Castalia 364
Music as a key
Dear Friends,
Where is my phone? In this question, the basic question:
Looking out at what appears to me senseless, how may I make sense of it?
Looking out at what appears to me alien, how may I feel at home?
In my own case, the question had to be faced early: I’d been formed by books in a world formed by T. V.
Seeing, with Matthew Arnold,
…a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night…1
I had to learn:
These ignorant soldiers are Immortals, old friends from my Father’s house; alien as they appear, they are only playing a role.
As the Tibetan Book of the Dead puts it:
With every thought of fear or terror for all set aside,
May I recognize whatever appear as the reflections of mine own consciousness…
May I not fear the bands of Peaceful and Wrathful, mine own thought-forms.
As we read philosophy, as we read religious teachings, it helps to have a key — in my case, the key of music2:
Self
and Not-Self
are both aspects of the Greater Self3:
Thank you so much.
With every good wish,
Ishmael
Music as a Path:
I coach musicians online, guiding composers and performers alike to deeper connection with the Muse. For details, please see my website:
Dover Beach (composed c. 1851)
I have often thought that German philosophy was translated from German music.
This sense of music as a living whole, making possible the sense of life as such, I owe to the Schenkerian tradition, and in particular to my teachers Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter.