We are the music while the music lasts with Alan Watts

culture, Life, philosophy

Don’t forget to dance.

‘To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening.’

I was walking alongside the overgrown paddock this morning, which has developed into a sea of buttercups, grasses and purple clover.  It is a thing of beauty. Each buttercup is a miracle in itself – a dizzyingly shiny yellow miracle, and yet , when it is no longer shining brightly alone, but hid amongst a host of fellow buttercups, it still retains its wonder.  And when my eye wanders along that wave of brilliant primary and is distracted by the long grasses swaying sensuously in the wind, the host of buttercups is not diminished in its loveliness. It’s loveliness is enhanced with the collision from the purple of the clover, augmented by the movement of the grasses within. The whole is wholly  magnificent in its diversity and in the spectacle of the collusion from its individual parts.

Lucky us, to be here.

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3 thoughts on “We are the music while the music lasts with Alan Watts”

  2. I’ve always loved buttercups. When I was growing up my mother told me that you could tell if a person was sweet or sour: you held a buttercup bloom under the person’s chin. If the blossom wilted, the person was sour. If it didn’t she was sweet. I always did it to my sister, knowing the flower would instantly wither and die. It never did.

    Thanks for this. Your word picture is vivid and bright and brings back lovely memories (though I still wish the buttercup had confirmed my belief about my sister!)

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