Dispatches from the Underground: Holy Week Edition
Budding cataclysm, the St. Matthew Passion, sacrificial rabbits, and the clean slate of lost data
It’s all happening…
Idon’t know about you, but I sense a LOT happening out there. Large changes, piles of endings and beginnings. Most of it so far has taken on a neutral, maybe even cautiously optimistic, character, but it’s dramatic and a little unsettling and very very consistent with all the dramatic and quite unsettling forecasts for this year. For another couple of days, all of this movement takes place in a somewhat positive or beneficent phase; nevertheless, the darker turn promised by June and July should also be seen in the context of all of this shifting.
The components that will be activated and central during that likely unpleasant period are already here. They are already moving. I wonder if we can see them already — though I know we probably won’t be able to identify them as such until after the time comes. After it’s too late.
I’m messing with you all a little bit, but just a little. I’m not here to lie to you, of course, about the fact that the space weather forecast for the two best months of every year is not particularly sunny. I’m not sure what to say about that other than to state that for my own part, I still intend to have a great summer. I’ll be playing a grim game, one that’s optimistic at heart but laced with gallows humor: try to have as good of a time as possible for as long as possible despite whatever pestilence and plague and earthquake may get unleashed. Hit me up if you have a better idea, but that’s the best I can come up with.
Anyway, no sense litigating all that JUST YET given that we’re still back here, before that turn. What I’m seeing among my networks is a few deaths alongside a bunch of big moves and job changes — nothing that in and of themselves would be considered unusual were it not for the fact that they’re all stacked atop one another and all at once, very suddenly. A shudder.
I haven’t yet looked back on my own published April Outlook to see how closely it matches up — I’ll do that late next week sometime — but as I’ve seen this all begin to unfold, it’s interesting to find myself somewhat prepared and a whole lot less surprised than I’d ordinarily be. I like to think that’s a consequence of learning to follow that sort of cosmic weather-slash-mood, especially in doing so using multiple sources and methods. I never know the details ahead of time, but having a fair idea of what to expect from very broad strokes and applied symbolic arrangements, and it does seem helpful.
Seeing this wave of sudden change activity and placing it in the outlook described gives me more to think about. A big part of me is increasingly inclined to believe this may be a sign that I, too, should begin considering whether it’s time to enact some changes, make some moves. It may prove to be so; I’m open to it but won’t force it.
One thing I do vaguely recall is Austin Coppock (or perhaps the whole Astrology Podcast gang) describing this month as some of the most fertile and opportune weeks of the year, but never devoid of certain heaviness and difficulty. That has definitely been consistent with my experience. On the nose.
The fires at the cathedral and the mosque hit me pretty hard this week. I’m really bothered by it. At the same time, though I can’t provide you with an articulate interpretation of it, it seems to make sense along with all the rest of it. Holy fires at the start of Holy Week — if there exist such things as signs, that’s a sign of something.
Immersed in a kind of passion
I had mostly expected to find myself returning to Handel’s Messiah throughout Lent — it being, of course, originally intended for Lent, not Advent — but instead it’s been all Bach all the time. Not just general Bach but specifically, almost exclusively, the St. Matthew Passion. I’ve been positively immersed in it — and let me tell ya, it’s a trip.
Like Handel’s masterpiece, it’s a three-ish-hour Jesus-themed oratorio, but it diverges pretty sharply from there. First of all, it’s in German. I’ve talked before about how Messiah’s English words are not to be taken at face value but instead given their full meaning and power only when combined with the notes in which they are sung, and that’s one thing. Not understanding any of the words AT ALL is simultaneously confounding and liberating. I want to know what they’re singing about, but the fact that there’s just no possibility of that also frees me to simply take in the sounds.
There’s also the subject matter. Yes, they’re both about Jesus, but Handel’s work tells the whole story while Bach’s only intends to tell the darkest part. The music, accordingly, forms layers of lamentation and sorrow, laced ever-so-slightly with the triumph promised by the resurrection — which, as far as I can tell, happens off-screen, after the conclusion. Bach’s unique style, of course, plays a huge role here. Messiah is spectacular and direct, but the St. Matthew Passion is dense and much more difficult to penetrate; upon doing so, however, over time, one becomes aware of the delightful intricacy from which that density is formed.
Indeed, I don’t really sing along to the St. Matthew Passion. I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times over the last few weeks, and only have a vague idea of which “tracks” might be my “favorites”. It’s not like that. It’s an experience, and a difficult one. A beautiful, moving piece of sacred grief and holy tragedy.
Making it a subtle but consistent presence in my Lenten efforts has enriched the experience and even served, at times, to get my mind back to the sacred frame I’ve been intending but that’s so often been thrown off kilter by the complications of life in the world that continues unabated even in a holy season.
After Palm Sunday, I should note, I also dipped over to the much different (and shorter) Bach cantata 182, which was written for Palm Sunday. It’s a lot brighter and more uplifting — after all, this is the story of hosannahs and triumphal entries and all that.
I also hope to take a day — maybe even Good Friday — and take a stab at the St. John Passion. Just to be thorough.
We’ll talk about this more
I celebrated Palm Sunday Eve in part by eating a god damn rabbit.
The day the backlog died
Remember a while back I talked about the peace you can find by closing all programs and allowing Windows to update? I had a similar technological forced-clean-slate experience last week, specifically as pertains to my backlog of downloaded podcasts.
My backlog of downloaded podcasts had grown to 6.5 GB — and counting. I subscribe to a lot of podcasts and like enough of them enough to set them to automatically download new episodes, and then I can’t delete them until I’ve listened to them. This issue is compounded beyond merely the limited hours in the day by the fact that for the last six months I’ve been listening to a LOT of Audible, which cuts directly into my podcast time.
Then last Friday I thought it was time to get a new phone, so I did. Another iPhone, of course — I won’t be caught dead texting in GREEN — so everything transferred from my old phone to my new phone. Everything, that is, except downloaded podcasts.
The 6.5 GB backlog was gone — just like that. After I got over the momentary panic of the loss, a wave of relief washed over me. I’m still getting big FOMO about all the great things I haven’t listened to and now might forget to listen to FOREVER, but I’m also really grateful for the opportunity to start over. Now I can download only what I intend to listen to more or less immediately, and only then move on to past episodes, on an as-needed basis.
Until, that is, I lose track of all this and I’m right back where I started with a giant backlog. And this phone has double the storage, so I’m certain to be much less conservative about my downloads.
Ah, well. So it goes.
Things are happening — have fun, enjoy Easter, but WATCH OUT!