“Reflections on Sibelius”
Photograph by John Diamond, M.D.
For the last thirty years of his life Sibelius, whom I so love, composed almost nothing.
What was he hearing? What was he feeling?
How was he living?
It would seem that – so tragically – he survived only the physical cancer.
I remember his death announcement in 1957, hearing it as I saw Sputnik in the sky. As him.
I’m crying as I write this. I still mourn him.
He is, of course, in spirit with me now. And maybe we will be in spirit together. And we will hear what he heard but could not sing – then.
Perhaps, as I’ve long thought, I’ll die to the fourth movement of his Second Symphony.
There is a theme in it to which I have set words:
I open my heart to you, Mother,
as I Know you are open to me.
To die is for the heart to release the spirit within for it to return to the mother as the Mother, to re-enter Her Womb, the World of Spirit.
