Mother of Joy

As the master
I revealed the mantra;
as the disciple I accepted it and started to recite it.
~ Mother of Joy

"Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare; Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare."

It was being sung in a melodious tune. I was seized with the curiosity to know the occasion for the kirtan, and with that end in view I went right inside and found that the kirtan was being sung and conducted by a band of devotees by going round and round a centrally erected manch (altar) inside a well-decorated big hall. For some time I stood entranced with the kirtan but could not find anyone near by to enlighten me about the occasion. So I decided to leave, and as I turned back to go, I saw a Brahmachariji approaching me from the other side. I at once seized the opportunity and asked him about the occasion for the kirtan.

He said, "Ma Anandamayee is here and that is why Astaprahar (a 24-hour non-stop kirtan) is going on." I said, "I have heard the name of Mother but I hadn't had the opportunity and good fortune to have her darsan so far. Is it by any chance possible to meet her now?" His right hand pointed towards a set of rooms on the other side of the satsang hall and he said, "Ma is in one of those rooms. You may just try your luck." With these words he hurriedly disappeared, leaving me in two minds as to whether it would be right and proper to invade that sanctum sanatorium at that inappropriate hour, which was lunch time for all. After overcoming my hesitation and with a palpitating heart, I had taken only a few steps towards my goal when I found a burly middle-aged lady, apparently a close devotee of Ma, emerged from one of those rooms and moved quickly towards me as if to bar my advance.

When she came and stopped before me with a grave air and stern look, my heart seemed to miss a beat. She was wearing a light yellow-coloured dhoti and her hair was cut short. I at once realized that I should not have encroached upon that prohibited area without permission or escort and hence felt apologetic. In a deep voice the lady asked, "What do you want?" I somehow mumbled, "I hear that Ma Anandamayee is here and I hadn't had the good luck so far to have her darsan. Is it possible to have her darsan now?"

The reply came in a more unhelpful and unwelcome tone, "Do you think it is the proper time for darsan ? It's about half past one now and Ma is having a rest. You may come some other Time." The reply convinced me that the god of luck was unkind to me. Moreover, the darsan of a saint was no easy come-and-go affair. Its pre-requisites are devotion and sadhana none of which I was endowed with. To crown it all, it was utterly wrong on my part to act out of bravado and seek darsan at an undisputedly wrong hour. The lady's reply made me shrink within and I didn't hazard any repetition of my request before that august personality.

Without any further word, I decided therefore to retreat and proceeded towards the exit. This misadventure disheartened me a lot and I quickened my steps to leave. No sooner had I approached the exit door, than unexpectedly I heard the same lady address me in a softer tone, "Are you really going away?" I stopped and on turning back I found her standing at the same place but now in a relaxed attitude and not so unwelcome mood. But her question was not very clear to me because after her summary dismissal of me with her firm declaration that Mother was taking a rest and that darsan at that time was quite impossible, what else could I do but to go away? However, on my coming back to her, the following conversation ensued:

Q. What do you do here?
Ans. I work here in the office of the Defence Department of the Govt. of India.
Q. From where are you coming now?
Ans. Direct from office. It's now lunch time.
Q. "I see. Well, wait a minute, let me see."

With these words, she hurried towards the room from which she had emerged. I, on the other hand, stood perplexed wondering at the sudden and unexpected turn of events as well as change in the attitude of my questioner. A faint ray of hope then flashed into my mind at the possibility of fulfilment of my desire to have a darsan of Ma. But I did not have to wait long, for after a couple of minutes, the same lady beckoned me to her, and as soon as I came near, she whispered, "Go inside, Ma is in. Do obeisance to her and come out at once. Do not attempt to talk to her as it is now her resting time." I nodded to confirm that I would follow her instructions, and without tarrying for fear of being saddled with any further restrictions, I immediately entered the holy room - my journey's end.

I subsequently came to know that the lady who was instrumental in arranging my first darsan of Ma at that seemingly wrong hour, was no other person than our revered Didi Gurupriya Devi, who is not only a constant companion of Ma, but also a noble soul who is constantly engaged in serving her. Later on, when I was intimately acquainted with her, I came to know that Didi's exterior is as hard as nails but her interior is softer than flowers.

After gaining entrance into Mother's room in the manner mentioned above, I observed at first only a mass of lustrous brilliance in the sitting posture on a cot, a mass that looked like a human form completely covered with a cloud of whiteness. I express my utter inability to explain in words the impact of that unearthly phenomenon. Was it due to the fact that I had entered Mother's room after remaining quite some time in the blazing sunshine outside and it took some time for my eyes to adjust vision in the semi-darkness inside the room? Or was it a stellar orbit of Divine refulgence that always encircles Ma's Divine Being but remains mostly invisible? I have since heard a few fortunate devotees say that they have seen such a circle of light around her face and head as indeed this halo is always there. I therefore consider myself one of those fortunate few to whom Ma graciously granted a purified vision, a glimpse of her Divine Light.

However, after a few moments, Ma's whole feature. and her smiling divine face which appeared to me like a flower in full bloom, became clearly visible. I at once realized that Ma in her infinite kindness drew me out for a while from the realm of darkness in order to grant me a glimpse of the World of Light. Does this not testify to Mother's boundless, causeless and unaccountable grace upon her children?

I then did my obeisance to her and remained in a knelt-down position thoroughly oblivious of everything of this world and dazed by the unforgettable vision that I had a few moments ago. I had the least awareness of Didi's stealthy entrance and the way she had positioned herself just behind me. I came to my normal self at the mild admonition of Didi who hissed, "Make haste. Ma will rest now." Before I obeyed her, I bent my head down on the ground to do obeisance, and as I raised my head, Ma asked, "Do you live here (Simla)?" I replied, "No Mother. The office in which I work is now here. It remains here during the summer and moves down to New Delhi in winter." Ma nodded and said, "COME AGAIN".

She then stretched out her right hand and Didi taking the hint, placed an apple on her hand and Ma in turn gave it to me. I then did obeisance once again and came out of the room with my heart overflowing with joy and divine peace…”

~ Narayan Chaudhuri, That Compassionate Touch of Ma Anandamayee

~ Anandamayi Ma (1896 – 1982) was an Indian (from Bengal) spiritual leader. Sivananda Saraswati of the Divine Life Society described her as "the most perfect flower the Indian soil has produced." Initially known as a strange village girl in what was then East Bengal (now Bangladesh), She grew up to be known as the miraculously compassionate Mata Anandamayee -Mother of Joy. This name was given to her by her devotees in the 1920s to describe what they saw as her habitual state of divine joy and bliss. Precognition, faith healing and other miracles were attributed to her by her followers. Her acts of love and compassion to those around as well as away from Her have become almost a legend, serving as a perennial source of faith in Her.

"Before I came to earth, I was the same. As a little girl, same. Womanhood, same. In the hall of eternity, I shall be the same."
-- MA

Woman of Craft

“Many Buddhists have believed that the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (enlightened hero of compassion) is beyond gender. According to the Lotus Sutra, this deity transforms the body and becomes a female, male, soldier, monk, god, or animal to save various beings from suffering. When he/she looked out into the world and saw the immense suffering of all beings, he/she shed tears of compassion….

…The eyes of Kanzeon see into every corner of Calcutta. The ears of Kanzeon hear all the voices if suffering, whether understandable to the human ear, or the voices of felled cedar and mahogany or struggling sturgeon who no longer make their way up Mother Volga to spawn. The hands of Kanzeon reach out in their many shapes, sizes, and colors to help all forms of beings. They reach out from the ground of understanding and love….It is understood that the craft of loving-kindness is the everyday face of wisdom and the ordinary hand of compassion. This wisdom face, this hand of mercy, is never realized alone, but always with and through others. The Buddhist perspective shows us that there is no personal enlightenment, that awakening occurs in the activity of loving relationship…

Sewing the kesa was one of the most feminine things that I’ve done as a Buddhist.” With every stitch, she repeated over and over, “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the dharma, I take refuge in the sangha.”

“It gave me the insight that there is a fourth characteristic to the feminine besides the usual ‘maiden, mother, and crone.’ The fourth dimension of the feminine I call the ‘woman of craft.’
“It is understood that the craft of loving-kindness is the everyday face of wisdom and the ordinary kind of compassion. This wisdom face, this hand of mercy, is never realized alone but always with and through others. The Buddhist perspective shows us that there is no personal enlightenment, that awakening occurs in the activity of loving relationship.”

“Language is a place of creativity for me, So are gardening, painting, dancing, and singing. Now I feel that I want to sew more. Part of my nature is deeply embedded in the arts, in bringing the imaginal forth as a way of healing in the world.”
When the kesa was finished, Roshi Glassman made another suggestion as part of Halifax’s preparation for her ordination—that she cut her long, dark hair. “It’s a strong thing to do,” he told her in his quiet way.

But she couldn’t just lop it off in one fell swoop. Much of her identity as a woman had been bound up in that sensuous hair. The hair tied her to a past when she was a younger, wilder woman. As the date of her ordination approached, she cut her hair shorter and shorter. An inch, then a few more inches, exposing the nape of her neck, then a close buzz, leaving only a quarter inch of fuzz.

Halifax slips on the completed kesa. The voluminous folds conceal her slight frame, but every panel of fabric, every stitch, reveals who she is. She has a really, really big grin on her face.
“The kesa has been about bringing life and death together into an undivided reality—form and emptiness into just this moment,” she says, her brilliantly blue eyes twinkling with merriment. “It’s no big deal.”

Before her ordination, Joan and about thirty other people, including Roshi Glassman, sit in a circle and meditate. Their zafus are stumps and rocks in the middle of an abandoned asphalt school yard in Yonkers, New York. People carrying blaring boom boxes walk through the school yard. Low-rider cars rumble past a few feet away. Joan is practicing what she will do as a Soto priest—putting her altar in the street.

“I have been taking my altar to the street for many years,” she explains later. “I mean that in the sense of engaged spirituality. My work with the dying is one of my strongest ways to practice, of taking a plunge into the unknown. The ordination provides me with the opportunity for more advanced studies and for deeper collaboration with Roshi Glassman and his wife Jishu and their community.”

That collaboration includes developing a global network of communities with a spiritual basis that are dedicated to peacemaking. Such communities exist all over the world—Roshi Glassman’s Zen Community of New York, Halifax’s Upaya in Santa Fe, others in Poland, Switzerland, Italy, and on most every continent.

“We’re creating a way for these villages to link with each other and to begin to move more deeply with commitment and support in this work of service and practice,” Halifax says. “We’re assisting in the development of communities where people can go and take plunges into the unknown, do intensive work, put their altars in the street. I don’t see myself ever stopping that work.

“Probably the only thing that will change with my ordination is that my wardrobe will expand and I won’t have any hair,” she says with a laugh.

~ Stephen Foehr, Lion’s Roar

Pooh

"Winnie the Pooh has a certain way about him, a way of doing things which has made him the world's most beloved bear. And Pooh's Way, as Benjamin Hoff brilliantly demonstrates, seems strangely close to the ancient Chinese principles of Taoism. The 'Tao of Pooh' explains Taoism by Winnie the Pooh and explains Winnie the Pooh by Taoism. It makes you understand what A.A. Milne probably meant when he said he didn't write the Pooh-books for children in the first place.

Over the centuries, Taoism classic teachings were developed and divided into philosophical, monastic, and folk religious forms. All of these could be included under the general heading of Taoism. But the basic Taoism is simply a particular way of appreciating, learning from, and working with whatever happens in everyday life. From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.

One of the basic principles of Taoism is P'U; the Uncarved Block. The essence of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed. This principle applies not only to things, but to people as well. Or Bears. Which brings us to Pooh, the very Epitome of the Uncarved Block. When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few, other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work, odd as that may appear to others at times. As Piglet put it in 'Winnie-the-Pooh', "Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right."

Owl instead, is the opposite of Pooh, the Knowledge for the sake of Appearing Wise, the one who studies Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge, and who keeps what he learns to himself or to his own small group, rather than working for the enlightenment of others. That way, the scholars can appear Superior, and will not likely be suspected of Not Knowing Something. After all, from the scholarly point of view, it's practically a crime not to know everything. But sometimes the knowledge of the scholar is a bit hard to understand because it doesn't seem to match up with our own experience of things. Isn't the knowledge that comes from experience more valuable than the knowledge that doesn't?

While Owl's little routine is that of Knowledge for the sake of Appearing Wise, Eeyore's is that of Knowledge for the sake of Complaining About Something and Rabbit's is that of Knowledge of Being Clever. As anyone who doesn't have it can see, the Eeyore Attitude gets in the way of things like wisdom and happiness, and pretty much prevents any sort of real Accomplishment in life. Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgements and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn't look very deeply into things to begin with. The thing that makes someone truly different -unique, in fact- is something that Cleverness cannot really understand.

"A fish can't whistle and neither can I." There's nothing wrong with not being able to whistle, especially if you're a fish. But there can be lots of things wrong with blindly trying to do what you aren't designed for. Unfortunately, some people aren't so wise, and end up causing big trouble for themselves and others. The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not. To demonstrate what we mean, we can think of no one better than Tigger, who doesn't know his limitations ('Tiggers' can do everything'), which brings him in lots of trouble. Piglet instead knows his limitations and that's what makes him sometimes more brave than you would expect from such a small animal. So, the first thing we need to do is recognize and trust our own Inner Nature, and not lose sight of it. Inside the Bouncy Tigger is the Rescuer who knows the Way, and in each of us is something Special, and that we need to keep:

"Tigger is all right really," said Piglet lazily.
"Of course he is," said Christopher Robin.
"Everybody is really," said Pooh. "That's what I think," said Pooh.
"But I don't suppose I'm right," he said.
"Of course you are," said Christopher Robin."

This text is taken from 'The Tao of Pooh' by Benjamin Hoff,

Most Amazing View

"Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.

May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you— beyond the next turning of the canyon walls."

—Edward Abbey

Photos ~ writer and novelist Edward Abbey and his wife Renee Abbey Downing on duty as a fire lookout on Aztec Peak
~ Ed smiling after blowing a hole in his tv
~ Ed's grave

Spirit Travels

The itinerary is subject to reality. A pilgrim with a heart of service is to open one's life to a boundless horizon.
Joan Halifax

"Everybody has a geography that can be used for change. That is why we travel to far-off places. Whether we know it or not, we need to renew ourselves in territories that are fresh and wild. We need to come home through the body of alien lands. For some, these journeys of change are taken intentionally and mindfully. They are pilgrimages, occasions when Earth heals us directly.

"Mountains have long been a geography for pilgrimage, places where peoples have been humbled and strengthened. They are symbols of the Sacred Center. Many have traveled to them in order to find the concentrated energy of Earth and to realize the strength of unimpeded space. Viewing a mountain at a distance or walking around its body, we can see its shape, know its profile, survey its surroundings. The closer you come to the mountain, the more it disappears. The mountain begins to lose its shape as you near it. Its body begins to spread out over the landscape, losing itself to itself. On climbing the mountain, the mountain continues to vanish. It vanishes in the detail of each step. Its crown is buried in space. Its body is buried in the breath.

"On reaching the mountain's summit, we can ask, What has been attained? The top of the mountain? Big View? But the mountain has already disappeared. Going down the mountain, we can ask, What has been attained? Going down the mountain? The closer we are to the mountain, the more the mountain disappears. The closer we are to the mountain, the more the mountain is realized.

"Mountain's realization comes through the details of the breath. Mountain appears in each step. Mountain then lives inside our bones, inside our heartdrum. It stands like a huge mother in the atmosphere of our minds. Mountain draws ancestors together in the form of clouds. Heaven, Earth and Human meet in the raining of the past. Heaven, Earth and Human meet in the winds of the future. Mountain Mother is a birth gate that joins the above and below. She is a prayer house. She is a mountain. Mountain is a mountain.

"Mountains are extolled not only for their qualities but also for their effect on those who relate to them. Taking refuge in them, pilgrimaging to them, and walking around or ascending them has long been a way for the shaman and the Buddhist to purify and realize the mind of the mountain. The surface of inner and outer landscape, of the above and below, meet in the mountain body. The sense of place is confirmed in the mountain body. The spirit of place is confirmed when the mountain disappears into the landscape of the mind. Thus one reveres mountains.

"Some of us are drawn to mountains the way the moon draws the tide. Both the great forests and the mountains live in my bones. They have taught me, humbled me, purified me, and changed me: Mount Fuji, Mount Shasta, Mount Kailas, the Schreckhorn, Kanchenjunga. Mountains are abodes for ancestor and deity. They are places where energy is discovered, made, acquired and spent. Mountains are symbols, as well, of enduring truth and of the human quest for spirit. I was told long ago to spend time with mountains."

-- Joan Halifax is a clearheaded and fearless traveler. She has identified five psychological territories she calls Edge States—altruism, empathy, integrity, respect, and engagement—that epitomize strength of character. Yet each of these states can also be the cause of personal and social suffering. In this way, these five psychological experiences form edges, and it is only when we stand at these edges that we become open to the full range of our human experience and discover who we really are."

Feel To Be Free

"You've got to learn to leave the table
When love's no longer being served".

-- Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and activist in the Civil Rights Movement.

Nina Simone - I wish I knew how it would feel to be free (Live in Montreux) 1976

I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holding me
I wish I could say
All the things that I should say
Say 'em loud say 'em clear
For the whole round world to hear

I wish I could share
All the love that's in my heart
Remove all the bars
That keep us apart
I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Then you'd see and agree
That every man should be free

I wish I could give
All I'm longin' to give
I wish I could live
Like I'm longin' to live
I wish I could do
All the things that I can do
Though I'm way overdue
I'd be starting anew.

Well I wish I could be like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be
If I found I could fly
I'd soar to the sun
And look down at the sea
And I sing 'cause I know
How it feels to be free

"In interviews, and in her autobiography, Nina Simone liked to describe the sense of power she felt when, as a child, she would play music in the church. She also frequently alluded to a sense of oneness she would experience on stage when, treating her audience much as she would a church congregation, she engaged in a process of musical transportation. Examples of this process can be found in various performances of a song she first recorded on her 1967 album Silk & Soul. ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free’, written by Simone’s fellow North Carolinian Billy Taylor, works, in its basic form, as one of many “freedom songs” written during the civil rights era that brought together aspects of folk, soul and gospel. Simone’s studio version provides instant swing with its rolling piano chords and finger-clicking intro.  Like the soul- and gospel-inspired compositions of Charles Mingus and Horace Silver, the instruments (here, Simone’s piano and the simple click rhythm) seem to already be singing before any words are uttered, a feeling also present in Taylor’s instrumental jazz trio recording (and in this later performance by Taylor).  However, it is the famously yearning words that connect Simone’s version to the spirit of the times, becoming a collective anthem alongside Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ and the ubiquitous ‘We Shall Overcome’. The key words and phrases in Dick Dallas’s lyric – “break the chains”, “remove all the bars that keep us apart”, “every man should be free”, “longing to live”, “I’d soar to the sun”, “I’d sing ‘cos I’d know” – resonate with the classic freedom songs of the era. If the ever-present wish, with its seeming lack of fulfilment, sounds a melancholy note, the actual music sends a more affirmative message. Stabs of brass provide soul power and gospel clarification, suggesting that all the ambitions voiced in the song, the “longing to live” might just be within reach. It is even possible, due to the shift of the modal verb and Simone’s articulation, to hear the repeated “I’d know how it feels” at the end of the song as “I know how it feels”. Like many of the finest freedom songs, a certain amount of ambiguity refuses a “closed” meaning and allows for the imagination of utopian space.

At the same time, for all the song’s collective message, it is always possible to read other messages into Simone’s performances and to see certain songs as vehicles for connecting different aspects of the artist’s life. In a filmed performance of the song used in Joel Gold’s film Nina, Simone slows the tempo and opens the song space by adding improvised elements.  As the crowd clap and shout affirmative messages in response to Simone’s clearly articulated vocals, the concert takes on the atmosphere of a religious revival meeting. At the point where the artist embarks on a jazz-influenced piano solo, Gold’s editor Frederick Charney intercuts material from a filmed interview in which Simone describes such meetings: “Nothing stops happening until everyone in the room is satisfied … there’s no such things as the end [of a song]”. Simone describes the interactive nature of song performance in revivals as “like being in touch with a hundred or 200 human beings at one time … that’s a fantastic thing”. Cutting back to the concert performance, we witness Simone improvising additional wishes to Dallas’s lyric (“I’d sing so much better … I’d dance so much better … I’d be a little less mean”) as a “call” to the band’s response. To enthusiastic audience feedback, she testifies to a dream of flying and speaks of having her eyes opened to a “new vision”. Having now assumed the role of gospel preacher, Simone continues: “The Bible says ‘be transformed by the renewing of your mind'”, then jumps up from her piano stool to take a position at the front of the stage, swaying with the music, screaming, clapping and leading her congregation. Returning to the piano, she sings about a moment in her life when she would know the feeling of freedom, stretching the final “free!” over several seconds. The phrase “for one moment in my life” resonates with her use of almost identical words during the contemporaneous “Martin Luther King Suite” (“for one moment of your life”), connecting to that testimony and showing how Simone, like King, used particular “formulas” and “key-signature phrases” as part of her affective work (see Richard Lischer’s book The Preacher King).

In an earlier section of Gold’s film, Simone attempts to answer a question posed by an interviewer: ”What is ‘free’ to you?” In response, she describes a feeling she occasionally gets onstage, then clarifies freedom as “no fear” and “something to really really feel … like a new way of seeing”. With the help of Gold and Charney, Simone is able to take possession of Taylor and Dallas’s song, connecting it to her religious background and to the freedom she sought in performing music. At the same time, the freedom she describes involves giving herself over to a situation that is larger than she or any one individual, one that is created through religious possession and group psychology. The “new way of seeing” echoes other statements Simone made about Saint Paul-like moments of “coming through” or “turning on”, suggesting she attained (and was taken over by) a new subjectivity in response to such epiphanies. For the philosopher Alain Badiou, who sees in Saint Paul an example of a subjectivity based upon recognition of universal truth, the realization engendered by epiphany is one which, through the processes of fidelity, searching and constant renewal, allows the subject to reject conformity. Badiou uses the same words of Paul quoted by Simone – “Do not be conformed to the present century, but be transformed by the renewal of your thought [mind]” (Romans 12.2) – to highlight the universalism that, for Badiou, is Paul’s greatest legacy:

Far from fleeing from the century, one must live with it, but without letting oneself be shaped, conformed. It is the subject, rather than the century, who, under the injunction of his faith, must be transformed. And the key to this transformation, this “renewal”, lies in thought.

Freedom, then, can be gained through nonconformity, and thought – the quest for the knowledge of how it would feel – is the first step towards freedom.

Another filmed performance of ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free’ combines the religious aspects mentioned above with a kind of “embodying” of the song that, paradoxically, allows the singer to break free of her own body for a fleeting moment and to suggest that one of the freedoms promised is, in fact, freedom from bodily determinism. The performance comes from Simone’s astonishing set at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival. Simone begins the song with the familiar piano motif, not deviating far from the recorded version, although she extends the pre-vocal section as if to get into the groove.  The subsequent rendition also follows the recorded version, save for a few interjections, a greater amount of jazz phrasing on the vocals and some harsh piano stabs (something of a Simone trademark, deployed at strategic “punctuating” moments and very frequently at the close of songs). The changes come towards the end of the song, the first being when Simone shifts into falsetto as she imagines being a bird, her voice soaring with the lyric to a height all the more notable for her infrequent use of such high pitch. For a few moments it is as if she really is breaking free of anything in the song that might be binding her, even the very thing that makes singing and playing possible, the music itself.

“Spirit’s movin’ now”, Simone observes, realising the new freedom she has found and connecting it to a religious notion of transcendence. As if confirming the confusion over whether she originally sang “I’d know how it feels” or “I know how it feels”, she testifies to the latter as she improvises new lyrics and interjections: “Got news for you. I already know … Jonathan Livingston Seagull ain’t got nothing on me”. She shouts the word “free!” four times in succession, then develops it into “I’m free and I know it”. Changing to a new, seemingly improvised tune, Simone sing-speaks the truth she’s discovered: “I found out how it feels not to be chained to any thing, to any race to any faith to anybody, to any creed to any hopes to any anything”. Again, we could read this “religiously”, seeing this freedom as an escape from earthly concerns, even from the body itself. However, given the denial of faith and creed here, it is equally tempting to connect the performance to the kind of identity politics later theorised by writers such as Judith Butler. This was the other side to Simone’s assertive anthems (notably ‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black’), this loss of bodily identification that imagined freedom from biology and culture, a freedom that would find its ultimate expression in her extraoridnary, but little known, reading of Exuma’s ’22nd Century’. The Montreux performance of ‘I Wish I knew’ presents yet another aspect of Simone’s enigma: how she could turn what seems to be the very epitome of humanistic communication, this ‘civil rights anthem’, into a vision of posthumanism. Transformation indeed."

--Richard

Listen to the things you can't hear

“Don’t underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” -- Winnie the Pooh

"To know the Way, We go the Way; We do the Way
The way we do The things we do.
It’s all there in front of you,
But if you try too hard to see it,
You’ll only become Confused.

I am me, And you are you,
As you can see; But when you do
The things that you can do,
You will find the Way, And the Way will follow you...

Do you really want to be happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you've got...

Lots of people talk to animals...Not very many listen though...that's the problem...

The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard - one that thinks too much...

The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can't save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly...

Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, 'This isn't supposed to be happening this way,' and trying harder to make it happen some other way...

There are things about ourselves that we need to get rid of; there are things we need to change. But at the same time, we do not need to be too desperate, too ruthless, too combative. Along the way to usefulness and happiness, many of those things will change themselves, and the others can be worked on as we go. The first thing we need to do is recognize and trust our own Inner Nature, and not lose sight of it...

“Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything...

You'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are...

We don't need to shift our responsibilities onto the shoulders of some deified Spiritual Superman, or sit around and wait for Fate to come knocking at the door. We simply need to believe in the power that's within us, and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others and competing against them, things begin to work for us...

How can you get very far,
If you don't know who you are?
How can you do what you ought,
If you don't know what you've got?
And if you don't know which to do
Of all the things in front of you,
Then what you'll have when you are through
Is just a mess without a clue
Of all the best that can come true
If you know What and Which and Who...

Wisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line; they're part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They're not only the ending, but the beginning as well...

If people were superior to animals, they'd take good care of them," said Pooh..."

~ Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
Benjamin Hoff is the author of The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet, both of which explain the Chinese philosophy of Taoism through the characters created by A.A. Milne, and The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow, his biography of fellow Oregon author and charismatic nature teacher Opal Whiteley.