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@janpsolivagant.bsky.social

🙏 to @hool415.bsky.social #PromptCombo
#DeepTime take on #workinglove

#newpoem / #photography:
©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2022-24

#poetry #JohnCage #MechtildOfMagdeburg #AsSlowAsPossible #orgelprojekt #MysticMonday #thework

Fatal Day in Halberstadt

1361
Decameron‘s Twelfth Night.
Lollards hitch their prayers, their
Plight to the Morning Star.
Pestis Secunda scourges
Plantagenet England.
Giotto’s Last Judgement
Slumbers in umbrage on the
Cusp of the Quattrocento.

Halberstadt,
Flush, bustling prince-bishopric - its

Cathedral-treasure stash of
Relics looted at the Sack of
Constantinople – hosts the

First of its Kind:
Chromatic keyboard,
Twelve half-tones arranged in
Octaves.

Halberstadt - where, at
St. Burchardi’s Monastery,
Cistercian Sisters
Scale the canonical hours:
Minor -
Terce, Sext, None and Compline;
Major -
Matins, Lauds and Vespers, in
Perpetual rounds of
Work, prayer and Lectio Divina.

A century before,
They nestle in a fecund vessel of
Mystical vision, where
Mechthild of Magdeburg -
Fluid, erotic, vernacular -

Lights the way for Meister Eckhart; where

Mechtilde, Helfta’s Nightingale,
Dispenses Special Grace to Dante as
Matelda.

Six-hundred-and-thirty-nine years
Slip by. Millennium tenor
Deeds St. Burchardi’s to
Zen musical maverick already
Eight years passed:

Bird now uncaged -
Purposeless, intentionless -
Pecking away at membranes -
Temporal, musical – from the
Beyond. The

Six-hundred-and-thirty-nine-year
Lease unfolds As Slow as Possible on an
Organ fashioned for this purpose.

Hiss of compressors, taut notes
Coasting over billowing groans until
2640.

Pauses a week before
9/11: seventeen months of silence, then
Nine movements, each lasting
Seventy-one years.

Chord kept up over seven years, between
Benedict’s flight to Castel Gandolfo and Second Lockdown.

Austere piety,
Avant-garde whimsy -

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

Spurning utility, instrumentality -
Partaking in visions that far
Outstrip lifetimes,
Current-day zeitgeist confines.

Contemplative prayer,
Playful contingency -

Tentative forays into Deep Time,
Possible only when one
Listens closely with
Open heart,
Open mind.

Eternity disclosed in
Nugacity, ephemera:
Birds, lilies,
Mustard seeds.

Cloistered life,
Choral work
Whetting one’s
Keenness for the
Core -
Still and small.

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2024

Highly contrasted monochrome image of a statue by Susan Turcot (2007/8) of mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1282)

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2022

Poster-sized mural of US avant-garde composer, John Cale (1912-1992)

November 10, 2025 at 7:37 AM

AsSlowAsPossible

@handle.invalid

We need to slow down asap.

#asslowaspossible

February 11, 2025 at 7:05 AM

AsSlowAsPossible

@handle.invalid

We sometimes work hard on new theories about chilling, but someone has to do it. :AsSlowAsPossible:

April 17, 2025 at 6:17 AM

Katrin Lena Schneider

@lenahallesaale.bsky.social

Wonderful music project in Halberstadt, here recommended by
@mrillig.bsky.social #AsSlowAsPossible
bsky.app/profile/mril...

Matthias C. Rillig @mrillig.bsky.social · Feb 27

My newsletter for this week:

What does visiting a musical piece performance intended to last over 600 years have to do with ecology?

matthiasrillig.substack.com/p/what-does-...

What does visiting a musical piece performance intended to last over 600 years have to do with ecology?

A recent visit to the ORGAN²/ASLSP (John Cage) art project in Halberstadt, Germany

matthiasrillig.substack.com

February 27, 2025 at 2:14 PM

aniiram

@marinadellmour.bsky.social

Das klingt angenehm :) ich denke sogar, dass man insgeheim viel "effektiver" ist, wenn man langsamer geht und gut auf sich achtet! Aber vielleicht darf man einfach mal ruhiger machen und entspannen 🧘‍♀️
www.facebook.com/story.php?st...
#asap #slowdown #asslowaspossible #achtsamkeit #meditation