I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,
she thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth, she's unusually competent.
Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.
But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,
brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road.
My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains
my aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who buries her head in the pillow
so as not to see, the child who tells herself
that light causes sadness --
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person --
In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking
on the same road, except it's winter now;
she's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
like brides leaping to a great height --
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth --
In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're both trying to explain, the fact
that we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition
fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering --
it's this stillness that we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.
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“God loves the believing servant who practices a craft.” (Hadīth)
“Let us refer once again to the saying of Prophet Muhammad: “God loves that when one of you does something he does it thoroughly”. Itqān, thoroughness, the search for perfection—even though every artisan knows that true Perfection belongs only to God—goes hand in hand with ihsān, virtuous behavior, which is indicative of a certain degree of nearness to God.
The close links existing between the practice of handicrafts and a life conducted on “the Right Path”—al-sirāt al-mustaqīm often mentioned in the Koran—are also founded in the knowledge, according to ancient traditions, that most crafts were initially taught to men by the prophets. The art of weaving, for instance, goes back to Shīth (Seth), a son of Adam; carpentry originates from Seyidnā Nūh (Noah), to whom God revealed the way of building the Ark, etc. The memory of these saintly teachers was kept alive in the initiation ceremonies and other rituals which were performed until a very recent time by the craft guilds and brotherhoods of Islam.”
“Like the Greek philosophers, the Ikhwān recognized in terrestrial music the echo of the music of the spheres, “inhabited by the angels of God and by the elite of his servants”. Thus, “the rhythm produced by the motion of the musician evokes for certain souls residing in the world of generation and corruption the felicity of the world of the spheres, in the same way that the rhythms produced by the motion of the spheres and the stars evoke for souls who are there the beatitude of the world of the spirit.” By reason of the law of harmony which reigns over all the planes of existence, linking them according to an order at once hierarchical and analogical, “the caused beings belonging to secondary reactions imitate in their modalities the first beings which are their causes … from which it must be deduced that the notes of terrestrial music necessarily imitate those of celestial music”.
Like Pythagoras, who “heard, thanks to the purity of the substance of his soul and the wisdom of his heart, the music produced by the rotation of the spheres and the stars” and who “was the first to have spoken of this science”, other philosophers such as Nichomacus, Ptolemy, and Euclid, had “the habit of singing, with percussive sounds produced by chords, words, and measured verses that were composed for exhortation to the spiritual life and described the delights of the world of the spirit, the pleasure and the happiness of its inhabitants”.”
~ Jean-Louis Michon, Introduction to Traditional Islam: Foundations, Art, and Spirituality
This passage beautifully illustrates the sacred dimension of traditional craftsmanship and the metaphysical roots of the arts in Islam. I like the notion of crafts being transmitted through prophetic lineages. Michon references the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (Brethren of Purity) and their Neoplatonic view of music as a reflection of cosmic order. Like the Greek Pythagoreans, they believed that music on earth mirrors the divine harmonies of the heavens, the "music of the spheres." The Ikhwān al-Safāʾ compiled a vast encyclopedia of philosophy, science, and art in the 4th/10th century, which includes a precious 'Epistle on Music.' The complete work includes 51 (or 52) “Epistles” (Rasā’il) of which the one treating music is the fifth.
It is unfortunate that Michon does not offer a full account of how the various crafts are linked to the prophets, a subject I find deeply meaningful. Yet I feel confident that my favorite, King David, is traditionally regarded as the prophet of music and poetry. :) One could make the argument that King David is the true Orpheus, the divinely inspired musician and poet whose songs could move hearts, tame beasts, and unite the human and the divine.
The age-old debate within the Islamic tradition over whether music is haram or halal can perhaps be settled by recognizing that some are blessed with the heart of King David and thus resonate deeply with the divine arts of music and poetry, while others are drawn to different paths. “Do not declare unlawful what God has made permissible”—this is one of the principles of traditional Islam. The Qur’an (Surah al-Mā’idah, 5:87) specifically addresses this, cautioning believers not to prohibit the good things that God has made lawful and to avoid transgression. People are blessed with different kinds of hearts, and that is the beauty and richness of the human being.
The Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan, clearly attuned to the Davidic prophetic lineage, the lineage of poets and musicians, once declared:
“Some day music will be the means of expressing universal religion. Time is wanted for this, but there will come a day when music and its philosophy will become the religion of humanity.”
— Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Mysticism of Sound and Music: The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
And Allah knows best الله أعلم Allahu 'alam
[Muslims who think music is haram have clearly never listened to the Eagles—because after Hotel California, there’s just no going back. One verse of Desperado and your fatwa starts to waver. 😄
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you (Let somebody love you)
You better let somebody love you before it's too late]
I Dated the Moon - This Song Will Pull You Into Its Orbit #GamethonMusic
Experience the enchanting and heartfelt song "I Dated the Moon," a poetic journey of love, longing, and celestial beauty. This emotional ballad captures the magic of a fleeting romance with the moon’s silver glow. Perfect for fans of indie, folk, or romantic music. Stream now, share your thoughts in the comments, and subscribe for more soulful tunes!
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A/N: Hello again, everyone! Here is the first chapter of Celestial Music, the winner of our voting contest! I have been working on this one for a little bit, but I'm excited to start sharing with you and get your feedback! More of Marysa, the whales, and her fate with the invaders in the next chapter, coming next Friday!
Warnings: Kidnapping, violence
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In a very small village, one surrounded by wilderness that sheltered it fiercely, a young woman lived alone. She spent her days quietly, chopping firewood, tending the inn under the watchful eye of its ancient owner—whose bar and kitchen saw more use than the rooms for rent—and walking the great woods where the pine trees grew tall as mountains and wide as bears. And when these tasks left her empty, she sat on the shore and sang to the whales.
But before the sun rose in triumph, when the waves were still near-black and the clouds had not yet yielded to the day, that was the best time for singing.
Her village was tucked in the sparse hillside between rocky shore and the great forest. From her home at the edge of town, she could see the blue-gray ocean, the white foam of the waves, and the stark black and white fins of the orcas that speared through the water's surface. The whales hunted the bay, coming in from the drop-off to the deeper waters to pick of the lazy, barking seals that guarded the ragged shore.
Often, she would start her day on the lowest cliff that jutted out over the bay, around the bend of the shore and out of sight of the village. A warm current collected there, and the whales would sometimes retreat there before the heat of the sun warmed the surface and set it glimmering like gems.
Marysa woke with the ease and restfulness that only comes with long habit. The sun was not yet a brush of orange on the horizon. She dressed in her wool coat that smelled of salt, tucked her long tunic into her leather pants, and pulled on her black boots that were scuffed and patchy with wear. The walk to the cliff never took long, the path worn clear in the moonlight long before Marysa was caretaker of her little wooden shack.
Her seat on the cliff was cold, still wet with dew and sea spray, but her bones settled onto the stone with a sigh of familiarity. Of relief.
The ritual began with a lungful of crisp ocean air, drawn in slowly through her nose, then released in a silent exhale through her mouth. She closed her eyes against the wind, letting the blank blackness of the backs of her eyelids feed the stillness of her soul, sent up a prayer of thanks to the Eternal Star, and sang.
She began with the same simple tune she always did, the four-line melody she made up the first time she had come here. What a long, dark day that had been.
Where the sun meets the wind,
Where the sky meets the sea,
Where the tide stops its turning,
It is there you wait for me.
As the last note left her lips, it carried out over the water for the wind to snatch away. As she exhaled, she heard it. The puff-hiss she knew would come. It always came.
The whales were here.
Marysa opened her eyes, the black transforming to the star-studded blue so rare over this land. No clouds today, then. But in the black water below, peaks of black and white pushed through the waves, followed by huge, sleek bodies that glided soundlessly below the cliff.
Marysa grinned at the giddy joy that surged within her at that sight. The feeling never grew old, that bursting twist of warmth behind her ribs, crawling outward until it reached her fingers, cold with the breath of the ocean wind.
This was why she came.
She started a lilting sea-shanty next, one of the tamer selections to be heard on the docks below the village, one of her father's favorites. The tallest dorsal fin of the group edged closer to the cliff, followed by an exuberant slap of a colossal tail on the surface. It was the largest male of the pod, and this song was his favorite. He skimmed through the water with his head up and his jaw slack while Marysa sang. His pale tongue and curved white teeth nearly glowed in the darkness. White spray surged from his blowhole, a constellation of water and breath and starlight against the deep blackness of the night.
The rest of the pod darted in and out of the current below, their movements quick and efficient but nothing short of elegant. They would wait for their own songs, their own turn to dance.
The male rejoined his pod as the last note of the sea shanty left Marysa's lips. She did not let the silence linger, and quickly took up a love song about a shepherd and a tavern lass. It was an unlikely romance, for she was always under a roof while he was under the stars. An old female with scars on her tail and a notch in her shorter dorsal fin left the pod to take her turn dancing. She slapped her tail against the black water at the end of every chorus, gliding in ever-widening circles in the water below.
When the matriarch had danced her fill and Marysa had sung the lovers together under the stars, she turned to a brisk tune that was a favorite at her village's winter festival. Three whales left the pod, all of them young, with short dorsal fins and bright eyes. The white saddle patches on their backs had not brightened to true white with age or sun, and their tails were broad with the promise of growth in the coming seasons. They loved the reeling tune, and twirled together with all their youthful exuberance.
Marysa sang until her voice was hoarse and the sun was pink on the horizon, the stars swallowed by the beginnings of daylight. A new mother had brought her calf forward when Marysa offered a lullaby she had fallen asleep to as a babe. Marysa had wondered over the last few months if the female was expecting, watching the bulge in her belly grow, and the sight of that small new life in the water filled her heart. Next, the young bull with a slightly curved tail, leapt in the water to a joyful hymn to the Eternal Star. With another sea shanty for the young female who was missing a few teeth on her lower jaw, and a slow love song for the stately female with a distinctly thin with patch behind her dorsal fin and a long scar on her flank, Marysa had but one whale left to sing for.
This whale was Marysa's secret favorite, a female whose dancing was slow and reserved until the last phrases of Marysa's favorite ballad, where the hero of the tale finally defeats a sea monster to save his wife and newborn child. The whale always disappeared for a moment into the current at the last verse, only to reappear in a surge of sea spray as she leapt far above the glittering surface and reenter the water with all the grace of a seabird on the final note.
The sight made Marysa's cheeks ache with the grinning, and she was content to leave her cliff and pursue her daily chores, while whales left to scour the sea for that day's meal.
That morning, the sea air in Marysa's lungs, the black and white shadows dancing in the water, the music that lived in her soul briefly aired beneath the star-strewn sky would carry her through the task of gathering firewood for the day. Through meekly serving the fishermen their lunch when the surly innkeeper demanded she take it down to the docks. Even through the heavy emptiness of returning to the wooden hut that had once felt so full of the love she called home, memories of that morning sustained her.
The day wore on as it usually did, until the work was done and Marysa propped her sore feet up next to the iron stove, the one her father had gifted her mother with for their wedding. A mug of warmed broth balanced precariously on Marysa's thigh.
She was idly picking at a splinter in the pad of her thumb that had been bothering her all day when a distant scream startled her. She glanced into the long shadows of her empty hut out of habit, but the scream had come from the rocky shore. From the village.
The mug went to the worn kitchen table mindlessly as Marysa stood and strode to the one window the hut had, near the door. The sky was more inky-blue than orange—it was later than she had realized. In the fading light, bright torches bobbed between the houses and shops in town. The roof of the inn on the edge of the village, near the public dock, was ablaze with more of that hungry fire, and the screams began to multiply.
Marysa's father had once fought as a warrior in distant lands before her mother had won his heart and tied it to this land. He had told her what to do in case of invaders. She had a dagger beneath her mattress, a bag of food stores and extra blankets on a hook near the door. She was to flee into the forest and hide for as long as it took. But Marysa was frozen. She was afraid.
Afraid.
Her father would have scolded her for that fear. Told her that any daughter of his was stronger than any fear that might clutch at her. But Marysa could not escape its halting grip. Her hands trembled. She clenched them, realized they were clammy, and released them again. Her feet would not move.
There were invaders here.
The hut she had called home all her life was set apart from the village, but not so far that these invaders—whoever they were—would ignore it. It would not be long before they turned their greedy eyes to its humble wooden structure, and whatever they imagined lay inside.
She had to flee.
Her fear of being discovered suddenly was stronger than that initial freezing fear of realization. She burst into movement, smothering the fire, sliding her arms into her coat, and taking both the dagger and her bag out the door.
She remembered to close the door behind her before bolting toward the trees, but only when she felt the frosted grass beneath her feet did she realize she had not put on her socks or boots. No time for that, though. Her heart beat that rhythm with every racing step toward the yawning trees that could shelter her. No time no time no time.
She could hear shouts now, behind her. Marysa did not dare to look back, down the slope of the hill to the village. Feet pounding, she climbed up the slippery grass toward the forest. The voices drew closer, and she could hear their words more clearly, though she could not understand them. Men shouting at the top of their lungs in a rolling, tall language she did not recognize, muddled by echoing war cries.
One such cry flew at her in the dark, closer than she had thought the invaders were. She had been seen. She glanced to her left, where that voice had come from, and, in that instant, she knew her mistake. Her feet slid out from under her, and she crashed to the ground. All breath fled from her lungs with a whoomp, and a rough hand caught the back of her tunic.
The voice was snarling, even in crisp, unfamiliar words, but for some reason, the shapes of those words sounded familiar. A man's voice, and a man's hand that flipped her over in one effortless movement. Marysa was on her back, staring up at a tall, dark shadow of a warrior heaped in furs and wearing a menacing smile that gleamed in the dusk. A broadsword hung in the hand at his side, while the other hand twitched its fingers in anticipation. Marysa dreaded to think of what they might be looking forward to.
He spoke to her, she was sure, in that growling voice, but he spoke quickly, and she could not understand. She shook her head mutely, heart pounding like a frightened rabbit.
"Midlander?" He asked suddenly, the snarl still there, but his words finally ones she recognized. "Do you speak Midlander, wench?"
Marysa nodded with aching slowness. Her neck was stiff with fear.
"Ay, Halvar!" The man called, and another black shadow of a man approached. He was leaner than the first, but the leanness was wiry in the way of a starving wolf. Bright madness lit his eyes.
The men gestured to Marysa on the ground, slipping back into that tall, rolling language. While they were busy glancing at each other, Marysa's hand crept toward her dagger, which dug into her ribs from her coat pocket. The man she assumed was Halvar pointed down the hill to her little wooden home, turning his and the other man's attention away from her for just a moment.
A moment was all she needed.
She pulled her dagger free with the ease of long practice and righted herself. She stabbed the first vulnerability she could reach, which was the knee joint of the nearest leg. When the man yelped and buckled to the ground, she was already on her feet, swinging the blade for the other man.
He was faster than she expected, catching her wrist before the dagger could sink into the soft spot below the ribs where her father had taught her to strike, if the need arose. He jerked her close, until his stinking breath flowed over her face and the madness in his eyes was near enough that she wondered if it would catch in her own.
Marysa twisted her wrist, rotating and curling it away from herself to try and loosen that hungry grip, but his hold was unyielding. He spat foreign words in her face, his grip tightening, digging into the nerves between the bones in her arm, until she dropped her dagger. She could feel her pulse pounding beneath his fingers.
"You don't understand me, eh?" Halvar switched to speak her language. Why did they call it Midlander? Where were these invaders from? "Well, let me make it clear. I could kill you now, and no one would know." He smiled, and his voice hissed in the dark. "No one would care. But I think you may prove useful, yet."
Those eyes crawled from her head to her bare feet, and that starved madness grew brighter in his face. He looked even more like a wolf, now. One with sharp teeth. Marysa struggled in his grip, but he turned her around and hooked an elbow around her neck, cutting off her air.
Her feet struck desperately behind her, searching for his foot to stomp on even as she struggled to breathe, but he evaded her, and the world blurred around her.
The other man was still groaning; on the ground, clutching his bleeding knee and cursing in his strange language. Before the world went completely black, someone behind her shouted Halvar's name again. He turned, swinging her around with his arm still around her neck, but she could breathe again. She was too busy gasping for air to hear what they said, but when her mind processed sluggishly the men going into her home, she understood all too well.
"No," she whispered. It was not loud enough to stop them. "No!"
Another man stood framed in the doorway, holding her father's sword.
All strength left her at the sight of its familiar silhouette. It was black in the night, but it was just as black in full daylight. Her father told her once it was of the rarest metal he could find, forged into an ever-sharp blade by magic. She had been young enough then that she believed it.
"Blarforlǫg," the man muttered to himself, and it was a word she understood. It was what her father had called his sword, when he did speak of it. How did these strangers know its name?
Halvar loosened his hold on her neck, allowing her to breathe as he dragged her back to her hut, where there a heated conversation sprung forth between him and other invaders. Marysa seemed to be in the middle of the matter, as they realized that it was her home they were currently raiding. Her father's sword was wrapped carefully in the oiled leather in which the invaders found it, the same leather Marysa had wrapped it in before tucking it on top of one of the rafters, where she would never have to look at it. One of the men, a short, stout one, took it down toward the shore, and Marysa trained her gaze on the ground so that she would not have to watch it go. The warriors continued to talk over her head, and she had enough sense to stay silent. At one point, Halvar jerked her head back by her hair, and the men inspected her face as if she were a cow at market.
They came to some decision, and the group started moving. Marysa's heart thudded painfully, and she wondered if they would kill her and leave her sprawled across the threshold of her home. But Halvar dragged her away from her home and pushed her into a stumbling walk. They were taking her alive.
