Haunted Ancient Diaries

Visiting the Ancient Lands of Music

Far Memory

Tonight I walk alone into ancient memories. Just me and the shadows of anticipation of what is to come. I have crossed into different worlds where there’s more than one moon in the sky. More than one song. More than one soul. Grey clouds wisp across the sky and over the four moons. Big round, solemn moons that possess their own stories. Silver etches around the stars and I hear the tingling bells from the heavens. I wait…I know what is to come. Then there is a roar so loud that it becomes one with the pounding of my heart and I am swept away.

Robert Pattinson, Sam Bradley, Bobby Long, and Marcus Foster.

Four British men who are talented with unique styles. Four men who have discovered the ancient soul of music. It is on their sounds, their music, that I ride into the ancient memories…

 

I hear the soulful cry of  “Wide Open” by Sam Bradley and I breathe in the memories until I am dizzy. My long velvet dress swishes around my ankles as I climb the castle’s winding steps with only the flicker of candlelight on the stone walls, lighting my way.  Somewhere, the moon howls at me, bringing the chill of the long gray waves from beyond Cornwall. I know that he has walked through the frost bright night to see me. I am doing the single most exciting and dangerous thing of my life. The wind whispers around the corners and I must hurry. My secret love is waiting for me on the turret stairs.

“The Meeting on the Turret Stairs,” Painting by Frederic William Burton (1864)                                             

Wide Open (by Sam Bradley: Only parts of the songs are recorded here.)

Well I’m wide open…
this season
I’ve turned my life around
I trust no one…with reason
I resent who I am
Well I’m not runnin’, I’m just acceptin’
Don’t feel that fate has taught me here
They’re my decisions, that I live in
My mind has never been this clear…

Cause I’m wide open….

The moons of this ancient world are not finished with me yet. Rob Pattinson’s song, Never Think, cracks into the moment.

 

Egypt, an ancient place of mists and mysteries and pharaohs and temples. I walk down an avenue of pomegranates to an orchard and sit in the shade of an old fig tree. It is twilight, but the day’s sun still feels hot. I see him in the distance. He approaches me, as gentle as dew falling on a meadow, and his strength is like the rising tide, which engulfs all that would bar its way. It is a very still twilight; there is no wind and the river is like a silver mirror against the pewter-rose sky where stars peek out shyly. A gazelle comes down to drink. It lifts its head and listens as though startled, and springs away through the reeds. And, then he comes toward me, faster and faster…I cannot resist any longer.

 Never Think  (By Rob Pattinson and Sam Bradley: Please note that only parts of the verses are recorded here.)

And oh, save your soul,
save your soul
Before you’re too far gone
Before nothing can be done

I’ll try to decide when
She’ll lie in the end
I ain’t got no fight in me
In this whole damn world
To tell you to hold off
You choose to hold on
It’s the one thing that I’ve known…

Oh, ancient ones, what else can you show me?

 

I lay on the bank, outstretched upon the ground. In the deep quiet of the evening with the four moons hovering over me, Bobby Long’s song, “Two Years Old” rifts through every cell of my being. I stand up quickly, knowing there is much more to come. The rider is dressed entirely in black. Black breeches, black boots and a black shirt. A black coat is rolled and tied to his saddle. He has long, glistening black hair that moves with the horse’s motion. A sword hangs from his saddle. He rides as though he has trampled a conquered world beneath his mare’s hooves. The gypsy’s face is dark, thin, and savage, but breathtakingly beautiful. Pale blue eyes pierce my heart.  I cannot breathe. Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Mon dieu! 

The French Revolution takes its toll upon all of us. It is too painful to bear.  The wind blows rain cold from the west as I remember man and horse riding through the brown, wet woods of an English autumn. He stops in a clearing on the hill’s crest, turns in his saddle, and looks back at me with pale blue eyes the color of summer sky. They haunt me still….

Two Years Old (By Bobby Long)

Livin’ in the darkest dream, Rose up in the cold

These wounds that I have outside

Are 2 years old….

These wounds that I have outside

Are 2 years old…2 years old

Livin’ in the past….So broken and alone

This pain I have inside

Is two years old,

These thoughts that I have inside

Are more than 2 years old…

 

Each time I am in Venice, it reflects back another self, another dream, as if it were partly my own mirror. And tonight it is the same. The air is full of spirits of all those who live here and who have lived here before…those who have worked here, loved here. The stones are thick with history and whisper to me as I walk the deserted streets this night. Byron, Browning, Ruskin, Turner, Tintoretto, Mahler, Stravinsky…Shakespeare. They call out to me. I take off through the Asolean hills. Where fog and mist shroud the peasant houses with red tile roofs, and olive trees across the hillsides. Little torres dot the gentle bumps of hills, and now and then a ruined medieval citadel, or rocca, crowns a precipice. The towns nestle in the valleys. I run down the mountain path, then to a valley, alongside a river on which barges and gondolas ply their trade. An abandoned villa sleeps along the bank. This night is so unpredictable with its capricious powers of music…of sound.  I am powerless.

Tumble Down  (By Marcus Foster)

In this life there’s only one man who is born, who is torn into the night,
he has lived and he has died and he’s the only one who’s tied to the night…

He will walk
through pointless danger,
He will go
through twisted sorrow,
He will know
that if he really saw the wall, it would all just tumble down…

Have you ever seen the haunted ancient morning sweep the stars out from the sky?
Have you ever seen the dust wiped from your heart so clear that you can see it shine, see it shine?

As you walk
through your pointless danger,
you will go through
twisted sorrow,
but you will know
that if you really saw the wall, it would all just tumble down…

Cause it could hold no more truth . . .
It could hold no more dreams,
It could hold no more people… people
they would know what it means,
it could hold no more sky,
it could hold no more sea
no more… no more sea,
it could hold no more time
cause it would all, it would all
just tumble
down….

Marcus Foster, London, England

As artists – musicians, writers, sculptors – it serves us to consciously and continuously find windows to the world of wonder – we must locate places that open the trapdoor to our imagination and allow the breath – the music – of greater worlds to enter our too-claustrophobic lives.

We all need a window for the imagination – for the music. We need a time and place to stare out the window at the snow. Or, to lay under a sky that is filled with four moons. So often, we try to gird ourselves to face a harsh and difficult world when we might, instead, gentle both ourselves and our world just by slowing down…with the music. We all worry rather than ruminate. We fret rather than speculate. So often, we feel there is so much we yearn to do and so little time to do it.

Bobby Long

“Rest” is a musical term for a pause between flurries of notes. Without that tiny pause, the torrent of notes can by overwhelming. Without a rest in our lives, the torrent of our lives can be the same.

Imagination is not linear. It needs to step beyond ordinary time and space. That is why music comes in myriad and personal forms. That is why I often visit my Haunted Ancient Diaries and transform my world.

Rob, Bobby, Sam and Marcus are glorious musicians. Rob is also a very busy actor. Bobby, Sam and Marcus are touring the U.S. and playing at sold-out shows. It could be argued that as people and as artists, we are what we are – however, we also become ourselves, all of ourselves, by having ourselves mirrored back to us. There is a magical “click” of recognition when the looking glass says back, “Yes, we are what we dream.” Too often, we lack such mirrors and such transforming moments. No magic wand taps our life to make us into what we dream. We must do that ourselves.

We are all far more multiple and rich than most of us assume. We are far larger and more colorful, far more powerful and intricate, far more deep and far more high than we often concede. It is one of the mysterious happiness of the creative life that when we become willing to listen, the “still, small voice” seems to grow louder. The web of life is interconnected. We mustn’t forget that “rest” is a musical term, and that to hear the music of our lives as something other than a propulsive drumbeat, driving us forward as the war drums drove men into bloody battle, we may need to rest. This is when we can hear that “still, small voice.”  It is only then that we can visit the ancient worlds and hear the music.

For now, I am full of music, full of haunted ancient memories. I am in love with the moon, the sky, the trees. I am in love with life. Goodnight, Diary.

We are the children of our landscape;

It dictates behavior and even thought

In the measure to which we are responsive to it.

 ~Lawrence Durrell

Note: Please visit Sam Bradley’s, Marcus Foster’s and Bobby Long’s MySpace pages for upcoming tours. Also, don’t forget that Robert Pattinson’s new movie, Twilight Saga: New Moon, is opening everywhere on November 20^th.

 

 

TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I can hardly wait for the second installment of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful TWILIGHT series – Twilight Saga: New Moon, which premieres in theaters November 20, 2009. In this book/movie, the romance between mortal Bella Swan played by Kristen Stewart and vampire, Edward Cullen played by Robert Pattinson, soars to dizzying heights as it delves deeper into the mysteries of the vampire world and her and Edward’s love.

The trailers so far have been spectacular and promise more action, suspense and beauty than the first installment of the TWILIGHT series. Following Bella’s ill-fated 18th birthday party, Edward and his family flee the town of Forks, Washington, in an effort to protect Bella from the dangers inherent in their supernatural world. Bella is heartbroken. Numb. She sleepwalks through her senior year of high school, numb and alone, then discovers Edward’s image appears to her whenever she puts herself in jeopardy – like riding motorcycles and jumping off cliffs. Her desire to be with him at any cost leads her to take greater and greater risks.

With the help of her childhood friend, Jacob Black, played by a jacked-up Taylor Lautner (who worked hard on beefing up his body for this role), Bella rehabs an old motorbike to carry her on her adventures. Jacob is the only “light” in her world. Jacob falls in love with her, but will she fall in love with Jacob? Bella learns more and more about Jacob, a member of the mysterious Quileute tribe, who has a supernatural secret of his own.

Will Bella ever see Edward again? Will she still love him the way she has always loved him? For those of you have read the books, then of course, you know the answer. But, there are others who haven’t read the books and are happily just going to see the movies. You’re going to be delighted with this movie. You will love it. In fact, you might want to pre-order your ticket now if you can. Chris Weitz (who directed the Golden Compass) directed this movie and he is a master at special effects. I guarantee this movie is going to be a blockbuster hit and will break all records set by the first TWILIGHT movie.