Music Poll Results (Part III)

[Guest guest]

Part III

 

**********

 

The End of a Shamanic Death/rebirth Quest

 

I lay down for meditation, just as the sun was going down. I spoke to

Greenman/my husband/my Master. I said, "If it isn't over, that's good.

Whatever you will. If it is over, that's good. Whatever you will." He

said, "This life is a vision quest. As well as a service."

 

I felt my mind fishing for a word, the right word. Then I heard a soprano

voice (with orchestra), singing Mimi's area from "La Boheme" about her life

making flowers in her attic room - the part where she tells of the glory of

being up there when spring comes.

 

"Ma, cuando vien lo sgelo,

Il primo sole e mio,

Il primo bacio del Aprile

E mio...."

 

"But when spring comes,

The first sun is mine,

The first kiss of April

Is mine..."

 

Then it went into:

 

"Anges purs, anges radieux,

Portez mon ame au sein des cieux!

Dieu juste, a toi je m'abandonne!

___ ____ ____, pardonne!"

 

"Pure angels, radiant angels,

Take my soul to heaven!

Just God, to thee I abandon myself!

______ Pardon!"

 

[The words wouldn't come for the last line. Every time, I just heard the

music and then "pardonne!" Turns out the words in the opera are "Dieu bon,

je suis a toi, pardonne!" "Good God, I am yours, pardon!"

 

This is from the opera _Faust_, the story of the man who sold his soul to

the devil for knowledge. At the end Marguerite, his love, is damned by

her actions and condemned, lying sick and half crazy in a prison cell.

Faust comes and wants her to run away with him, but she refuses.

Mephistopheles, the devil, is there listening and gloating. She sees him

and desperately appeals to the angels.

 

In the opera she sings these same words over and over, and every time the

music moves into a higher key - it's magnificent. The angels take her soul to

heaven - the prison walls open and she floats upward. An angelic choir is

singing.]

 

It went on, over and over. "Anges purs, anges radieux." I think I was

forgiving myself. And I forgave him. I sang, "Or gli perdono." "Now I

forgive him." When Tosca kills Scarpia, she watches him die, shouting,

"Muori, Muori!" "Die, die!" He dies, and then she sings, "Or gli

perdono."

 

"Anges purs, anges radieux." And Michael was here. I could hardly believe

it! So radiant and beautiful! And I think I was aware of Lucifer too,

more in the background. At some point, one or both of them took me down

below again...

 

Hearing words from over the gate of Hell in Dante, "Lasciate ogni speranza,

tutti..." "Abandon all hope, all [you who enter here]." I started saying,

"Tutti perdono. Tutti, tutti, tutti perdono." "I pardon all." Forgiving

everyone in Hell, everyone on Earth - this Earth is Hell.

 

I was hearing "Anges purs...", the whole thing, moving into lower keys, as

I went deeper and deeper. Back on the floor with the light shining through

the holes.

 

Michael, the one with the flaming sword, and Lucifer, the king of Hell.

Then I realized that they're both angels! "Anges purs, anges radieux!"

Light and dark, both radiant angels! Lucifer, the light-bearer! I loved

them both.

 

This Earth is Hell, and it must be Heaven too. Paradise! Eden! And a

voice said, "It is so. It is to come." "Anges purs..."

 

Then I realized that the Grail is below the floor of Hell. It's where the

light is coming from. So it's above too. (In Dante you have to go through

the lowest point of Hell to get to Heaven.) And then I think I felt that

the Grail was in my heart. I heard "Cor Leone." "Heart of the Lion."

Heard it at several different times during this...

 

I think I was reaching out to everyone on Earth and loving and forgiving,

until they all felt like a sphere around the earth, and then the whole

Earth. Somehow it got to where I was seeing the whole Earth and forgiving

and loving. "Anges purs..." And I looked out and I was talking to all

those higher powers out there, I was Gaia calling to the rest - Sirius and

Deneb Adige and all of them. I was hearing the music, and I was saying the

words too, calling them to the rest of the universe. And crying.

 

"Anges purs, anges radieux,

Portez mon ame au sein des cieux!

Dieu juste, a toi je m'abandonne!

___ ____ ____, pardonne!"

 

I saw the Grail then, very large in the sky. It morphed; it was an ornate

chalice, and the cauldron of Cerridwen, and a pitcher. And it tipped and

poured out over the whole Earth. The pitcher of the water-bearer, Aquarius!

 

When I got up, I stepped out onto my patio in back. Because of the city

lights, I couldn't tell whether the sunset was over or not. The trees were

beautiful - this world is beautiful! But my garden needs some work...

 

So it's over, and it isn't over.

 

**********

....I suddenly became aware of the record which I had put on simply for

background music. It turned out to be the last part of the Enigma Variations

which was to be followed later by the Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis by

Vaughan Williams (how ironic are those two titles; fantasia and enigma

indeed). At that time neither of those pieces were favourites of mine, it

just happened to be the record I pulled out. The music began to sound like

nothing I had ever heard before or since.

It was as though the music was trying to make me aware of IT. It permeated my

consciousness in ways that words cannot describe...

 

The music had reached a degree of profound beauty which I had never known or

thought could have existed. In so attaining I somehow relaxed into it, a

kind of letting go of objective observation. I gave a kind of unusual sigh

and an outward exhalation of breath like a long AHH; and just as I did so -

everything vanished, instantaneously, just like creation being switched off

by the throw of a switch. ...

 

At the very instant of ‘going’ it was as though my ears had been turned

inside out; for at one instant the music was objective, on the outside, and

the next instant it was taking place ‘all around’, for there was no inside

and outside as such. Nevertheless it was as though the music was passing

through the point (which I was) like waves on a pond and each wave was of

greater emotional charge than the one before it; as though each wave was

preparing me for the next wave, and building up into... into I did not know

what. In some respects it was like being kidnapped by divine music,

perfection; the only thing that existed in creation was myself and the music.

 

 

It was as though the ‘AHH’ was still going on but going on in the vastness

of the space of the mind alone. It become a reality in which there was no

dualistic reference between myself and music, but as though there was only ‘I

AM the music’ in a dance, a swoon, of excitement, awe, and wonder. After an

immeasurable duration of time that piece of music ended, and there was a

stillness and quiet as cannot be described. I did not question (at that

point) that I had no body or existence other than awareness of being.

Neither would I have had the time to think of such things for the next piece

of music began. To say that the next piece of music began is the

understatement of all time. It did not begin, it flowed. It flowed out of

nothingness, like... like I know not what.

 

Within a few seconds of the music emanating into my consciousness there came

the most frightening experience I have ever known in my life, before or

since. The passion and beauty of the sounds were such that my mind went...

bang ! I blew up, fell apart, exploded, or so it seemed. ...

 

I could see what can only be described as streaked out dots of light which I

was expanding into and flying through like a supernova. ...My mind gradually

stopped expanding and I metaphorically gave a sigh of relief; but there was

no breath or lungs with which to do it.

 

At that point it was as if I were in a kind of unbounded dome of blackness,

and I consisted of nothing except a point of consciousness with no boundary

or duration, no form; just consciousness. I could see what appeared to be

tiny points of light coming into and out of existence all over the space

which I existed within. ... The dots of light that seemed to be coming into

and out of existence as far as one could see suddenly turned into the music

which I could hear, and I could not only hear the music but now also see it.

 

There are no words to describe such music made of light. It is a vision

which unlike other vision cannot be recreated by imagination within the mind

from hindsight; it can only be seen and known at the time of the event. I

saw the music flowing toward me. It was in colours such that we know and

some that we do not know. The essential quality of the light was equal to

that of the sound of the music. The light itself and the colours were not

different things as we tend to know coloured light by reflections or as

sources of light emanating from a certain point. The music was the light,

the colour was the light. It did not flow from anything except uncreated

into created. The fear that I had experienced throughout the expansion or

whatever it was had now gone and there was nothing but I and the music which

I was now within: I became the music; there was not an I and an it. As this

event continued I became aware that I ‘KNEW’ the music. That is to say that

I knew it backwards, forwards, inside out, one note at a time or all at once;

and I could see it anyway I wanted to see it. I could become the melody,

which I did; I could become the harmony, which I did. I could be one note or

the whole piece of the music. ...

 

Whilst this divine dance of music in unison was going on I become aware that

I was of two natures somehow enshrined in one. There came a point whilst I

was swimming in this light and music when I became aware that I was looking

at myself objectively, and it did not seem strange at the time. ‘Myself’

did not consist of a body but only of light, but I knew it was me...

 

 

At this point ... I was only really concerned about the love of the reality

itself, the music, the sound, the vision, the event itself, for it was indeed

a divine dance of the spheres. ... As to how long this music and light

experience lasted is impossible to say''

 

[For the full version of this experience, please see

emcafUnitive%20Experiences/The%20Paradise

%20Event.rtf ]

 

END

 

Thanks to all who took part! )

 

Love, Hillary