nor land nor sea
At all is found,
Content you, let them burn:
It is not your concern;
Sleep on, sleep sound.

— AE Housman

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Ode to natural burial -

'Bois Epais'

- Jean Baptiste Lully

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

He gives his harness bells a shake 
To ask if there's some mistake. 
The only other sound's the sweep 
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 
But I have promises to keep, 
And miles to go before I sleep, 
And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost

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Woodland Burial

Don’t lay me in some gloomy churchyard shaded by a wall
Where the dust of ancient bones has spread a dryness over all,
Lay me in some leafy loam where, sheltered from the cold
Little seeds investigate and tender leaves unfold.
There kindly and affectionately, plant a native tree
To grow resplendent before God and hold some part of me.
The roots will not disturb me as they wend their peaceful way
To build the fine and bountiful, from closure and decay.
To seek their small requirements so that when their work is done
I’ll be tall and standing strongly in the beauty of the sun.

- Pam Ayers (link to official website)

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My Orcha'd in Lindèn Lea

When leaves that leätley wer a-springèn
Now do feäde 'ithin the copse,
An' païnted birds do hush their zingèn
Up upon the timber's tops;
An' brown-leav'd fruit's a-turnèn red,
In cloudless zunsheen, auver head,
Wi' fruit vor me, the apple tree
Do leän down low in Linden Lea.

Let other vo'k meäke money vaster
In the aïr o' dark-room'd towns,
I don't dread a peevish meäster;
Though noo man do heed my frowns,
I be free to goo abrode,
Or teäke ageän my hwomeward road
To where, vor me, the apple tree
Do leän down low in Linden Lea.

- William Barnes (1801-1886)

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 Danny Boy

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

- Frederic Weatherly

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Death must be so beautiful.

To lie in the soft brown earth,
with the grasses waving above one's head,
and listen to silence.
To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow.
To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.

- Oscar Wilde The Canterville Ghost

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Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when you were not: that gives us no concern. Why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? To die is only to be as we were before we were born.

-William Hazlitt essayist (1778-1830)

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Landscape, September, 2010

Looking at this landscape,
no words come
but a tiny thread
extends --
an anchor drops,
my ballast lost
is found
love at last
I'm home

Lara Hiller - Poetry Soup

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Gabriel Fauré - Requiem : 'In Paradisum'

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-i1ESIRKdA

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Robert Schumann, Romanze Op. 28 No 2

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny5gNCTZpk0

This simple but beautiful piano music is the very last piece Clara Schumann heard, at her request, played to her by her grandson Ferdinand

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W A Mozart, Ave Verum Corpus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KUDs8KJc_c

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Supertramp - Lord is it mine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPsMHLQLMVg

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Mozart - Soave sia il vento - aria from Cosi Fan Tutte

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMY3Ou9L5xE

The words can be translated to:

May the wind be gentle,
may the waves be calm,
and may every one of the elements
warmly fulfil your wishes.

The aria comes in Act I when the young men are leaving and the young women don't know when or whether they'll see their partners again. The women and Don Alfonso are singing a farewell, and as it turns out in the opera, things will never be the same again.