a slight farewell.

On a walk last evening a bit after sunset, before the clouds closed in and I could still see the western sky, I saw Orion lying low near the horizon about to set and with this song on headphones gave him my own farewell until next autumn when skies grow paler and the weather turns cold.

I am of course excited for Spring and climbing and working outside on my house and summer evenings sitting on my porch after long days summer breezes getting out to the mountains to places I have never been and also to places I have visited and seem like home and flipflops cotton shorts and shirtsleeves windows down in the car and windows open in the house as the neighborhood quiets down and watching the various bulbs I planted last autumn bloom and surprise me as I have forgotten what I have all planted and biking to work and from work especially in the afternoon when it is nice and warm out and longer days and lying in the grass after a particularly good run and perhaps garage sales and swimming in mountain lakes always freezing cold but refreshing more than almost anything and wearing sunglasses and Simply Lemonade in iced mugs straight out of the freezer maybe a good cliff somewhere for jumping from and working on the inside of my house real honest work that makes me sweat and swear but is satisfying all the same and other things maybe that will be unexpected or that I just cannot think of at the moment that makes the warmer months of the year perfect and what they are and by the time they begin to chill off I will be ready to again say hello to my friend in the sky.

So farewell for now in case I do not see you again until October ....

sitting on the moon.

[start transmission] message posted to lifeform carbon. send. receive. upload. e6. a posteriori. private lounge. extended. remixed. download mp3. repeat. [start break]

i am sitting on the moon watching planet blue, hello [break]
looking all around rotating without sound where are you? [break]
where are you? [break] i am sitting on the moon

where are you? [break] i am missing you

i came from very far a little unknown star, hello [break]
i don't know what to do it is so cold and blue without you where are you? [break]
where are you? [break] i am sitting on the moon

where are you? [break] i am missing you

[end break] boca junior remix. audio quality good. video useless. hide. listen. increase volume. repeat. [end transmission]

déjà vu.

I've taken to falling asleep to this song now, far away from home (I think it's called what it is because he uses samples from previous songs on previous albums). What's neat is when I turn it off right before I'm about to fall asleep, I leave my door open all night so I can hear the trade winds blowing through the palm trees outside my room that actually is a really cool ambience if only I could fall asleep without music ....

ps – the link to the video is really, really cheesy – so if you're actually inclined to click it, maybe just hide the browser and listen to the music.

seven lives many faces.

I just got home with Enigma's new studio release in hand and – per the norm – blazed through x songs before coming to what is the seventh track and called La Puerta Del Cielo (I believe loosely translated in Spanish means 'at the gate of heaven') which is now on repeat quite loudly and will be for the remainder of the night, and will most likely accompany me on most of my journey across the Pacific.

And in an instant ... peace. When I listen to it, I imagine myself a lens focused at infinity on Polaris (Ursae Minoris) 430 light years away while everything else in the universe spins around me.

goodbye milky way.

Probably my favourite song of his, listening to this reminds me of this post about how young and foolish we as a human species really are. Here, it sounds like Michael Cretu (whose studio project is called Enigma) is saying – albeit in a much more somber way – what Sagan often writes about ~

Shall I go shall I stay?
A hundred-seven light years away
Many times so many doubts but no reason to talk about
Mission is over mission is done
I will miss you children of the sun
But it's time to go away ... goodbye Milky Way
For a better world without hate
Follow your heart believe in Fate
Only visions and the mind will guide you to the light
Mission is over mission is done
I will miss you children of the sun
But it's time to go away ... goodbye Milky Way
Mission is over mission is done
I will miss you children of the sun
I go home until someday I say goodbye ...

Goodbye Milky Way
[In five billion years the Andromeda galaxy will collide with our Milky Way and a new, gigantic Cosmic world will be born]

It seems like when he says 'only visions of the mind will guide you to the light' – he is saying exactly what Sagan says. And Sagan's peaceful, optimistic approach to our perhaps doomed civilization is brought out with Cretu's 'for a better world without hate, follow your heart believe in Fate.' We need to look beyond our petty wants and selfishness to view how amazing everything around us really is and – in an even more holistic view – how insignificant but at the same time how absolutely incredible carbon-based life, this planet, the cosmos – really are.

And in saying 'doomed,' I suppose I mean only in the sense of what the song mentions at the end – how eventually and inevitably the sun will explode and the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies will collide. But maybe, just maybe – as Sagan thinks and I like to believe – by that time we'll have long since learned how to overcome our shortsightedness and gained unfound wisdom which would then allow us to move on to other galaxies and to other suns and to other planets even more spectacular and incredible than the one upon which we find ourselves here at this moment.