...waiting for dawn
rue Sainte-Famille, 6 am
We're up early, because we're moving home today. It's been a fascinating month, much of it lived high above the city, but I am so happy to be going home.
Today is a quiet day. I'm cleaning, doing laundry, making a big dish of scalloped potatoes for tomorrow evening's choir potluck, after we're all done, and catching up on a bit of blog reading and writing.
So here is some music (these are both pieces that we sang yesterday):
and here is the link to tomorrow's Easter Evensong by my own choir, to be broadcast on Sunday at 4:00 pm eastern daylight savings time, where you can hear us performing Ralph Vaughn Williams' "Five Mystical Songs" and a number of other works. It would be lovely to think of a few of you out there listening! (Go to the link and click the arrow where it says "Nous écouter en direct" (listen to us live.)
Visual art, not to be missed: RR's enigmatic and brilliant series of photographs entitled "Stations of the Week," at her blog Twisted Rib, of which she writes:
This series was inspired by a comment by Beth to an earlier post which was, not particularly wittily, entitled Stations of the cross London rail journey. She picked up on my (embarrassingly flippant) reference to the Christian tradition of the Stations of the Cross and asked “Why not do a whole set of contemporary London “stations of the cross” during Holy Week?”
This left me in something of a dilemma. I loved the idea but am not a Christian and know little of the iconography of the Stations of the Cross nor the ritual and significance of Holy Week. I felt uncomfortable about attempting anything relating to something I knew nothing about...
However it occurred to me... that they didn’t have to be an equivalent of or reference to anything in particular, they could be dealt out in pairs over the seven days (14 stations over one week) just as they are, working together or not, working with the viewer or not, but as a possible prompt for reflection.
Station 12, by RR
And, finally, here's a wonderful post, with very moving photographs, about the ordination of a Buddhist nun in Korea two days ago; she is an American woman who I met online seven years ago. As I wrote to her just now, to me the message of both our paths seems the same: May we love one another, may our hearts be as one, may we all cease wrong-doing, may all beings one day be free.
I love that photo of the railroad--and yes to the message...my path too.
Posted by: Lilian Nattel | April 07, 2012 at 11:34 AM
You picked my favourite! Some of the tracks at Clapham Junction, the busiest railway station in the UK.Thank you, Beth, I'm so happy you are enjoying them. I too loved the ordination post and am honoured to be on the same bill :-)
Posted by: rr | April 07, 2012 at 01:33 PM
Lilian: thank you for the affirmation, and I think rr probably saw your comment on the photo, as she was the next commenter!
rr: Well, I'm not sure I could have picked an absolute favorite -- but I do love this one, and it actually contains a cross!
Posted by: Beth | April 07, 2012 at 01:47 PM
This is very rich. Makes me feel out of things as far as music goes. One of my big regrets of aging is that I have lost a lot of my hearing.
Posted by: Hattie | April 09, 2012 at 05:16 PM