Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Soft Soul Kisses in The Dark

Sometimes, even when we've remembered why we are here and what we love. . . . we wake up to find we've been holding back, have become inadvertently timid about diving into our own lives.

When I was fourteen years old I heard Leonard Cohen singing “Suzanne” on the radio. Late at night, in between sounds of the house cracking and the hydro wires humming from the forty below zero temperatures, I’d tune my transistor radio to stations in Toronto and Chicago, hundreds of miles away. Beneath my bed covers, long after my mother thought I’d gone to sleep, I’d lay in the dark and listen to music that was never played on the local radio station in our small community in Northern Ontario. It was 1968.

I loved Leonard's deep gravelly voice, but it was his way with words that made me want more. Words that open something inside have always been my first love. “Suzanne” was the piece that made me want to write poetry.

Last night I sat in the darkness of a huge stadium and once again listened to Leonard Cohen singing “Suzanne.” He also sang “Halleluiah" and many of his other songs over the course of a three and a half hour concert. He was. . . . shimmering with the heat of presence, and the heart of humility- companioned on stage by fellow master musicians and singers.

But the piece that unexpectedly broke me open was “A Thousand Kisses Deep.” Maybe it was because he didn’t sing it, but simply recited it with a violin offering soft sustained notes beneath his resonant voice. Maybe it was the miracle of sitting in the dark with thirty thousand other people who were listening in rapt silence to a Canadian poet recite a poem, reminding me of the power of words. He held the microphone close and became the words:

“The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat.
You win a while, and then it’s done –
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it’s real,
A Thousand Kisses Deep. . . . ”

Suddenly, my face was wet with tears.

Because it’s so easy not to live “a thousand kisses deep.” So easy to skim the surface, to write about things instead of letting the words hold the rawness of our particular joys and our sorrows.

And I thought of a lover who had been in my life years ago. When we got together he knew he was going to move to Los Angeles in a few months, and I knew my place was here in Toronto. We knew we weren’t forever, but we experienced a deep and healing intimacy in the time we had. The love-making was a fire that burned away all that was dross in our lives and our selves, a healing born of hearts that did not hold back- perhaps, in part, because we knew we were never going to deal with the challenges and weariness that sometimes visit when sharing daily logistics with another.

One day, as he drew me close, making my back arch in desire and awakening a sweet ache in my limbs, I made the only request I would ever make of him: “Promise me that you’ll never pretend this did not happen, that it wasn’t real and full and enough. Promise me you won’t pretend it was ordinary so you can do what you know you need to do, go where you know you need to go.”

He made the promise. But he couldn't keep it. Since then I've become a little wary of others or those aspectes of self who answer requests that require courage with the casual words, "Of course."

Because it’s hard to live a thousand kisses deep, to face the smallness of our lives and the largeness of our loves; because it requires courage to live with the knowledge of our "invincible defeat" in both the small daily things that undo our resolve, and the knowledge of our mortality. Because it’s a little crazy, when asked about your financial plan, to talk about the book you're writing without consideration for what is “marketable,” for what can be “leveraged for other products and spin-offs.” Because living in a secular culture with a passion for the sacred and an awareness of the very real magic that runs throughout life can make you feel a little out of step with the world around you.

But for the soul there is no other way to live, and all the fears, all the holding back, all the attempts to be measured and reasonable, to not pour the messy details of the past, the wild dreams of the future, and the full sensual experience of the present onto the page just won’t cut it.

Because not living our particular life, as Leonard says, "as if it’s real" leaves the soul hungry and sad. And life is too precious and too short not live to the edges and the depths, not to live “A Thousand Kisses Deep.”

Oriah (c) 2012

25 comments:

  1. Oh my Oriah - this is so lovely and real. Thank you. And I hope that you wore your smashing red boots!

    ~ Ellyn

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    1. Thank you Ellyn. There's a pic of the boots up on the Oriah Mountain Dreamer Facebook page if you want to have a look :-)

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  2. ...No other way to live...Simple and beautiful. MJ

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  3. Oriah, this is so beautiful. I had to read this aloud to myself a second time through because I felt it deserved that. Thank you for sharing your thoughts so wonderfully.

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    1. Thank you so much Jenniferlynn- honoured that you read it aloud.

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  4. I had the pleasure of experiencing Leonard Cohen in concert in 2009 ... the song that resonated with me most that night was Anthem ... it still sends shivers down my spine each time I listen to it! Leonard Cohen is a true Canadian Treasure!

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    1. He is indeed. It was an exquisite concert.

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  5. That was a beautiful post Oriah. I also saw Leonard Cohen here in Calgary a couple of weeks ago. I was inspired to pull out a tiny pad of paper from my purse and furiously write poetry in the dark. I cried in sheer awe of the fact that a stadium was full of people who had come to hear a 76-year-old Canadian 'recite his poetry' and prance around the stage. His golden voice, the girls' harmonious vocals, the violin and other instruments touched me deep. I cried because I had known Cohen's words for 40 years and they still moved me.

    p.s. I'm wondering how you enjoyed the tango workshop you went to (?) a while back.

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    1. It was an exquisite treat wasn't it. I had taken pen and paper also (although I always do) - did not write there but did write until 2 am after the concert.

      And, according to Wikipedia he was born in 1934- which makes him now 78! Such vitality- it's an inspiration.

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    2. P.S.- forgot to answer your question- I did not go. Unfortunately, weeks in advance it became clear that the timing was not right for me and I cancelled. Another time!

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  6. I have woken to a dull dark day , my room here looking right out onto the lough and I have places to go, things to do, but
    May my day be filled with a Thousand Kisses,
    May I dive as the cormorant crazily into the beauty of this day and of being me.
    So thank you so much for this reminder, this invitation.

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    1. Wendy, thank you for the image of the cormorant- shall carry it with me today :)

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  7. The tears do stream down my face as I write you from the middle of Starbucks in downtown Portland. Who cares? Your words touched me deeply and profoundly and I'm crying. They remind me of what is real and of those relationships of the past that play on my heart strings...letting me know that they were "A Thousand Kisses Deep".

    Thank you...What you wrote was "special"

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  8. Yes, as I struggle to move between the "realities" of creating a business, doing the leverage thing and the soul's draw into meditation and the sweet hunger of poems from the silent body of now and garden, this is a wonderful place to read.

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  9. very beautiful Oriah, I wish I had gone to this concert.The very words "a thousand kisses deep" fill me with erotic passion and longing and fast clips memories of movies/lovers/joy in the past, but always present because they touched my perfect body with his mind to paraphrase Susanne, Hallelujah for Leonard Cohen, the Jewish Canadian Zen Buddhist bard bringing poetry back. I have always loved poetry, my aunt Libby had her poems published in the Toronto papers years ago.I saw Leonard perform a couple of times many years ago never forgot it.Glad you enjoyed.

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  10. A thousand kisses for re-minding me of the glories of that song, and for your visceral, sensual appreciation of the concert.
    That appreciation reminded me of Suzanne the way the Stormy Clovers performed it, the way Cohen originally ended it: "... And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind, and you know that you can trust her, 'cause she's touched her perfect body with her mind."
    As you so clearly have.
    But back then the last line, different from the one that ends the first verse, seemed wrong. My epiphany was intuiting that more than a few of the women I knew did not accept their bodies.

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    1. Yes, Wilder the same thing occurred to me as I heard the song again. What I love about this line is how it calls our attention to our "perfect" as-is body. Ironic that I feel this more and more as my body ages and is able to do less and less (all relative- but, I'm feeling the effects of staying up and writing until 2 am after the concert in a way I would not have when I first heard the song.)

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  11. A thousand thank yous for reminding me that there are many who walk on this planet carrying the same deep longing within. I'm always hungry and thirsty for more of that which I have no name for. I call it the divine, goddess, beautiful mystery, and other names, all which somehow cannot describe what my heart longs for.
    Your words sent me to another place and I am grateful. Love and hugs to you. Brenda

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  12. I am a new fan, have only just begun to read your work this week, and already you have touched my life in a way that I cannot even describe. Thank you!

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  13. I saw Leonard perform this last night the audience of almost 7000 reduced to total silence and appreciation of a beauty and creativity rarely experienced..

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    1. Thanks for this- took me back to my memory of the concert- the awe and power.

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  14. Thankyou - beautiful writing.

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