"The Eisenblumenkinding," Week 4: Discovering a Cloaking Device (Blue Mountain, Beethoven, Strauss, Arlen and Harburg, Zaret and North, Brahms)
There was no way I was going to attempt to write out "Becoming the Invisible Flower Child" in German even though the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past last week was kind enough -- before laughing himself almost out of gravity for thirty entire minutes at what he knew would be my reaction -- to create that word for us!
But, that wasn't the mind-blowing part -- he used the included hilarity of German's ability to form compound words of tremendous length to lighten the concept he wanted to teach this week:
Now of course, there is a whole different lesson about becoming das unsichtbare Blumenkind ... Follow the analogy thus far: first of all, you will not always want to be cleaning hand and head marks off an iron front, and more serious attacks on that front will rattle you even if they cannot harm you. However, and second, remember that what people see depends on what they are looking at. Whatever they are not looking at is in essence invisible to them. So, third: since you are not seeking the spotlight of the world anyhow, you might as well go on and think about who even should have the privilege of seeing you.
He wasn't done there, either.
You are already doing it, Frau Mathews. Whoever does not want to see the beauties of Creation has already been denied the privilege of seeing and interacting with you on many a day. Why not take it more seriously?
And then he had put that terrible compound word out and had everyone in the near meadows of Golden Gate Park smiling and the children all laughing while gravity needed me to throw on all the enhancers Q-Inspired has ... but he was serious in his motives, and in fact was demonstrating, because while I was walking the next day in the near meadows, I ran into some of the somewhat discouraged fans of K.M. Altesrouge, come all the way to that end of the park on a wild goose chase that deserves appropriate music...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74antJ3R7F0
"I know that was him laughing -- there's only one voice like that, and I mean he was having a good time about something!"
"I'm telling you -- there's just no other explanation -- that man is madly in love and half out of his mind, and we gotta find this woman and check her out just to be sure she's good enough for him!"
"Well, yeah, we definitely need to, but it's definitely not going to be easy because he's like the wind when he doesn't want to be bothered! You hear him, but you can't tell where he came from, or where he is going, so you can't catch up! He's basically invisible!"
Even in his mortal years, it seems that my favorite musician understood that reference. How he had pulled off moving from Cologne to Munich and announced it with a photograph sent home -- quite the disappearing act! How he simply disappeared from the opera stage at will during the peak of his career, and reappeared when he was ready -- quite shocking compared to how world-famous stars generally behave! There is this idea that stardom requires constantly staying in the public eye. He ignored it, and thrived.
This was certainly worth examining ... call it theories of invisibility in an attention-seeking world. Or, just ride it on up from iron flowers floating like ships and planes do ... ride that up to an iron-built starship, and add a cloaking device. All doable, on the fictional side of the fourth wall, and therefore conceptually visible on the non-fiction side.
I thought about this when considering the mess of the previous week ... people do attention-seeking along a spectrum of trying to compensate for neglect from someone whose love and praise they wanted, all the way to feeling they are gods deserving worship. Somewhere along that spectrum is the person described in various places as "the second-hander," who only exists to the self as the reflection in someone else's eyes. That is, such people do not understand their existence outside of their place in the crowd.
This spectrum in the world of performing musicians adds a degree of sadness to the story of some great ones. Leonard Bernstein remained where he wanted to be the almost to the very end ... three months before the end, in Beethoven...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5P_xKg_1O0
... but as great as Carlos Kleiber was ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXJphJ60Jc
... and also Judy Garland ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJGRL4Gqz1Q
... and also Elvis Presley...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yis1oa6Cri4
... and also Michael Jackson ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QCn5FocUaI
... the need and the cost of being the center of attention took its toll. I leave to the reader to research further if interested.
Meanwhile, Kurt Möll quietly ended his career in the humble Wagner role in which he began, and walked tranquilly "down to port," in Brahms's terms in "Mit Vierzig Jahren," after enjoying the company of his family and friends for another decade. He once popped up at Carnegie Hall for master classes, and doubtless showed up for his students in Germany as long as his health permitted. But, the English speakers on YouTube and Wikipedia have no solid clue but the Carnegie Hall appearance. He simply did not bother to attract that much attention. He neither wanted nor needed it, and as ever refused to have trouble with anyone on the subject.
"You know," came the voice as I was walking home, "you could have just cast me as 'The Invisible Bass' for Q-Inspired, since you have me as a literary type of kindly ghost."
"Oh, is this what we are doing today?" I said, and then stood aside as he laughed and his new fans in the park came running by.
"I told y'all he was out here!" one said.
"But why can't we see him -- he's gotta be close!"
They wouldn't have believed me if I told them, so I just went on home.
To put that in terms of all the lessons I had received in 2023 ... in such great pain of loss, nothing more required than to just keep walking ... in 2024, make that "ambulate" to go with the following lessons from there into very early 2025: abide where called, adorn one's soul with the things of the calling to prepare to appear, associate, and appropriate with all that goes with that.
Now, in this spring, it dawned on me what was going on, and May's lessons had demonstrated what now was to be consciously considered for application. If within the calling I was to appear, associate, and appropriate, it followed just from the English language that those three As had their complements in three Ds for things outside the calling: disappear, disassociate, and drop.
As a mere mortal, and finite, I only have so much time ... so obviously, investing more time and energy in the three As also requires me to divest through the three Ds. So, in the end, our kindly ethereal bass was right: this is what I have been doing all along, and developing an iron resolve about it has really been the process toward full consciousness and acceptance of that.
But, see...
I never wanted to have to do it, much less get so good at it. I have folks by the thousands who don't know where I left my last track.
Moving this from a defensive tactic to an offensive strategy ... that's a new thought
A great vast space of exploration of how to live life seemed to open up there, a space that would have terrified many just by its existence and the possibility that one could wander into it and not get back ... it would fit in their mind with growing old and forgotten, with confirming a sense of insignificance that someone's meanness or neglect fostered in them, with highlighting the futility of seeking to be worshiped in a universe that is completely indifferent, along with the vast majority of its living beings.
But to me ... it looked like a vast, bright, and peaceful place, though its dimensions were not entirely clear... one would have to explore it one step at a time, like everything else ...
The Invisible Bass was apparently just to the other side of the portal, and of course, invisible, but I could certainly hear him...
"Mein Blumenkind, mein Eisenblumenkind, mein goldenes Blumenkind ... wandere hinauf!"
"Hike up!" was the joyful command, and since "the way of the wise goes upward, that [s]he may depart from hell beneath," I knew he was doing his echo work (the hint also given by that "Akkord" of three ... called three times by one voice, but showing individual aspects in each call). So, I got my iron courage together, and walked up into this new space of exploration.
Once to the other side of the portal, what was invisible to those on the other side became visible: the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past materialized and fell into step beside me.
"You must really be loving all the stage tricks that you can do at this stage of your existence," I said, and he laughed.
"Your mind, Frau Mathews, is a well-stocked room of sets and scenes simply looking for a place to happen -- I really do not have to work that hard!"
He paused, and then sighed slightly, and then smiled poignantly.
"I knew Leonard Bernstein and Carlos Kleiber," he said. "Thank you for your kindness to them in what you said, and what you didn't."
"There but for the grace of God go any of us through any struggle there is," I said, "and there is one kind of invisibility I know well: 'love hides a multitude of faults.' It is written that 'it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the honor of kings to search it out' ... but in matters of this world, I'm just a little contralto."
"It is also written that 'a gracious woman retains honor,'" he said, his smile brightening. "I see you are also planning to be beloved, in honor, right up to the day you reach your home on high.
"I add with this that one of the finest advantages about a life of humility is that you need not bring anyone down to prop yourself up; you will be lifted in due time by Him in Whose sight you have humbled yourself. Because of this, in a world in which so many are afraid to reveal their true selves for fear that they will be made chattel, you are and you will be truly loved. You may hide yourself from all those who do not understand what I have just said, and you will miss nothing and no one of importance. As you walk in love, all of love's things are and will be yours. We begin today on the subject of becoming invisible where you already are."
His smile grew brighter still.
"I also know that because one whom you love, who knew those men, refused to say a word against them even when lured, you honor his example. Danke schön, mein goldenes Blumenkind, für deine Liebe."
"As a journalist myself I completely understand why August Everding asked what he did," I said. "As a journalist myself, I cheered for you because of the wisdom with which you put that entire conversation about all the conductors and directors you knew off the table: 'I did not have trouble with anyone.' You loved them all, right there, and let those passed on and soon to pass on rest in peace."
A look of pain came over his face for a moment.
"Permit me to correct a common misconception about the afterlife, Frau Mathews. No mere mortal may grant to another, no matter how much we say it or sing it, to rest in peace. In that matter, each person must make peace with his or her Creator in the manner the Creator has set forth, while alive in this plane of existence. I realize I defy centuries of tradition in saying this, but if you notice, I did not even sing such things. The closest I ever came was Commendatore -- and if by any means a mortal could grant rest to another, then Commendatore need not be so urgent and neither he nor Leporello need be so concerned with Don Giovanni. Donna Elvira, too, still loves him, but she is the first to come and tell him in that final scene that he must change his life. But it is Don Giovanni's decision to make, and he opts to remain in his pride, lust, and greed until the moment they obtain for him everlasting misery."
"You know ... ." I said.
"I would not have you, even in this matter, to practice those habits that you are just escaped from in the matter your society generally does," he said. "But having corrected you concerning my response to August Everding, you are not far off. As I said I sought to do when I sing, I will make the invisible that you sense is there visible.
"Although it is not in me to grant that anyone should rest in peace, what I could do is conduct myself in such a way that the loved ones of the departed could grieve and recover in peace, including myself. I had no need to make myself seem more significant by sullying the names of musicians who enabled the better portion of my career. Those whom you love, and whom you honor, you protect, in life or death, unless there is some pressing living need that requires revelation of such things.
_"_I also was not retired yet, but already was at an age at which wise singers know they will need more of the grace of conductors and directors more than ever in order to complete their careers happily. So, I blessed myself to live in peace, and not talk myself out of any opportunities.
"I will go further in this, speaking of the invisibility you know: I was by no means a perfect man, but everyone who knew me has done a cover up job that frankly is astounding. They are still loving me by what they choose to say, and what they do not."
"Which also says that kindness and humility is a form of granting one's self invisibility, later," I said, "for they engender love, and love hides a multitude of faults."
"Very good -- you are catching on marvelously, my A student."
"Now then, beginning by the paths you know into these things, we may consider this: humility means that you will not be in the spotlight more often than you are called, and wisdom shows you how to discern what calls belong to your calling, and which may be graciously but firmly refused. I was perfectly invisible to anyone casting Hagen or Wotan, and I utter to you what is not widely known: find me singing a requiem if you can! Humility and wisdom also assists you in not getting unnecessary attention from those whose pride you will offend simply by showing up or by not; you can navigate both as smoothly as possible.
"Still further, kindness makes you invisible in all the times and spaces in which mean and petty people tear others down to prop themselves up. Your refusal to participate will mean you will not be invited, and although you may be the subject of the conversations in such places, that is none of your business! Wisdom also means that you will give such people less to seize upon to talk because you will be less visible to them; others in their pride and lack of wisdom will make themselves easier targets.
"But also, Frau Mathews, my darling contralto profondo, though you be but a little one in your own eyes: remember that your big voice has echoed through enough rooms in your locale so that few would dare to invite you into foolishness, and with wisdom you have known to leave all such rooms when they have revealed themselves as such. There are those who desire that you remain invisible, and you, having warned and admonished them, may leave them where they are. The Fear of Frau Mathews may well suffice them until they learn the Fear of God."
"Talk about the things in life that I hate, when I would rather everyone know the love of God, and in being granted that, also know my love," I said, and suddenly sobbed, overcome memories of great sorrow.
He wrapped his arms around me and held me until the storm passed over, and then said, very gently, "Since I am possessor of a voice like unto yours, and a heart that also desired to show love at all times, know that I understand your sorrow ... and so does the One I echo, Who once wept as His own people, in His own chosen city, chose their own condemnation."
He waited another minute, and then lowered his voice to his utmost gravity in its gentleness.
"Yet it is certain that what choice He respects, we mortals cannot overcome. Since He is permitting Himself to be rejected, in all His love and grace -- since He permits those of that mind to close their minds and hearts to Him, it is certain that any human, being permitted so great a rejection, may also reject us, and our love. We must remember our place, Frau Mathews. We dare not presume that we may do what He has chosen that He Himself, having all power, will not do. You have suffered enough for not knowing this in past years, and you must not allow yourself, knowing now, to cross that line again.
"You do well, Frau Mathews, to always do as you have learned, and as He always does: after the sincere offer of love and grace is rejected as if it were invisible, affirm that decision. I give you your three Ds in the proper order: drop, disassociate, and disappear. They are three ... suitable to your Akkord, or harmony, with the divine in this instance."
He may as well have said death, destruction, damnation ... but his voice was so beautiful, and his manner so tender, that it did not come out that way. Nor could it, because ...
"That, too, is not our affair," he said. "We know that it can occur down the line, Frau Mathews, but this, too, is not our decision to make. The sorrows of the past, and the ones that must occur in the future if people remain on the paths they are on, are not our burden to bear. For where it is said, "Selig sind, da die Leid tragen"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1S3zRcILDI
"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" ... I just translated it back as I heard it in Brahms, and that lovely beginning to his German Requiem washed over me ... and after it was done, he who listened by me offered me his ethereal handkerchief, and then finished his thought by saying, "Where that is written, part of the means of the comfort is written. Let the past and the future be invisible to you, for 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.' Then consider that not all days need be overwhelmed with the consciousness of grief and evil."
After I had feasted my eyes upon that loveliness of openness to which we were coming, he added, "What you see, Frau Mathews, depends on what you are looking at. Before you are all the riches and glories of your calling, stretching before you, and with them will of course come all the grief that no one may avoid in life. Are they not enough, and more than enough?"
"They are," I said.
"And since you have determined to be present with them," he said, "does it not follow that you must be absent, more and more, and thus invisible, everywhere else?"
"Yes," I said.
"Thus far, you have already walked yourself into die Unsichtbareblumenkindung," he said, and just broke out laughing as I looked at him indignantly.
"I should have known you were going to run that monstrosity in on me again!" I said.
"Indeed you should have -- as the Invisible Bass, I'm always perfectly transparent!" he said, and just rolled laughing.
"You need to stop -- immediately!" I said. "I haven't gotten the gravity enhancers fixed from last week -- and you are just shamelessly running your fans around this park!"
"Oh, no, Frau Mathews -- I'm just doing what I do and they are being nosy and trying to mind my business! You know I never allowed that. I am a master of becoming invisible -- and of course, if you keep walking with me, you are going to become mistress of this as well, my A student."
In the distance, hustling footsteps were drawing nearer ...
"I KNOW I heard that man laughing up in here!"
But he wrapped an arm around me and snapped his fingers, and we moved behind a sprawling oak tree just like that. A finger to his smiling lips, and we sat watching the wild goose chase go right by and leave the scene by a different route.
"I will be visible to them later at the Music Concourse, when I sing there," he said softly. "But for now, we can rest here, and then I will walk you home."
"I need to understand that part -- I mean, invisibility by sheer teleportation stays here on the fictional side of the fourth wall, but on the non-fiction side of my life there have been plenty of situations like this one ... I have been so close to people I have left ... close enough to come in and fix things ... so often I longed ... but I knew in the end, it would be wasted effort, and I was counseled if not outright ordered to remain still and silent."
"For you, the choice of invisibility is last resort, and chosen in deep pain," he said. That is why you are struggling with this concept."
"How did you do it with a smile?" I said. "I mean, you just told folks no, then explained the no and just bombed other folks out with the explanation, and just kept smiling as you left them right there, put on your cloaking device, and didn't give another interview for years."
He smiled.
"Lesson one, which I had to learn myself in life and then relearn in dealing with media: learn to be invisible to people who think they are entitled to explanations they are not equipped to handle. Which leads to another way of considering the bigger question you are asking: how to move what you know how to do from last resort to standard operating procedure."
I shuddered, but nodded.
"Again, Frau Mathews, you are still in deep, fresh pain this week, though it can be the last of its kind. There is a significant difference between you and me: you are not called to the life of public performance, although you are certainly capable. So, how I am going to re-frame this matter will be easier for you than it was for me: consider John 3 from last week when we consider how iron flowers and people seem to float, unencumbered by much of the world's demands. How does that verse go?"
"I'll have to paraphrase it, but, the wind moves as it will, and although we hear i, we do not know where it is coming from, or where it is going, and that is an analogy for how people live who are moved by the Spirit."
He disappeared, turning again into the Invisible Bass ...
"And what do the wind and any spirit on the average day have in common?"
"Well, spirits are invisible," I said, "unless they want to be visible, most often in literary and artistic applications ... sometimes wearing a stone statue ... ."
He laughed.
"Go on," he said.
"And the wind is invisible -- we can only see what it carries."
"Very good. So we see that the default mode is invisibility ... and note when you go home that the passage you know does not say that people who are moved by the Spirit are like those carried by the wind. Not at all. The analogy is that they are like the wind."
"OK, this must be what it was like to have asked a question about Hagen and just get bombed intellectually," I said. "In an attention-seeking world, you're basically telling me that my default mode can be invisibility."
He materialized with a gentle smile.
"For some things," he said, "one does need a pair of hands again."
So saying, he gently put his hands upon my shoulders.
"Precision is important, Frau Mathews. It is not that you can be invisible. *You are, by calling.* Carry less, say less, and enjoy the privilege, while using quiet observation with prayer to discern whether at any time you should make yourself visible.
"Think of all the times you have read in Scripture and in literature and heard and read in song that love shelters the beloved, and hides the beloved from evil. Now, if you know that this is an evil world system, it should follow that your very redemption involves you finding shelter and relief from all of that ... you are in it, but no longer of it. To its quests and desires you are not only indifferent, but walking in the opposite direction! So if you know this, how visible do you need to be?"
"I suppose in terms of meeting needs in common grace for all humanity as said humans pass into my realms of responsibility," I said, "and of course to live an exemplary life adorning the invitation I also would present to anyone in terms of receiving special grace from God in Christ."
"The latter includes and requires the former of you, indeed," he said with a warm smile. "But if you think deeply, all the visibility you will ever need in the world is thus defined. At all other times, you also are assigned to rest and recuperate and thus enjoy common and special grace, and all their ministers assigned to you. This need not be made a spectacle for the world.
"Why I am so often out here in Creation," I said.
"And thus invisible to all other concerns," he said. "Already you are who you are called to be, Frau Mathews. It is the work of life to live as you truly are, and be conformed only to that. For a question also follows, to which I humorously gave you the answer earlier: I told you that as the Invisible Bass ... ."
He again disappeared.
"... I'm always perfectly transparent," he said. "Would it not also follow that I might have on occasion visibly walked with you for a time to some great vista, and then removed myself from view that you might see and focus on something partially obscured behind me?"
"Whoa, wait a minute," I said.
"The person who does this best in Scripture is John the Baptist," he said, "and in opera the best character, in sitting down and going to sleep instead of trying to reclaim a time of life that has passed for him, is Admiral Morosus.
"And of course, occasionally I pull that off by reminding you, 'I'm just the echo, Frau Mathews.' You cannot see an echo ... you do not always know where it has come from, or where it is going, but you hear it, and you know there must be a source of it ... a far greater Voice, and Reality, behind me. When I remind you 'I'm just the echo,' I am being transparent and letting you know to look up behind me.
"So then ... oh, never mind ... we'll get to it next week ... breathe, Frau Mathews! Breathe!"
I was gone to the Knockout Zone between the sheer beauty of his voice and the vastness of what he said ... had me out here seeing stars and hearing the music of the spheres in a clear blue day just because my brain was not ready to explode and put me to sleep! So there I rested in the Knockout Zone, and would take the next week to think it all out in an order I could handle better!
