The Living~Dying Duet: Person, People, Families, Communities, Countries
Watching it Live: Memorial Day Today, Independence Day Tomorrow, and the Song that Connects Them
My life has become a Living~Dying Duet. Living and Dying are dancing their duet in my life, and I am playing the music that I feel is appropriate for them and for myself. The Living~Dying Duet is constantly present.
On this day I realize that I am relating to this on a personal level, and that it occurs on other levels -- there are Living~Dying Duets being danced within a person, between people, in families, in communities, in regions, in whole countries, and between countries. As with Living and Dying, these Duets are being danced by groups that appear to be very different from each other: Republicans and Democrats, Arabs and Jews, and the many other conflicting people and groups in the world.
On this day we are watching one of these duets being danced, live. In Israel today is Memorial Day for the people who have died for the country, and tomorrow is Independence Day to celebrate the present and future of the country. Dying and Living dancing their duet, one day after the other, intimately connected, at the national level. The differences are very very deep between people within the country but we can recognize that they are dancing a Duet even within their conflicts. The song commonly played on these particular days expresses this as an image and starts out "There is a white sail on the horizon opposite a heavy black cloud" -- in every place there are differences dancing their duets, including the white sail and the black cloud which together make a Duet, make an image.
The song is called Lu Yehi which means May It Be -- may all of us as individuals and as groups play the best music for the Duets that we are all dancing.