Tuesday, August 26, 2008

for once the path and not the traveler


Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
The songlines are the invisible pathways that criss-cross Australia, ancient tracks connecting communities and following ancient boundaries. Along these lines Aboriginals passed the songs which revealed the creation of the land and the secrets of its past.

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So a musical phrase is a map reference?”

Music is a memory bank for finding one's way around the world”

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...the story of the Big Fly One was beyond me...[snip]... it took me ages to realize that this was a Quantas Dreaming. Joshua had flown to London: the Arrival Gate, Health, Immigration, Customs, and then the ride into the Underground. The 'wiggles' were the twists and turns of the taxi, from the tube station to the hotel.”

...I think I would be happy in that place I happen not to be, and this question of moving house is the subject of a perpetual dialog I have with my soul.” Baudelaire 'Any Where Out of this World'

A Sufi manual, the Kashf-al-Mahjub, says that, toward the end of his journey, the dervish becomes the Way, not the wayfarer, i.e. a place over which something is passing, not a traveler following his own free will.”

By spending his whole life walking and singing his Ancestor's Songline, a man eventually becomes the track, the Ancestor and the song”