At times this week I have spent hours in tears ... death and also other forms of sorrow visited me on the weekend in which the season changed.
So many people just needed presence -- there is no substitute for loving presence. Even Web 3 cannot do that for people.
I knew that I was called to this situation, and I also knew I could not do it alone -- no matter how strong one's faith, there is something to be said for the fact that the word schmerz -- pain in German and the word in Russian for death -- смерть or smert' -- are pronounced exactly the same, and that blend exists across all languages in human experience! There is no avoiding that reality -- and there is no one who sings all of this with more force than Jerome Hines in the death of Boris Godunov. There is still no avoiding that cry: "Death!"
The utter devastation -- Mussorgsky wrote it well even accounting for the beautiful peaceful music that suggested to Mr. Hines that Boris was forgiven and moved Mr. Hines to add a line of thanks to God at the end! But Boris still dies ... his family and Russia, without his protection, still have to face the Time of Troubles ... and there is no avoiding all the trouble around death, including people that need comfort and are not in a condition to think about the cost of the comfort.
And then there are other sorrows ... little children in this generation are going through so much, and they cannot be expected to know or care about the cost of their comfort.
And then there is just evil that needs to be vanquished -- I pulled out the contralto profondo in this same weekend and let some people know they had better never ever. I am out here giving people survival instinct triggers about messing with my people -- not my favorite mode, but done when necessary!
Who is sufficient for such a weekend? I am not, alone ... the only thing I could so is call on high to the One Who called me to all this for grace and mercy... thank you to @jesuslnrs for introducing me to magnificent Venezuelan composer Vicente Emilio Sojo and his deeply moving Kyrie, from his Misa a Santa Efigenia, for it fit all these moments of the week...
The works of Sojo deserve more of a hearing than they often get ... Sojo's work stands right up by my beloved Anton Bruckner, whose F minor Mass I was also listening to that same day ... but Sojo's work was like that unexpected ray of light that comes through the clouds before you realize dawn has actually come because the clouds are so thick ... but on comes the light, and your realization of the situation changes for the better.
This also put the Agnus Dei of Bruckner's F minor mass in a different light ... for the prayer of faith will be answered in the light! Bruckner actually brought back the music of his Kyrie in the second half of the Agnus Dei in F major, and so shows the prayer for mercy being answered by the granting of peace!
Between Sojo and Bruckner, I have the musical backing to explain how I have also been in tears of joy, because I was given the strength to meet the situations of the weekend, to the extent that I had a glimpse of what was said to the Virgin Mary about her situation: she was overshadowed by the power of the Highest to permit her to be the mother of the Son of God and deal with the all the challenges that came with that.
Now I am not that Virgin -- my task was to handle my responsibilities and provide loving presence to all that were sent to me in need -- a task by no means so large, but beyond me, and beyond what most people around me can pour back into me, but I was overshadowed by the power of the Highest, and was able to do and do so well ... so gratitude and joy came to sit with grief, and give me a different reason to be in tears.
Last week I was waiting on many things and likewise found myself overwhelmed with gratitude and joy, knowing that whatever happened, and whatever paths opened for me, they would be a gift of love to me from that same Blessed Hand Who made me a blessing to others this weekend.
And then I looked up ... thus summer left me, and autumn found me.
September, however, had some unfinished business for me ... I wanted to go back to Alvord Lake in Golden Gate Park, where I stood in both triumph but also pain after completing my fifth book in 2023, bereft of all the people around me to whom there was and is no bridge, though I loved them dearly, but had been obedient and walked alone to what I was called to do anyhow. I wanted to go there and look back ... and now, shed tears of gratitude and joy where those of pain had fallen.
So I went ... and I was given a glorious day to do it ...
... and I knew the beauty of it was going to overwhelm me ... already ...
... and also, the ordering of memory ... though there had been great pain in September 2023, by November 1, I encountered such beauty there and such joy that I lost consciousness for a little while ... all four seasons showed themselves to me in one day, and it was a little sparkler of a dandelion puff, early herald of the coming spring, that took me out.
Meanwhile, that book I had labored over was becoming an Amazon bestseller without me even knowing it ... launch day had been a bit of a disaster because there was death in my circle, so half the people I just knew were going to be paying attention weren't, and even I couldn't concentrate. All that work in September and October should therefore have failed on launch. I still do not know how that book climbed the way it did ... except as a gift from the Blessed Hand, while He led me aside to comfort me in a place that had just been a site of intense pain two months earlier.
By the winter of 2025, I had the thought that perhaps my losing my breath upon occasion was perhaps a physical sign of my anemia advancing ... I had noted in November 2023 that as long as I kept moving and therefore at a higher breathing rate, I had no difficulty, but the moment I sat down, out the lights went -- I thought it might have been my body's way to make sure I was down long enough to catch up on oxygen. The same might be thought to go for the halcyon of winter in 2024, when I had climbed again to the top of Buena Vista Hill from a quarter downwards, and almost went out with a little help from Beethoven's Opus 111 variations.
But I was wrong. The Opus 109 and 111 variations have been inviting me to leave this world for decades, and upon deeper reflection, I could remember other times back into my college days in which I have simply left the world for a time, my physical limit for beauty exceeded.
I already knew that because I was already coming out in a heightened state of emotion, it would not take much ... so then this happened...
In the place of my sorrow in one September, I was given a new one blooming like the spring ... though death had come and opportunities again were not in my hands to bring to fruition yet again, I could see in full what that little dandelion had showed me: all seasons were given to me as a blessing of love, even though grief and the need for patience would also come in their strength. I could also see that persevering through the pain of the past to do what I was called to do had been the clearing of the ground for seeds that were now grown up and fabulously blooming in my life of peace, contentment, gratitude, and joy even in the midst of life's difficulties.
I walked out to the place I had literally stood and wept in September 2023, one little fist clenched in pain, now with hands open and heart bursting with gratitude and joy -- the journey around that lake from anguish to understanding and satisfaction with all things that had happened was completed upon my there giving thanks and praise to the One Who led me. It would be another journey, from here!
Of course, on that day in September 2023, I had been thinking in faith of a future in which the message of the most beautiful fifteen seconds in Wagner might be mine, someday: "Be blessed, pure one, through purity, and thus let all pain pass from you!" I had done what I had been commanded to do and turned away from so much and so many to follow my calling -- I had in that sense purified my life, but at that time, the pain had not passed at all! But I knew that someday it would ... so the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past came right on through the portal of imagination, singing most the beautiful fifteen seconds in Wagner on the day it was fulfilled for me!
Of course, you are welcome to listen to the whole nearly fifteen minutes of the scene!
Afterward he wrapped his arms around me like he had his voice.
"I knew you would get here, Frau Mathews ... oh, my Golden Flower Child, mein goldenes Blumenkind, I knew you would if you just kept going, and you did!"
My tears of joy blessed his immense chest, as his ethereal equivalent effervesced into miniature cool breezes upon hitting my shoulders. Afterward we just walked there a little while, too blissful for words as we slowly passed through beautiful scenes...
... and after a while, he turned to look at me, a strange smile upon his face.
"Frage?" I said, and he laughed.
"You read a question -- eine Frage upon my face," he said. "I did have two, although I know the answer of one and I think I know the answer of the other. I see that you were reading in Bruckner this week on one of the videos of his F minor mass that has the score, and of course you checked to see who the performers were. Is not my living younger colleague, Herr Alfred Reiter, a magnificent bass?"
"He is -- his compares with yours for the surprise of such utter beauty with such utter masculinity, and that's not a compliment I give often."
"And yet, you went to listen to the Agnes Dei again to close your evening of Sojo and Bruckner, just to hear this old bass where his two lines were hardly needed."
"Not needed? Perhaps. But ever wanted? Yes. Your voice comforted me in the pain of 2023; it is only fitting that it should also be welcomed in the joy of now. Thank you always, and you are welcome -- immer danke, und Sie sind wilkommen."
"I thought that was your reasoning, Frau Mathews," he said gently, "because you have always majored on the constancy of love, the expression of love being eternal in a finite world, and it has so often been to your sorrow because most cannot reciprocate even the basics, to say nothing of the eternal aspects, of true love.
"But of times past I need say no more, for you have removed yourself from all that was not for you so that you might come here in peace, and you are here, now, led here by Love Eternal to a place in your life in which the former things, although they will still at times come into mind, and also even the present matters of grief have no power to keep you from the joys you are granted."
He was glowing up immensely, adding golden light to a scene already full of it...
... and his voice was going through the same kind of transformation, so dark and deep, yet all the lights of the Milky Way were coming out, in the middle of the day...
"As for me, still wanted by you ... you cast me as still a human, not an angel, and as human I remember my mortal fears although I do not have them any more ... the fear of being needed for one situation, of pouring in so much love and generosity to meet that need, and then being discarded. Now I know you have rather been willing to endure being so treated than to pass such pain on to others ... I know you now.
"But still, to hear your sweet contralto voice say it, and then even to say it in my mother tongue ... I am still a human man ... it means much to me, Frau Mathews. I have said to you before: you are not nearly large enough physically to embrace me as I can you, but your heart is more than large enough to wrap mine up entirely in your love, and you have done it!"
"How many times have I rested my heart in your legacy of love?" I said. "How could I discard it, or you?"
"The world is a cold place, Frau Mathews. It could be done, but was not done by you. Du hast meine ewige Dankbarkeit -- you have my eternal gratitude!"
By this time, it seemed that the midnight and midday were embracing in their mutual strength, and all that was best in dark and bright had converged upon Alvord Lake ...
... and upon walking into that, and then looking down at me smiling warmly up at him, he cried out: "To be here with you -- I did not think the earth could offer me such a joy any more -- but to walk with one who is learning the constancy of love as the echo of the eternal joy of Heaven -- ach, mein geliebtes, goldenes Blumenkind, meine liebe Dame ... meine Herrin...!"
His English was gone for the moment... I picked up as he went on that he was saying something about my having turned from so many others, and thus met and would meet so many others that were suitable to me in art and life, and yet still, I honored him by still choosing him for such moments, to carry him in my joy. This was significant, since he had made a career and even extended career in Web 2 of carrying everyone around him in his joy. It was a cold world. Reciprocity was hardly to be expected. And yet, I was practicing it, and he was completely carried away and surrendering to it -- ich gebe auf zu dir means I give up to you, or, I surrender.
"Ich gebe auf zu dir, ich gebe auf zu deine Liebe!"
Meanwhile, in English, his unmistakable voice had been heard -- the fanbase of K.M. Altesrouge had its romantic comedic assumptions confirmed, because people can only understand things as they are equipped to understand them. But they were defeated by the unique acoustics around Alvord Lake, its fountain, the tunnel just beyond it under nearby Kezar Boulevard, and by the fact that water responded in a slightly different way to his immortal voice than it did to his mortal voice ... those undertones, combined with the deep rumble of traffic on Kezar Boulevard, had them thinking the sound was coming from closer to Kezar Stadium.
Off they went in the wrong direction, to be heard about next week... but in this week, we were left in peace, for there might have been plenty nearer the lake who stared, but I did not know of it, and he was a bit too large to just randomly disturb at such a moment. He had completely wrapped me up in his embrace, and his hand was so much bigger than my head that one would have to be his height and almost that close to see my face, looking up at him.
Then I realized: this was a portion of the day's lesson ... and he laughed gently.
"Bring dein Leben in den Griff, alten Mann," he admonished himself. "Bring dein Englisch in den Griff... ."
I laughed at that and gently squeezed him, since he was trying to get his life back into his grip... and he laughed even harder while shaking his head ... apparently that was not helpful, although he certainly enjoyed it!
"Eine junge Frau hält einen alten Mann fest -- ein Problem, Frau Mathews!"
"Oh, well, when you explain it that way I suppose I do have you at a disadvantage, Old Blush!" I teased him, and he laughed and laughed, especially since his grip on me had not budged, and that was good as a steel vice wrapped in several feet of the finest, plushest velvet.
"There is going to be so much hilarious misunderstanding in this park next week," I said.
"Ich mag Komödien, Frau Mathews!" he answered.
I laughed at that -- of course he enjoyed a comedy, and was going to play all that to the hilt! But I was quiet afterward, for I did want him to tell me if I had sensed correctly what I had felt, and he would let me know.
"Yes, Frau Mathews, I actually do have two things to go over with you today, and you are experiencing one of them. You are so warmly eager to reciprocate, however, that at times I also find myself past my human limit for being able to remember a lesson plan ... to be here and to be so deeply loved on such a day as this ... ."
But he got a grip on his emotions after another effort.
"I need to help us both a little bit here -- let's sit down, and as for you --."
"Danke für das tolle Essen!" I said. "Thank you for the great food -- I see that little piece of Cambozola Black cheese there!"
"Auf Deutschland mit die Liebe -- from Germany, with love," he purred.
"I'm not even going to fuss with you today!" I said, and he laughed.
"Indeed you have come to a different point in your life, Frau Mathews!"
So we sat down, and deep, calm satisfaction replaced the ardent excitement within him as the time passed and he was sure I was nourished ... this allowed him to draw upon his great powers of pacing himself, emotionally ... he was still human and could be overcome on occasion, but he kept in mind that he had work to do in his super-deep but gentle way, the gentleness recalling to me a beautiful piano waltz by Rodolphe Berger...
"Much that I have to teach you have anticipated today, Frau Mathews -- it is of the utmost importance to learn to revisit the past through memory -- die Erinnerung, the inner-ing of all things that occur to us -- not in a vain attempt to change things that cannot be changed, but as a site for deeper learning, gratitude, and joy. Few can overcome their pride, resentment, and doubt enough to do this, and to such people the past is a field of defeat littered with their broken attempts to have their own way.
"But those walking in love, by faith, can look back and see how even the occasional defeats are part of the plan for which they can give thanks, and see the accumulation of all the blessings they have been given -- and that helps them look forward with faith, for the Blessed Hand never changes.
"Now then, that being understood, Frau Mathews, it was known on high last Thursday what your weekend would be. I was not told, being human just as you are, but I was told to foreshadow what you would later experience. As we walked together in love and you met temptation and determinedly turned from it in order to continue walking upward safely, I gently confirmed your decisions with my much greater size and strength of body and voice, and we kept moving easily.
"That was to foreshadow how you would move through the weekend... continuing to walk in love, refusing the temptation to ignore those who you were called to bless, finding the strength and the patience as you needed it because indeed you were overshadowed by the One Who called you to do what you were doing.
"Now, today, if I said to you, 'We must get to the top of Buena Vista Hill from here in the next three hours, for there is someone there that we must bless, would you worry at all about us getting there?"
"No," I said. "I can physically do it in three hours now that the anemia has resolved, and now that I have eaten, and also because we are going together -- if we are going, you will get us there even if I become tired."
"I'm just the echo, Frau Mathews. I'm just the echo."
He paused for a moment to let that sink in.
"If we are going, you cannot fail, Frau Mathews. The question is often asked, 'What would you do if you knew you could not fail?' The question is less often asked: 'What are you called to do, and is that one capable of getting you where they are calling you to go?' This is where we as humans so often go wrong, for there are so many voices calling us to do this or that, and sometimes, we are called by people who cannot even secure their own good, much less ours, and have little thought for our good anyhow although they might say the right things when calling us.
"Another question is well-considered, therefore, in such situations among people: "And what are you prepared to commit to facilitate my coming on the journey you propose for us -- what preparations have you made for my needs?"
"That question would have spared me decades of trouble," I said, shaking my head.
"And it yet will, Frau Mathews, in the decades that may well be ahead of you," he said. "That is a corollary of the more important portion of the lesson."
He put me down, and then wrapped me up in his embrace, and again put his hand behind my head.
"I could overpower you, but you know that I would never do that," he said. "My immense strength is for your good as you walk as you are called. I am just the echo, Frau Mathews. There will never be a time in which the Blessed Hand will not empower you in what you are led to do, to the point that in a small way you will be able to understand how it is to be overshadowed by the power of the Highest."
"Which brings me to the portion of this lesson that we owe to @jesuslnrs, and his sharing Vicente Emilio Sojo's magnificent Kyrie with Hive and therefore you. Maestro Sojo, like you, was an humble soul, and gave much attention to the following generations rather than to exalt himself, and like you is a far greater composer than the world at large knows -- but we see that at the proper time, his work will be revealed, and his legacy exalted one on one of the highest days in his nation's history. He, too, could not fail, doing what he was called to do. The world is cold, and slow ... but eventually, it is graced to catch up to what has been ordained to be brought forth."
"With that in mind I say to you, Frau Mathews: you have done well on Hive to work through its long, long love affair with the 20-cent range --."
I rolled laughing at that.
"That is a fine way to put that -- Hive has some constancy with 20 cents, for sure!" I said.
"And yet you know you are called to do what you are called to do, and you remain constant in effort because of Who called you to do so," he said. "Now then, Frau Mathews, consider your life as a musician. Create and arrange all that is given to you, and think nothing of what you do not have around you at this moment. Give no thought at all to who may or may not have time at a particular moment. Sojo, Sviridov, Chesnokov: all of them wrote for a future far beyond them ... and, so too your ancestors created the Negro Spiritual, whose life will likewise be eternal. Constancy is the finite way of handling the eternal, and it does not concern itself with external obstacles. There are none of any importance.
"Speaking of out of Germany with love," I said, "there is a composition opportunity from there -- I have until March to respond. There is also a near call from a singer for something I have already written."
"March -- half a year to work from here -- HA!" he said. "You can, whether you should or should not, and the same goes for the near call. But remember what we have learned in the summer: there are many open doors, but with honest reflection you must discern what is right for you. We add to the first day of autumn that the reward of making the determination to not go by any path but that to which you are called will be that your devotion will be confirmed and power given you to do whatever you are called to do. Thus, in that you cannot fail, Frau Mathews, although certain temporal goals you may desire may elude your grip, and later on, you will be thankful for that fact."
Now that was an audacious statement to make to another human being ... except that if I had my way in 2023 ... so I smiled and just put my head back on that immense chest.
"You're right," I said. "The past has already shown me this."
"That went down easier than I expected," he said.
"First of all, never underestimate the power of a big bass voice and a smile --.
It was his turn to roll laughing, and for once, I had the last word.
"And then, I have known, from the first moment I heard you as Commendatore, Whose firm, mighty, and eternal love you were called into my life to echo -- dear voice thrice blessed, in beauty, in range, and in power, echoing to me in German, in music, and in the artfully presented word -- thrice blessing! I hear you, and I hear Who sent you!"
To that, he was speechless, but his look was eloquent of such joy and gratitude that to look upon it, as he looked heavenward, was to know the reflection of the joys there, and then downward, and all that love behind him blended with his wealth of personal warmth and affection, to meet my face, turned upward, also for the moment thinking heavenward, and then opening my eyes to see him, thus. There was no more to be said ... so vast was the light of joy on this moment, in this place ...
... and we just went right around again until Earth's gravity was done with us and we stepped off for a little while around the Sun, midnight and midday embracing depending on which way you looked.
Ever dutiful, of course, when Earth's gravity finally decided to pick up again, he plotted our approach to San Francisco through a beautiful evening... all the colors of it seemed to have gathered into his face and eyes -- Herr Old Blush or Altesrouge indeed, as he, still unable to speak a word for joy, bade me goodbye at my door with one last gentle clasping of my little hand in his two immense ones -- the sunset itself blushed, to see his face then...
... and the next day I got to work and found that once again, somebody had sent flowers to the boardroom ... roses, pale pink, blushed with gold, and of a rich, warm scent. Of course, I knew that was coming ... for I had dreamed of the Northern Lights coming as far south as San Francisco, and making the night as bright as that sunset with the colors of overwhelming joy that somebody was out there singing in a voice no mortal ears could hear, and yet, could be seen in the glow-up of a midnight like no other. Now mortal ears in Golden Gate Park would eventually hear many things ... the fanbase was so not ready ... but that is another story!
No one is strong enough to weather every storm.
Pain knocks us down because it is part of the nature of life. We learn from pain and we forget pain; it is fleeting, yet perpetual.
Update: @deeanndmathews, I paid out 0.112 HIVE and 0.020 HBD to reward 1 comments in this discussion thread.