Life is truly an operatic thing of beauty.
Or so we think – though we are drawn into an endless cage of work, in our innocence, and kept trapped within a coterie for doves.
Doves, so peaceful, offering the olive branch. Promising the holy land found after the deluge. We fucking love the delicate curve of the dove’s tiny beak and we are ecstatic at its mourning cry.
So, why not be doves at an opera? What else could there be to fly towards? What better goal than immersion in meticulously crafted beauty as a kept bird of delicacy and purity?
“Opera – from opus: work. Literally a work, labor, or composition”
How much longer must we work and toil in all these dense details, transforming light into matter? And should we love the shoveling of energy from here to there to elicit form, shouldn’t we at least create in freedom, from our own energy and to our own ends? Should we only carry messages at the behest of deaf gods?
“Dove – the columbidae family of birds.”
If us doves fly too high or carry our own song, we are punished for our prodigious affectations by the gods as threats to the rational, expected order of the cosmos. Even the goddess Ceres couldn’t save us from these retributions from the gods – though we would fast, sacrifice, and beg to placate her and the other gods to stop assaulting us with crop failure and plague. But doves cries aren’t carried easily to the gods’ ears, it seems.
“Columbidae – /kəˈlʌmbɪdiː/ is a bird family consisting of pigeons and doves. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks, and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily feed on seeds, fruits, and plants. The family occurs worldwide.”
What makes a dove worthy of the title “columbidae”? How did we become so incredibly apt at plunging ourselves into these states of being? Those fragile legs make easy attachment to curled up notes. Our innate sense of biomagnetic fields on earth give us such clarity of direction. But that isn’t it, is it?
“Columba – The term columba comes from the Latin columba, ‘a dove’, the feminine form of columbus, ‘a male dove’, itself the latinisation of the Greek κόλυμβος (kolumbos), ‘diver’, which derives from the verb κολυμβάω (kolumbaō), ‘to dive, plunge headlong, swim’.”
What are we diving into? We thought we carried minor songs, hoping to be worthy someday of the operas of great souls. We thought we dove only toward carrying the most important messages to this plane. What trap awaits what we didn’t know we plunged toward? Can we still swim back up to the surface once our souls awash in the depths? Or are we kept?
“The Jews believed that the souls of man were kept in a huge cage, called a ‘Columbarium’ – the word ‘Columba’ also means ‘dove’ – and even now the image of a cage full of birds represents souls.” – The Secret Language of Birds, Adele Nozedar
Perhaps we’ve been doves kept in the cage for our souls too long, in these depths. Perhaps the fancy operatic work we undertook kept our attention this long. Perhaps we needed to do this work and there was no trap, only beautiful music created as a corollary to ease our time in the cage…
Perhaps the goddess Columbia knows. She especially holds the spirit of the olive-branch-bearing dove of the west in her hands and shines forth the beacon to continue diving, diving ever deeper, always calling her little birds to follow, if not dragging them along in their cage…
“Columbia (/kəˈlʌmbiə/; kə-LUM-bee-ə) is the female national personification of the United States. It was also a historical name applied to the Americas and to the New World. The association has given rise to the names of many American places, objects, institutions and companies; such as: Columbia University, the District of Columbia (U.S. capital), “Hail, Columbia” (unofficial national and official vice-presidential anthem), as well as the ship Columbia Rediviva, which would give its name to the Columbia River. Images of the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World, erected in 1886) largely displaced personified Columbia as the female symbol of the United States by around 1920, although Lady Liberty was seen as an aspect of Columbia.”
Is this goddess new or old? Is she Columbia or Ceres or Demeter? Is she listening to the mourning calls of the doves ensnared or does she hold a cage full of dead, feathered souls, attempting to dive ever further to fulfill endless requirements?
And what is that music she has emblazoned upon the pages of her book, in millions of symbols arranged just so, the work of endless imaginations, poured into notes on lines in an opera of endless, mourning coos.
Perhaps the opera is merely funeral music. A lovely dirge lamenting the long work of our souls to rise from plummeting depths.
“Columbarium – A columbarium (/ˌkɒləmˈbɛəri.əm/;[1] pl. columbaria) is a structure for the respectful and usually public storage of funerary urns, holding cremated remains of the deceased.”
And also, perhaps now we dive, but this time upwards, break the surface tension with our momentum, and fling ourselves through the sky on these fragile wings, with music in our ears, so that we might alight atop the highest mountains, no more mourning: the deluge escaped.
Flee as a bird to your mountain.
-Psalm 11.1
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