It is most certainly true for me myself I that I navigate gravitate to the sages writers poets singers songwriters speakers speech writers orators filmakers and artists in times especially when I am engulfed in : loss, grief, and groundlessness.
Many times I discover through their creativity activitys a calm in the eye of a storm,
an answer to the uncertainty, a symbolic bucolic hand to hold onto, and even the much sought after clarity to the sometimes get stuck on-hold muddled stutter Elmer Fudd type befuddlement. I can relate to them. I get them. I hear their voice and what they say.
I listen with my eyes. I hear with my circulation. I drink in all the colors. Sustenance.
I think these original creator-type inventors help give us all “dignity, meaning, worth, and joy to all our days.” These quotated words are the core primo numero uno neato qualities of living life that Duncan E. Littlefair (1912-2004) of Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, MI.
used to speak highly of and emphasize in his reflections about the goodness of life during his orations. Fountain Street was a rare liberal non-denominational in a very conservative city type church. Duncan, a genuine one of a kind visionary, enlarged the congregation from 200 to 2000 during his time there. He wore coat-tails bowtie and inner strength. Thank you Duncan. You definitely got gotcha my teenagersized full bore all hammers & anvils pounding attention. Along with all those serenading booming deep long sustained dissonant low vibrational bass Bach pipe organ solos pumping out life force bestowing music behind you right below the belfry.
The tao of this wellspring fountain : in complete awe not believing what I was hearing wonderment astonishment spellbound surround sound astound sound all around. Yes the music truly was massively overpowering. Lodging deep inside your innermost core cells, the sound found pocket sized voids to fill up far within your bone’s marrow and camped out in reverie for days years eons long after the fact. It demanded your undivided attention by shaking you by your lapels feet lifted off the ground besides lingering and abide-ing with its long lasting staying power. My ears consumed an all-octaves 12-course meal. My wide-eyed emerging budding young awareness blossumed in full spectrums of color with bright flowering heart and mind blooms as I inhaled the that which I did not know I yearned for yet received the absolutely essential nourishment of the All of it, the organ’s sounds and the orator’s message. Together enriching the singular sole self’s growth and the spacious soul’s spirit expansion.
I came away forever changed.
And what universally unites us.
I find these celebrated artists bridge our inner with our outer. Also, hmmmm there seems to be, what is it ? this pervasive permeating prevalent present omniprescence omnipresent overall quite mysteriously type of perplexing attribute in which, these wise guys and wisdom gals foretell the future. As : Prophets. Seers. Sages. The Coming of Agers. Wise ones. Insightful healers. Revealers. Teachers. Believers. Dreamers. Speakers. Leaders.
Now !! Specifically In bringing to mind the Dylan song “ The Times They Are A-Changin’ ”
( which follows this essay titled "A DREAM BOUT DYLAN" ) I reported this inner calm that Dylan's song gave me during a time when much was alarming and in a state of flux. I just just now now happenstanced to happen whew to right now right this moment this moment in time re-read his timely then and yet even more so timely now apt lyrics.
Listen to Bob Dylan : written in 1964 : apppropriate for 2024 :
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin” ( by Bob Dylan : 1964 )
Now I understand history repeats itself. Countries on an average last approximately 156 years while empires average 250 years. The USA will be 250 years old in 2026. That’s 2 years into the next 4 year term of the next president’s term, or possibly the emperor's ( ? ) term, if there even is a 4 year term besides a new president. Who knows. The times are changing.
We don't know.
Let me reiterate for emphasis : We must admit The Times They Are currently extremely tremendously drastically A-Changin’ significantly substantially Surrealistically extensively irrevocably globally locally physically climatically astronomically politically pathetically melodrama-tically morally lawfully social media-ly technologically Robot-ically economically educationally culturally oligarch-ically legally constitutionally governmentally ecologically.
The word of the day that describes most every single day now :
something happens for the first time ever and it is labeled :
Unprecedented.
Uncommon. Unusual. Unheard of. Out of the ordinary. Never done or known before. Discombobulate. Perplex. Flummox. Bamboozle. War. Wars. Oh so very Special. Military operations. Hoodwink. Defraud. Con. Scam. The action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth. And then there seems to be this trend in going backwards in time to archaic ways filled with hatred and labeling your fellow man as inhuman as in divide and conquer the masses instead of unite and we are one people. We the people. Created as equal people.
We the people.
I turn turn turn there is a season and a time to every purpose sing the Byrds in 1967 yet the music written by Pete Seeger in 1959
I turn turn turn to our artists, again, now. "Time has come today" -" there are things to Realize..." chant the Chambers Brothers in 1967. For what it’s worth “there’s something happening here but what it is aint exactly clear there’s a man with a gun over there telling me I got to beware” prophetize writer Stephen Stills and musicians Buffalo Springfield in 1966.
All you need is love remember you better free your mind instead let it be and come together. Respect. I got to got to have a little bit of rang out to the world. These melodies felt more like so-called sermons like guiding principles like hearing about ways to Be. The songs were really mantras of goodwill. Good will to all.
The anthems united us all.