Reaching Imladris (Rivendell)

[Eruannlass]

Suilad all,
I know that Eadha has had an experience in Rivendell, but in the event that a meditation sequence has yet to be written, my husband called this song to my attention yesterday, and I think it would serve as a great guideline for writing a Rivendell meditation sequence, if one hasn't been done already.  Anyone can take the idea and run with it, or I can add it to my to do list...
                                                          Eruannlass

Rivendell

by Neil Peart of Rush

Sunlight dances through the leaves
soft winds stir the sighing trees.
Lying in the warm grass
feel the sun upon your face.

Elven songs and endless nights.
Sweet wine and soft relaxing lights.
Time will never touch you
here in this enchanted place.

I've travelled for many miles.
It feels so good to see the smiles
of friends who never left your mind
when you were far away.

From the golden light of coming dawn
'till twilight when the sun is gone.
we treasure every season
and every passing day.

You feel there's something calling you.
You're wanting to return
to where the Misty Mountains rise
and friendly fires burn.

A place you can escape the world
where the dark lord cannot go.
Peace of mind and sanctuary
By Loudwater's flow.

We feel the coming of a new day
dark gives way to light a new way.
Stop here for awhile until
the world calls you away.

Yet you know I've had the feeling
standing with my senses reeling.
This is the place to grow old
'till I reach my final day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wkGWdQ8Vd8

If Rush sang like this more often, I might actually like the band...
                                                                      Eruannlass

[Meneldur Olvarion]

OMG!

I didn't see this yesterday, as we had to go to an appointment at the local state office to get medical insurance for Elanor and that was at 9AM.  Since I'm not typically awake until after the crack of 1PM, I was a bit frazzled. 

Anyway, the day before yesterday the lines from Rush's “Cygnus: X1” were running through my head.  I heard this when their “Hemispheres” album first came out in 1978 and they have stuck with my ever since – though I had not heard the actual music since those days.  However, it is one of my talents to be able to 'replay' a song I like in my head if I have really taken to it.

I later went out on bittorrent and downloaded the album.

Here are the lines I was thinking of – I think that they are very like the essence of what we do in our trancework with the Valar:

I have memory and awareness,
But I have no shape or form.
As a disembodied spirit,
I am dead and yet unborn.
I have passed into Olympus
As was told in tales of old,
To the city of Immortals,
Marble white and purest gold...

I see the gods in battle rage on high...
Thunderbolts across the sky...
I cannot move, I cannot hide...
I feel a silent scream begin inside...

Then all at once the chaos ceased
A stillness fell, a sudden peace
The warriors felt my silent cry
And stayed their struggle, mystified.

Apollo was astonished;
Dionysus thought me mad.
But they heard my story further
And they wondered, and were sad.

Looking down from Olympus
On a world of doubt and fear,
Its surface splintered
Into sorry Hemispheres.

They sat a while in silence,
Then they turned at last to me:
"We will call you Cygnus,
The god of Balance you shall be."

The full lyrics are here.  I can post a link to the MP3 if people are interested (I sent it to Ellenar last night via Skype).  It's a long track – 17 minutes.  They really knew how to make long, meditative songs back in the day; at least in the progressive rock genre.

///Dave

[Eruannlass]

Suilad Aikanar -
I can listen to Rush at home - Jim is a huge fan, and just burned all his rush cds onto the 'puter - how I heard Rivendell.  Other people may want to hear it, tho.  I'll sample it, and actually listen if I like it.  My official stance on Rush is that I love their lyrics - but Geddy Lee's voice gives me a headache after about 5 minutes.  The exception is the vocal type on Rivendell - unless that's Neil...anyway, Jim was burning the music for about 5 hours - I holed up in the bedroom and was doing IV stuff until he was finished - I couldn't bring myself to organize the living room to Rush...
But yeah, those lyrics are good.  I told Jim that every 70s band made some arbitrary mention of LOTR in their music, but that it seemed Rush actually paid attention to the story and it's spirit, and came up with something really beautiful...

So do you think it'll work for a sequence?
                                                              Eruannlass

[Meneldur Olvarion]

[...] My official stance on Rush is that I love their lyrics - but Geddy Lee's voice gives me a headache after about 5 minutes.

;D  He does take some getting used to, especially on these earlier albums.  I suppose it's an aquired taste.  My natural likings run more to Maynard James Keenan's material, but as you say, Rush was the "thinking person's band" of their day.

The exception is the vocal type on Rivendell - unless that's Neil

I'm pretty sure that it's Geddy.

So do you think it'll work for a sequence?

Yes, it is very appropriate.

///Dave

[Eruannlass]

Cool...I still have the "laundry list" to deal with, but I can play around with the idea...I have completed my Nienna meditation, and as soon as I post it, I can start measuring the detergent as it were...
Jim told me that all the members of Rush have PH.D's in music, so yeah, they are the thinking man's band...
                                        EP

[Meneldur Olvarion]

As promised, here is the link:

http://www.launchfile.com/en/file/3750/ ... I-mp3.html

///Dave

[Eadhastar]

As I am on the library computer I can't listen to the music/videos here BUT the lyrics are amazing (both of them) and my first reaction was a wide-eyed "WOW!"

It's interesting, Dave, the lyrics you posted are very much the sense I got of Rivendell when I visited it, actually. Like the place itself hovers on the edge of memory--especially this section:

I have memory and awareness,
But I have no shape or form.
As a disembodied spirit,
I am dead and yet unborn.
I have passed into Olympus
As was told in tales of old,
To the city of Immortals,
Marble white and purest gold...

On one hand it makes me think of Imladris ... on another hand, it makes me think of any Faded Elves--especially Undomiel. In fact, that first stanza gave me shivers up and down my spine. I have encountered many folk like that on my Journeys.

[Lúthien]

Just came across this post, searched for the song and found it - I had trouble finding it earlier, but the video was posted 11 years ago

[Meneldur Olvarion]

The lyrics here:

Time will never touch you
Here in this enchanted place

are interesting because that was the primary operative mode of the elven rings - as opposed to Sauron's, which was a pretty straight forward mind-control/cognition absorbing† device. JRRT mentions this specifically in Letter 208 when comparing human and elven natural inclinations toward the passage of time:

[...] But certainly Death is not an Enemy! I said, or meant to say, that the 'message' was the hideous peril of confusing true 'immortality' with limitless serial longevity. Freedom from Time, and clinging to Time. The confusion is the work of the Enemy, and one of the chief causes of human disaster. Compare the death of Aragorn with a Ringwraith. The Elves call 'death' the Gift of God (to Men). Their temptation is different: towards a fainéant melancholy, burdened with Memory, leading to an attempt to halt Time.

But, Letters was published in 1981, whereas Fly By Night was released in February 1975, which means that 'Rivendell' was probably written in 1974 at the latest, and could not have used Letters as a source. The lyricist (probably Neil Peart, but I'm not a Rush expert) must have intuited that.
_____

† "Hence his {Morgoth's} endeavour always to break wills and subordinate them to or absorb them into his own will and being, before destroying their bodies." (HoME vol 10, 'Notes on motives in the Silmarillion') Although this note refers to Morgoth, HoME 10 make it quite clear that "{Sauron} thus was often able to achieve things, first conceived by Melkor, which his master did not or could not complete in the furious haste of his malice." Being somewhat of a WWII buff, it reminds me generally of Himmler's role to Hitler. The two latter-day humans being inferior in inherent qualities, even if they did probably exterminate more sentients, given exponential population growth curves.

[Lúthien]

Interesting observation!

It reminds me of one of the observations in Jung's biography where he tells about him discovering that there were two distinct "selves" within him, which he first simply referred to as Nr. 1 and Nr. 2 - one "spirit of the time(s)" - the everyday outward interface, so to say, that interacts with everyone and is always aware (or should be) of being in the "now" (Eckhard Tolle would love it ) - but there's also the "spirit of the depth", maybe you could call that "Soul"; a part within that is literally time-less.

I suppose everyone has those two parts, but it is apparently already hard to use #1 properly (hence the success of mr. Tolle), and I figure that most people have no idea about #2 even existing; but Neil Peart seemingly was. 

On a side note: I'm still re-reading Castaneda's books and notice again that Don Juan so often stresses the importance of being aware that "you have no time, because we're being stalked by Death" which may sound like a morbid fascination, but it's not: it is merely a way to keep your focus trained on what you really should be involved with. Or, as Gandalf phrases it: 
 

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

I think that the "Momento Mori" paintings from the 17th century serve the same goal - I initially just found them weird, those paintings of vases with withered flowers and a skull - but it is indeed all to easy to get distracted and squander the time that was given to you on nonsense like trying to be famous or whatever