Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy New Year!


New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. - Hamilton Wright Mabie

As another year comes to its end I want to thank all of you for your patronage of my blog and wish you a spectacular New Year 2013. May all your dreams come true! 

With much Love, Light and Laughter  - Dominique


Sunday, December 30, 2012

Discovery of Heaven


Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, 
you are always right. - Henry Ford

Only a few days ago I met a colleague whom I did not see for a while. He wasn't doing well at all. In fact, I do not remember ever seeing him happy. He was in "hell" as things in his life seemed to have fallen apart  long ago and the regular dose of antidepressants made only minimal impact on his mood. He completely gave up on his life and hoped to die soon. He admitted that he was a coward and would never be able to take his own life, but to speed things up he started smoking again. He smoked the strongest cigarillos in hope that his heart would give up and his "end" would somehow come sooner.

This year wasn't "good" for many people. Economy, politics, natural disasters, terrorism, personal tragedies - there wasn't a month that wouldn't shock us with some horrible news. I can imagine that many people do not have much hope right now. But a new year always comes as a blessing. It always means a new beginning. We should look at new year not only with hope, but with new energy and determination to make things better.

If things were bad for us in 2012, we want to change them. If we failed, we hope for strength and new opportunities. We have dreams and new ideas. We make promises and write down our New Year's resolutions. 

No matter how bad things were the previous year, we do not want to give up without a try. We hope for change and understand that much depends on us and our beliefs about the world and our place in it. 

What struck me about my colleague was his complete loss of will to take control over his own life. Not that he did not have any options. He simply believed that all that happened in his life was his karma and he deserved it all. The misery he was in was a retribution for evil he must have committed in his previous lives. No amount of persuasion would change his mind. He created this hell on earth and deserved to be punished, but at the same time he admitted that he was exhausted and could not take anymore pain.

This was quite shocking to me. I do not have the right to judge anyone but it seems really odd to me that a rational person would relinquish control of his life to an abstract construct of a mind. Imagine, what if there was no such thing as karma? What if we had the power to change what happens to us? What if we could change the direction in which our lives were unfolding? What if we were free to choose "heaven on earth" instead of endless suffering in a self-made hell? What if we were always right no matter what we believed? What if our dreams could come true if only we had them?

As my colleague described his situation I realized that his problem consisted of many smaller issues that had to be addressed separately, one by one, something he did not realize since he saw his life as one big mess: failed marriage, depression and insurmountable debt. At least he still had a job. But this did not matter as he enjoyed it less and less and even considered giving it up...

If you consider yourself a failure and believe that there is no way out, you may be a living proof of your own believe. You are right! A self-fulfilling prophecy, a loser who only attracts disasters and does not even know that he can take control of his own life. 
 
Horrible things happen to many of us, but what makes us winners or losers in the game of life is our resilience, or lack of it, and our response to circumstances.

Some people have the remarkable talent to pick themselves up and start anew. The pain, the loss, the suffering will and should not be forgotten, but are looked upon as life lessons and opportunities for growth and change.

We can choose happiness. We have the power to create our own heaven on earth no matter what. If we believe that we deserve to be happy we will find the strength to deal with our  problems. We will be able to attract people who may suggest solutions where we've seen none. 

End of the year is a perfect moment to start anew. No matter what your current circumstances are, make a wish and hold on to it. And if you believe that you will succeed, you definitely will. Do not give up on yourself. Do not give up without a fight. Wish for more. Discover heaven. Dream.
 
By Dominique Teng

Dominique Teng©2012

Friday, December 28, 2012

Chopin's Small Miracles

Frédéric Chopin by Bogusław Orliński
 Frédéric Chopin by Bogusław Orliński

By David Dubal

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), whose 200th anniversary it is this year, is the overwhelming favorite composer for the piano. He possessed the most subtle intuitions and fathomed the mysteries of the world. Oscar Wilde once said of him, "After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed and mourning over tragedies that were not my own."  

Most of the 24 Chopin Preludes were sketched out between 1837 and 1838. They are the ultimate miniatures. In an age when the symphony and sonata still held sway, writing these aphoristic Preludes was revolutionary. All except two contain a single musical idea, each boiled down to its essence. Never had brevity been so brief. Ten are under a minute in length; nine last just over a minute. Only the celebrated No. 15, the so-called "Raindrop Prelude," attains the length characteristic of a small piece, clocking in at 4½ minutes.

Fourteen of the Preludes are full of light, gaiety, serenity and a kind of happiness. Seven contain anguish, rage and fury. Three are simply sorrowful. No matter how tiny, the Preludes loom large musically. Each one is a masterpiece of compressed emotion blended with an unequaled pianistic ingenuity and originality. Many of them are horribly difficult to play. When Robert Schumann read them, he proclaimed Chopin to be the "proudest poet soul of the age."

What was the inspiration? As a child in Warsaw, Chopin was nourished on the then practically unknown preludes and fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach, composed in each of the major and minor keys and collectively known as "The Well-Tempered Clavier." Chopin was one of the rare pianists of his time who played most of them, and Bach remained his ideal. During the creation of the Preludes he was particularly obsessed with Bach, and took "The Well-Tempered Clavier" with him on a vacation to Majorca in November 1838, where the Preludes were refined and polished.  

Bach's preludes, some of considerable length, need their fugues, but Romantic composers did not often use this musical form. Each of Chopin's Preludes is self-sufficient, but they were composed, like Bach's, with one for each major and minor key. Since nothing follows them, one may ask what these works are a prelude to - certainly to another Prelude or, poetically speaking, perhaps a prelude to the infinite. We don't know if Chopin intended them to be played as a cycle, although today's pianists usually perform them that way in recital.

The completion of the Preludes formed one of the most harrowing episodes in the composer's short life. When Chopin and his companion, the novelist George Sand, first got to Majorca he was ecstatic. But he soon became nervous, as the piano his friend Camille Pleyel, the music publisher and piano builder, had promised to send him had not yet arrived. By early December Chopin had become gravely ill and the Majorcans, terrified of what was known as consumption (tuberculosis today), made life very unpleasant for the group. To make matters worse, the piano was stuck at customs for weeks, forcing Chopin to rent a wretched replacement. Pleyel's piano was finally delivered in early January, and the Preludes were finished late that month. 

In these tiny microcosms Chopin established the hegemony of the Romantic miniature. His Preludes would find progeny later in the preludes of Scriabin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and others. 

Space does not permit a detailed analysis of all 24, but mention of a few may give a sense of their character: 

•No. 1 in C major : An exquisite example of Chopin's devotion to Bach. Pulsating and agitated, it is over in half a minute, leaving the listener yearning for more.

•No. 2 in A minor: A lugubrious melody seems to hang in the air. Ingmar Bergman made impressive use of the piece in his film "Autumn Sonata." 

•No. 4 in E minor: A slender melody over rich, slow-moving chordal harmonies with the left hand. It, along with the B Minor (No. 6) and C Minor (No. 20) Preludes, was played on the organ at Chopin's funeral at the Church of La Madeleine in Paris on Oct. 30, 1849. 

•No. 7 in A major: Sixteen bars of pure grace.

•No. 8 in F-sharp minor: A highly textured polyrhythmic piece, the melody of this feverish, throbbing vision is played entirely with the right thumb. One of the greatest of the Preludes.

•No. 19 in E-flat major: Pure azure contentment in triplets for both hands, marked "Vivace." To play it through unscathed is an achievement. 

•No. 24 in D minor : Marked "Allegro appassionato," a tremendous discharge of despairing passion, concluding with three foreboding D's from the bowels of the piano.

Probably more people have come to great music through Chopin than from any other composer. In my case, growing up in Cleveland, I used to listen to a radio show whose theme music entranced me at first hearing but was never identified by the host. Although the show aired much past my usual bedtime, I would occasionally sneak down the stairs, turn the radio on at low volume and drink in the strains of this music, over so quickly that I listened with all my might. It was not until somewhat later, when I was taking piano lessons, that I found out that it was No. 7, the Prelude in A Major. Not too long after that I could play it myself, which was bliss! Only later did I find out that there were 23 more Preludes that I would love equally, and in later years would come to study and teach.

About the author:

Mr. Dubal is a professor of piano performance at the Juilliard School and the author of "The Art of the Piano" and "The Essential Canon of Classical Music." His radio program, "The Piano Matters," can be heard world-wide on www.wwfm.org.


Article source here
Image source here 

Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas!


Christmas waves 
a magic wand 
over this world, 
 and behold, 
everything is softer 
and more beautiful. 

Norman Vincent Peale

Wishing everyone magical Christmas time ~ Dominique



Friday, December 21, 2012

Imagined Perfection

Happy Winter Solstice!

The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That’s the only lasting thing you can create. - Chuck Palahniuk in "Choke"

Image by Roman Shalenkin 
Image source here

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Timeless Universe

 The Frosty Leo Nebula
 The Frosty Leo Nebula

The underlying state of the universe is timeless. Before the first nanosecond of the Big Bang, there was only the potential for time in a dimension of all possibilities, after which quantum objects (energy, spin, charge, gravity), emerged. A potential doesn’t have a life span. It encompasses past, present, and future. The ground state of physics turns out to resemble the zero state of samadhi.

Once these timeless possibilities begin to collapse into space-time events, our connection to eternity seems lost. That is an illusion, though, fostered by our dependence on clock time. You have always been eternal; you still are. - Deepak Chopra in "War of the Worldviews: Science Vs. Spirituality"

Three thousand light-years from Earth lies the strange protoplanetary nebula IRAS 09371+1212, nicknamed the Frosty Leo Nebula. Despite their name, protoplanetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets: they are formed from material shed from their aging central star. The Frosty Leo Nebula has acquired its curious name as it has been found to be rich in water in the form of ice grains, and because it lies in the constellation of Leo.

This nebula is particularly noteworthy because it has formed far from the galactic plane, away from interstellar clouds that may block our view. The intricate shape comprises a spherical halo, a disc around the central star, lobes and gigantic loops. This complex structure strongly suggests that the formation processes are complex and it has been suggested that there could be a second star, currently unseen, contributing to the shaping of the nebula.

Protoplanetary nebulae like the Frosty Leo Nebula have brief lifespans by astronomical standards and are precursors to the planetary nebula phase, in which radiation from the star will make the nebula’s gas light up brightly. Their rarity makes studying them a priority for astronomers who seek to understand better the evolution of stars.

Image and description source here

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Winter


Yes, I was the brilliance floating over the snow
and I was the song in the summer leaves, but this was
only the first trick
I had hold of among my other mythologies,
for I also knew obedience: bring sticks to the nest,
food to the young, kisses to my bride.

But don’t stop there, stay with me: listen.

If I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed,
and thus wilderness bloomed that, with all its
followers: gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the death of rivers.

And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body. Do you understand? for truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart.

By Mary Oliver


Thursday, December 13, 2012

What Is Wrong With the Christmas Tree?


Here we are again! The Christmas tree debate. This happens every year as soon as people start taking the Christmas tree ornaments out of their storage and Christmas trees start to appear in front yards and in public squares. And what can you say when the First Tree is no longer called a Christmas tree, but a Holiday Tree? 

Never mind that Christmas tree is a tradition cherished by Christians. Pundits all over the liberal media give us wise explanations how the Christmas tree is simply a pagan or a pre-Christian symbol, something the ignorant Christians who stupidly insist on calling it a "Christmas" tree, are not even aware of... 


For lack of better analogy, let me give you an example. How would you feel if your birthday was on December 13 and you wanted to celebrate it with joy just like millions others who were born on that day, but someone told you that you could not call it "your birthday" because by doing so you were excluding every single person on earth who wasn't born on that day? What if the only politically correct way to celebrate your birthday was to simply celebrate the Day of December 13 so that everyone who felt like celebrating this holiday could participate at will? What if someone told you that your "birthday" cake is a symbol of the womb and the seven layers of chocolate symbolized the shaman's steps to higher awareness? What if the chocolate on your cake wasn't simply a chocolate, but an offering to the gods? Would you still celebrate your birthday? Or would you rather allow your critics to suppress your joy and celebrate the December 13 instead? 

Like many other religions, Christianity incorporated symbols and rituals of the peoples that were converted to it. Churches were erected on the remains of Roman, Celtic, Etruscan, Slavic, and Nordic temples. Many converts retained their religious practices and beliefs and gradually incorporated them into Christianity. Many Christian symbols evolved from symbols as old the the human collective consciousness itself.

Religious syncretism is known to other religions as well. Take Buddhism, for instance: the Chinese Buddhism incorporated elements of Taoism; Tibetan Buddhism included elements of the Bon religion that it wanted to suppress; in Japan Buddhism had to compete with Shinto and made the use of its concepts of purity.

Religions may be the last bastion of conservatism, but they evolve as well. They adapt to new circumstances, cultural necessities and spiritual needs of the faithful. The change may be slow, but it occurs independently from what the scriptures dictate. 

No one dares to attack the Jews for lightening a menora. Yes. It is called menora and not a holiday candle stand. And no one feels "excluded" because the Jews celebrate "their" Chanukah even if we are not invited. So why is there so much noise about the Christmas tree?  

Christmas tree is a Christmas tree and not a "holiday" tree. This is why you do not see it when people celebrate Cinco de Mayo or the October Revolution. This is why people decorate their Christmas trees around Christmas and not in July. 

We are living in a modern world where heretics and apostates are not burned at stake any longer. We are free to chose our religion or to practice none. One would have thought the persecution of religion is a thing of the past, but how true is this when we live and let live until the December and wage a "war on a Christmas tree" as soon as we see one?

I don't know on which side of the divide you are right now and whether you celebrate Christmas at all, if you want to have a Wicca tree in your yard go for it, but let the people who love Christmas trees in peace. Take some time to reflect and simply enjoy the beauty of the Season with all its sights, sounds and scents.


By Dominique Teng

Dominique Teng©2012 

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Nuclear Winter


By Robert Lamb 

Call it par­anoia or keen insight, but humans have long pondered the possibility that the end of the world won't come as the result of warring gods or cosmic mishap, but due to our own self-destructive tendencies. Once nomads in the primordial wilds, we've climbed a ladder of technology, taken on the mantle of civilization and declared ourselves masters of the planet. But how long can we lord over our domain without destroying ourselves? After all, if we learned nothing else from "2001: A Space Odyssey" it's that if you give a monkey a bone, it inevitably will beat another monkey to death with it.

Genetically fused to our savage past, we've cut a blood-drenched trail through the centuries. We've destroyed civilizations, waged war and scarred the face of the planet with our progress - and our weapons have grown more powerful. Following the first successful test of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945, Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer brooded on the dire implications. Later, he famously invoked a quote from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." 
 
In the decades following that detonation, humanity quaked with fear at atomic weaponry. As the global nuclear arsenal swelled, so, too, did our dread of the breed of war we might unleash with it. As scientists researched the possible ramifications of such a conflict, a new term entered the public vernacular: nuclear winter. If the sight of a mushroom cloud burning above the horizon suggests that the world might end with a bang, then nuclear winter presents the notion that post-World War III humanity might very well die with a whimper.

Since the early 1980s, this scenario has permeated our most dismal visions of the future: Suddenly, the sky blazes with the radiance of a thousand suns. Millions of lives burn to ash and shadow. Finally, as nuclear firestorms incinerate cities and fo­rests, torrents of smoke ascend into the atmosphere to entomb the planet in billowing, black clouds of ash.

The result is noontime darkness, plummeting temperatures and the eventual death of life on planet Earth. 

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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Extreme Weather


The wind blew my words away from you. So while I told you I love you, the phrase was carried in the opposite direction and landed 333 miles away in the ears of a confused farmer. He was nice, though. He sent me a kind letter saying that while he was flattered, I wasn’t really his type. - Jarod Kintz in "The Days of Yay are Here! Wake Me Up When They're Over"


Saturday, December 1, 2012

I Heard a Bird Sing


I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.
'We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,'
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

By Oliver Herford