Morag.
Morag Northey is offering a gift of cello and voice meditations to the citizens of this city. I witnessed her today at Memorial Park Library, but if you wish to experience her performance you will need to go to St. Mary’s Cathedral, Mondays at noon, until the end of April. I started out with my notebook and pen in hand, but after not too long I went into some kind of trance. What follows is a transcription of the notes I made and I have included a photo of my notebook at the end of this post. Thanks for reading . . . .
Morag/Meditation
Morag is beautiful beyond reason
Full of such beautiful music and we are lucky enough to sit quietly by
And hear what spills out
Would you believe the skill involved
To make something seem so simple and effortless?
The clock on the wall says high noon
A faint gong sounds
And suddenly we are on
Like monks in a temple in the mountains
Wearing robes and all that monkish madness
Morag plays
In fours, one note
Then dropping a fifth
An open stringed chord
Then dropping an octave
As she sings above the strings
An ancient tune that is at once new
Yet has always been sung in just this way
Just this way as it is now
(And then I seem to slip into some kind of trance)
We are in a marketplace
In an antique land
The water lapping against the shore of a river before god
A call to vespers
Bearded figures crossing a courtyard
Garments rustling
Bare feet pounding into the dirt
As the light fades from the sky
And a wind blows, fragrant
Who dares to live outside the enclosure of time?
And steam rises from the river
Back in the early reaches of time
Before the spirit of time was broken
There is no greater purpose
Beyond the emptiness of this moment
(Last time I checked I was a child
Now I seem to be an elder of the tribe)
And after the chimes have sounded
An end to this, for now
Morag hugs me and says
“The hardest thing is to take your ego out of it.”
For what is left
Is what is left
That’s all.
eugene stickland 
Eugene – your poetry, words weaving through the space we carved out and allowed happen – I am touched. It is gratifying to feel us all flying through that magical moment – what a gift! Thank you for being there, it was a beautiful journey…
with Love, appreciation, and thankfulness, Morag!
It was transcendental, truly, which is so rare. My words are but a dull echo. We should do something together again. We will make it so.
Love,
Eugene