Between 1969 and 1975 I was a student at the University of Leiden.
At that time the Flower Power Movement started. I was 18 years of age. I came out of a very protected secure environment.
My parents were very poor, totally not educated and also very religious in their own way.
My life changed in every aspect you can imagine. People were using LSD, Opium and Marihuana. I got into contact with people from all over the world, new religions and theories. We anticipated the end of all war and “peace on earth”.
The most important factor in our life was MUSIC. It was the time of Jimmy Hendrix and Woodstock. The MUSIC was connected to POETRY. We not only listened to the sound but we also listened to the Lyrics. We studied them (Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen) and discussed them.
My favourite group was Pearls Before Swine. The music of Tom Rapp was the ultimate combination of MUSIC AND POETRY.
When I look back at that time I feel nostalgia. I want to return to the time when everything that was positive was possible. I wonder how we were able to transform an expectation of Paradise into an expectation of the Apocalyps. Let us have a look at The Song About A Rose.
“Song About A Rose”
By Tom Rapp
This is a song about a rose
Or perhaps it’s a song about the shadow of a rose
In the morning the apple sellers congregate on corners of their own
But you and I we sing our song about a rose or perhaps the shadow of a rose
With the children of Fribourg and the good thief standing by
We consort in silent rendezvous and call the world a lie
When our song is but a candle that will one day burn away
The children of Fribourg cannot hear what we say
This is a song about a rose
Of lonely caravans whispering to God
To chain the world in prose
But people are not singers and life is not a song
And even God can only guess
Why or where or when or if
The answers all belong
And you and I we sing our song about a rose
Or perhaps the shadow of a rose
The song of the Rose of Tom Rapp is a tribute to Arabic Culture. He is unable to convince the children of Fribourg, a Swiss Town, that there were “lonely caravans whispering to God to chain the world in prose”. They were singing the Song of the Rose or the Shadow of the Rose.
The Rose is a very old mystical symbol. It is the symbol of purity and a symbol of passion, heavenly perfection and earthly passion; virginity and fertility; death and life. The rose is the flower of the goddess Venus but also the blood of Adonis and of Christ. It is a symbol of transmutation – that of taking food from the earth and transmuting it into the beautiful fragrant rose. The rose garden is a symbol of Paradise. It is the place of the mystic marriage. In ancient Rome, roses were grown in the funerary gardens to symbolize resurrection. The thorns have represented suffering and sacrifice as well as the sins of the Fall from Paradise.
Numerologically, the Rose represents the number 5, The Centre. This is because the wild rose has 5 petals. And the petals on roses are in multiples of five. Geometrically, the Rose corresponds with the pentagram and pentagon.
The Rose is the Symbol of the Heart Chakra.
The Rose is the symbol the Centre of the Whole. A Return to the Centre is not possible without Pain and Blood (Thorns). The Shadow of the Rose is the movement away from the Centre to return to the Centre (The Cycle).
That is why Scientists of the University of Fribourg “cannot hear what we say”. “They call the world a lie” and see that “our song is but a candle that will one day burn away”.
Everything will burn away and change into Ashes. Ashes can be used by A Jeweler to make Old Golden Coins Shine Again. The Jeweler cannot repair the scratches. He knows that even new coins have scratches. Nobody is perfect. The Jeweler smiles.
Ashes are also used to give the power of fertility to the Soil (Mother Earth). The Soil covers the the Seed of The Rose in Winter and gives it the Strength to Rise in Spring again. The Rose is helped by the Shining Golden Coin in Heaven, The Sun. The Rose always returns and the Song of The Rose always returns in many ways.
“The Jeweler”
By Tom Rapp
The jeweler has a shop on the corner of the boulevard
In the night, in small spectacles, he polishes old coins
He uses spit and cloth and ashes
He makes them shine with ashes
He knows the use of ashes
He worships God with ashes
The coins are often very old by the time they reach the jeweler
With his hands and ashes he will try the best he can
He knows that he can only shine them
Cannot repair the scratches
He knows that even new coins have scars so he just smiles
He knows the use of ashes
He worships God with ashes
In the darkest of the night both his hands will blister badly
They will often open painfully and the blood flows from his hands
He works to take from black coin faces the thumbprints from so many ages
He wishes he could cure the scars
When he forgets he sometimes cries
He knows the use of ashes
He worships God with ashes
At this moment Arabic Culture is highly associated with Violence and Power Plays (Oil). Many people don’t know that Western Culture really started when The Arabic World gave the old sciences and philosophy back to the West. The old sciences also contained the Secret Knowlegde of The Rose.
At that time the Arabic Culture was producing artefacts of immense beauty like the Alhambra. The walls of the Alhambra are full of calligraphic decoration, cursive and kufic writings with sentences such as “Only God is victor” (apparently by Zawi ben Zirí, founder of the Nasrid dynasty) and poems by three poets of the Court of Granada, Ibn al-Yayyab (1274-1349), Ibn al-Jatib (1313-1375) and Ibn Zamrak (1333-1393). Of course it contained a beautifull Rose Garden, the symbol of Paradise.
The mystic part of the Islam is called Sufism. They were the People who are “whispering to God”. They created poetry and music and knew the Secret of The Rose. The Sufis are the Gnostics of the Islam. They are comparable to the Essenes in the Judiac Religion.
Rumi was the founder of the Mawlawi Sufi order. He was born in Wakhsh (Tajikistan) under the administration of Balkh in 30 September 1207 to a family of learned theologians. Escaping the Mongol invasion and destruction, Rumi and his family traveled extensively in the Muslim lands, performed pilgrimage to Mecca and finally settled in Konya, Anatolia, then part of Seljuk Empire.
When his father Bahaduddin Valad passed away, Rumi succeeded his father in 1231 as professor in religious sciences. Rumi 24 years old, was an already accomplished scholar in religious and positive sciences. He was introduced into the mystical path by a wandering dervish, Shamsuddin of Tabriz. His love and his bereavement for the death of Shams found their expression in a surge of music, dance and lyric poems.
In The Arc Of Your Mallet
Rumi
Don’t go anywhere without me.
Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me,
or on the ground, in this world or that world,
without my being in its happening.
Vision, see nothing I don’t see.
Language, say nothing.
The way the night knows itself with the moon,
be that with me.
Be the rose
nearest to the thorn that I am.
I want to feel myself in you when you taste food,
in the arc of your mallet when you work,
when you visit friends, when you go
up on the roof by yourself at night.
There’s nothing worse than to walk out along the street
without you.
I don’t know where I’m going.
You’re the road, and the knower of roads,
more than maps, more than love.
Tom Rapp wrote “But people are not singers and life is not a song. And even God can only guess why or where or when or if the answers all belong“. We have to do it our selves. We are left alone on the street because even God does not know all the answers.
To Rumi God “Is the Road and the Knower of the roads“. He asks God to walk with him and to show him the way. The poems of Rumi are Love Poems. They apply to Godly Love and Human Love. You understand them the best when your love has left you and you are desperately looking for the answer why this happened.
The Song of the Rose is about a longing to return to the Centre of The Whole. To restore the Balance that once was. I imagine we could start this process by creating new songs about the beauty of the Whole.
Let’s start to whisper again and ask for in-spiration.
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