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Dear Octet community,
Welcome back! The Octet team and I hope that the summer offered you opportunities for contemplation, rest, new insights and the formation of life-giving habits. As we begin this academic year, let's reaffirm our commitment to the spiritual practices that have sustained God's people for millennia––rhythms and harmonies of contemplation, Sabbath rest, fellowship, creativity, and even struggle. These practices remind us of our creatureliness and embodiment and are integral to loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength.
In this spirit, I share Malcolm Guite's evocative poem, "The Baton," which reminds us of this through our timeless relationship with music:
Tap of a baton and the music starts,
Con brio and Vivace, full of life.
With a percussive hush and rush the strings,
Plucked on their pizzicato tenterhooks,
Begin a playful pulse that pulls you in,
Brimming with memories of spring and rhythm;
Of patterns patted out on your five fingers,
Delicious incantations, nursery rhymes,
The ways the farmer and the beggar ride,
Enchanted jiggle-juggle, swoop and swing.
You heard the baton tap before your birth,
Deep in the wombing dark, a pulsing beat;
The spring and source and rhythm of your life.
You heard the sound that measures all your years,
Your mother's heartbeat as it quickened yours,
Music before you had the ears to hear.
Now music is remaking memory
In repetitions, forward references,
The to and fro of making all things new,
Till tempo over-flows the temporary,
The beaten bars of time turn on their sides
And lift a ladder to the timeless realm.
You climb it into freedom till you reach
The limit and the centre of the dance:
Rich silence, as the baton comes to rest.
Please join us in passing on the "baton!"
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