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If You Want To, Let It Be
By admin | May 26, 2008
“… I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, Let It Be.”
Yesterday I was remembering that beautiful song by the Beatles. Paul McCartney said he was visited by his deceased mother in a dream during the time when he and the Beatles were recording the Let It Be album. The Beatles were then mightily struggling in their work and relationships with one another, and were ultimately in the process of breaking up. Said John Lennon about the group’s experience, “It had become a job.” Paul’s mother said to him in the dream, “It will be alright. Let it be.”
In Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native, Thomasin, at home in Egdon Heath, walks its wild, thorny terrain as branches and grasses seemingly part for her wherever she goes. Eustacia, on the other hand, longs to leave the heath behind for a more worldly life. Her clothing catches and tears on the branches; she is whipped in the face by every bramble she passes.
There is a tendency to think we should try to keep things together that are coming apart, try to make things work that aren’t working. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
But how do the tough get going? Where, when, and in what direction? Ideally, in ways that allow life energy to be free-flowing, as well as to find purchase, that is, to find and/or create a means of increasing power or influence. But the real work of this is beyond words of inspiration in the actual doing.
In Spiritual Economics, author Eric Butterworth (not related to Mrs. Butterworth, though I’m having a hankering for pancakes just now), says: “People have their own pipelines to the universal good, and if they are true to themselves … their own will surely come without strain or struggle.” Maybe, but what about when they don’t yet know, haven’t quite become established in this truth? What to do with feelings of frustration, discontent, loneliness, longing?
I like what Dan Millman (The Peaceful Warrior) says about feelings: “Do not trouble yourself whether you feel grateful or loving or kind or helpful; only focus on behaving that way.”
Well, I am truly grateful to have had the opportunity to record an original song with Elisabeth Le Guin, Professor of Musicology, world-renowned cellist and scholar, some years ago in Erik Hawkins‘ back yard music studio in Berkeley. Elisabeth created and is playing the cello part, while I sing and play the guitar. I am going to put the demo on my website so you can listen to it. Meanwhile, because the song is speaking to me in the moment, here are the lyrics:
I’ve been let down before and I know what it feels like
I’ve had my hopes too high before and I know what it seems like
So don’t think that I cannot understand, when you’re feeling deserted or stranded
You know that I will give you my hand
To hold onto
If you want to
I’ve been put down before and I know what it feels like
I’ve seen a bad time before and I know what it looks like
But something to always remember: things fall both apart and together
And you know that you can find something better
To hold onto
If you want to
So forget about the before and go on to the after
Don’t be held down anymore because you know you don’t “have to”
Now see what you’ve been looking to see, be what you’ve been wanting to be
Touch what you’ve been trying to reach
And hold on, too
If you want to
If you want to
(”If You Want To” Copyright 2008 by Mary Ann Vorasky)
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