How to Shift the Universe

 

The omnīzon is the great bloom of events,
rather like an explosion of wildflowers
in the springtime of the year.

The trajectory of each subject coincides
with the trajectory of every object
arising from evolving space-time.

All that is real and true is here,
including all the secrets of nature
into which God has retreated, not withdrawn.

The intention of each wave and particle
is equally met by energy
from this sacred well of infinity.

Thoughts blossom, nestled within other thoughts,
billowing in all directions like bubbles and balloons,
some of which pop, while the others float onward.

Superseded thoughts remain threads of the fabric,
for nothing is gained, neither is it lost,
but that it might be found useful, sometime.

Words emerge along the fabric of thought;
shall they be seamed into action,
or shall they be knit as speculative plan?

What shall signify as intent is linear,
but the word as she is spoken and sung
is the event that makes worlds and music.

Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?
the query rings from the corporate stages
of the multidimensional concert hall.

This interruption, in future interrogatory mode,
signals present pressing need of other,
a cry from the unincorporated that cannot be ignored.

On the answer to this question
all future laws, prophets, devices and worlds depend;
the omnīzon and infinite space between await your reply.

For example, when I said, Here I am; send me,
the universe shifted, and when I ventured to ask, For how long?
came the reply: Until each now passes into each next, forever.

© 2022 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com

Note: I created the term omnīzon about 30 years ago, when I was toying with writing a science fiction journey novel loosely modeled on Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle and the chakra system. My manuscript is incomplete and unpublished, but the term I created lives on with me. What does it mean? The event of the cosmos happens in all directions simultaneously, and there are systems within systems within systems, as well as systems that impinge on other systems to draw or create energy. Every moment, however that is measured, is a new creation, the shifted/altered/re-formed universe. In science fiction, there is the important notion of responsibility for changes made to the space time continuum. If only every sentient being would live up to this responsibility!

Image credit:

Gordon Onslow-Ford

Constellations in Hand, 1961 

Parle's paint and aqua polymer on canvas;
permanent collection of SFMOMA

Morning Meeting

        for my friend K.N.M.

 

Standing in the cool morning air,
in consideration of self and solitude,
a sudden joyous flutter distracts;
another self’s beating wings brush by,
for there will be sweet nectar
to imbibe in the bye and bye,
but first, a turn and a level gaze.

 

So pointed a greeting,
subject to subject 
—for we are each subjects
within a realm, a paradise,
sharing a language of wonder
whose name we cannot know,
but by all reckoning must be Life.

 

This shared gaze opens a window,
through which the bumblebee flies,
casting us only a sidelong glance;
engagement would only tarry
the work of bud embracing
on which all creation depends,
so to our tête-à-tête we are left.  

 

This wordless meeting draws me
to recall a nearly forgotten music,

a tune perhaps heard by us both, 
even if only in such waves and echoes 
as still radiate from the first such encounter,
which might well live on in fluid eddies
as the song of eternal return.

 

This mutual gaze cannot last,

for this, our singular moment, it must end;
this language we live
cannot abide the invariable:
all moments must transcend,
capitulating to the music and meter of next,
to the changing changeable.

 

We know one another only by sight,
and to that degree, perhaps not at all,
but the blessing that we have delighted,
to look and to see, with equal curiosity,
sharing the light of the same sun,
must have changed us, in ways we’ll surely discover
within the cocoons of our solitary dreaming.

 

© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com

 

Meetings – A Remembrance of Dawn Foster-Dodson

I wrote the poem you will read below for Dawn in 2002 and revised it in 2004; who knows, perhaps it is not truly finished. This poem is actually about Dawn and her relationships with her cello and with one piece of music, Max Bruch’s Op. 47, Kol Nidre. But really, it is about the will and freedom of the spirit to express beauty.

I had the honor and joy to hear Dawn play Bruch’s Kol Nidre each year on Erev Kol Nidre from 1997 to 2015 at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, most of those years in collaboration with organist Michael Secour.

Over those years, Dawn’s relationship with this piece and with her cello, as well as her ensemble with Michael, deepened and expanded. I was amazed to experience her cello’s voice growing in depth and expression, Dawn’s touch of the bow on the strings becoming so second nature into meditation – the experience of hearing her became more and more translucent, if that at all makes sense. The sadness of the melody really was an uplifted prayer, less sad than a balm of love, poured out for all in the sanctuary, and beyond the beautiful stained glass windows of the synagogue, released into the world.

In the early years, Dawn used sheet music. Over the years, I could see that piece of sheet music was well-loved; it became dog-eared and worn on the edges from use. One year, she came to services without the music. Of course, she didn’t need it anymore. She hadn’t needed it for years and years. The music stand and the music copy had long become superfluous – she always closed her eyes and just played. She had transcended that barrier.

Every year, Dawn and Michael would play that piece for an assembled congregation of at least a thousand or more, over the course of two evening services. And every year, she drew the congregation away from their cares, concerns, fidgeting, drew them into their prayers with her music. You could hear a pin drop, it was so quiet, as if the congregation was holding an uncharacteristic but necessary border of silence around Dawn and her cello, Michael and the organ, to protect the precious fragility of the beauty being recreated for them.

And every year, at the last note, a collective sigh of thanksgiving for that translucent, shimmering beauty sent all those prayers aloft to Adonai. Every year. When her illness kept her from us last year, another kind of sigh was heard. And this year, a different one yet shall be heard.

Dawn, Dear One, with tears, my soul sings the shimmering, translucence of your transcendence, as a prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty of your life among us.

Meetings

Paper worn,
sheets so old
there's no rustle left in them,
more like felt under her fingers,
or softer yet,
like the worn cheek
of a beloved old friend.

Settling the pages,
making them comfortable,
she arranged herself,
just close enough
to see the signs and symbols,
and on them meditate.

Cradling the instrument
within her warm embrace,
she took a long, deep breath,
filling her being with its sweetness.

Fixing her gaze
on those worn pages—
old friends, revisited often;
“the rules of engagement,”
she had once heard;
an apt description,
the thought occurred
—she drew the bow,
forward over the strings.

Then she leaned back,
closed her eyes,
and let the bow find the strings,
the way that they would do,
just now.

Inner ear to mind,
mind to thought,
idea to quill,
quill to manuscript,
symbols dot paper,
shapes greet the eye,
horsehair strokes steel,
steel vibrates wood,
wood sings,
space hums,
body rejoices,
soul soars.

The sum
of all these meetings
is God’s voice,
heard as music.

© 2017 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meetings

Paper worn,
sheets so old
there's no rustle left in them,
more like felt under her fingers,
or softer yet,
like the worn cheek
of a beloved old friend.

Settling the pages,
making them comfortable,
she arranged herself,
just close enough
to see the signs and symbols,
and on them meditate.

Cradling the instrument
within her warm embrace,
she took a long, deep breath,
filling her being with its sweetness.

Fixing her gaze
on those worn pages—
old friends, revisited often;
“the rules of engagement,”
she had once heard;
an apt description,
the thought occurred
—she drew the bow,
forward over the strings.

Then she leaned back,
closed her eyes,
and let the bow find the strings,
the way that they would do,
just now.

Inner ear to mind,
mind to thought,
idea to quill,
quill to manuscript,
symbols dot paper,
shapes greet the eye,
horsehair strokes steel,
steel vibrates wood,
wood sings,
space hums,
body rejoices,
soul soars.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen