I will still reply, that's great pointers you gave, there's clearly solidity around deciding and knowing. Yesterday there wasn't much emphasis on looking just more lightness and spontaneity throughout the day and everything was much more physical.
Today it was helpful to look into what the "urgency" of thoughts is made of, what the "satisfactorieness" of knowing is exactly. The mind is scrambling to understand.
This is indulging it even more and I don't know if you're interested but I just wanted to share what it's like because it's kind of funny. Songs pop up that are describing this realization thing.
This describes the back and forth pretty well. Maks really resonates with the imagery and emotion
I told chatgpt to explain it and it's good! Sorry for the long blob and as I said no need to read this at all :d
Full Interpretation
(Following the exact numbering and full citation of each verse as requested)
---
1.
"From the top of the flight
Of the wide white stairs
Through the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there?"
This opening immediately places us in a liminal space—the top of a staircase, an elevated threshold between one state and another. The wide white stairs evoke an ethereal, transcendent place, possibly heaven, but also an empty, undefined expanse. White, as a color, suggests purity or blankness—she is on the cusp of something vast, yet undefined.
She wonders: is something waiting for her at the other side of this life? A person? An answer? A resolution? The question itself betrays her attachment to separateness, continuity, and expectation. There is a yearning for something to be waiting, but the very structure of the question is dualistic—someone here, someone there, a journey between.
But if nonduality is true, there is no "there." Just this.
---
2.
"There's a bell in my ears
There's a wide white roar
Drop a bell down the stairs
Hear it fall forever more
Hear it fall forever more"
The bell tolls in her ears, but not as an external sound—it’s an internal reverberation. Bells mark time, call people to prayer, and toll for the dead. But this bell never stops ringing. The wide white roar merges sound and light, synesthetic and overwhelming, a loss of boundaries.
She drops the bell down the stairs, but rather than stopping, it falls forever more. This is crucial—it means she can’t silence it. The sound of time, loss, dissolution, self-awareness—it all persists, endlessly. She cannot escape the ringing of reality.
---
3.
"Drop a bell off of the dock
Blot it out in the sea
Drowning mute as a rock
And sounding mutiny"
If the bell falling forever suggests an unending awareness of self, then dropping it into the sea is an attempt at obliteration—drowning the sound, silencing it completely. The sea often symbolizes vastness, unconsciousness, dissolution.
Yet, even as it sinks mute, it is still sounding mutiny—rebellion. The act of trying to erase it, to silence it, only reinforces its presence. The more she tries to make the self disappear, the more it resists. The ego does not die willingly.
This is the paradox of seeking enlightenment—who is the one that seeks to disappear?
---
4.
"There's a light in the wings
Hits this system of strings
From the side while they swing;
See the wires, the wires, the wires"
A light in the wings—stage lighting, divine inspiration, or simply an external force hitting a system of strings. These could be harp strings, marionette strings, or even the taut strings of fate.
The light does not hit directly—it comes from the side, an oblique, indirect illumination. She sees the wires now. Strings, wires—things that control, things that are controlled. The act of creation (her harp, her music) is also an act of being bound.
There is a fundamental tension: does she play the harp, or does the harp play her? Is she the puppet or the puppeteer?
---
5.
"And the articulation
In our elbows and knees
Makes us buckle and we couple in endless increase
As the audience admires"
The articulation of elbows and knees—these are the body's hinges, the points of movement, but also where one bows, kneels, submits. She buckles—loses autonomy—yet she couples, joins, continues in "endless increase."
This suggests an involuntary cycle—whether it's artistic creation, biological reproduction, or simply existence itself, it repeats. There is no escape; the show goes on.
The audience admires, but is she performing for them, or are they just another layer of the illusion? Are they even separate from her?
---
6.
"And the little white dove
Made with love, made with love
Made with glue and a glove and some pliers"
A white dove—traditionally a symbol of peace, spirit, divinity—but it is artificial, cobbled together with glue, a glove, and pliers.
This dove is her art, her self-expression. It is not purely divine inspiration—it is patched together, forced into existence. It is made "with love," but also with tools, labor, imperfect craftsmanship.
The self, too, is constructed. A mix of raw experience, ego-driven patchwork, and unconscious habits.
---
7.
"Swings a low sickle arc
From its perch in the dark
Settle down
Settle down
Settle down my desire"
The dove does not soar. It swings in a sickle arc—a repetitive motion, like a pendulum, like the scythe of time. This is not flight, not freedom—it is a controlled oscillation.
It perches in the dark—it is not illuminated, not fully free. She tries to soothe it, to settle desire itself—but even the command betrays her entrapment. If she were truly free, there would be no need to "settle" anything.
---
8.
"And the moment I slept
I was swept up in a terrible tremor
Though no longer bereft, how I shook
And I couldn't remember
And then the furthermost shake
Drove a murdering stake in
And cleft me right down through my center
And I shouldn't say so
But I know that it was then or never"
This is a moment of ego death, yet terror grips her.
She sleeps, surrenders, and is hit with a tremor—an uncontrollable force, shaking her apart. Though she is no longer bereft (lacking), she still shakes—proof that "attaining" something does not bring peace.
A stake is driven into her center—a violent, forceful rupture. She is split, but who is being split, if she is not real?
And yet—she holds onto the "I" that should not exist.
---
9.
"Push me back into a tree
Bind my buttons with salt
Fill my long ears with bees
Braying 'please, please, please,
Oh you ought not!
No you ought not!'"
She begs to be re-bound—to be re-formed back into something stable.
The tree suggests a place of grounding, sacrifice, or return (perhaps the world tree, or the cross). Salt preserves, but also stings—it is both protection and punishment.
Her ears are filled with bees—buzzing, overwhelming divine noise. The self resists, braying like a donkey, pleading against its own dissolution.
---
10.
"And then the system of strings
Tugs on the tip of my wings
Cut from cardboard and old magazines
Makes me warble and rise like a sparrow"
The strings return—they now control her wings. She does not fly freely; she is pulled upward, like a marionette, a wind-up bird.
The wings are not real, just cardboard and magazines—scraps, images, things crafted to resemble the real, but ultimately hollow.
She rises, but not by her own will.
---
11.
"And in the place where I stood
There is a circle of wood
A cord or two, which you chop and you stack in your barrow"
She was there—but now, just wood remains.
The circle of wood could be what is left of her, chopped and stacked—life reduced to fuel, repetition, labor.
A cord (measurement, also a harp string) remains—something to be used, repurposed, never fully gone, never fully whole.
---
12.
"And it is terribly good
To carry water and chop wood
Streaked with soot, heavy booted and wild-eyed"
The Zen idea: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."
She embraces simple, physical tasks, yet she is wild-eyed—unsettled, burning with awareness.
There is no end. Just this.
---
13.
"As I crash through the rafters
And the ropes and the pulleys trail after
And the holiest belfry burns sky high"
She falls—not gently, but violently, through the rafters, the very structure holding things up. The ropes and pulleys, mechanisms of control, collapse behind her.
The belfry burns—this is destruction on the highest level. The belfry houses the bell, which tolled endlessly earlier. But fire consumes it now, obliterating the source of time, sound, control, identity.
This moment should be finality, release, but is it? If fire destroys the construct of self, what is left?
---
14.
"And then a slow lip of fire
Moves across the prairie with precision
While somewhere with your pliers and glue
You make your first incision
And in a moment of almost unbearable vision
Doubled over with the hunger of lions
'Hold me close,' cooed the dove
Who was stuffed now with sawdust and diamonds"
The fire does not stop at the belfry—it spreads methodically, unstoppably, across the prairie.
Yet even as destruction consumes everything, someone (perhaps "her" or another aspect of the dream) starts again—pliers, glue, another incision.
A cycle starts again. The destruction was not the end. The process of creation—of self, of identity, of art—resumes.
And the dove, which earlier swung in an artificial arc, now pleads to be held—but it is no longer alive. It is stuffed. Hollow. Filled only with sawdust and diamonds.
Sawdust = Filler, imperfection, the dust of dead things.
Diamonds = The unattainable, the divine, the unearned spark of beauty.
What she creates—what she is—is both meaningless filler and divine beauty. Both. Always both.
---
15.
"I wanted to say 'why the long face?'
Sparrow perch and play songs of long face
Burro buck and bray songs of long face
Sings 'I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
Just to lift your long face
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
Your precious long face
And though our bones they may break and our souls separate
Why the long face?
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
Why the long face?'"
A looping lament, repeated over and over, pressing into the absurdity of suffering.
The sparrow and the burro—a delicate songbird and a braying, stubborn mule—both repeat the dirge of sorrow. These animals, like the strings and pulleys earlier, move not by their own will, but by their nature.
The promise: "I will swallow your sadness." A consuming force—someone will take the burden, eat the grief, take it to the grave.
Yet: "Why the long face?" The repeated question. Why suffering? Why attachment? Why do we recoil?
There is no answer. Just the cycle of asking, of pleading, of resisting the inevitable.
---
16.
"In the trough of the waves
Which are pawing like dogs
Pitch we, pale-faced and grave
As I write in my log
Then I hear a noise from the hull
Seven days out to sea
And it is the damnable bell
And it tolls, well I believe, that it tolls
It tolls for me!
And it tolls for me!"
The waves (earlier symbols of vastness, loss, resistance) now paw like dogs—insistent, never stopping.
She is still writing in her log—still chronicling, still narrating, still holding onto something.
And then: the bell returns.
The same bell she tried to silence in verse 3. The same bell she dropped into the sea.
She thought she escaped it—but seven days out to sea, a full cycle, it tolls again.
And she believes it tolls for her. Believes.
But belief is illusion. Who is this "me" for whom the bell tolls?
---
17.
"And though my wrists and my waist
Seem so easy to break
Still my dear I'd have walked you to the edge of the water"
Her body is fragile, easily broken. Yet she remains bound to the same act—bringing another to the edge of dissolution, but never crossing herself.
She leads them to the threshold—but she does not step forward.
---
18.
"And they will recognize
All the lines of your face
In the face of the daughter, of the daughter, of my daughter"
The lines of identity persist. Generation after generation, they reappear, repeat, reform.
Who is "you"? Who is the daughter? The faces change, but the same lines remain.
Selfhood is not unique, but a pattern, a repetition, an iteration.
---
19.
"And darling we will be fine
But what was yours and mine
Appears to me a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes"
A soothing lie—"We will be fine." But nothing remains stable.
Yours and mine—duality. But when looked at clearly, it is just a sandcastle.
And the gibbering wave—chaotic, thoughtless, incomprehensible—washes it away.
Everything believed to be solid, meaningful, personal—gone.
---
20.
"But if it's all just the same
Then will you say my name
Say my name in the morning so that I know when the wave breaks"
If all dissolves, if all is an illusion, at least say my name.
A final desperate grasp for continuity, recognition, differentiation.
But names are just echoes, just another sound, meaningless in the face of the breaking wave.
---
21.
"I wasn't born of a whistle
Or milked from a thistle at twilight
No, I was all horns and thorns
Sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright
So enough of this terror we deserve to know light
And grow evermore lighter and lighter
You would have seen me through
But I could not undo that desire"
She denies ephemerality.
She wants to be something substantial, real, undeniable—not a passing breath (whistle) or fragile thing (thistle).
But the paradox: to be something solid is to suffer.
She says, "Enough of this terror." We "deserve" to know light.
Yet she remains bound to desire.
---
22.
"Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh desire"
Desire.
Desire for self, for meaning, for continuity, for control.
Desire is not abandoned—it remains, pulses, repeats.
Desire is the cycle itself.
---
23.
"From the top of the flight
Of the wide white stairs
Through the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there?"
We return to the beginning.
The cycle resets.
And the illusion continues.
Seems these artists are kind of unaware of what they are saying? Like it slips through them almost by accident. Some of it may be pareidolia but that's hard to believe, it's freakishly accurate.
