MUSINGS -- IS IT ALWAYS WRONG TO WANT TO CHANGE SOMEBODY?

To every lover I have always said
& they have always said to me -
"It is always wrong to want to change somebody
you must accept me as I am"

But now it occurs to me? -
Do I want to be accepted as I am? Yes, I do, I do,
As much as I want to be different, to be unbroken, to be healed,
I need you not to want to change me - only then can I change myself

...for if I am beautiful in your mirror, baby,
in the mirror of your eyes...

I will see that I am good  -
Only then can I be healed.
I can see that you are good -
Do you really see this in me?

Is it possible for us not to change each other
If we can accept each other as we are?
Will I not change into someone who is not lonely?
Will you not change into someone who is not alone?

You will change into someone loved, this cannot be helped
I will change into someone who loves,
Someone who feels loved,
Someone who can say "I love you",
Someone who can love,
For whom love no longer hurts

I  would change into someone loved, this cannot be helped

You would change into someone who loves,

Someone who feels loved,

Someone who can say "I love you",

Someone who can love, for whom love no longer hurts

I want to change into someone who is not ashamed,
It is always wrong to want to change somebody,
For change must always come from within
Therein lies the paradox

x

LEONARD COHEN AND JUDY COLLINS SING "SUZANNE"

I couldn't sleep tonight, so I continued my quest to listen to everything ever recorded by Leonard Cohen. I was rather struck by this duet with Judy Collins that I unearthed on Youtube -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGGSo530bdA


Fool that I am - instead of maximising Leonard-Cohen-listening-time I turned my eye to the comments that had been posted, and as always I had to have my say - mouthy little shit that I am.


But how could I resist disabusing "e61807" from the notion that he wrote Suzanne - he can't even spell Suzzane [stet]! ...

 *      *      *

e61807, 8 months ago...

This song was actually written in 1967 as a poem, then aquired by Cohen from a ghost writer. One of the songs that inspired Cohen to start singing.  This song was first writen [stet] by James C. Ronning (See "Story of a Ghost Writer") and sent to Leonard Cohen to find an artist to record it. Leonard bought the rights which legally means he "wrote it". He added the last few words himself. [Neil!] Diamond sung the song with it ending with ...."and Suzzane [stet] looked in her mirror....." thus leaving a completely different slant. My origninal [stet] did not have the last words and Diamond sung it that way. I still got the contract. Listen to" Lady Magdalene" by Diamond.

jestertick, today...

Dear e61807 - it is absurd to claim that Suzanne was written in 1967 by James C Ronning, because Cohen published the lyrics as a poem in his 1966 book "Parasites of Heaven". Even if you had the dates wrong I cannot think of any other authors who could have written these words, they fit perfectly into his coded cosmology, only he possessed the cypher. I am afraid you have been duped or you are insane. Take your pick.

 *      *      *

sweetgypsywife, 2 months ago...

I believe this song is about Suzanne Verdal, who made more of an impression on Leonard than she realised at the time. Judy Collins saw the potential of the song and recorded it herself. She encouraged Leonard to record this song. He also sold the rights to it....

TheBlindPig, 12 months ago...

sweetgypsywife, Please for gods sake and mine explain your prosaic interpretation of suzanne, just a little. When Cohen say's "The sky would open" do you interpret this as the sky in a masculine or feminine role, either to pour fourth(open - Rain) OR open recieve christ. Do you think the sky the limit and death?"O rivers mingling toward the sky" water mans chained freedom? If you think Cohen is a beefcake who uses cool words like fire and christ and razor and snow, ignore. You want to travel blind", The bottom of the sea is cruel, which is where the lovers search and rest. Perhaps its better to listen and anyway "We see through the eye not with ". Love makes the flowers grow, it is the only force consistent with vision, although this growth is only reaching. Is wisdom a stone? Knowleage like Suzanne, takes us down. "And so it was I entered the broken world To trace the visionary company of love" Counter - part of the stern above water. salvation - salvage.

jestertick, today...

Cohen seamlessly juxtaposes the microcosmic & macrocosmic relationships between the individual & their other - he reveals the man/woman mystery & the I/thou relationship with God as different aspects of one thing. In his poetry he adopts the practice of omitting the "o" from God, reminding the reader that G-d is beyond naming, and also misses the "e" from s-x. The goal of being is to realise we are not two fish swimming in opposite directions - we are the Sea.

 *      *      *

lenahjonsson, 10 months ago...

Never trust "a stranger".... (It's you my love, it's you who are the stranger....)

jestertick, today...

Cohen thinks hes the voice of one crying alone in the wilderness - but if 'the kingdom of heaven is within' us? Then all men will be sailors. Cohen performed in sackcloth, referencing Revelations - "I will give power unto my 2 witnesses & they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred & threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the 2 olive trees & the 2 candlesticks standing before the God of the earth". It is insane not to have a messiah complex, we are One.

 *      *      *

TerrySleeper, 5 months ago...

He's not a patch on Bob Dylan, and he admitted as much when he described Dylan as "The Picasso of song." QED.

jestertick, today...

If Dylan is the Picasso of song? Cohen is Michelangelo.

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THE ALL AND THE EVERYTHING

Last year I posted the following sacred geometrical diagrams (and a brief cryptic clue as to their interpretation) to Facebook , by way of an esoteric riddle. 

The single respondent made some very informed and elegantly phrased observations, with which I concur entirely. 

I further expanded upon these themes in response, illustrating these points with quotes from The Dao De Ching and the writings of William Blake and Aleister Crowley, partly for context, but mainly because they are not my ideas - they are as old as time.

I have copied this conversation in its entirety below - if you should stumble upon this page I hope you might find  some of what is said thought provoking. Of course - it is not intended to be taken as gospel, for it is but words and pictures, a shadow play, it is not what it describes, though it is of it.

The Cherubim of Ezekiel before & after the Reversal. The Seal is broken & that which is unseen becomes seen. The Seal of David & Solomon is the seal of a broken heart, 2 trinities suspended in opposition. When these 2 trinities unite, in the universal hexagram, they are now the same, they are One - the Seal of the Federation.

Before the Reversal? What was unseen?

After the reversal? Where is he who endures until the end?

*

Please comment, I am very interested to know how much of this is understood. This information is concerning the transition to a higher illusion.

http://www.jester.me.uk/

November 22, 2010 ·  · 

• Dana Ba Nana and Rodrigo Mendoza like this.
• • 

    Intergalactic Research Institute 

    The Universe is without hierarchy, or system, no ranks or levels; no united councli overlooking everything..there is no time, nor is there space, any 'Starfleet Command' is just a projection of human hopes and is pure fantasy and limitation.
    
    It's funny to see the seal of the 'starfleet command'; it's an adaptation of the Star Trek badge.
    
    There is no hierarchical structure to the Universe, to Consciousness; it just IS. There is no highly humanized 'divine master' overlooking it.
    
    Any system can be projected upon the vast potential that is the single consciousness which IS the Universe.
    
    By associating ourselves with the 'highest' self-awareness, we will understand that there is but a single 'beingness', in a timeless eternity of self-reflection. Inside all of us, this consciousness is everything we are. All we are. The Universe is One. We are that 'highest' Self.
    
    The illusion, the dream, is a self-perpetuating attempt to un-know the fact that this being, this consciousness, this YOU, this ME, is alone, eternally, fully aware of it's loneliness. That is oneness.
    The transistion is happening at any possible moment; there is only the NOW. And it is YOU. Alone, unbroken, ALL-ONE.
    
    The trick is acceptance of Self, Love of the Self.
    
    Let's face it, you, me, we are all trying to forget that we are this single being. Ascension, transcendence, is merely accepting this and Loving it, as it is inescapable.
    
    Dervish Mad Whirler. (A projection of your fragmented reflection of Self)

    November 24, 2010 at 11:46am ·  ·  1 person
  • 

    Intergalactic Research Institute 

    ‎... but within this vastness of ONE eternal consciousness, there is time and space, there are hierarchies and structures... It's not just chaos (there is a hierarchy in the way the humans live on Earth, internet is a structure, so is the solar system, the flower of life ~ sacred geometry is a beautiful form of structure, I recently heard of hierarchies of infinities, etc etc...). We are experiencing these in these dimensions, even if only in our consciousness... Fantasy isn't limitation, it's a creative life-force...
    I like the starfleet badge, though I don't really understand the rest... please explain a bit more.
    
    In Lak'ech ♥ Dana Banana

    December 10, 2010 at 10:53am · 
  • 

    Josh Steed We are the many manifestations of the One - we are its projection and its highest expression.
    
    "God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is" [William Blake].
    
    "The Many is as adorable to the One as the One is to the Many" [Aleister Crowley].
    
    The bottom diagram shows the Seal of Solomon, the upwards pointing triangle representing what man sees, the world in which he is the arrogant king, the individual, while in the upper diagram everything is illuminated.
    
    The downwards pointing triangle of the Seal of Solomon represents that which is unseen, that which is hidden from man, that which we most fear - yet that which we most fear is love.
    
    The Seal is two triangles pointing in opposite directions - Leonard Cohen fantasises about "the order of the unified heart" and draws the seal as two interlocking hearts, in this way we make our dreams self-fulfilling prophesies.
    
    The diagram to the top right I designed to represent an alternative to the divided seal - a six pointed star, but drawn with one rather than two lines, uniting seen and unseen worlds, a symbol of the return to 'Eden', as it was before the knowledge of good and as it will be beyond good and evil.
    
    Sadly for my pathetic ego I discovered that I was not the first to employ this geometric metaphorical solution to that which divides men - it had already been anti-christened "The Universal Hexagram" by Aleister Crowley before I was even born.

    22 minutes ago · 
  • 

    Josh Steed As for the reality or otherwise of "Starfleet Command"? - some say that all is illusion, that we are but thoughts of the One, merely ripples upon the surface of the ocean.
    
    I say "that which is before good and evil is beyond truth and fiction" - we are but ripples upon the surface of the great thought, and our fantasies are but ripples upon those ripples. Can those who are merely projections judge whether that which they project themselves is entirely fantastic or reflects (in a metaphorical way that they can understand) a deeper reality?
    
    Beneath the different names and metaphorical constructs there is a remarkable level of consistency to the collective dream as expressed through our fantasies. It is to be expected that we should not agree on the names we use to describe "that which is beyond names".
    
    Let us reflect a moment upon the opening chapters of the Dao De Ching -
    
    "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.
    The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
    The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth.
    The named is the mother of myriad things.
    Thus, constantly without desire, one observes its essence. Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations.
    These two emerge together but differ in name.
    The unity is said to be the mystery.
     Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders.
    When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises.
    When it knows good as good, evil arises.
    Thus being and non-being produce each other".
    
    I will leave you with a quote by William Blake, written 100 years before the first English translation of the Dao De Ching, echoing the ancient sentiments above regarding the observation of "essence" and "manifestation" (phenomena/noumena) -
    
    “He who sees the infinite in all things, sees God. He who sees the ratio only, sees himself only.” x

    a few seconds ago ·