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Just Sit

2022_05_11_have_a_seat

It’s waiting for you. It really is waiting for you. Why encourage your attention in so many unhelpful directions? Why the mindless immersion in phenomenal distraction, so endlessly? Where does that road lead but the need for more and more of the momentarily scintillating quiver of emptiness before your eyes, the drunk dance in name and form?

Just sit. In a chair, on a cushion.

Just sit.

Sit and let your connection to breath settle into softness.

To settle into Moment.

Into You.

Matt Semke, “have a seat” (2022)
www.catswilleatyou.com

The Eyes That See I

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See this photo of a group of friends and musical colleagues out for a walk to the sea in Holland, circa 1906. Linger over each slowly to drink in the subtle energies of the several sets of eyes there:

Mahler with Willem Mengelberg, et al., at the seaside in Holland, 1906.

While there are smiles as would be typical for such a setting, among all, there is only one gaze boring straight down unflinching into the very heart of existence itself. The eyes of all the others float normally in the distraction of flitting ephemera and phenomena, coming and going. Do you see it? Do you see it?

More importantly, do those eyes really see you? Because they actually can. I say that with real conviction, because the vision in those eyes certainly see me — my struggles and questions and psychology and soul. I know that from experience. Just give your attention to one of his symphonies, and your soul will recognise that it is being seen, in all its shadows and contours.

A sensation in the throat rises up and quite nearly throttles me, even in a merely cursory viewing of this photo. Several dozens of viewings of this photo, over decades, do not diminish this effect .

And in this photo itself is the entire meaning of Jesus’s own position, with not a single iota of difference: “Being” which is in the world, but not of the world. The look in those two eyes reveals a cosmic view, not narrowed by the surroundings of society or setting.

Despite my strong Catholic ancestry and education, pre-training in the Jesuit priesthood, and a master’s degree in comparative religion earned at the feet of some of the shining lights of modern theology at Harvard Divinity School (and continued interest and fascination in the Early Church), you would be impossibly hard-pressed to convince me that this cosmic soul — so painfully revealed, tortured, and ground to a premature death by his demons and foes five years ago this week after this photo was taken — is any iota less a man/god “Christ” than the one you see painted in churches and art.

Here is another view into him seeing into you:

And on his final journey back home to die, May 2011:

If you want to “see” how he has already seen you — and he has already seen you, and it sees you still –here are a few places to start. I link here only the most accessible snippets — the full symphonies to which they belong provide the fullest picture:

Gustav Mahler   Adagietto   Leonard Bernstein

THIS seeing is nearly unbearable. In choosing this video for the post, I needed to listen to a few bars first. Before one minute was reached, I had to switch it off — too deep, too deeply being seen so completely for this hour of the day: (link will move you to YouTube)

Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G - 3. Ruhevoll (Poco adagio)

And, of course, the Last Seeing — perhaps the intensest and rawest of all:

Mahler: Symphony  9 part 4 : Adagio - BPO / Karajan***