In 1963, John Cage the avant-garde composer and philosopher said, “The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind thus rendering it susceptible to Divine influences.” Cage wrote ORGAN 2/ASLAP; As slow as possible, a composition for organ that will play for 639 years. For the past ten years this piece has been playing continually in a mediaeval church in Germany. The first note was a rest which lasted eighteen months, the longest note will take 70 years. Inshallah with the peace and creativity of future generations ASLAP with play continually until 2639.

This week I watched a beautiful documentary called “As Slow as Possible”, the story of Ryan Knighton, a young man in the twilight of complete blindness as he undertakes a pilgrimage to the Church of St Burchard in Halberstadt Germany, to hear a change in note of this organ. His journey is symbolic of a change in octave, of light into darkness, darkness into light, of inevitable transformation, the invitation of deep time and timelessness, and what it means to embody the eternal in our fleeting lives.

Of course this was all too much for my saggability, and I’ve been haunted for days now by slow time, by living a life of presence, peace and practice outside of time. Of how I am easily swept into the rapids of our time, of all that conspires to drown out our most sacred silences, our sacred music, our connections to what is Real.

I live in a place of deep time, or geologic time here in the blue mountains, measured by milleniums, a landscape of overwhelming otherness and presence. Time lays down here in orange and gold, bronze and blue. Here where my own ephemeral life and its fleeting struggles and joys are nothing but a morning dew drop upon the ancient one’s hand.

The exponential increase in speed in the world is contrary to the spirit of slow time. Im one of few who still treasures the intimacy of a hand written letter. Corresponding by snailmail is fast becoming a dying art from. And if anyone would like one, let me know and I would be deighted to write a Real letter to you rather than upon my electric campfire. I have a delicious collection of rice papers, and writing paper in what is a Real ceremony to sit, slow down and write upon paper.

So in this millennium suddenly theres speed dating, speed yoga, speed meditation…hello? Of course speed cameras, the evil facebook and all manner of cyberdistraction. Where has the time gone? Is it a mirror reflecting our own crazed projections? Milan Kundra said “there is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.”

Can I relax into the afternoon sun falling through the pine trees and rhododendron by my window, as a steam train whistles in the distance, and La Scala plays to the dancing fire?
Can I surrender to the imperative of timelessness by beginning each day in silence? Meditation is a portal into timelessness, into the heart of all things. I remember Svoboda’s words, “Relax and remain calm.” Oh to slow down and hear my beating heart.

Hail slow food, slow cities, unhurried children, slow baths, slow sex, slow moments together, to remember our passing lives, our timeless loves.

My teacher Lee Lozowick is reknown for the vast array of projects and activity that swirls around him. Someone asked him how to fit all this in, how to make time? Lee explained the principle of bending time, which is achieved by attending only to that which is most profitable in the moment.

“Human beings once woke with the sun and usually went to sleep not long after dark. Depending on which archaeologists you believe, this went on from anywhere from a quarter of a million to three million years. It has changed utterly and drastically in the last one hundred. One hundred years is such a tiny part of the human time line that as a collective we’re in the first split second of this change; we’ve barely had time to blink twice. Say it slowly: we have dispensed with what the nervous system knew as time, and since we know time and space are related, to be lost in time is also to be lost in space. ” Michael Ventura.

Listen. In the vast emptiness of the Australian landscape can be heard the primordial sound, the jivari of country. I have experienced this in the red desert country with such intensity that it is actually defeaning, and its sound is not unlike the organ in the Church of St Burchard. Bruce Chatwin explores this in his wonderful book called Songlines. Much like the Vedic poets, the indigenous peoples of the deserts refer to these sounds as songlines, the trails and elements of songs that create the sacred landscape. These songlines follow the literal pathways of the dreamtime ancestors, mapping the landscape revealing the visible and invisible worlds. By following these traditional pathways the traveller will always find people who share her dreaming. Much like the radiant sangha, or kula scattered across the world, across our pilgrimages and dreamings. Singing up the country. This is why ceremony and song are so important to the of survival of our indigenous people, of our own souls. Our country that only speaks slowly, in deep time.

Following the songline of I Am implies an obligation and reciprocity with this landscape. Of practice, intention, authenticity. Empowering all existence as divinised and sacred, singing the great world song of I am. There is an unspoken commitment to honour this songline of spirit that so many have walked before us. Ryan’s tears in the church are my tears. This pathway, this songline that transforms us into authentic human beings, serving the song in kinship with all things.

As slow as possible.

What is left? Nothing and everything. By any other name the opera of emptiness.

http://www.john-cage.halberstadt.de/new/index.php?seite=dasprojekt&l=e

“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction
between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent
illusion.” Albert Einstein