influences on leonard?

Debate on Leonard Cohen's poetry (and novels), both published and unpublished. Song lyrics may also be discussed here.
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icant get into my email adresses............................
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mat james
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Re: influences on leonard?

Post by mat james »

With regard to the "influences on Leonard?" I point again to San Juan de la Cruz (on another thread). I particularly refer to the posting regarding the song "Love itself" at the bottom of page one.
.. for those who are interested, check the link below.
( viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10339&p=131790#p131790 )
Regards, Matj
"Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart." San Juan de la Cruz.
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mat james
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Re: influences on leonard?

Post by mat james »

Leonard and Buddhism and the awakening abyss between ?
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=20040&start=45
"Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart." San Juan de la Cruz.
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mat james
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Re: influences on leonard?

Post by mat james »

"Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart." San Juan de la Cruz.
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mat james
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Re: influences on leonard?

Post by mat james »

The Mystic influence? Sufi influence?

I was reflecting on the gap between thoughts and the journey among that gap between those 2 thoughts.
Somehow I ended up at The Window, Leonard's song.
Apparently he took the image from an old Sufi poem. Sufi's are mystics, so it fits for me.
I posted these thoughts below on another thread but I felt it also belonged here on this one.

through this gap and beyond that "Window"


…all we have is “time”.
Where there is no time there can be no “space”; and all the things that go along with space,
like Life and flesh and experiences and responses.
So when we are “death”
there is no space for us
and therefore no time for us
but this is not nothing;
and therefore we find our self in “no-time/no-space; yet we still are
…I Am.
Perhaps this state of “I AM” is also “I Know”;
the Spiritual Wisdom that this guy Sai and other Seers talk about.

It is very simple really; nothing complicated at all.
If there is no space any more for our presence to occupy,
then there is also no time for our presence to occupy.
Therefore in this state,
my presence is before existence and therefore so is yours
and everyone else’s,
and hence the god-like statements from seers,
“I am Who am”.
It makes perfect sense to this fool!

If space and matter can neither be created nor destroyed
then neither can “time”,
as they are related (relativity).
So in this state of no-time/no-space;
everything exists contemporaneously (all at once).
Therefore all at once we are everything and we know everything.
That pregnant pause is me,

is everything that has been and ever will be
and is what people (many religions) name “God”.
Maybe this is that mystical experience a certain guy sees when "standing by the window"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUszJI_6WPA


Mat James.
"Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart." San Juan de la Cruz.
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mat james
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Re: influences on leonard?

Post by mat james »

Cohen's Lucky Night is a translation of San Juan de la Cruz' poem, Dark Night (of the soul).
(San Juan is also known as Saint John of the Cross)
Interestingly...San Juan had Jewish grandparents who were forced to convert to Catholicism at pain of death during the Spanish Inquisition and I suggest his passion for Solomon's Songs was influenced by his family's love of that poetry.

It goes like this: Moses' story of Adam and Eve influenced Solomon's "Songs", Solomon influenced Cruz' "Oh Living flame of love", "The Spiritual Canticle" and "Dark Night of the Soul", Cruz' poetry influenced Cohen's "The Lucky Night" and many other songs of Leonard's also. So they are all connected in a long line of traditional poetry.

"Cruz' poem "The Spiritual Canticle" is one of Cruz' interpretations of Solomon's Songs. Cruz picks up on Solomon's metaphors for describing the Spiritual journey to Union.
"The Lucky Night!!!" is Cohen's understanding of Cruz' perspective on that Spiritual Union, and I suggest that Leonard Cohen is celebrating their mutual good fortune, an experience of Divine Union/transcendence. "The Lucky Night!!!!!" poem suggests that transcendent souls are each a Lily in the valley, lost among divinity, as the mountains of separation are no longer present; and they are each and all;

"Lost among the Lilies" (Cruz' last line of The Dark Night of the Soul))
"We spread and drown as lilies do, forever and forever" (Cohen's last line of "The Lucky Night!!!" poem above.)
...and like Solomon and his girl, they leap the mountains of separation with doe/ hart-like agility, and the mountains crumble and dissolve and the "blessed mountains weep" in spiritual Union.
In "The Darker Album", Leonard also tells us that he is "Traveling light" with one or two "like we used to do".
I suggest these "one or two" may well be Solomon and Cruz.

Leonard was very grateful that Cruz helped him understand Solomon's Divine poetic wisdom. That is one of the messages in this poem. Leonard loved the Spanish for several good reasons and Cruz is perhaps the major one."
And Leonard's unique contribution, for me at least, is that he took the mystic union thread all the way back to Moses' genesis story of Eve and Adam.
Poetically, Eve becomes Adam's soul...falling from grace;
Solomon has that soul searching out her lover, as does Cruz, as does Leonard Cohen.
But Leonard Cohen finds the common thread running all the way back to poetical Eve.
The 5th verse of his "Lucky Night!" poem explains the connection and is his moment of true genius, for this poet, me.
That is a wonderful achievement...Leonard was indeed "the little Jew who wrote the Bible" in a poetic sense.

He was "one with" the secret meanings; what our Australian Arunta First Nations People have, for 60,000 years called "The Song Lines of eternity"...or "Dreamtime".

"I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord, but you don't really care for music, do you..."


https://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewt ... 10&t=38376

Mat James
"Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart." San Juan de la Cruz.
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