Princess Haiku has a very windy day...

Wind, wind, wind strews the last of the flower petals into oblivion.

ten posts that I scheduled for 2011 have disappeared, said Princess Haiku

Well, I will have to write some more.

a fragrant longing, said Princess Haiku

Spring orchid too large-
shy, my heart hides under white clouds
a fragrant longing

white petals, said Princess Haiku

a snow blossom tree-
was born to weep white petals
a lonely Spring path

rain, pitter pattering on my roof, said Princess Haiku

I transferred my chrysanthemum seedlings into their large permanent pots. Rain is pattering away and hope they will be okay. -Didn't plan on a late May drenching, but after all they are flowers; drinking dream and the last stormy froth of a late Spring storm.

dreaming of Spring in the Rose Garden, said Princess Haiku

a Perfect day knows no other.

Princess Haiku attempts to post new photos...

I tried to post some new journal entries but the photo uploader on Blogger no longer works. If the glitch isn't fixed in a few days I will be moving somewhere new such as Word Press. Is anyone else having problems?

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Ten, said Princess Haiku

Every great artist inspires love, devotion and awakening of true self as does the pianist, Helene Grimaud. I visited her guest book on her web site at Deutschgrammophon and spent a long time perusing her messages.

These intimate conversations with Helene Grimaud, left anonymously by her fans touched my heart. They were a fascinating and poetic outpouring of love, spiritual confession, appreciation and devotion. You can read the original article here and below you will find more of the letters.

I hope that you enjoy them.
Princess Haiku



Conversations with Helene Grimaud:


PrincePeterofNewYork
USA
01-11-2008


Ode to Aphrodite by Sappho

Immortal Aphrodite of the splendid throne,
Daughter of Zeus, weaver of snares,
Great Woman, Grant me thins.
Let not my spirit be harnessed by this anguish and affliction
But come here, by me as you did once before.

On that day,
you've heard my distant voice and, nodding,
you left your father's golden chambers to yoke your
two swift companion birds at your glistening chariot.

They fluttered through the spreading sky
and brought you hurriedly down here
by me,
upon the black soil.

Great Woman!
With a smile on your immortal face you had asked me
then,
about my sighs, what was it that made me call to you
yet again?

You asked, "Who is it this time Sappho? Who do you want me
to bring to you? Who, Sappho, is hurting you now?"

And
at that time, you offered, "Tell me
Sappho who she is and if she turns from you now,
soon,
by me,
she'll be turning towards you;
and if she's not close to you now,
soon,
by me,
she will be-
willingly or not?"

Come to me again now.


Mon Cherie Helene, Je t'adore et Je t'aime,
Pierre





RT
Cyprus
10-28-2008

I love you and despair is on my lips
Sometimes I swallow bitter poison
Tonight, I seek you out in my dreams alone
When I find you, you have three eyes
Each is as beautiful as the others
distorted in this way I can only
Attract someone like me

Be mine for a second, it will feel like infinity
Cyprus has a secret we can both discover

Awed by your presence and performances...
What music surges from below?
Persephone sings a sad song
Can you discern the sounds?

Eternal love



image by blackeri



TP
01-07-207

The eyes are sad.
What if Orpheus never looked back?
Will Eurydice enjoy a second life?






VT
USA
09-10-2007


Dear Ms Grimaud,
I just returned to my apartment, turned on the radio and had the great pleasure of hearing your 2007 recording of the Emperor Concerto. As always, the soulful musicality in your playing moved me in ways that I constantly yearn for but rarely experience.
As a NYC based composer... all I can say is thank you for your many and ongoing contributions not only to the music literature but really at a higher level... for allowing us to experience the "otherness" in musical experience that reaffirms our humanity, our pursuit of truth through art and not least, the physical and aural wonders found in great music.



Simone
Belgium
03-06-2007

Dear Helena,

I attended your concert on Monday, February 27th and it was my first classical concert. I was taken to a vibrant world I could never have imaged. Uneducated in the field of classical music a curtain has been torn and a new world opened to me.


Francois
France
04-03-2006

Hello Helena,

I was at the concert at the Halle aux grains de Toulouse where there was trouble over scheduling. I feared that you would refuse to play. I took several deep breaths to regain a bit of inner peace before your entry. You have offered the emotions of such intensity, such a purity. I am up against the weakness, the impotence of words to translate what I felt. I trust that your eyes fall on this message and will receive my deepest gratitude.

Princess Haiku has been searching for an elegant holiday card collection...

and found it at Shutterfly.


P.S. This golden spider was one of the last of the season.

the allure of a Moon Altar, said Princess Haiku

I came upon this mesmerizing moon altar created by Ernesto Sanchez, on display at the Petaluma Art Museum as part of a "Day of the Dead Exhibition."



There is a harmony, a perfect simplicity in the altar that captures the power of the moon and takes the breath away.





I found other captivating installations and art work on Sanchez's website, including the Moon Spirit House below.




Sanchez is working on another fascinating project, "Journey of 1000 Moons."

"For me, the process of making one thousand moons is a working meditation. Each moon reminds me that, while each of our individual lives is a brief flash of illumination – only 1000 moons — the energetic dance between the moon and the earth has endured for millions of years"

Ernesto Sanchez in his own words explains,

"My work is both mixed media and multicultural, incorporating influences from my studies in Asia and Indonesia, my Mexican-American upbringing, my travels through Latin America and my Southern California childhood. My goal is to create art that resonates with the reverent presence of spirit and provides a vehicle for people’s spiritual expression and discovery."


His studio is having open house over the Thanksgiving Holiday and I hope to visit his studio at Pt. Reyes and see more of his fine art work.

Eye, Chrysanthemum said Princess Haiku

The season's beauty has brought forth these divine creatures and harbingers of Autumn's Abyss.

moonlight splashes October flowers, said Princess Haiku

Tell me the secret of your perfection, implored Princess Haiku,





but the flowers were silent as immortality.





Eventually the moon drifted into dense cloud and Princess Haiku fell asleep,





dreaming of petal skin and magenta solitude.

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Eight, said Princess Haiku

Every great artist inspires love, devotion and awakening of true self as does the pianist, Helene Grimaud. I visited her guest book on her web site at Deutschgrammophon and spent a long time perusing her messages.

These intimate conversations with Helene Grimaud, left anonymously by her fans touched my heart. They were a fascinating and poetic outpouring of love, spiritual confession, appreciation and devotion. You can read the original article here and below you will find more of the letters.

I hope that you enjoy them.
Princess Haiku


Conversations with Helene Grimaud:



PrincePeterofNewYork
USA
12-16-2008

Pour Helene!

Sous le ciel de Paris
S'envole une chanson,
Mmmmm, Mmmmm
Elle est nee aujourd'hui
Dans le coeur d'un garcon
Marchent des amoreux
Mmmmm, Mmmmm
Leur bonheur se construit
Sur un air fait pour eux...



AN
03-19-2009

Somehow dreams feel like they take me up and down the musical scales where conflict seeks resolution.

What do you think?



Ka
Greece
01-09-2008

Helene,

Your interest in classical art in history was not a surprise to me. A play with the olive tree, exploring the Karyatides, the Parthenon, looking for the statue of Athena, made this visit an interesting escape into architecture and sculpture of an old civilization.

I can appreciate why you visited this site. As Le Cobusier understood better than most modern critics, the manner in which the Doric system was calculated in the Parthenon to evoke that "sensation of a profound harmony" that philosophers have sometimes called the esthetic emotion.

I feel proud that you chose this civilized site versus any other. On the other hand, you certainly made friends with one of my favored women. For in her there is a spirit that is awesome-just like yours! Discovering the olive tree- a symbol of well- being.



photo from theoi



Note
USA
10-09-2008

I told you in Atlanta, that I was a fan because I heard you play a seection from Bach and it made me cry. That was something that had never happened to me before.



MT
USA
08-21--2008

Your interest in the alternative painter John William Waterhouse was a surprise to me. My original choice was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but you prefer John.





Stone
USA
03-29-2006

Dearest Helene,

I am staying in touch with the center through your wonderful website. The death of dear Eno has taken my heart with him. Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were... they are wherever we are.

I cannot express how the memory of witnessing your fund-raising recital in, Westchester has haunted me through the years. It was the first time that we met and there has not been anything all to compare with it in my life. I have tried to keep up with all of your beautiful recordings including the marvelous Credo. It still overflows and takes my heart away like no other.

I don't know if you will ever read this, but if you do, please know that you are never far away from my most admiring and loving thoughts.



Aph
USA
03-24-2006

I visited your fan line and a few of your concerts and spoke to you briefly. what is most interest to me is the way that you treat each person on the queue. You seem to greet everyone with interest and enthusiasm. The young, the old and the in-between get a heart warming welcome. To the person in front of me you were a goddess of music.






SV
italty
03-27-2009

Beauty and the Beast

I checked a mirror and I saw a beast
I did not understand the qualities of the mirror until I met you
So years went by and now when I look into the mirror I see beauty.

How do I know?
I see it in the eyes of others. The faithful go to church to pray for forgiveness
I go to your line to get your signature.

A few years ago I almost did not get your signature
Instead, got the feeling that I was a burden
So, I looked into the mirror and discovered an ugly me.

If I were to get a second chance at impressing you,
What mirror do I look within?







PrincePeterofNewYork
The Bahamas
11-25-2008

Mon Cherie Helene,

Le 2 Decembre a 20h00, Pierre Boulez dirigera "L'Oiseau de Feu" le chef d'oeuvre de Stravinsky, sous la celebre
Pyramide du Musee du Louvre! C'est la pied!

Recontrez moi la!
Pierre



ACI
Croatia
2007

I've been working on a play based on Anna Akhmatova.. whose flat or prison in St. Petersburg I visited the day after your concert in July 2005. You played Schumann on 7.7 during the white nights... Thank you Helene for all of the unforgettable moments.

under a Chrysanthemum Moon, said Princess Haiku

The full moon of September arced high in the sky,



Before splashing down upon tall chrysanthemums growing in my midnight garden.



Ghostly and spectral dances entranced Princess Haiku,




As did memories of other flower creatures,




Other Autumns and nocturnal travel deep into,



A bright night of absolute beauty.

Discovering the poetics of Vera Pavlova, said Princess Haiku

I discovered a new poet via a virtual friend;
a person who will never be flesh and blood to me,
yet sometimes she sings through my dreams.

The ghost friend gave me a new poet.
-Gave me Vera Pavlova and in the way that mortals
cling to poets even while their dreams carbonize,

I trace letters onto the white veins of an
African Violet petal and image that she speaks
in all of her impermanence to me.

photo credit




"Who will winter my immortality
with me? Who will thaw with me?
Come what may, I shall never trade
the earthly love for the subterranean.
I still have time to turn
into flowers, claw, white-eyed memory...
but while we are mortal, my love, to you
nothing will be denied.

Vera Pavlova
Translated from the Russian by Steven Seymour







"

Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Seven, said Princess Haiku

Every great artist inspires love, devotion and awakening of true self as does the pianist, Helene Grimaud. I visited her guest book on her web site at Deutschgrammophon and spent a long time perusing her messages.

These intimate conversations with Helene Grimaud, left anonymously by her fans touched my heart. They were a fascinating and poetic outpouring of love, spiritual confession, appreciation and devotion. You can read the original article here and below you will find more of the letters.

I hope that you enjoy them.
Princess Haiku


Conversations with Helene Grimaud:



PrincePeterofNewYork
USA
12-23-2008

Mon cherie Helene,

In summer's heat or snowy winter deep,
Whether you are are near or far,
You'll always be y piano virtusosa shining star,
More beautiful than the Sisters of the Pleiades, by far!

Happy Holidays et Season's Greeting et Bonne Annee!
Je t'aime et Je t'adore,

Pierre

P.S.
What you are, you are by accident of birth;
What I am. I am by myself,
There are and will be a thousand Princes;
There is only one Beethoven!



Char
USA
03-03-2009

Wisdom in Hibernation

In Courtly Love we gather our forces and circle
the rest is Magical and Divine.



AVR
USA
12-11-2008

Breaking out of Cliche

Longing for anything
A gape evolving daily
T asting the essence of the loved one
E vaporating and condensing in new forms
R oaming the Universe together
A ndrogynous
L overs without limits

T he score you played next door
H eavenly sounds mesmerizing me
I nsights inside a circular design
N o is not in my dictionary
K isses are forever French



TX
Germany 11-11-2008

Dear Wolfwoman,

some parts I played last year...
You have to know I never learned it; not even notes...
I had the courage and played in Munich near the Marienplatz on the street and saw people's eyes after playing. I saw their feelings and know I met their hearts.





Credo
Austria
07-11-2008

Bon anniversaire and happy birthday, liebe Helene!
May there be joy for you and all your beloved ones
on this God given day.
May this joy unveil the sorrow,
if there is any afflicting sound in the sense
of your wonderful heart.

a silent bearer of a rose.



JT
USA
07-11-2008

Dear Helene:

I wish you a very happy birthday.
I very much enjoyed the new Bach recording with its wonderful logical program. I still remember the night in Troy, New York where you performed the Bach/Busoni Chaconne as if your life depened on it. I always look forward to your very special musical insights that strike a chord in my heart.



KE
USA

12027-2007

When you are absent I notice
No movement in the waves of perceptions
The fields stand still in dead calm



Pei
Greece
12-16-2007

Magical Helene,

In awe I reflect my perceptions.

The hands of a craftsman shape visions
Free Aphrodite from an amorphous marble
Carving, sanding, shaping the next goddess

Tools of creation possessing life force
Tiresome and agile moving with speed
Giving life, mixing, arranging, creating music.



Valz
USA
12-12-2007

I asked you to dance with me
Moving apart in tachyon speeds we land in a new world
Mine will remain a mystery while yours a fairy tale



HT
France
11-20-2007



Chopin and Helene
Genius meets Genius
Creativity meets Synaesthesia

Pythia's dreams of a magical union
Between the two
A soulful connection.

The union of conscious femininity
Can only be contained in a love container
Made up in Quantum Soup of Super Strings

The mystery composer in love
Not the poet but the choreographer discovers
Graffiti in secret envelopes

JB
UK
06-21-2006

Get well soon!

Trust that the music in your soul shall cast aside your maladies; these shadow impostors of illness. Then rising up again unobstructed, you can pour your soul into the music. Destined to perform you shall lay unhindered and we shall listen.



Anon
USA
06011006

Connecting with all the waves may bring the miraculous into being.



AP
France
04-20-2006

Chere Mademoiselle Grimaud,

While I adore you I sometimes feel this world is not such a friendly place for talent like yours, because I perceive this theme from below the collective, the matrix.



DA
Greece
04-05- 2006

Your thoughts triggered a trip to Christina's world.
Here is my favorite poem written by her.

One face looks from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girll in freshest summer greens,
A saint, an angel- every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more or less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, nor with sorrow dim;
Nor as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is ,but as she fills his dream.

Christina Rossetti
12/24/1856

art in public places, said Princess Haiku

I was visiting a friend in, Orinda last month and came upon this public art. Hope you like it too.