Some of Our Favourite Quotes

 

If you have a favourite quote you would like to share, please contact Stephanie at alaria@syrynx.net.

 
Unknowingly, we plow the dust of stars,
blown about us by the wind,
and drink the universe in a glass of rain.
                              -Ihab Hassan
 
Ring the bells that you can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There's a crack in everything
That's how light gets in.
                       -Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"
 
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
                                             -Emily Dickinson
 
glory to the Musician whose Melody
erases everything that burdens the heaert
the One whose breath blowing in the flute
releases us from all that burdens our mind
                             -Nureddin Abdorrahman Ibn-e Ahmad Jami
 
after it had been nourished by the waters of ancient rains
the reed raised its head
it beheld itself and saw that it was encased in a robe of cane
 
next it beheld the mud out of which it had appeared
and knew then that it was tied by many knots to where it had
taken birth
 
O Friend
the reed moaned
lend me a hand
so I may move away from this mud
 
time passed and when it was right the Flute Player appeared
He removed the many layers of cane and undid the reed's
many knots
the reed was now smooth outside and empty inside
He then put the reed to his lips and finding it empty of itself
breathed in the selfless reed all his secrets in the form of
 melodies
 
the reed declared then that it was no more
and it was right for now it was a flute
 
his breath is in me and my voice is his tune, the reed
announced humbly
I am him and He is me though to the ignorant this be
blasphemy
                             -Nureddin Abdorrahman Ibn-e Ahmad Jami
 
Within each of us is a loving
magical, powerful being
a Real Self.
Music, friend that it is,
cocoons us from our worries,
enabling that hidden self
to emerge.
           -Peter Kater
 
The space can be a musical collaborator--a partner.
                  -Paul Horn
 
Taiowa is the breath;
humankind, the mouthpiece
to carry the sounds of creation to
the far reaches of eternity.
 
                   -Hopi Song of Creation
 
The object of art is expression.
The essence of expression is imagination.
The control of imagination is form.
The "medium" for all three is technique.
                                              -H. Witherspoon
 
You are the notes, and we are the flute.
We are the mountain, you are the sounds
    coming down.
We are the pawns and kings and rooks
you set out on a board:  we win or we lose.
We are lions rolling and unrolling on flags.
Your invisible wind carries us through the
    world.
                                                 -Jelalluddin Rumi
 
A Native Psalm
 
(Among the Cherokee, it was said that when one had captivated another's heart that they "walked in their soul."  Among many Native American Tribes, when a young man began the courting process, he would fashion a courtship or love flute.  Sitting outside the woman's lodge, he would play love songs for her.  The role of the blanket among Northern Plains tribes of denoting relationship is multi-faceted.  In a public declaration of love, a young woman would put a blanket over her shoulders and hold it open for a young man.  Together, they would walk through the village with the same blanket over their shoulders.  It was a public display of commitment.
 
Native people often adopted others from within and outside their tribal structure.  Once recognized, the adopted person had the same social status as a birth-child or partner.  Such an event was often celebrated with feasting and dance.)
 
"Creator,
You have covered the Earth with grasses.
Cover me with Your presence.
Flood over my spirit like a rain,
until I stand, wet
because of You.
Walk through my soul,
so Your steps are as familiar
as the rhythm of my heart.
Make from the branches of my life,
a love-flute.
Play me.
Blow your breath through me,
and I will play your love song.
You have held your blanket open for me,
and welcomed me inside.
Cover me.
Wrap and envelop me,
and I will dance
the dance of the adopted one."
 
                                        -Ray Buckley
                                         Lakota/Tlingit
 
All creation sang its own song, and in doing so brought itself into being.
                                          -Unknown
 
Peace at last. . .  When my body lies without a song, my spirit and the eagles will soar together.
                                              -Unknown
 
"When you begin a note, it comes from somewhere and keeps going forever after you have finished.  It comes from your impulse to sing, from your mind and heart, all the way back to the beginning of time.  It goes into thin air, into walls, patient trees, open sky, molecules, heat, radiation, and on into vibrations there aren't names for.  Part of it does, anyway.  The rest of it goes into the hearts and minds of others.  Nothing is lost.  Everything keeps going around."
                                                -W. A. Mathieu
 
"If you can talk,  you can sing.  If you can walk, you can dance."
                                                 -Unknown
 
"Every soul is a melody which needs renewing."
                                                 -Stephane Mallarme
 
"Humanity is like Native American Flutes.  They each have diversity and similarity.  Diversity in the sound of every individual flute and diversity in every individual makes each unique.  It is our similarities that can bring us together.  Listen carefully and understand."
                                                  -Patrick Nielander
 
"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
 
"Hey, it just hit me that those who say they can't read music are wrong!  The best music will always come from our deep center, and that music is read with the 'eyes' of the heart.  It just takes a little 'listening' to be able to 'read' that music."
                                                   -Bob West
 
"Improvisation, it is a mystery.  You can write a book about it, but by the end no one still knows what it is.  When I improvise and I'm in good form, I'm like somebody half sleeping.  I even forget there are people in front of me.  Great improvisers are like priests; they are thinking only of their god."
                                                    -Stephane Grappelli
 
"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."
                                                     -Emily Dickinson
 
"Your intention is part of your music and never leaves it.  It came from somewhere and goes somewhere.  It is connected directly to your listeners and indirectly to everyone else.  When the song is over, your intention keeps going."
                                                      -W. A. Mathieu
 
"The Native Flute music I heard was serious and powerful, but with a touch of whimsy."
                       -Cleve Friedman, speaking of his experience at Flute Quest 2006
 
"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.  And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost."
                                                        -Martha Graham
 
"To the rationally minded, the mental process of the intuitive appears to work backward.  His conclusions are reached before his premises.  This is not because the steps which connect the two have been omitted but because those steps are taken by the unconscious."
                                                           -Frances Wickes
 
"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.  The creative mind plays with the objects it loves."
                                                           -Carl Jung
 
"Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness--I wouldn't know.  But I am sure that it is the antithesis of self-consciousness."
                                                             -Aaron Copland
 
"Dancing is not getting up painlessly like a speck of dust blown around in the wind.
Dancing is when you rise above both worlds, tearing your heart to pieces, and giving up your soul.
Dance where you can break yourself to pieces and totally abandon your worldly passions.
Real men dance and whirl on the battlefield; they dance in their own blood.
When they give themselves up, they clap their hands;
When they leave behind the imperfections of the self, they dance.
Their minstrels play music from within; and whole oceans of passion foam on the creast of the waves."
                                                                  -Jallaludin Rumi
 
"I am always between two currents of thought:  first the material difficulties, turning round and round and round to make a living; and second, the study of color.  I am always hoping to make a discovery here, to express the feelings of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.  To express the thought behind a brow by the radiance of a bright tone against a somber background.  To express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset glow."
                                                                     -Vincent Van Gogh
 
"The very act of putting my work on paper, of, as we say, kneading the dough, is for me inseparable from the pleasure of creation.  So far as I am concerned, I cannot separate the spirital effort from the psychological and physical effort; they confront me at the same level and do not present a hierarchy."
                                                                         -Igor Stravinsky
 
"Do not fear mistakes.  There are none."
                                                                       -Miles Davis
 
"Music, the word we use in our everyday language, is nothing less than the picture of our Beloved.  It is because music is the picture of our Beloved that we love music."
                                                                        -Hazrat Inayat Khan
 
"It don't mean a thing
    if it ain't got that swing."
                                                                         -Duke Ellington
                                                                             Irving Mills
 
"We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
                                                                         -T. S. Eliot
 
"Play.
Listen and Play.
Play, Play, Play.
Listen and Play.
Play, Play, Play, Watch, Write.
Listen and Play and Write.
Play, Play, Play, Play.
Forget all you've learned up to now,
And just play."
                                                                           -R. Carlos Nakai, March, 1999
 
"God gives us each a song.  That's how we know who we are.  Our songs tell us who we are."
                                                                          -Charlie Knight
                                                                                 Ute
 
In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.  The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time."
                                                                           -Charles Mingus
 
TO MUSIC
 
Music:  breathing of statues.  Perhaps:
silence of paintings.  You language where all
language ends.  You time
standing vertically on the motion of mortal hearts.
 
Feelings for whom?  O you the transformation
of feelings into what?  - :  into audible landscape.
You stranger:  music.  You heart-space
grown out of us.  The deepest space in us,
which, rising above us, forces its way out,  -
holy departure: 
when the innermost point in us stands
outside, as the most practiced distance, as the other
side of the air: 
pure,
boundless,
no longer habitable.
                                                                            -Rainer Maria Rilke
 
 

 

 

 


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