לבנה

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.

The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,

And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves

A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake.

So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

This impression was reinforced when I became acquainted with Gothic cathedrals. But there the infinity of the cosmos, the chaos of meaning and meaninglessness, of impersonal purpose and mechanical law, were wrapped in stone. This contained and at the same time was the bottomless mystery of being, the embodiment of the spirit. What I dimly felt to be my kinship with stone was the divine nature in both, in the dead and the living matter.

Chaconne In D Minor, BWV 1004 ( Bach- Busoni Editions )

By Composers Johann Sebastian Bach / Ferruccio Busoni

Awadagin Pratt, Pianist

I want to weep over the death of the Moon, my Lady, / Of my Lady who lies in the waterlilies’ abyss. / […] The moon has drowned herself in the abyss of the black pond!

Medallion for a firstborn son not redeemed at the proper time, Ioannina, Greece, 1859, silver, engraved, diam: 5.5 cm

If a father does not redeem his [firstborn] son, the son must redeem himself upon reaching maturity… they write on a silver plaque that he was not redeemed and hang it around his neck so he will know he must redeem himself… (Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah 305)