A Place for Serenity (Poetry by Bob Racine)

To close out this present year of 2014 and welcome in the New, I have chosen to pen some words that speak of what we all crave in this present age, with its proneness to the chaotic, the violent, the cruel, even the barbaric in some quarters.  In a world that is super busy, tense, edgy, driven, and often feverish, serenity waits to be found.  And sometimes it is found where one least expects.  I wish all of you a coming twelve months of rich and rewarding exploration in your search for it.

Some construe God as a rousing fire, troubling the impenitent,

frightening the cold, callous heart, melting stiff bones.

Restless, they crave a blasting wind to catch them up and

hurl them into fiery confrontations.

Fire will come, but from fools careless with the torch.

If God is a flame, little of the divine inferno has been let loose on me. 

And I hold myself none the worse for it. 

      

A thousand Pentecostal tongues may yet bedazzle. 

The cosmos, set to churning once more, could frighten and fascinate. 

Even so, my diminutive soul would yearn yet more

for the yeast of the Spirit, for garden fresh friendships and

the simple tapestries of the sacred place tucked away in the quiet cove.

Fire?  Fire!!!

Let me see the fire in my lover’s eye,

the dull made luminous on my children’s babbling tongues,

the crimson sparkle in the chalice, the tender fruit ablaze on the vine,

the throbbing stars flecked into the black canvas of the night sky.

And surely my feet know where to go to find the becalmed ocean

drinking down that consumptive sun at day’s end.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.

Riverdance Poetry, edited by Bob Racine

Those of you who have read my review of the 1995 stage musical, posted in the previous blog entry dated 12/5/14, were promised quotes from its poetry, and I am now fulfilling that promise.  The poetic words, whether spoken in voiceover by John Kavanaugh, or sung by performers as lyrics are intelligible by way of the subtitles the album furnishes.  Any of you who have not yet read my write-up is urged to do so before reading any further. The first poem, “Out of the Sea We Came,” I have already excerpted in the review itself.  I will go on from there.

                                 The Heart’s Cry

Where the river foams and surges to the sea, wise and as daring, following the heart’s cry.  I am that deep pool, I am that dark spring. 

Refrain: Warm with a mystery I may reveal to you. . .in time, time holds the heart’s key.  Key to everything is love.  Love makes the heart flower!  Flower into a deep desire.  Passion in the heart’s fire!  Passion and desire!

See the eagle rise above the open plain, golden in the morning air, weaving and soaring, watchful and protecting.  I am your shelter, I will enfold you. 

Refrain repeated

                                 Hear My Cry

Hear my cry in my hungering search for you, taste my breath on the wind.  See the sky, as it mirrors my colors.  Hinds and whispers begin.

Refrain:  I am living to nourish you, cherish you.  I am pulsing the blood in your veins.  Feel the magic and power of surrender to life.

Every finger is touching, searching, until your secrets come out.  In the dance, as it endlessly circles, I linger close to your mouth.

Refrain repeated

The following are heard in connection with the Diaspora sequence.

                             We Will Not Go Down

Fire leaps from dark to dark.  Fear and anger leap to meet it.

We will not go down.  We will not be beaten down like grain.

                      Out of the Night, Out of the Sea

No life is forever.  We formed and fought here.  We loved and died here.  Wave after wave, the sea of time beats against every shore!

Whole generations lift now to depart.  The land has failed us.

The dark soldiers appear against us.  In dance and song

we gift and mourn our children.  They carry us over the ocean in dance and song.  Out of the night, out of the sea, on a new shore, lights blaze in the dawn.  Motherless, fatherless, we are torn from our homes. 

We bring tears to the land we make our own.

                                      Lift the Wings

The words of parting lovers amidst the Diaspora:

How can the small flowers grow, if the wild winds blow and the cold snow is all around?  Where will the frail birds fly, if their homes on high have been torn down to the ground?

Refrain:  Lift the wings that carry me away from here and fill the sail that breaks the line to home, but when miles and miles apart from you, I’m beside you when I think of you, Stoirin a gra (my treasure, my love).

How can a tree stand tall, if the rain won’t fall, to wash its branches down? 

How can the heart survive?  Can it stay alive, if its love’s denied for long?

 Refrain repeated  

These next two pertain to life after the journey abroad, after the Diaspora.  The first is a prayer number for a mixed choir, led by a strong baritone at center stage.

                   Heal Their Hearts, Feed Their Souls

(Solo) In the deep night, from a dark space, I can hear their voices calling out.  They are wounded, they are broken, but their spirit rises when awoken. 

Refrain: Yes, they may be poor in birth, but, yes, how great each one is worth.  Heal their hearts, feed their souls.  Their lives can be golden, if your love enfolds.

(Solo continued) In their dream times, in their visions, how they always hunger after freedom.  Every hard road, every dark road leads them on to reach a new horizon.  

Refrain repeated

(Men’s chorus) Lord, where is our freedom?  When will our hope begin?  We have waited for the time.  Lord, what of the promise you made?  When will it come? 

(Women’s chorus) Lord, what of our children?  Will they always depend on you?  Lord, why are they scattered and torn and their young hearts in chains?   How they hunger for liberty!  Feel their hatred of poverty.  Let their spirits rise soaring free.  Lord, let it come.  Our day will come.

(Combined chorus)  We have waited for the time, for the truth to live, when justice will shine.  Too long those hands of greed held on and made us bleed.  When will your people breathe?  Lord, will it come 

Refrain repeated

[I am especially drawn to the words ”When will your people breathe?”  A strong verbal image of the effects of social and political oppression!] 

A humorous tap dance contest between Afro-American kids and young Irish men dancing hard shoe is introduced here.  I mentioned it in the review.  Some sensational footwork in these moments!

                             Torn and Straight

Torn and straight – this is how we dance.  Torn and straight my father taught me – this is how we dance.  Battering feet on the city street, in pools of light on street corners!  The proud, bright carnival of the poor!

A solo bongo drum and the Spanish dancer (Maria Pages) joined by Colin Dunne provide the electrifying follow-up to the following tribute to the life force.

               Heartbeat of the World

Cry of an infant, heartbeat of the world!

Storm against ship, heartbeat of the world!

Heel against floor and wave upon shore, heartbeat of the world!

Sigh of a lover, heartbeat of the world!

Cry of a mother, heartbeat of the world!

Oh, unstopped heartbeat of the world!

The final song heard in “Riverdance” is my favorite, a fitting conclusion and summation of what the journey has been about..  I hope it will move all who hear it.

               Home and the Heartland

High in the sky through the clouds and rain every familiar field seems like an old friend, when every hand that you shake is like a warm embrace.  Could be the one sweet place – home and the heartland!

Refrain: Sing out your songs and ring out your stories and rhymes.  Weave from your dreams the mystical dances that lead us to bind in heart and mind.

As we circle the world with our wandering airs, gathering here and there, leaving behind our share.   Like the leaves on the wind they are blown along, melodies rising from home and the heartland.

Refrain repeated

To repeat what I indicated before, the DVD album can be rented from Netflix or it can be purchased from Warner Home Video Inc., 4000 Warner Blvd, Burbank, California 91522.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.

Riverdance Revisited by Bob Racine

                                    1hr & 40 min, color, 1995

Mysterious!  Bracing!  Illuminating!  Transfixing!  Reverent!  Celebrative!  Exhilarating!  Soul-stirring!  Uniquely Inspired and Inspiring!

I was not far into my first viewing of “Riverdance” in 1995, when I found myself experiencing all of the preceding.  I knew at once that I was in the presence of a piece of musical theater that was special in that it was more than an entertainment, though it surely is that.  It was and is a spiritual offering that calls forth the most sublime elements waiting to emerge from our human hearts.  When the show had its American premiere that year in New York, it caused a sensation; news of it spread like a wildfire and launched a Celtic revival here and worldwide (hence Celtic Woman, Celtic Thunder and many other musical groups that have since emerged).  Yes, we are approaching the twentieth anniversary of this stage marvel, after it has been staged in at least forty countries, perhaps more.

Some of the most ingenious choreography ever designed in the western world is the dazzling center piece.  No less than forty dancers participate, from various disciplines.  The highlight of it is a form of hard shoe that is not all that familiar in North America but is easy to get used to, and many including myself have come to love it.  It involves very little bending of the hips and a limited use of the forearms, with much of the performer’s control in the flexibility of the knees and legs.  The music in form is traditional Irish for the most part, but it draws from other cultures as well, even though the instrumentation is always that of a small ensemble, much on the order of the famous internationally esteemed Chieftains.  It is composed in large part of uilleann bagpipes, sometimes referred to as “union” pipes, with percussion, accordion, strings, guitar, mandolin, reeds, whistles and chimes accompanying.  The orchestra numbers only about a dozen players in this performance, but what a blast of sound they make!  Great lighting effects serve an awesome visual backdrop.  I daresay this is one stage production that would be next to impossible to perform non-professionally.  No high school or college or local community troupe is ever likely to attempt it, not the least because of the humungous personnel required both on stage and behind the scenes.  Beyond that, and more to the point, is the level of virtuosity demanded of just about all participants.   And there is not a sluggish moment anywhere to be found. 

“Riverdance” works best, if it is viewed altogether on one occasion, not in selected parts on scattered days, which may be the temptation when viewing it on DVD.  Doing it piecemeal is certainly not a waste of time; any segment of the whole would be entertaining and stimulating to the senses, but taken together, with an evening or afternoon set aside as one would allow for a movie or a play, a quality of experience over and above diversion is almost assured.  It is not a loosely jointed revue, with the acts piled up in random sequence.  There is a form and method in it.  Seen through one continuous viewing it provides a grander, loftier and more thrilling effect, an experience of serene beauty and wonderment.  

The original version I viewed in 1995 only lasted a little over an hour; it was an editing for TV from a longer treatment, whereas the DVD album I am plugging here, a televised performance for Radio City Music Hall that took place in 1996, runs a total of 100 minutes.  One conspicuous difference between what I saw back then and what we find in this expanded version is the use of narrated poetry, which is easy to follow because of subtitles.  This poetic material is largely the reason for the show’s unity.  It provides something of an arc that binds the entire work together.  And yet, the words are not in any way an encumbrance to the ballet.  These narrated passages are short in duration and link well with the dances and with the lyrics of the songs that have become mainstays. 

In my next blog entry I will be sharing excerpts from the songs and the poetry.  Look for it sometime during the coming week.

 

The first sound we hear is the band simulating, against a broad bass chord, the flow of many waters, and the first solemn words we hear in voice-over play like the beginning of an epic narrative:  “Out of the dark we came, out of the sea, where the long wave broke on the shore.  As the day rolled back, there we stood, on the land we would call home.  Out of the dark we came, out of the night, the first of many mornings in this place.  What burns through the rain and mist?  What banishes dark? . . .The sun is our lord and father. . .lord of the morning, lord of the day.  Lifting our hearts, we sing his praise and dance in the healing rays.”   These wondrous words introduce us to the reel into which the approaching dancers break.  From this breathtaking beginning we know that the history of humankind, from its most primal inception, out of the sea, is being mythologized, and we are off to make the journey in music, words and lively feet.  And, as I say, that is only the beginning!

The epic gathers up the interminable human struggle with its pain and its prosperity, its discoveries and its losses, its crises and the rewards of its perseverance.  There are hellos and goodbyes.  There is sunshine and storm, war and peace, settlement and migration, the grievous cry and the aspirations of the heart.  The music is never bizarre, unearthly, outlandish or revolutionary.  Each episode’s song and/or dance is grounded in a particular culture – Irish, Gaelic, Russian, Mideast, modern American.  There is even a sensational flamenco dancer, Maria Pages, who commands the stage during no less than three intervals.  What a force she is! 

It all climaxes with a celebration of home – “Home and the Heartland” (my favorite of the slow melodies, though they are all gorgeous).  There is a huge choral number that cries out for divine justice and for healing and nourishment of the soul, led by a super powerful baritone soloist.  The funniest treat has Afro-American street boys and Irish youth running a personal competition on an urban turf to see which can out tap the other and finally learning to embrace each other’s craft.  Of course the highlight is Riverdance, a forceful number in which the entire dance troupe participates, led by the stars of the show, Jean Butler and Colin Dunne – two incredibly accomplished talents, both of whom played a big part in the original creation of the show.

“Riverdance” is derived from one seven-minute presentation composed by a Limerick native named Bill Whelan that competed in the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest.  Its favorable reception there incited a husband and wife production team, John McColgan and Moya Doherty, to expand it into a stage show, with Whelan doing the musical composing and McColgan directing; it opened in Dublin on 9 February 1995, the cast and crew extremely nervous and fearful of failure. 

They did not fail, and the rest is history.

I have seen “Riverdance” many times since its premiere, including once live, and it always leaves me feeling filled up and running over.  As one who seeks evidence of the divine-in-the-midst in community with others who seek it, I feel I have joined hands with all such devotees from the earliest tribal adherents to those present and practicing.  Many of you, I am sure, have seen the show already.  See it again and turn yourself over to its persuasive power.  Make it new for yourself once more.  You can rent it from Netflix or purchase your own copy from Warner Home Video Inc., 4000 Warner Blvd, Burbank, California 91522 .

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.

When We All Asked Why (Essay by Bob Racine)

Do owls ever try to mimic humans?  Judging by this keen little folk tale one might think so. 

It seems there was this owl that got himself banished for life from the owl colony.  For life, no less!  He became a permanent pariah for having committed an unforgiveable sacrilege – gross profanity, an obscenity of speech.  He was heard repeating that three-letter word that owls are forbidden to utter under any circumstances, on pain of suffering the worst condemnation short of death itself.  All members of the colony consented to his excommunication.  He had to leave with nothing but the feathers on his back, the beak on his nose and his talon feet.  And what was that three-letter word?

Why-y-y-y!  Why-y-y-y!  His Who-o-o had got up and went!

Among us humans the punishment is nowhere near that drastic, except perhaps in the most fascist of societies.  The major division between the two-legged creatures of the earth is not race or ideology or skin color or hair style or any of a dozen or more differentiations we can dream up.  The major line in the sand is between the Who people and the Why people.  No one stands on a tree branch and croons it out.  We express the attribute, whichever it is, through lifestyle and through the rigors of our individual minds.  The Who people are the ones who are always clamoring for someone to imitate or to tell them how to think and walk.  Who do we look up to with open-mouthed, rapt worship?  Who do we trust to lead us into safety?  Who do we appoint as our leader?  Who do we elect to the high councils of superior wisdom?  Whose wearing apparel do we copy?  Who do we follow across the battlefield and perhaps even into the jaws of death?  Who do we idolize for their talent and for their charisma?  Who do we elect to Who’s Who?  

All would be convenient, if everyone played the Who game.  But no such luck!  Along come those perplexing, infuriating, pesky, disruptive, mind-bending Why people, always dissatisfied with simple solutions, always asking maddening questions, always probing below the surface of popular and traditional assumptions, always pounding on the door to request deeper explanations.  These boat-rocking free thinkers and iconoclasts, always challenging us and making us feel guilty for our one-dimensional codifications!        

There was a time when each and every one of us was a Why person – when we were yea-high.  “Why is the sky always blue?”  “Why do I have to go to bed now; it’s only 9:00?”  A bedtime question, seemingly devised to stall: “Why can’t a mouse eat a Greyhound bus?”  Patiently the parent replies, “Because a mouse’s stomach is too small for a Greyhound bus.  Now, goodnight!”  But the kid will not be put off so easily.  “Why does a cat have long whiskers?”  Eager for bed as well, Mom or Dad releases a tired breath and tries to wangle out of a biological, scientific question beyond the pale of their acquired learning by delivering a pun reply:  “Because it doesn’t know how to shave itself!  Now, goodnight!  Goodnight!”  But the kid, wishing to elevate the subject of lower animals to a preposterous level, comes forth in elevated voice with a real doozy:  “Why can’t a cow have kittens?”  

The parent is struck dumb by that one.  Wishing the other parent was also present to share in the befuddlement, it is this parent’s turn to do some stalling.  This question strikes right to the heart of all things earthbound and fertile and mysterious.  Drawing a deep breath, the ragged reply finally stumbles out of the mouth.  “Well – because – a cow has – little calves.  A-n-d, a cat has little kittens, and – (enough being enough) besides, it’s easier that way.  Now goodnight!  Goodnight!  Goodnight!”   

But comes the day when that young ’un makes the most embarrassing of all inquiries:  “Why-y-y don’t you answer my questions?”  And we parents are forced to make a meek confession: “Because we don’t have the answers!  We are not, after all, that voice of infinite wisdom you’ve assumed we are.  [Pregnant pause, as they cast a sympathetic glance at the kid’s face]  Sorry about that!  You’ll have to do your own digging, and lots of luck!”  

  

For much of my early life I was fed the notion that those without answers were lost – lost in sin perhaps, lost to themselves, directionless.  There was an old evangelical hymn with these words:  “Jesus, Savior, pilot me, over life’s tempestuous sea!”  A line in it reads “chart and compass come from thee.”  Perhaps it is appropriate to think that those who feel a personal connection to the cosmic Christ do derive some directional benefit from that, but so often I looked to the doctrines of my inner circle of believers and the Bible Belt to which I was attached on the assumption that they held the infallible key to stability and smooth sailing and right thinking.  They were the Christ pilot incarnate.  I was not taught to do much thinking of my own.  Most of us by now should understand that it is not the people without the answers who are lost in this world.  It is the people without the questions.   Nobody has the answers wrapped up in a neat bundle.  Nobody knows all that there is to know.  The excitement of living inside the questions and examining their contours satisfies far more than being spoon fed simple platitudes.  The Why is so much more challenging than the Who.  We should never be afraid or hesitant about asking the Why question, whatever the sacred cow that is threatened by it. 

Politicians feel compelled to play the Who game, even if only as an ace to trump all opposition, either to themselves as a candidate for office or to the drift of their party’s supposedly tried and tested principles of governance.  In this past midterm election many pollsters claimed to have detected a good many voters who cast their ballots with their emotions, not their reasoning.  It is an age of fear in which we live and, worse than fear, distrust.  Distrust of campaign promises, distrust of government in general, disappointment with those in power and distrust of those knocking at the door to be given the mantle of authority.  Many, according to these pollsters, used their vote as a gambling chip to bet on indefinable and only vaguely certifiable odds.  If you do not like the hand you have been dealt, ask for another and hope for the best, which may or may not materialize.   How sad!   

Thankful nevertheless we ought to be for our electoral system.  Even if we vote into office a passel of blind bats and it takes us time to realize our mistake, we know that none of them has to stay in power for more than four years, some no more than two.  The founding fathers must have realized that absolutes are elusive, maybe even non-existent, to have set things up that way.  They erected barriers to the founding of dynasties and empires – barriers that have at times been penetrated to be sure, but only for a season.  Cults and subcultures in a pluralistic society such as ours are inevitable; they go with the territory.  Who wants the heavy royal hand freezing all assets of individual initiative and imagination?  Bring on the social and political complexity.  The opposite is too grim even to be contemplated.

Frankly I prefer to see my country struggling to find the chart and compass.  I would rather see it racked somewhat by the tentative than overrun by some white knight figure offering a cut and dried policy and program aimed at putting all things in perfect sacrosanct order.  A little doubt on the part of the electorate is healthy; it can be the great leveler or it can be a brake to spare us as a society from plunging head first into frantic decision making and a wanton wreckage of our nation’s resources.  How will the next four years play out?  There is really no way to know at this time.  But that outcome will not depend entirely upon who is in office or which party holds the trump card.  It will also depend upon how well the current disillusionment and distrust are overcome.  Neither political party has all the answers, any more than our clay-footed parents did.

                                               

[Special note:  The gag about the kid stalling the parent with why questions is one I borrowed – in part, but only in part – from Harry Belafonte.  He featured it on a recording of his I heard many years ago.  He provided the situation; I have embellished it with my own details.  Thank you, Harry!]

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.