Greetings From Inside
Spin we into a fantasy
An odyssey of Passionate, Perplexed Pilgrims
The Creators
Jeremiah and Mary Councill
Work Product
Along with performing, Jeremiah and Mary have worked diligently over the years on the chamber opera A’Musing, a rendition of which was performed in 1991, produced by the Rutherford County Arts Council. After major editing and rearrangement, A’Musing, an odyssey of Passionate Pilgrims, was accepted and produced in concert form at the 2017 Piccolo/Spoleto festival in Charleston, SC. A fully staged performance of A’Musing was produced by the Rutherford County Arts Council in October 2017. Jeremiah and Mary are currently working on a second opera, A’Mazing, an odyssey of Perplexed Pilgrims. Many of the concepts for the opera A’Mazing are inspired by our world travels. In Peru, we visited Cusco and Machu Picchu, traveled down the Amazon fishing for piranha and walked the rain forests sitting in on native medicine men eating hallucinogenic plants and diagnosing illnesses.
A disapproving group of Peruvians on their way to church as we were fishing for pirranah.
Mary and Ferdinand.
Machu Picchu is evocative of a fascinating civilization.
Bibliography of our way
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. (1989) Bhagavad-Gita As It Is. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Los Angeles. .
Baldwin, J. (1984) Giovanni’s Room. Doubleday, NY. 1956.
Bachelor, S. (1997) Buddhism Without Beliefs. Riverhead Books, NY.
Bachelor, S. (2015) After Buddhism.Yale University Press, New Haven.
Bowles, P. Collected Stories (1939-1976. 91993) (1988) Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa.
Bulfinch’s Mythology. Thomas Crowell Company.
Bunyan, J. (1678) The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Campbell, J. (2008) The Hero With a Thousand Faces. New World Library, CA.
Campbell, J. and Moyers, B. (1991) The Power of Myth. Anchor Books: A Division of Random House, Inc., NY.
Camus, A. (1942) L’Etranger. Editions Gallimard.
Chomsky, N. (2002) Understanding Power. The New Press, NY.
Coates, T. (2015) Between the World and Me. Spiegel and Grau, Random House, NY.
Coates, T. ( 2017) We Were Eight Years in Power. One World, Random House, NY.
Dalai Lama. (1998) The Art of Happiness. Riverbed Books, NY.
Dalai Lama. (1997) The Four Noble Truths. HarperCollins, India.
Everyman - late 15th century morality play.
Harari, Y. N. (2015) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., NY.
Heller, J. (1994) Catch-22. Simon & Schuster, NY.
Homer. (1967) The Iliad. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Homer. (1937) The Odyssey. Penguin Books, NY.
Jung, C. G. (1971) The Portable Jung. Viking Penguin, Inc.
Laxness, H. (1976) Independent People. Vintage International Edition, NY.
Mahabharata. Retold by William Buck. (1973) University of California Press.
Matthiessen, P. (1978) The Snow Leopard. The Franklin Library, PA.
Milne, A. A. (2001) The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie the Pooh. Dutton Children’s Books, NY.
Plato. Republic. Trans. by Robin Waterfield (1993) Oxford University Press, NY.
Ramayana. Retold by William Buck. (1976) University of California Press.
Seth, Vikram. (1994) A Suitable Boy. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., NY.
Stein, G. (1948) First Reader and Three Plays. Houghton Miflin, Boston.
Shun (15th Century. The Ten Oxherding Pictures from the Manual of Zen Buddhism by D. T. Suzuki. www.sacred-texts.com/bud/mzb/oxherd.htm
The Tibetan Book of the Dead. W.Y Evans-Went. (1960) Oxford University Press.
Voltaire. (1992) Candide ou L’Optimism. Editions Gallimard.
Wright, R. (2017) Why Buddhism Is True. Simon & Schuster, NY.
Staying in the old city of Istanbul we soaked in the cultures of the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque while constantly absorbing the muezzin call to prayer echoing from minarets across the city. It is here that we woke at 5:00 am to hundreds of birds creating songs in harmony with the muezzins — the essence of jazz.
In China we walked the Great Wall, explored the streets and alleys of the ever-diminishing hutongs of Beijing, immersed ourselves in the history of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, listened to the singing of caged songbirds hung in the trees by old men playing mahjong in the city parks and the chirping of crickets placed in wooden boxes alongside our dinner table. We experienced the “aha” of how to proceed with one of the five acts of our opera-in-progress at the frighteningly formidable Beijing train station and were fortunate to attend a complete production of a Chinese opera. In western Hunan Province we explored the Himalayan/Tibetan culture visiting an array of Buddhist monasteries and convents. A roadside traveler calmed our incredulity at the appearance of furiously smoking stupas by explaining that the villagers were burning incense to feed the Hungry Ghosts.
Caged bird hanging by the wall of The Forbidden City as its owner plays mahjong.
A beautiful Chinese woman.
Yaks, in a cacophony of bells having just literally brushed by us in the upper Himalayas .
On our way to Cambodia we got to spend One Night In Bangkok. Reaching Siem Reap, we spent days exploring the Hindu/Buddhist dynamism at Angkor Wat. There is a small stone temple in the midst of this complex where you are able to “release your demons.” By a soft hit to the chest, a sound is produced in tandem with the resonant frequency of the structure. This action produces a low resonant echo which is quite satisfying. We traveled by tuk-tuk through monsoon flooded streets to attend an ancient shadow puppet show. And then, someone placed a copy of Stephen Bachelor’s Buddhism Without Belief on our nightstand. How did s/he know?!
Angkor Wat with hen.
A subtle smile.
We have slept under heaps of homemade Moroccan rugs in the Sahara Desert and visited a nomad family living in caves in the Atlas Mountains. Our companion on the Moroccan trip was The Complete Stories of Paul Bowles. A passing pilgrim said that reading about the country while you were traveling in it was like “reading in 3-D.”
Shot while shooting, I am experiencing the Sahara for the first time.
In India we explored Old Delhi; traveled to the Mehrangarh Fort of Jodhpur; stood transported in front of the Taj Mahal; stalked tigers in the Rudyard Kipling Preserve (and washed an elephant in the local river); explored the Ajanta and Ellora Caves; saw the artisans constructing floats for the Diwali holy days in Calcutta (Kolkata); bought the best tea we’ll ever drink at The Happy Valley Tea plantation in Darjeeling; were lucky enough to have the best guide we’ll ever have while exploring Varanasi (Benares) and walked in the path of the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala/Mcleod Ganj.
Tara's trunk.
All of her.
Effigies of the Hindu goddess Durga, sold on Potters Lane in Kolkata for use in the Diwali celebrations.
Iceland showed us the land of Snorri Sturluson. It is the home of his Norse Sagas. Then we had an unforgettable moment under the Northern Lights.
A long blissful moment.
