The Creation Spirituality of John Denver

Transcription

By
Todd F. Eklof
3007 Cleveland Blvd.
Louisville, KY 4006
(502) 899-1337
[email protected]
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the Doctor of Ministry Degree at the
University of Creation Spirituality
Immersion in Creation Spirituality (#60001A)
Alexandra Kovats, PhD
January 10-15, 2005
Post-paper
Anyone who knows me well knows I’m a huge John Denver fan. My unfortunate
wife and children often tease me on our long road trips together because he’s all I ever
want to listen to in the car. Not that they dislike John Denver themselves, but I suppose
they can only take so much of a
good thing. I, on the other hand,
seem never to tire of his inspiring
music. I suppose, since I’ve only
become a Denver fan during
recent years, I’m trying to make
up for lost time.
I do recall
hearing and enjoying his music played on the radio during my childhood in the 1970’s,
when he was arguably the most succesful and popular perfomer in the country with chart
toppers like, “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” “Rocky Mountain High,” “Sunshine On
My Shoulders,” “Annie’s Song,” “Back Home Again,” “Thank God I’m A Country
Boy,” and “Calypso.” Although I would have hardly described myself as a fan in those
days, I remember the warm and simple images his soothing tenor voice conjured making
me feel good and peaceful.
I also remember feeling much sadder than I would have expected upon hearing
the news of his untimely death back in 1997.
He was only 53 at the time his
experimental aircraft crashed into the ocean not far from his home in Northern California.
At the time I owned only one of his CD’s, which I hardly ever listened to, but his death
reminded me of the time I tried to purchase ten of his cassette tapes at a Texas pawnshop.
It was right after I’d graduated from college and was preparing to move to Louisville,
Kentucky to continue my education at Southern Seminary. I was in the pawnshop on a
fluke the day before I was planning to leave when I noticed the tapes and thought, “John
Denver… hmm… I’ve always liked hearing him. He’d be good company on my trip.” So
I offered the pawnbroker ten bucks for the entire set. He looked at me and grunted
despairingly, like, “You must be kidding.” Since I really didn’t even have the ten dollars
to spare, I couldn’t offer him any more and ended up making my move without Denver’s
accompaniment. Nearly a decade later I purchased his greatest hits album on a whim
through one of those “buy twelve CDs for the price of one” offers you get in the mail.
It wasn’t until 2000, at the turn of the century, that I finally obtained a car with a
CD player for the first time in my life. I picked a few of my favorites CD’s off my music
shelf to start keeping with me in the car, including John Denver’s Greatest Hits.
At
some point I stuck it in the player and, much to my surprise, didn’t take it out again for
many weeks. I found his music soothing and his lyrics touching, if not subtly inspiring.
After several weeks passed and I found myself not wanting to listen to anything else, I
purchased the next two discs in his Greatest Hits collection. After a year or more of
listening repeatedly to nothing but these three discs on countless road trips, I began
thinking I ought to try expanding my horizons so my family will stop poking fun of me.
“What is it I like so much about John Denver’s music?” I asked myself. At the time I
thought, perhaps, it had something to do with his particular style, so I began trying out
other folk artists which weren’t nearly as satisfying and, I’ve since realized, are among
too narrow a category to describe Denver’s music in the first place.
2
It wasn’t until I first began studying Creation Spirituality in 2003 that I realized
precisely what it is about Denver’s music that so uniquely satisfies me, so profoundly
stirs me, and why I rarely want to listen to anybody else. For it was then I began to
understand this incredible artist was giving lyrical voice to some of my most sacred
beliefs.
If theologian Matthew Fox has written the book on Creation Spirituality, it’s
John Denver who has written its hymnal.
Fox, the former Catholic priest silenced by
the
Vatican
in
1989
after
publishing
his
controversial book Original Blessing, and later
dismissed by his Dominican Order, has, without a
doubt, been modernity’s loudest proponent of
Creation Spirituality. Denver, on the other hand,
who died tragically just two years after Fox was
officially defrocked, may have never even heard of
the movement.
It’s important to remember,
however, that Matthew Fox did not invent Creation Spirituality, but, as a theologian, has
only uncovered and explored what is possibly the oldest form of spirituality in the
Universe. I say “Universe” and not “the world,” because Creation, according to Fox, “is
the source, the matrix, and the goal of all things—the beginning and the end, the alpha
and the omega.
Creation is our common parent, when ‘our’ stands for all things.
Creation is the mother of all beings and the father of all beings, the birther and the
begetter.”1 Creation Spirituality, then, is about cosmology, in that it recognizes and
1
Fox, Matthew, Creation Spirituality, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY, 1991, p.10.
3
honors the interconnectedness of all that is, which is precisely the spirit contained in
many of John Denver’s songs, including my favorite of them all, The Wings that Fly Us
Home. 2 Its final stanza celebrates the cosmic presence in all things;
And the Spirit fills the darkness of the heavens
It fills the endless yearning of the soul
It lives within a star too far to dream of
It lives within each part and is the whole
It’s the fire and the wings that fly us home
Fly us home, fly us home
Reflecting about the meaning of this song, Denver said, “It expresses the truth
about the way we look at things; how we sometimes color things depending on our
individual positions and priorities in life. The real truth, though, is the spirit that is in
all of us. We are all one, we are all brothers and sisters and it is that spirit that brought
us into the world and that will take us from this world to our home in heaven.”3 What
Denver sees as the “spirit in all of us” is what the Lokata people recognize as “all our
relations,” implying, as Matthew Fox explains;
…all beings, all things, the ones we see and the ones we do not; the whirling galaxies,
and the wild suns, the black holes and the microorganisms, the trees and the stars, the fish
and the whales, the wolves and the porpoises, the flowers and the rocks, the molten lava
2
Words by Joe Henry, Music by John Denver, Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc., 1976
Denver, John, John Denver: The Complete Lyrics, ed., Milton Okun, Cherry Lane Music Company, 2002,
p.272.
3
4
and the towering snow-capped mountains, the children we give birth to and their
children, and theirs, and theirs and theirs.
The unemployed single mother and the
university student, the campesino and the landowner, the frog in the pond and the snake
in the grass, the colors of a bright sunny day and the utter darkness of a rain forest at
night, the plumage of sparkling parrots and the beat of an African drum, the kiva of the
Hopi and the wonder of Chartres Cathedral, the excitement of New York City and the
despair of an overcrowded prison are included as well… Creation is all space, all time—
all things past, present and future.4
Indeed, the oneness of all things seems to be a common experience among all
mystics. Thomas Aquinas said, “God is in all things and most intimately so.”5 Julian of
Norwich said, “we have all been enclosed within God,”6 and Mechtild of Magdeburg
wrote, “The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and I knew I saw all things
in God and God in all things.”7 These statements sound a lot like the summer chorus of
Denver’s Season Suite;
And oh I love the life within me
I feel part of everything I see
And oh I love the life around me
A part of everything is here in me8
4
5
6
7
8
Fox, ibid., p.8.
Fox, Matthew, Wrestling with the Prophets, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York, NY, 1995, p.112.
Ibid., p. 91.
Ibid.
John Denver, Dick Kniss, Mike Taylor, Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc., 1972.
5
During his 1995 Harbor Lights Concert in
Boston, Denver told his audience that his
environmental anthem, Amazon,9 came to represent
his “greatest longing and deepest commitment.”
Some of it lyrics sound more than similar to what
Matthew Fox has stated above.
There is a river that runs from the mountains
That one river is all rivers, all rivers are that one
There is a tree that stands in the forest
That one tree is all forests, all trees are that one
There is a flower that blooms in the desert
That one blossom is all flowers, all flowers are that one
There is a bird that sings in the jungle
That one song is all music, all songs are that one…
There is a child that cries in the ghetto
That one child is all our children, all of our children are that one
There is a vision that shines in the darkness
That one vision is all of our dreams, all of our dreams are that one
It is clear from many examples like this that John Denver was greatly inspired by
Creation—in the largest sense of the word! It’s for this reason, though he’s mostly
9
Words and music by John Denver, Cherry Mountain Music, DreamWorks Songs, 1991.
6
known as a singer and songwriter, that he ought to also be counted among the mystics,
and, given the impact his message is still having in our day, he might even be one of the
most important mystics ever to have lived!
The 13th century mystic, Meister Eckhart
said, “compassion means justice,” to which Matthew Fox adds, “…Creation-Centered
Spirituality considers that a consciousness of
faith needs to include a social, political,
economic awareness that is critical and that
offers workable and creative alternatives.”10
In other words, our mystical encounters with
God through Creation motivate us to create
justice in the world by returning “all our relations” to what science calls “homeostasis,”
to that state of balance inherent in all things. John Denver was precisely the sort of
mystic whose connection to Creation moved him to action. During Jimmy Carter’s
Administration, he was asked to serve on the
Presidential
Commission
on
World
and
Domestic Hunger and was one of the five
founders of The Hunger Project, a strategic
organization and global movement committed
to the sustainable end of world hunger. He served on its Board of Directors from 1981 to
1993. He also served on a fact-finding delegation to Africa as both a representative of
The Hunger Project and UNICEF and was presented the “World Without Hunger” award
from President Ronald Reagan.
10
In addition to many other philanthropic awards,
Fox, ibid., p.156.
7
including the 1990 National Wildlife Federation Conservation Achievement Award, the
activist pop star helped start several important environmental organizations, including
Plant-it 2020, which urges people all over the world to plant as many indigenous trees as
possible in an effort to reforest and replenish the Earth. The organization’s efforts have
resulted in the planting of over a million indigenous trees since Denver founded it in
1992. He also worked hard to support Save The Children, The Cousteau Society, Friends
of The Earth, the Human/Dolphin Foundation and the Windstar Foundation, an
educational organization he started in 1976 to help promote holistic approaches to
address environmental concerns.
His activism expresses that aspect of Creation Spirituality Matthew Fox has called
the Via Transformativa, referring to the transformation of society itself. “This
transformation is an issue of compassion,” writes Fox, “the response to an interdependent
universe in which [quoting Eckhart] ‘all beings love one another.’” 11 Surely this is what
Denver himself intuitively understood when he said, “I see more clearly now what I can
do about (the Earth’s needs), and I see that it needs doing as I live my life, daily,
reverently. This isn’t the reverence of ‘holier than thou.’ it’s the reverence that says, ‘Do
thyself no harm, for we are all here together.’ Not you or me, but you and me."12 It is
clear, through his work and his music that Denver’s heart really did deeply feel the
suffering in the world around him. A familiar line from Sunshine on My Shoulders13
goes, “If I had a song that I could sing for you, I’d sing a song to make you feel this way.”
It seems to me every song Denver sang was an attempt to help evoke his compassion in
11
Fox, ibid., p.22
http://www.johndenver.com/philanthropy/phil.html
13
John Denver, Dick Kniss, Mike Taylor, Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc., 1971.
12
8
others. His songs have a singular way of making his fans feel precisely what he himself
must have been thinking and feeling when he was first inspired to write them, and, as is
the point of this discourse, what inspired his music is Creation Spirituality, that is, the
cosmological connection of all that is. Denver himself said, “When I write a song, I want
to take the personal experience or observation that inspired it and express it in as
universal a way as possible. I'm a global citizen. I've created that for myself, and I don't
want to step away from it. I want to work in whatever I do… towards a world in balance,
a world that creates a better quality of life for all people."14
In 1985, for example, Denver traveled
to what is now the former USSR to perform
his song Let Us Begin15 with Alexandre
Gradsky, the first Soviet singer allowed to
perform on record with an American artist.16
The song links the peoples of both countries by emphasizing the plight of the American
farmer and the suffering of those who died during the siege of Leningrad. “What are we
making weapons for?” the song asks;
Why keep on feeding the war machine?
We take it right out of the mouths of our babies
Take it away from the hands of the poor
14
16
Incidentally, Denver, who was also the first western artist allowed to do a multicity tour in Mainland China, returned to the USSR in 1987 to do a benefit concert for
the victims of Chernobyl.
15
9
Tell me, what are we making weapons for?
The song ends with an undisguised reference to the Cold War and the threat of
nuclear holocaust;
Have we forgotten
All the lives that were given?
All the vows that were taken?
Saying never again
Now for the first time
This could be the last time
If peace is our vision
Let us begin
Raven’s Child,17 written in 1990, may be less familiar to mainstream audiences,
but its prophetic cry for justice is no less poignant.
It begins by poetically alluding to
Raven’s child “chasing salvation” whose black beak has “turned white from the crack
and the snow… on the streets of despair… a spoonful of mercy can set free the soul.” He
blames the arrogant drug king who sits “away and above and apart… even children are
twisted to serve him and greed has corrupted what once was a heart.” During the next
stanza Raven’s child is “keeping vigil for freedom” by trading arms and placing “nuclear
warheads and lasers in heaven… fear does the choosing between right and wrong.” He
17
Words by Joe Henry and John Denver, music by John Denver, Cherry Mountain Music, DreamWorks
Songs, 1990.
10
blames the arrogant arms king whose heart has become a stone. Next he sings of Raven’s
child attempting to wash herself clean, “her wing feathers blackened with tar… Prince
Williams shoreline’s an unwanted highway of asphalt and anger, an elegant scar.”
Denver blames the oil king for this unsettling predicament, whose heart has been made
silent by lawyers who warn him not to speak. Finally he sings of hearts that “long to be
opened and eyes that are longing to see…
Raven’s Child is our constant companion
Sticks like a shadow to all that is done
Try as we may we just can’t escape him
The source of our sorrow and shame
We are one
The true King sits on a heavenly throne
Never away nor above nor apart
With wisdom and mercy and constant compassion
He lives in the love that lives in our hearts
Song’s like these also indicate a degree of anger and sorrow Denver must have
felt on some level; an experience that, in mystical terms, is sometimes called the “dark
night of the soul.” In terms of Creation Spirituality this experience of letting go and
letting be is what Matthew Fox refers to as the Via Negativa. Meister Eckhart said, “The
ground of the soul is dark.”18 As full of hope as most of Denver’s songs are, they ask us
18
Fox, Creation Spirituality, ibid., p.18.
11
to feel and face many of the painful realities he himself had to face with grief and longing
for a way out. Take the deep grief expressed in Whose Garden Was This,19 for example,
the first of his many songs with an environmental message;
Whose garden was this?
It must have been lovely
Did it have flowers?
I’ve seen pictures of flowers
And I’d love to have smelled one
Whose river was this?
You say it ran freely
Blue was its color
I’ve seen blue in some pictures
And I’d love to have been there…
Whose gray sky was this?
Or was it a blue one?
You say there were breezes
I’ve heard records of breezes
And you tell me you felt one
19
Words and Music by Tom Paxton, EMI U CATOLOG INC., 1970.
12
Between these grievous stanzas, Denver bellows
out the chorus that at once exudes both anger and
desperation;
Tell me again I need to know
The forest had trees, the meadows were green
The oceans were blue, and birds really flew
Can you swear that it’s true?
Matthew Fox goes on to suggests the Via Negativa, the dark night of the soul, this
experience of letting go and letting be, is also about letting go of what we don’t need so
those who don’t have enough might have their needs met. “There is no way to restore
balance to the relationship of ‘First’ and ‘Third’ worlds,” he writes, “without the First
World learning to let go.”20 These words seem to echo what Denver was getting at in his
1986 song, One World;21
Why are you calling this the Third World?
I only know that it is my world
Maybe someday it can be our world
Can you imagine one world, one world?
20
21
Fox, CS, ibid., p.39.
13
Speaking of letting go, one of his more familiar songs, Poems and Prayers and
Promises may serve as some comfort to those fans still mourning Denver’s untimely loss.
The song begins with the singer thinking about his life and how much he’s “gonna hate
to see it end.” He goes on to talk about all the simple things in life he enjoys like, lying
by the fire and watching the evening tire “While all my friends and my old lady sit and
pass the pipe around.” He even mourns the loss of his dreams as “the days pass so
quickly,” like the possibility of never raising a family, of sailing away or dancing “across
the Moon.” This line in particular is a reference to the little known fact that Denver was a
huge supporter of NASA’s space program. In 1985 he received the NASA Medal for
Public Service, and was at one time a leading candidate to be the first civilian in space.
He was actually planning on writing a song aboard the space shuttle Challenger but
circumstances prevented him from joining the ill-fated 1986 mission that turned
disastrous. So dancing across the Moon is a dream he had to let go of. Yet his song goes
on, as if to say his short life was full enough, even without accomplishing all his dreams.
I have to say it now
It’s been a good life all in all
It’s really fine
To have a chance to hang around
14
Regarding his song, Sweet Surrender,22 originally written for a Disney film about
a Vietnam veteran, Denver said, “…the first part of the song talks about not knowing
what the future holds, and yet not being in a hurry to get there. Then, the song moves to
the idea of surrendering to life... Joy, really, is the surrendering to what life has to offer.
So surrender—not without purpose. It’s not giving up or succumbing—it’s taking steps
yourself, it’s moving forward and not sitting around waiting for something to happen.
Don’t hold back because you’re afraid of something.
Surrender—go for it and
surrender.”23
Like all true mystics, John Denver was a prophet, and his prophetic songs inspired
a vision for the entire world. In Creation Spirituality this kind of envisioning is called the
Via Creativa, referring to our ability to be co-creators with God in the continuing process
of Creation. Surely this is what Denver understood when he recorded Bill Danoff’s
Native American tune, Potter’s Wheel;24
Earth and fire and wind conspire
With human hands, and love, and fire
Take a little clay, put it on a wheel
Get a little hint, how God must feel
Give a little turn, listen to it spin
Make it in the shape you want it in
22
Words and music by John Denver, Walt Disney Music Company, Cherry Lane Music Publishing
Company, Inc., DreamWorks Songs, 1974.
23
Denver, The Complete Lyrics, ibid., p.231.
24
Words and Music by Bill Danoff, first recorded on the Calypso album,
15
Matthew Fox tells us it is during our experience as co-creators that we “make a
choice of what images to trust.”25 So many of Denver’s songs are about the images he
came to trust and the vision he tried to pass on. What One Man Can Do,26 in particular,
is a song celebrating the vision of Buckminster Fuller, who was himself a co-creator
through his work as an architect and inventor, as well as a poet and cosmologist who
gave the world a vision that, if pursued, promised to end poverty and hunger within a
single generation.
As shaded as his eyes might be
That’s how bright his mind is
That’s how strong his love
For you and me
A friend to all the universe
Grandfather of the future
And everything that I would like to be
What one man can do is dream
What one man can do is love
What one man can do is change
the world
And make it new again
Here you see what one man can do
25
Fox, CS, ibid., p.75.
Words and music by John Denver, Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc., DreamWorks Songs,
1982.
26
16
The words to his inspirational song, Higher Ground,27 call upon those who hear
them to remember the vision, the calling that comes wrapped up inside each one of us.
There are those who can live
With the things they don’t believe in
They are giving up their lives
For something that is less than it can be
Some have longed for a home
In a place of inspiration
Some will fill the emptiness inside
By giving it all to the things that they believe
They believe
Maybe it’s just a dream in me
Maybe it’s just my style
Maybe it’s just the freedom that I’ve found
Given the possibility
Of living up to the dream in me
You know that I’ll be reaching for higher ground
As a visionary, Denver was also on a vision quest, seeking out those images he
could trust. This seems to be, in part, what his song, Looking For Space is about.
Denver himself credited the song to his experiences in the est movement.
27
In his
Words by Joe Henry and John Denver, music by Lee Holdridge and John Denver, Cherry Mountain,
DreamWorks Songs, 1988.
17
autobiography, Take Me Home, Denver said, “Space was a metaphor for what needed to
be internalized. It wasn’t a fixed entity, but spiritual territory to be staked out and built
upon… Before est came into the picture, I was already searching for expressions of
myself, beyond music, but it was est that gave me confidence to follow through.”28 Est is
an acronym for the Erhard Seminar Training founded by Werner Erhard back in 1971,
and is also the Greek word meaning “it is.” Denver became involved with the movement
in 1973 when he was 30 years old. Although est is too complicated to get into here,
suffice it to say, it involves the sort of training meant to help people put their pasts behind
them in order to exist in this moment, in this space. As Erhard wrote, “Create your future
from your future not your past.”29 This is the context out of which Denver wrote many of
his lyrics including these;
And I’m looking for space
And to find out who I am
And I’m looking to know and understand
It’s a sweet, sweet dream
Sometimes I’m almost there
Sometimes I fly like an eagle and
Sometimes I’m deep in despair
28
Smith, Christine, A Mountain in the Wind, An Exploration of the Spirituality of John Denver, Findhorn
Press, Canada, 2001, p.46.
29
Ibid., p.47.
18
In his book, The Awakened Heart,
author Gerald May tells us the Hebrew word
for salvation, yeshuah, connotes "space and
the freedom and security which is gained by
the removal of constriction."30 In other
words, salvation comes, not by freeing the soul, as is so often the point of western
religion, but by opening space, that is, making more room, in the world and in our hearts.
This sounds a lot like what Denver was getting at when he said, “I believe that for all of
us, one of the purposes in life, one of the processes of life, is to find, to create, to
determine, and to define our own space. It’s always there—it’s never not there, but it
takes time to see it or to feel it or to be able to communicate about it. Looking for space
on the road of experience, day to day experience, looking for space.”31
There can be no doubt that Denver found some of the space he was looking for in
space itself, that is, in the spaciousness of nature, of Creation. This brings us to another
aspect of Creation Spirituality, the path Matthew Fox calls Via Positiva, referring to the
experiences of awe, wonder, excitement, joy, pleasure and gratitude for being part of the
Creation. Likening this to what Rabbi Heschel’s called “Radical amazement,” Fox says,
“…this experience is available to all of us on a daily basis, provided we are ready to
undergo such ecstasies—be they nature, in our work, in relationship, in silence, in art, in
lovemaking, even in times of suffering. ”32 Even lovemaking? Really? Could this be
30
Michael Schut, ed., Simpler Living, Compassionate Life, The Morehouse Group, Denver, CO, 1999,
2001, p.42.
31
Denver, The Complete Lyrics, ibid., p.156.
32
Fox, Wrestling…, ibid., p.20.
19
why Denver likened his feelings for the love of his life to his experience of Creation in
Annie’s Song?33
You fill up my senses
Like a night in the forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again
Although this path is often considered the first experience in Creation Spirituality,
I end with it because it is undeniably the place Denver’s music both begins and ends. His
love affair with Creation expresses itself in the vast majority of his songs, and it is seeing
Creation through his eyes, feeling it through his heart, and hearing it in his songs, that is
his greatest gift and his undying legacy.
In what I find to be one of his most moving and inspiring songs, To the Wild
Country,34 he sings about how he survives being lost in the struggle and strain of living in
a culture where “There’s nothin’ wild as far as I can see;”
33
Words and music by John Denver, Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company Inc., DreamWorks Songs,
1975.
34
Words and music by John Denver, Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc., DreamWorks Songs,
1977.
20
Then my heart turns to Alaska
And freedom on the run
I can hear her spirit calling me
To the mountains, I can rest there
To the rivers, I will be strong
To the forests, I’ll find peace there
To the wild country, where I belong
One of his first big hits, Rocky Mountain High,
is the story of Denver’s own rebirth which happened
the first Summer he lived in the Rocky Mountains and began really getting in touch with
Creation through fishing, camping, hiking, watching the Perseid meteor shower, and, in
his own words, “doing other things that I’d wanted to do all my life, and in the place
where I most wanted to be. Everything was new and full of possibility, and I was so
happy.”35
He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year
Comin’ home to a place he’d never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door
35
Denver, ibid., p.195.
21
Although Denver’s lyrics primarily emphasize the environment, global justice and
his awe of Creation, his, like most popular songs, are essentially love songs. The big
difference is that Denver’s love wasn’t limited to the troubadourian notion of finding one
true love then moving in together to set up house. Denver’s love wasn’t about going
inside, or limited to his own narcissistic needs, but about going outward, toward our
neighbors and toward the Universe. He loved the Earth, the stars, the sunshine on his
shoulders, the windsong, and homegrown tomatoes. He loved perfect strangers on the
other side of the world, realizing, no matter who we are or where we live, we’re all
responsible for each other. In his song, It’s About Time,36 for example, Denver is almost
pleading with us to remember this simple truth;
There’s a man who is my brother, I just don’t know his name
But I know his home and family because I know we feel the same
And it hurts me when he’s hungry and when his children cry
I too am a father and that little one is mine
It’s about time we begin it to turn the world around
It’s about time we start to make it the dream we’ve always known
It’s about time we start to live it, the family of man
It’s about time, it’s about changes, and it’s about time
It’s about peace and it’s about plenty and it’s about time
It’s about you and me together and it’s about time
36
Words by John Denver, music by Glen Hardin and John Denver, Cherry Wind Music, DreamWorks
Songs, 1983.
22
Nor was Denver’s love exclusively anthropocentric. Meister Eckhart said, “Every
creature is a word of God and a book about God.”37 In his book, The Universe Story,
Thomas Berry has written;
In the West especially, the mystical bonding of the human with the natural world had
progressively weakened. Humans, in differing degrees, lost their capacity to hear the
voices of the natural world. They no longer heard the voices of the mountains or the
valleys, the rivers or the sea, the sun, moon, or stars; they no longer had a sense of the
experience communicated by the various animals, an experience that was emotional and
esthetic, but even more than that. These languages of the dawn and sunset are
transformations of the soul at its deepest level.38
Fortunately, Denver, as a Creation mystic himself, did not lose his mystical
bonding with nature and sang about his connection to Creation and creatures more often
than not.
The silver dolphins twist and dance
And sing to one another
The cosmic ocean knows no bounds
For all that live are brothers
The whippoorwill, the grizzly bear
All children of the Universe
All weavers of the tale39
37
Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets, p.33.
Berry, Thomas, & Swimme, Brian, The Universe Story, Harper Collins, New York, NY, 1992, p.199.
39
From Children of the Universe, words and music by John Denver and Joe Henry, Cherry Lane Music
Publishing Company, Inc., DreamWorks Songs, 1982
38
23
Oh I am the eagle
I live in high country
In rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky
I am the hawk and there’s
blood on my feathers
But time is still turning, they
soon will be dry
And all those who see me and all who believe in me
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly40
I had a vision of eagles and horses
High on a ridge in a race with the wind
Going higher and higher and faster
and faster
On eagles and horses I’m flying again41
Have you gazed out on the ocean, seen the breaching of a whale?
Have you watched the dolphins frolic in the foam?
Have you heard the song the humpback hears five hundred miles from home?
40
From The Eagle and the Hawk, words by John Denver, music by John Denver and Mike Taylor, Cherry
Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc., DreamWorks Songs, 1971.
41
From Eagles and Horses, words by John Denver, music by John Denver and Joe Henry, Cherry Lane
Music Publishing Company, Inc., DreamWorks Songs, 1990.
24
Telling tales of ancient history of passages and home?42
Denver included his own version of a wolf’s howl in his last song, Yellowstone,43
written while shooting a film about his life with National Geographic.
Owwwwooooo
Oh the little ones
Owwwwooooo
Oh the joy that I feel
Oh the Yellowstone
Oh the love in my heart
Oh the buffalo free
For wilderness sounds
Oh my brother the Wolf
Owwwwooooo
My lover the Moon
Owwwwooooo
Oh the waterfalls
Oh the river that runs
Oh my brother the wind
My sister the sea
Oh the ocean shore
Forever returning
Oh the castles of stone
Coming home
Oh the mountain top
Forever belonging
Calling to me
Never alone
42
From I Want to Live, words and music by John Denver, Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc.,
DreamWorks Songs, 1977.
43
Words and music by John Denver, Cherry Mountain Music, 1997.
25
Oh the mystery
Oh the dreaming of dreams Oh my brother my home My sister my home
Oh the tenderness Oh the longing for love Oh the beautiful way
The sweet coming home Owwwwooooo Owwwwooooo
Although his life was cut tragically short, his music lives on, as does the eternal
Spirit of Creation that inspired him. He may not have been able to fulfill all his dreams—
he may never have danced across the Moon—but he did fulfill his desire to give voice to
the beauty he saw outside, and, through his songs, has enabled the rest of us to know
what he felt inside.
Let this be a voice for the mountains
Let this be a voice for the river
Let this be a voice for the forest
Let this be voice for the flowers
Let this be a voice for the desert
Let this be a voice for the ocean
Let this be a voice for the children
Let this be a voice for the dreamers
Let this be a voice of no regret44
44
From, Amazon, ibid.
26
Bibliography
Berry, Thomas, & Swimme, Brian, The Universe Story, Harper Collins, New York, NY,
1992.
Denver, John, John Denver: The Complete Lyrics, ed., Milton Okun, Cherry Lane Music
Company, New York, NY, 2002.
Fox, Matthew, Creation Spirituality, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY, 1991.
Fox, Matthew, Wrestling with the Prophets, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York, NY,
1995.
Michael Schut, ed., Simpler Living, Compassionate Life, The Morehouse Group, Denver,
CO, 1999, 2001.
Smith, Christine, A Mountain in the Wind, An Exploration of the Spirituality of John
Denver, Findhorn Press, Canada, 2001.
27

The Creation Spirituality of John Denver

Transcription

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