It is 1st of March 2024! This evening I had an amazing conversation with the Romanian lady during the event Romanian community throughout the world is organising to celebrate 1st of March and the starting of the spring. Namely I wanted to convey my profound respect and gratitude for organising with her friends that are members of the Romanian Society the Eminescu weekend hosting them in her house. They all had a “duty,” but I would say a pleasure to recite poems of their choosing of immortal Mihai Eminescu. And then when I mentioned the below article which was the first ever connecting Eminescu and Chopin that I wrote in 2017 while in UK, reminiscing my visits to Iasi in Romania and Warsaw in Poland, she shared with me her thoughts. Namely she informed me that she brought with her soil from her garden in Romania to Cyprus, store it between the two icons, and requested her son to use that soil when she departs this world. Nothing is coincidental! First, she organised Eminescu weekend, by which she “provoked” the soul of Eminescu to pass by, fly over her house where also her friends stayed, then when he winked to them and understood that he was not felt, he decided to appear a little bit later, on 1st of March 2024. So, you might ask what else 1st of March represents, exept the traditional starting of the summer that is celebrated by Romanians? Well my very dear readers! 1st of March is the date when in 1810 Chopin was born. Then she told me her story and as I am the one who connected Chopin and Eminescu I got very exited and felt the obligation to publish it. Then I have these words written. 

Dear fellow human beings! Nothing is coincidental! Souls of all pure, genuine people are mingling all the time among us, trying to find the way how to communicate! To show my deepest respect and love towards unique creators Michai Eminescu and Frederic Chopin I am publishing the post with some changes again today!

CHOPIN AND EMINESCU

Chopin and Eminescu, Mihai, and Frederic should be called magicians of humankind! Different, Talented, Beautiful, Genuine, Human, with Common Sense and a dose of Impulsiveness like all geniuses have.  Awake, at the time when, like today, majority was sleepy. They were nervous and charming at the same time, restless, as all creators. Creators of unique opus to stay with us as long as we humans exsist. Maybe even beyond that, as their work emits frequencies that are universal. One invented new, unique frequencies using music, the other using words. One more known in the West the other less, but both with similar thoughts about exsistance and  amazingly close life experiences. Both unhappy in love life, experiencing sorrow, pain and loneliness, but stil having immeasurable love for life. Both born and died in the age of Romanticism. Both had roots from other countries and both were the patriots of the country they were born in!

Frederik Frantisek Chopin was born in Poland 1st of March 1810 and died 17th of October 1849. He was 39.

Mihail Eminovici was born in Romania 15th of January 1850 and died 15th of June 1889. He was 39. Also!

Chopin died, and after a couple of months, Eminescu was born. It looks lime the universe using its unique divine force had a thought not to leave our tiny planet without immortal, beautiful minds. But universe decided to change the longitude and latitude of their place of living, their language, and their means of communication with the rest of us.

Namely, the universe decided to move from Poland and music to Romania and  poems!

To move from “joy for the ears” to “joy for the eyes,” with both in charge of developing awareness and thus awakening us. We humans are always in need of it, as we like sleeping.

And the same force has triggered the talent they possessed by injecting two crucial ingredients :

PAIN AND LOVE OR LOVE AND PAIN

Both those state of consciousness and the soul are in charge of producing extremely intense feelings that Chopin and Eminescu knew how to present to the outside world, but with cost to themselves. Looks like that was their mission! Their purpose of existence! Both were like butterflies, trying to accomplish as many works as possible before leaving us. And they left us with a tremendous legacy. Let’s mention that Eminescu was called Romanian Shakespeare and The Last Romantic in those days, as today we could call him, using a modern expression, LIFE COACH! But noooo! Life Coach is nothing near to the beauty and knowledge that Eminescu words are offering.

Being different is not easy. Being different and genious is a tremendous burden. That is why both preferred loneliness unless with the woman they loved. Potocka and Mickle, Veronica and Delfina.

Both had, as Eminescu said, “cold friends and warm foes”!

Both left us with renewable feelings of exaltation, eminence, joy and sorrow, revealing vision! Rebellion and hope at the same time!

In his sonata B moll, Chopin combined demons, dark games of evil forces, remembrance of serenity, quiet days in the middle of most challenging life tribulations, finishing it with a kind of posthumous marsh, fast and powerful like a storm.

Eminescu in his Luceafarul (mild Lucifer!)masterpiece, his “philosophy of love “starting it as a fairytale, and showing down desires and rejection even when immortality was on offer! Refusing it or exchanging it, losing it “for but one kiss of thine!”

And they never ever stop loving and missing their countries Romania and Poland!

Eminescu inspired Romanians with his poems, his thoughts, his in-depth analysis of Romanian mentality. He revealed to the world how hard but beautiful is to be Romanian. 

They both were true patriots! Very rare human trait today!

Chopin, like Eminescu, felt somehow condensed, away from his Poland. Thus, nothing in Chopin music is calculated for outside expressions as it has deep inner value! That is why listening to Chopin treats human souls.

Chopin always carried Polish Soil with him. He wanted to be ready when he dies to be covered with Polish soil. That is why at his funeral, Polish soil he carried in a silver box was sprinkled on his coffin—a powerful message to all.

Eminescu poems have the same effect! His words penetrating the deep, many times sleepy places in our soul!

Both were like messiahs and doctors, showing us how to overcome blindness, indifference and hatred creatively.

They shared with us all that pain, lot’s of pain they experienced. Firstly for not experiencing genuine love. Then having the fear of being rejected, and then when they thought that love, pure love appeared, they found out that it was not accepted. They felt unfulfilled. They tried to fulfil themselves, one with music the other with words, and at least balance the sorrow.

Chopin left us with immortal opus and explained himself by the following statement in the letter toward Countess Delfina Potocka:

“Bach is like an astronomer who is finding the most beautiful stars using numbers. Beethoven takes the whole universe with the strength of his spirit. I do not climb so high. I have decided long ago that my universe will be the human soul and heart!”

Eminescu immortality is here to stay as “Godfather of modern Romanian language” and a person who, like many, very many of us, experienced pain and used it as an inspiration. Not knowing what to do with it at the first moments. These words explain it:

“What is love? Just another way to have pain.”

And if…

“And if my window feels the branch

Of a stuttering poplar tree,

It is to make me dream once more

Of clasping you to me.

And if the stars glow on the lake

And light its darkling shoal,

It is to flood my mind with peace

And quell my roiling soul.

And if the clouds draw themselves back

To let the moon blaze through,

It is to make my heart recall

How hard I ache for you.”

The Original:

Şi dacă…

“Şi dacă ramuri bat în geam

Şi se cutremur plopii,

E ca în minte să te am

Şi-ncet să te apropii.

Şi dacă stele bat în lac

Adâncu-i luminându-l,

E ca durerea mea s-o-mpac

Înseninându-mi gândul.

Şi dacă norii deşi se duc

De iese-n luciu luna,

E ca aminte să-mi aduc

De tine-ntotdeauna.”

We have our lives and everyday obligations. We experience nervousness and happiness, sorrow and joy, explainable and not explainable unconscious, and who knows how many other feelings. Many times we are lost in trying to comprehend and find out who we are, what are we doing here, and where are we going! We overthink instead to feel. Maybe we should just live the life of love towards all!

And then by listening to Chopin’s music and reading poems of Eminescu, we understand that their music and poetry  express romance and love that are making us stay alive, and making us to proceed with vigor and awareness of the beauty of life!

At Victoria and Albert Museum in London, there is a quote above the entrance door which says

“The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose.”

Both Eminescu and Chopin have achieved that!

Philosophyofgoodnews

Connect and Respect

March 1, 2024

Darko Richard Lancelot

Philosophyofgoodnews.com

Connect and Respect