What is your focus? The hair or the soup Some throw it all out When noticing one float Discard the entire bowl Instead of fishing it out And relishing the meal No matter how much Fishing’s frowned upon Causing repercussions In this imperfect world That’s making it perfect With challenges offered Experiences and lessons Building up the courage To fish out whatever hairs Are floating in your soup And savor a delicious meal With all its good nutrients Given freely in the present Accepting all with gratitude The ever abundant miracle Of life, of love, and the light Plus especially the sound At times shining brilliantly Then again – likely fading Before blossoming anew The rhythm of breathing A sweet melody of spirit Eternal harmony of soul.
What is your focus? – “As God Realizes the Moment”
8-string guitar, multiple fujara, tenor recorder, and voice — May 2020 — 2:26 — also available as loop on a new tab
A toddler’s creative hiding place
Playing hide and seek with a two to three year old: Just cover your eyes! — October 2021
Let it go – let it be Give each their space Especially yourself There’s ever enough To conclude it thus And move on free After a long journey Put your hat on top Of your own head Rather than another No matter the claim For you are ever you Your one and only As are all others Each for themselves They, we, all are soul Consciousness divine Having an experience In this world of now Here in this moment First of all for oneself Together with others Close, and distant too Connected and linked All unified by life Love and nature Beyond the duality Of dogma’s division Each a spark of God.
LoloReachMaj — short sound sample, calm — 8-string guitar — August 2021 — 3:26
Spirit expressed is not the eternal spirit. What can be expressed is not eternal.
Non-being is the beginning of heaven and earth. Being is the origin of individual existence.
Therefore, looking towards non-being leads to contemplating the divine essence, and focusing towards being to contemplate the limitations of duality. However, both are one, from the same source. They are different only in name.
In its entirety, this is a great truth. And a still deeper truth of this secret is the gate through which miracles appear.
Alpine peaks close-up — Männlichen, Switzerland — September 2021
The October 2021 tonality of the month is PentaBlue, a tritone or blues pentatonality.
PentaBlue — short sound sample — June 2020 — 0:40 loop
The tonality of the month of October 2021 is PentaBlue, a tritone or blues tonality and extra pentatonality. It is the root of the Tonalibus group of tritone or blues tonalities. This group leads from PentaBlue via HexaBlue to PhrygBlue, MinBlue, and BlueMix. These are all present in the Tonalibus catalogue, along with BlueUp, a Reg(ressive) tritone or blues tonality. Now, BlueMin just qualified as a coming addition to this group.
Keep going — home
You always get somewhere, if only you go far enough! Sometimes one may feel or get lost on the way. But especially then, the same applies. Keep going! Go further, and you will get somewhere. Trust and confidence carry on and on. Stopping brings demise in most cases. However, most everyone likes to have a place to call home, to stay and return to after explorations. Fortunately though, the world is round. If you go all the way, you will come around back home — but from the opposite side than from which you left it. Thus it will look different. But if it’s really your home, you will recognize it and not pass by.
An inspiring quote
“It is the man who thinks he may live as freely as his unconsidered desires prompt him who does not see the reckoning of such an attitude. He is binding his life to a hollow dream if he persists in this thought. If he has had the experience of knowing his true self, there will never be any hatred for another.” — The Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad, Books One and Two, Paul Twitchell, p. 198
Sound mantra
You may enjoy a sound sample loop, such as the one of the tonality of the month, as sound mantra for contemplation or meditation, for upliftment, focusing, or simply for relaxation and regeneration as soothing background sound. Further, you could hum or chant along, for example using Ōṁ / Aum ॐ, HU, or another mantra syllable, and tune yourself to the fundamental.
Illumination before sunrise over a horizon of Alpine mountains — September 2021 — Grächwil, Switzerland
This September 2021 Tonalibus update presents a new personal sound sample and a few select short sound samples of tonalities that are in the process of appearing in the Tonalibus catalogue. This massive expansion of the tonalities catalogue has been explained in the last Tonalibus update. The current update gives more details, also about tonality name adjustments and components. Finally, in closing, it touches on choice and trust.
A new personal sound sample
“Na track” — Na(tural harmonics) in action — for M.
TetraNa with a touch of Mixolydian — double 8-string guitar, gong, singing saw — August 2021 — 10:31
A few selected new tonality sound samples
These tonalities are part of the ones currently in the process of being added to the catalogue.
HexaLocorMin — short sound sample, rhythmic — 8-string guitar — August 2021 — 2:27LydAeolian / HeptaNa — short sound sample, calm — 8-string guitar — August 2021 — 2:18 HexaBluMaj — short sound sample, rhythmic — 8-string guitar — August 2021 — 1:12NaUploReach — short sound sample, calm — 8-string guitar — August 2021 — 2:55
Tonalities catalogue expansion
As explained in the recent August update, a massive expansion of the Tonalibus catalogue is currently under way. Seventeen additional tonalities are in the process of appearing in the catalogue of anchored tonalities. They are all present and integrated in overview and detail tables and in all structures. However individual detail information still awaits completion to some extent. This brought the total number of distinct tonalities in the catalogue to seventy. Plus this week, already two more distinct tonalities began emerging!
To more directly reflect their structure and pattern, several hexatonalities have received a new name, and some pentatonalities an additional name. These names consistently use key syllables that stand for specific pitch relationships. Such syllables may refer to the entirety of a given tonality. Or they first reflect the lower and second the upper tetrachord. The Tonalibus glossary already defines a few such syllables, e.g., Reach (augmented second), Cor(e), Pro(gressive), Reg(ressive), and Na(tural harmonics). Others are quite self-explanatory, e.g., Hepta, Hexa, Penta, and Tetra. Or Maj(or), Mix(olyd), and Min(or), as well as Phryg and other abbreviations of diatonic tonality names like Eol, Dor, Mixolyd, Ion, and Lyd. More definition is to come into the glossary for these and further such syllables, e.g., Bal, Up and Lo including Locor, Lolo, and Uplo, or Blu and La.
In some cases also the absence of such a key syllable can have significance. E.g., La is used to indicate the presence in the upper tetrachord of the major sixth, called La in the solfège system. This pitch is also the La(st) one of the twelve-tone system to appear in the harmonic or overtone series. The absence of the syllable La in corresponding hexa- or pentatonality names indicates that the minor seventh is present instead of the major sixth, that La as pitch is absent.
A possible choice
Yes, it works! Thank God and spirit. The expansion of consciousness continues moment to moment. Every system though brings an element of closure in itself. Thus, definition and organization give structure that may be more or less flexible and corresponding with reality and the flow of spirit. This will determine sustainability, survival or demise. This gives a choice. Close up or remain open!
Trusting is really, really hard
“Trusting your own self, as well as giving full trust to others, is really, really hard.”
“To forget oneself is, with knowledge, to give up your human way of perceiving things, and give more room to see what is actually happening to your own self and to all other existence. When you forget your small self the whole universe appears.”
“In this busy, heated, fast society we often feel helpless in our effort to trust people and situations. We need to remember our trust doesn’t depend on outside circumctances. Over and over again we encourage ourselves to fully trust others and feel satisfied instead of worrying about some kind of return from the other end. This has something to do with determination that no matter what the others’ condition is, you decide to continue to trust. Looking closely, we understand that there is a deep satisfaction in trusting others. Perhaps this involves ignorance, so-called ‘blind trust’ given toward others. It goes only one way.”
— Embracing Mind, The Zen talks of Kobun Chino Otogawa, pp. 28-30
Fare well!
Illumination before sunrise over a horizon of Alpine mountains — September 2021 — Grächwil, Switzerland
“From ancient times we have been struggling with dualism, which can be described as the recognition of our reality at the same time as we long for perfection. Dualism is the split between reality and our ideals. We always face both. There are always two paths in front of you, and when you take one the other disappears. Then again two paths appear. …
But if you settle on an answer, and feel that is the end of your questioning, that is not so good. You find you have to let go of your vigorous effort to maintain purity, because with purity, dry simplicity comes, where there is almost no life. You become a closed system, all blocked off. In that closed system, when noise or a chaotic situation comes, you try to block it off. In other words, a cushion can be very soft at first, but it gets harder and harder and harder. Maybe you need a better cushion! Instead, you remember your bodhisattva nature, and over and over again you plunge into the suffering world without hesitation.
When you look into the dialectic, ‘yes or no’ and go beyond it, ‘right and wrong’ and go beyond them, that is how to solve the dilemma of two truths. …
It is not something you understand. It’s indescribable. If you explain it, it becomes something which you don’t know yet, and yet when you are experiencing [being here now], that understanding is here with you.”
— Embracing Mind, The Zen talks of Kobun Chino Otogawa, p. 18-19
Bodhisattva
An enlightened being who has put off entering the pure spiritual worlds in order to help others attain enlightenment.
Illumination before sunrise over a horizon of Alpine mountains — September 2021 — Grächwil, Switzerland
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