"kinds of desire"

 
    one of my dear friends, bd, is an adjunct professor of art and spirituality. she's currently preparing for a class on "artistic expressions of religious experience", and soliciting contributions from her friends. her latest request is for artworks that express "the religious experience of desire". i sent her the video of the mozart  "ave verum corpus".





    it always feels like reaching for heaven when i sing it. thinking in particular of a tour in quebec, singing it with my friends on the top of "mount royal", at St Joseph's Oratory. above is a photo of the outside. here is the "chapel" where we sang. we were in the organ/choir loft in the back. we knew the piece and each other so well that it came to life in a way that i hope dear wolfie would appreciate. 












   above the chapel and the cathedral is the little chapel of brother andre (may be St Andre now). people came to him for healing. they left their crutches and canes behind in faith. i was 3 weeks out of a full reconstruction of my right knee, hiding the giant brace under my gown, and walking with a cane. my friends teased me about leaving it there.         * some people asked why there were only children's crutches there- dumb tourists. people were much smaller then.













 

    the question, of course, set this philosopher off on the kinds of desire we experience. on the face of it, i desire to break my shackles and get out of this room! my corporeal "tree", sadly, is an illusion, like this one. though my will is strong, i am fleshed out with ephemera. i have to release "desire" like a balloon every day, the one made of futile regrets and wants.                      lucky me, there are many things in my life that have nothing to do with that kind, with traveling and touring and "going".    like being.

                                                                                                             

   my desires are for what i already have, which is a very old prescription for happiness. laughing with my daughter will never be out of my reach.  
                                                                                    



 








    hearing her sing more beautifully than i could do will never grow old, nor will knowing how many talents she has, musical and otherwise. some i have passed along to her, as well as zebrahood, for which i can take equally no pride or blame. in every moment, i know she is on the planet, and that fulfills a desire that i thought was hopeless, to have any children of my own. 










 this is her best talent, mothering her daughter, Cadence. also, obviously, a miracle on this earth. not only is she here, that would be ample happiness for anyone, but she was blessed in her cradle too. bright and a beauty and a fierce drummer, she is ready to carry on the family mission of world domination through music.

 she loves snails...




 this is how i prefer to see my tree.

                                         "the moon has become a dancer at this festival of love"
                                                                         Rumi