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Some
of Our Favourite Quotes |
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If you have a favourite quote you would like to share, please
contact Stephanie at
alaria@syrynx.net. |
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Unknowingly, we plow
the dust of stars,
blown about us by the
wind,
and drink the universe
in a glass of rain.
-Ihab
Hassan
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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"
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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
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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
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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
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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
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The space can be a
musical collaborator--a partner.
-Paul
Horn
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Taiowa is the breath;
humankind, the
mouthpiece
to carry the sounds of
creation to
the far reaches of
eternity.
-Hopi Song of Creation
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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
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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
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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
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All creation sang its
own song, and in doing so brought itself into being.
-Unknown
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Peace at
last. . . When my body lies without a song, my spirit and the
eagles will soar together.
-Unknown |
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"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
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"If you can talk, you can
sing. If you can walk, you can dance."
-Unknown
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"Every soul is a melody which
needs renewing."
-Stephane
Mallarme
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"The soul should always stand
ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."
-Emily
Dickinson
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"Do not fear mistakes. There
are none."
-Miles
Davis
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"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
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"It don't mean a thing
if it ain't got that
swing."
-Duke
Ellington
Irving Mills
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"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
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"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
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"God gives us each a song.
That's how we know who we are. Our songs tell us who we are."
-Charlie
Knight
Ute
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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
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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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