All things are part of the whole. Without a unifying theory of knowledge, this idea remains just a way of looking at things, an ideal. But it is noble and inspiring ideal that prompts people to continue to look for order. Bit by bit, here and there, we have found it. That is not to say that a final unifying solution is achievable but the search to approximate the ideal is noble and important.
Real
Imaginary
Visual Arts
- Paul Klee, Ad Marginem (1930)
- Frederic Edwin Church, Newport Mountain, Mount Desert (1851)
- James McNeill Whistler, Harmony in Blue and Silver: Trouville (1865)
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
With its grand scale and scope, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major “Symphony of a Thousand” (1906) is a musical expression of strength through unity, founded in Love. Scored for a full orchestra and two gigantic choirs, the lyrics abound in overtly theistic themes but Mahler, as usual, was looking elsewhere. His intent was to express the connection “between the early expression of Christian belief . . . and Goethe’s symbolic vision of mankind’s redemption through love.” [from Michael Kennedy’s notes accompanying Tennstedt’s 1987 EMI issue of the work] Dedicated formally to his wife Alma, Mahler offered the symphony as “a gift to the whole nation”. Horenstein in 1959, Solti in 1972, Tennstedt in 1986, Gielen in 1988, Bertini in 1991, Abbado in 1994, Dudamel in 2012, and Jurowski in 2021 conducted top performances.
Other works:
- Nahuel Schrajis, Oneness Blessing (instrumental)
- Jack DeJohnette, Oneness album (Priestesses of the Mist in live performance)
- Gregory Barrette, The Heart of Oneness
- Imee Ooi, The Five Words Mantra of Manjushri Boddhisata
- Boulez, Dialogue de l'ombre double for clarinet and electronics (1985): a scene in Paul Claudel’s play, Le Soulier de satin (1924), in which a man’s and woman’s shadow are projected onto a wall, as one.
Albums:
- Paul Bley Trio, “Closer”
- Paul Bley, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, “Memoirs”
- Shijin, “Theory of Everything”
- Matthew Shipp & Ivo Perelman, “Oneness”
Poetry
I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things
You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive
[Navarre Scott Momaday, “The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee”]