Chopin’s Nocturnes Tinkling the Keys of Consciousness

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Chopin, classical music, Collective consciousness, Consciousness, inspiration, Maurice Sapiro, music, nocturnes, Piano, Thierry de Brunhoff

Orient Point, Full Moon by Maurice Sapiro

I spent Sunday morning in bed with my coffee listening to Chopin’s complete nocturnes playing on my phone beside me. Think of that. Music created centuries ago played by a pianist years ago streaming in my room, my consciousness, here and now.

Each keystroke playing me as if I was the instrument it played. As if the music arising in the room with no piano in sight were fingers keying notes within the body of some vast collective consciousness.

Aside from the way the notes rippled through me, thrilling and caressing and demanding, was that crystalline silence between each song and each hovering note. The silence that held thought at bay as I listened. The silence that allowed feeling to be all, to allow me, whatever this me is, and this music, whatever this music is, to be one entirely inseparable thing.

There is no end to this.

It is a thing apart.

Perfect Pairings, Evans’s “Peace Piece” & Sapiro’s Skies

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art, beauty, Bill Evans, inspiration, jazz, Maurice Sapiro, music, Paintings, peace

Reflections on Golden Pond by Maurice Sapiro

Bill Evans’s “Peace Piece” is “an unrehearsed modal composition that he recorded for his “Everybody Digs Bill Evans” LP in 1958. It is hailed as one of the most beautiful and evocative solo piano improvisations ever recorded.”

I discovered this music at Ken Chawkins’s website The Uncarved Block, and I quite agree. I played it over and over again, it was so soothing and deliciously eloquent. You can read more about this work and Bill Evans, who is considered by some as the world’s greatest jazz pianist, at the link above.

“Peace Piece” pairs so beautifully with the evocative artwork of Maurice Sapiro, which shares the same sense of depth and richness. I discovered Sapiro’s work years ago when I first began blogging, and I’ve been a fan ever since.  His ethereal, dreamlike images capture ‘the moment when natures fuses light and air.” From that fusing comes a haunting beauty and deep, abiding peace. Like Evans’s “Peace Piece.”

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. 

Dance of the Clouds by Maurice Sapiro, oil on panel

Hammomasstet Sunburst

Any Port in a Storm

Mist

Painting Gold on the Water

Skylight II

The Subtle Nuance

Moonglow

The Six-Foot Sunset

Orient Point, Full Moon

Moon, Clouds and Falls

 

 

Self Portrait – “Melt into that Fierce Heat of Living”

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"A Sunset to Remember", "Fire in the Earth", "Self Portrait", art, David Whyte, Maurice Sapiro, poetry

A Sunset to Remember by Maurice Sapiro

Self Portrait

by David Whyte

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

From “Fire in the Earth”

It’s such a pleasure to find poetry and art that come together to speak the very thing you need to say, the very thing that captures you, where you are, now, this minute.  My deep gratitude to poets and artists everywhere, and today, especially to these two.  You can find more of their work at these links.

Maurice Sapiro Art Gallery

David Whyte Poetry