We’ve discussed Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) in a previous blog. The music piece featured in today’s blog is based on another of his images: “The Harmony of the Birth of the World” (originally a black-and-white engraving, hand-colored for your viewing pleasure by yours truly):

To write a piece about Creation that’s only a few minutes long seems almost preposterous–Haydn takes a couple hours of music in his oratorio Creation, and even God Himself took 6 whole days to create the Cosmos! But I like to think about how these Archetypal Stories continue to re-enact themselves today, in my own life. If we’re “created in the image of God”, does the Genesis story say something about how my own acts of creation unfold?

Here is one imagination of that. You may have another, and tomorrow I could likely have yet another still! But here’s one for today:

• I first start with ‘darkness’–before any creation commences or insight occurs.
• Then I have an ‘idea’–Light is a frequent metaphor for ideas (including the light bulb turning on over your head).
• Then this idea begins to give structure to whatever it’s about (separating the firmaments): it begins to give structure to the notes if it’s a piece of music, it begins to give structure to personal decisions if it’s an idea about how to move forward in my life. At this stage I can separate elements in my life into “this furthers my Idea” (the firmament ABOVE) and “this hinders my Idea” (the firmament BELOW) and start making choices accordingly.
• And, any really Good Idea brings forth lots of implied additional ideas as it works itself out–it’s “fruitful and multiplies”.

Another thought: a rather a tacit assumption from the Genesis story is that God stopped creating after Creation. But the story only says that He rested on one day–not that He took the rest of Eternity off! Perhaps after a day of rest, He gets right back to work creating some more? Hmm…

The piece opens with a single note ‘E’. This has a definite symbolic significance:

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the cosmos–it accounts for about 75% of the universe’s elemental mass. Stars are mainly composed of hydrogen in its plasma state, and our Sun accounts for 99.9% of the total mass of our solar system–the earth and other planets are just the tiniest dust motes floating around our Solar Candle.

Hydrogen generates a spectral line at 1420.40575 MHz due to changes in its energy state.  These changes actually occur very rarely, but there’s just so darn much hydrogen in this Really Big Cosmos that there’s a constant 1420.40575 MHz “hum” going on all the time as a cosmic background whistle. If we were to transpose this “hum” down into the audio range (20 octaves more or less), its closest note (in standard tuning) is ‘E’, so that’s the sustained note with which the piece begins.

And much more. But I can’t give away all my secrets! <wink!>

So here we are, starting a new year. We’ve just completed our ‘6 days of creation’ called 2008, and the whole world takes a deep breath at the Winter Holy-Days–a ‘day of rest’–before plunging into the next ‘6 days’ called 2009. This piece is my wish to you for a blessed new year!

“The Harmony of the Birth of the World” is scored for symphony orchestra and pipe organ (see Kircher’s image).

Here’s the whole piece (9:44)

Here’s the first 30 seconds

Sincerely,

william

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As I mentioned in last week’s post, alchemy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance was about much more than “changing lead into gold”–in addition to being proto-science concerned with medicine through metallurgy through proto-chemistry, within its literature there is also a stream called ‘inner alchemy’ for which that metaphor was about ‘changing the lead of the human heart into Gold‘. In other words, it was a way for folks to talk about the Spiritual Path under the radar of the religious authorities (back when heresy was potentially a capital offense–and a barbarically excruciating one at that).

Here’s an image from the Quinta Essentia by Thurneisser (1530-96):

Until you get some familiarity with the ‘language’ of these alchemical images, it’s hard to even know where to begin. So here’s is one interpretation–and by no means the only one:

The tree: what do trees do? They have their roots in the earth, but they reach for the heavens.

The birds: their natural abode is the heavens.

The dragon: unlike western children’s bedtime stories, dragons in the alchemical literature are not necessarily evil and destructive.  And the natural abode of dragons is also the heavens. But this one is on the earth. And kneeling (as well as a dragon can kneel!)… and instead of breathing out fire, it’s drinking in water. And the result of that is that the Alchemical Tree is blossoming…

Again, my hints at ‘interpretation’ have no more authority than anyone else’s. But it’s a place to start!

Here’s my companion piece. It’s scored for chamber orchestra (strings, french horns, flute, oboe, clarinet, harp, celesta, finger cymbals):

The Alchemical Tree (5:44)

The Alchemical Tree–the first 30 seconds

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Of course we all know about the ‘alchemists’ of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance–attempting to “turn lead into gold”. What isn’t as well known is that there was a lot more to Alchemy than just that: it was actually proto-science: for example, they figured out by long trial and error how to make substances like ‘nitric acid’–many of the initial and practical ‘baby steps’ that made our modern theory of chemistry possible later (thanks mostly to Lavoisier (1743–1794) –a colleague of Benjamin Franklin in Paris). Likewise for medicine, metallurgy, glass making, and various other proto-technologies.

The surviving alchemical literature is really quite extensive, and in addition to the various initial attempts at practical science, there is indeed a lot about ‘transforming lead into gold’. But within all of this there is yet another literary stream, in which the writers use ‘transforming lead into gold’ as a metaphor for transforming the Human Heart from ‘lead’ into ‘gold’–in other words, Spiritual Enlightenment. (In this context it’s worth remembering Biblical metaphors such as “He (God) is like a refiner’s fire.”). These writers used the symbolism of Alchemy to write about the Spiritual Path, and by using the symbolism of Alchemy they were able to do so under the radar of the Inquisition (with varying degrees of success!). This literary stream has come to be known as “Inner Alchemy”.

Possibly the earliest, and certainly still one of the most important authors/researchers on Inner Alchemy is Carl Jung (1875–1961).

And there’s not just ‘alchemical literature’–there’s also a great deal of ‘alchemical Art’–fabulous images unlike anything else I have ever seen. They range from amazing charts and diagrams (an example below), to fantastic landscape-type images (future blogs).

And Alchemy isn’t limited to just the West. To be sure, the Western Alchemical literature (and iconography) makes heavy use of Christian and Jewish symbolism, but there is also Islamic and even Chinese Alchemy.

When I view these images, they take me to a magical place that makes me want to write music about it. (Hence this blog, and new piece!)

Here’s an example, an image by Jakob Böhme (1575-1624), from his Wunderauge der Ewigkeit (”The Miraculous Eye of Eternity”). Böhme was born in Germany, grew up a Lutheran and became a shoemaker. But he had mystical visions throughout his life, and in 1610 he started writing books. These did not set well with the Lutheran authorities and he spent the rest of his life writing and dodging charges of Heresy (potentially a capital crime).

In this image, on the left is the world of darkness (as Böhme writes): “when the eye of wonder enters nature”, on the right is the world of light, “when the Divine Mystery has passed through the fire and dwells in majestic light.” The cruciform reflective axes mark the sphere of the magic fire “from which both the angels and the soul of man originate”.

“Everything that wishes to have divine light must go through the dying, magic fire and exist in it, just as the heart on the cross must exist in the fire of God.”

I’ve taken the liberty of re-imagining this chart in more 21st century garb:

And of course I have an accompanying piece of music, also titled “The Dying, Magic Fire”, scored for glass armonica and string orchestra:

Here’s the first 30 seconds

Here’s the whole piece
(6:27)

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