Song of Cecilia -- The rock-novel begins

All original songs, writing and real-time performances

BY ANGELO M. BRUSCAS III
Copyright 2009, Real News Network and AMBIII Publishing

GODS AWAKEN
The sky fell down, or so it seemed
With a thunderous sound, like in a dream.
It rocked the ground, with a piercing scream.
The earth bowed down, or so it seemed.

The sun stood still, as if it died,
With a radiant will, like in the end of time.
Life’s greatest thrills, have made us blind.
The stars fell still, then streaked the sky.

And time bears neither suffering nor shame
Love turns to vapor when put to flame.
And the sky fell down

The stone rolled away, or so she said.
With a tumbling quake, like in the end
When the God’s awake, in a world of dread.

The earth gave way, the sky turned red . . .
Or so she said, Or so she said

Words are an intent to action. When the word
was manifest, the world came into being. By
themselves, words are sound or the empty
reverberation in my consciousness. And the
road to hell was paved with good intentions. I
can’t live on words alone, crumbs from your
table. I’m in a recession and I can’t afford to
feed you when I’m starving. It’s cosmic
economics, love. There’s no sustenance for me
here, you’ve eaten it all up. The tit is dry, the
winter of my discontent.

-- Cecilia in a letter to Mario

Song of Cecilia is a literary journey of love and a lyrical joyride
into the triumphs and depths of marriage and divorce through
these ever-shifting sands of economic, moral and social turmoil
– a novel about the mythic and mystical music two lovers create
when they begin to believe and then shatter the myths they adopt
for their lives.

The contemporary mystery-romance storyline of 112,000 words
unwinds as a modern twist on “The Divine Comedy” with
obvious similarities to “The Great Gatsby” -- told through the
eyes of a writer in the maze of a major life transformation; the
spiraling economy has put an end to his newspaper, sparking a
renewed search for personal redemption and reconnection with
the lost love and the lost music of his life. His lost love has taken
on the myth of St. Cecilia, martyred for the love of God, sacrificed
for the music of angels.

The central theme is the universality of love, the endurance of the
love of friends and family, even the love of God, through the love
of writing or rediscovering the love songs within us all: That joyful
noise of life.

The story is highlighted by the “language of love” crafted by the
central characters, Mario and Cecilia, in letters, songs, poetry,
factual experience and fictional expression, assuming and then
consuming their namesakes in the myth of an angel and the
myth of the patron saint of music .

Song of Cecilia
Chapter Six

Thinking your mind was my own in a dream
What would you wonder and how would it seem?
Living in castles a bit at a time
The King started laughing and talking in rhyme.
Singing words, words . . . Between the lines of age.
Words. Words. Between the lines of age.

-- Neil Young, "Words"



                                                    SONG OF CECILIA: The Tit is Dry

Before there were “The Mario Letters” that followed her everywhere, Cecilia had started the thread or the themes at
least two decades earlier in volumes of letters she had given to Mario to set him on the course toward their certain fate
in love. Her letters were meant to keep her brave Angel on the right path toward redemption and eternal sunshine in her
love and in the music of her heart. Ultimately, her words would start him on a path that had no return, and then finally no
return address.

It was a fact that both of them later tried to overlook, even deny in their withdrawal from writing each other the sort of
letters that they first came to live by. Mario simply got lost in all the words even though Cecilia had given him a pretty
clear roadmap to begin their unique journey of love. He just thought he didn’t need a map after 10 years or so of smooth
traveling together.

As he began to re-read the letters after their divorce, Mario was stunned to see the woman Cecilia had been for him
and the man he had become, fulfilling the words once written at the dawn of a time when they were both going through
divorces – he, his first; she, her third – and when Mario was truly questioning whether it would all work out in the long run
-- and whether their love could ever be sanctioned by God. The words were hauntingly familiar yet seemed so distant to
the emotions that were now rotted in the rubble of their family home back in Seattle. Back then, he had questioned
whether he would regret his decision to hitch his love to Cecilia’s 10 years down the road to no turning back. This is the
real response from Cecilia in full from March, 23, 1988:

“It’s been awhile since I wrote you a letter, three weeks thereabouts. My journal reverts back to me, my
thoughts go forward to you.

“Yes, I’m feeling pretty upbeat today. I liked what you wrote, but there’s a couple of things I’d like to
comment on. God, you’re in such a thither worrying unnecessarily. You don’t need more problems; don’t
bring them on yourself by projecting problems when you’re not even there yet to have to face them!

“Yes, I know that you’re holding me off at some distance. But look at it from my end, too. I’ve taken a step
back as well. I have to emotionally remove myself somewhat to protect myself, to give you the space to work
things out in ALL the areas where you need to make decisions.

“I’m not threatened by that step on your part or mine. I grant you I like the thrill and energy of moving forward
much better. I’d rather be a Porsche than a Ford, but I know what I have been driving lately (a Rabbit).

“The unease you sense is there, but as I explained, it’s not like the dis-ease of lack of commitment on your
part, but frustration in not having more control – the having to sit out events as they roll down the pike, the
knowing of speed and grace and power and my sense of having to hold back.

“Holding back is an issue for me these last five years or so. There are a lot of ways that feeling has been
manifested. As you pointed out and I’ve said before, people are sometimes afraid or intimidated by me.
Maybe there’s a better way to describe it, but I can never entirely define it myself so I guess, ‘afraid’ (but
why?) has to stand as the term to use.

“I’m tired of holding back and I’ve looked at ways to channel my energy. About two years ago, I decided to
consciously take more risks. That’s why I had the photo of me jumping naked off the cliff over the waterfall
blown up, even though it’s a lousy photo. I hung it up on the wall in my office as a constant reminder of what
I would do. And I did take a risk. I probably would be making $30,000 a year now if I stayed in my job but I’d
be frustrated, angry, unhappy, miserable even, if I had stayed where I was. I don’t have a regret about leaving
that job and its security. I got a tremendous amount from going to school and having an alternate lifestyle.
Look where that decision has taken me.

“I am much, much happier, even on the verge of bankruptcy! Really, I have every confidence that I’m going to
get a decent job and I’ll be able to pay my bills and make my own way in this world. I’ve been down to my
last $10 but I’ve never bounced a check or begged from anyone. It’s always going to be that way. Our
situation simply forced me to find a way to hold back. I’m working on it; I’ve got plans.

“Commitment. Long word, big concept. The only commitment I’ve wanted from you at this point is the
opportunity to have a future with you. Right now, maybe that’s not even realistic. Does that seem so scary?

“Neither of us is in a legal position, anyway, to make too much of commitments. Certainly, you’re not in an
emotional position, either, to be concerned about it. Relax, it’s not an issue.

“Of course, you’re feeling insecure and anxious. You have all sorts of doubts and sometimes no doubts at
all. That’s okay. Change brings uncertainty, anxiety. It’s just something you have to go through. Mario, it is
so basic I feel stupid telling you this. You know that already. Reassurance may not assuage your mind a lot,
but you know this is just part of the process. I don’t want these to be empty words or platitudes, but it’s a
useless exercise to reach for some kind of final certainty.

“Sometimes we think things are as certain as can be and they fall apart by some circumstance. I’d still be
debating whether circumstances were right enough to have a baby if I hadn’t gotten pregnant (in spite of
concerted efforts NOT to get pregnant). I have two beautiful children, lucky me. The circumstances were
never perfect enough, secure enough, to actually plan a pregnancy. So it goes.

“Everything is a risk. Who knows if we’ll wake up tomorrow? It’s a reasonable gamble that we will, but we
don’t really know for sure. I’m not worrying about what might happen if that comes to pass. I don’t want to
be crippled that way, especially self-inflicted.

“I’m not saying that your concerns aren’t legitimate, real or justified. I think your concerns can safely be put
aside for the time being. The only reason I can think of for you to be so concerned is if you think you might
be wasting your time. I don’t believe you think you’re wasting your time. That you might be uncertain that
you’re making the best choices – like you said, in ten years, will you have regrets? – is one thing, but it’s not
the same as wasting your time.

“I just don’t give a lot of space to regrets. It seems much too pointless to punish yourself by dwelling on what
might have been. That’s another destiny never realized; it just doesn’t apply to what IS.

“To learn from experience is the positive side of regret. You can’t do too many things over again, so if you’re
forced with a like situation in the future, then you’re better prepared to handle it in a way that you feel good
about. As long as we continue to face new challenges, opportunities, learn new things, we’re vulnerable to
making mistakes. We can make mistakes by taking others’ advice and again by not listening.

“Just listen to yourself. You hold all the answers even if it feels like you know nothing at all. That’s it. Simple.
Complex. Life. My love to you. –– Cecilia”

The next letter was one of the most exact definitions of the man Mario had become in her love, the man she would later
leave when both became so confused they began to turn their words on each other:

“My love, Mario: What do I want? What are my expectations? What am I looking for?

“I want a fellow traveler, a road companion. Someone brave and daring, adventurous. Someone who is not
afraid of change, or redefining himself as situations and needs evolve.

“I want a lover. A lover who feels my fire and instills that back to me. Someone brave and daring,
adventurous.

“I want someone who is good to my children, but they don’t need a father. My children need a man who is a
good friend to me, nothing more.

“I want someone who is not afraid of my energy, my power. Someone who is strong and can’t be intimidated
– who can’t fathom why anyone would back away. Someone who is as strong as me and uses his strength
to build things.

“I want to be with someone who doesn’t know loneliness. Someone comfortable with himself and someone
who brings that self-awareness, assuredness to other people.

“I want to be with a creative person. Someone with a vision that is askew with the norm, that is much, much
better than what’s average. Average isn’t good enough, it simply isn’t enough.

“I want to be with someone who isn’t afraid of losing his identity, who is anchored in self knowledge, and
from that position of strength, gives back to his family, friends, all the communities of the world, large and
small.

“I want someone who can fully support me as I find my own way of expression and realization. Someone
who isn’t haunted by fear of loss of my interest or love. Indeed, that could never be an issue because when
you know who you are, you aren’t concerned with those things. It’s immaterial because you’re involved with
building and creating, not seeing shadows and thieves where they don’t exist. Like you said, the brain doesn’
t distinguish between forms of consciousness, fantasy, dreams, hopes, wishes, and whatever reality is – all
things.

“I want to be with someone who can let me breathe, compete, be a full person in this world. Someone who
can’t conceive of tearing me down or smothering my dreams as they take color and form.

“I want to be with someone who is nurturing and compassionate and for whom it would be a mortal sin to
even consider smothering my life force. Someone who can return energy and renew me as I do for him.
Water of love.
“I want to be with someone who metes out rewards and knows the futility of punishment.

“I want someone who is not afraid of knowing me, who truly can know my essence and accept its return.
Someone who demands that as his due, his justice, his justification or rather a validation of our earthly
existence.

“I’m less concerned with the gain of material things, although that naturally comes about with those other
qualities. Specifics aren’t important.

“Idealistic? Yes. Possible? Absolutely. Obtainable? Definitely. It’s there for the asking. I believe it and that’s
all that matters. – Cecilia”

So there it was: The blueprint for the life that Mario would fulfill for the next 15 years of exquisite love and dedication to
the purity in those words, and all the questions Cecilia could never ask herself. Where was her commitment when he
needed it most in time of family crises? Why did she smother his dreams, even take his home away from him without
provocation? Why did she choose to mete out the ultimate punishment to him and take back, even reaping all the
rewards he had blessed her with over 15 years of dedicated love, even through times of trouble? Where was her
compassion the night his daughter had tried to take her own life? Where was it now? Who was seeing shadows and
thieves that didn’t exist? Who stopped building and creating? Despite his current total lack of fear in sending the letters
and his questions, even Cecilia would have to admit he had fulfilled all of those requirements over the years, someone
who had been nurturing and compassionate through her bouts of breast cancer and child rearing; someone who had
supported her with all his heart, soul and resources until she squandered them all in her own anger and hostility;
someone who gave all his love, all his energy even when none was even asked. What the hell happened?

He was a waterfall of sweat and effort to quench her thirst, and he was never afraid of her, always was creative, always
kept his vision, his friends, his family, always worked for the better of the world, large and small, always was a caring
and passionate lover, a friend, even a solid stepfather for her sons, a man who used his strength to build things and
make his home better and more beautiful for the beautiful woman who once wrote him the most beautiful script for life.

Now, all he could do was write her back 20 years too late, searching for the healing words that could break through a
barrier neither of them could ever have foreseen. It was like a barrier constructed by God. He had to find a philosophical
way back into her good graces. So he continued to write and write and write and write.

Dear Cecilia,

Transformation is a process of time, not something that happens instantly, not something that can just be accomplished
by force of will or through hope or by conjecture, magic, even words.

I know we are now strangers, transformed by time and reshaped by the experiences of individuality and reality. Maybe
we even have the same questions we always had in life, only the answers have now changed, solutions arrived at by
new theories and understandings.

I have a new Eckhart Tolle video up on my Internet blog this week in which the great philosopher talks about the
“miracle of transformation of consciousness.” Truly, I believe it serves to reinforce the main point I have been trying to
make with my entire life and I didn’t even know it until now.

In the video he talks about “the story of Me,” which can be perceived as photo albums in reality or photo albums in the
head, videos, recordings that can only be “remembered in the theater of the Now.” But Tolle points out that often those
memories carry with them grudges or blame or resentment or remorse: he did that to me, she did that to me; why did
that happen to me?

To break free, to transform, Tolle says you have to begin to see that the past is “not me. There is no identity in it. You
don’t need it any more for an identity. . . . And you don’t look for yourself there. You can’t find yourself there, so it’s no
longer problematic. It is no longer threatening the future. It just is.”

Which brings me to the point of this letter: Tolle advises to let “consciousness play with form” to create joy and
aliveness and live continuously in that state with an end to fear “no matter what arises.” The universe plays with form,
consciousness plays with form, a play of “phenomenal existence,” he says, and “you, yourself become a participant in
that play of form. You can create without self-seeking -- and then you create beautifully.”

Tolle adds: “When you create and there is self-seeking in it, there is a negative energy field there -- ‘I need, I want, I
must have, without that I‘m nobody, I must not lose that.’”

Creating conscious truth has no ego or self-purpose in it: “The power of consciousness itself flows through you, it loves
to create. So it will create through you, who knows what. You don’t need to know it now,” Tolle says. “Let it flow.

“And then all there is left really in your life is the simplicity of this moment, and it is always quite simple when you are no
longer seeking yourself in past and in future. Then you can honor this moment and embrace the now. You embrace what
is.”

For me, what is a conscious flow of words is my way of honoring the moment here and now that I can feel the love and
inspiration that I know has truly transformed my life over time, transforming even time and conscious thought itself.

I am a different man now than I was then, and you are a different woman, transformed, changed, conscious of the
changes, aware of time, there in your moment, too. Surely, it matters not even if you should read this letter or attempt to
connect the words to something at all relevant in your now, your current photo album of the mind. I know, and Tolle
boosts that knowledge, that you can only create what your consciousness allows you to create.

I could think of thousands of other tales to write about, stories I could tell, words I could put to other purposes, time spent
on other pursuits, other conscious efforts to push forward some personal agenda or plan or scheme of mine. But none
of that is real, all an illusion, all fiction, all fantasy.

This is real. This is true. This is realization, freedom, peace. No fear. No pretenses or pretending here.

I am not your ex-husband writing you a letter. I am not a journalist. I am not a writer, a lover, a friend, certainly not an
enemy, definitely not a rock star, a singer or a poet. I am just me. You are just you.

And I am happy to have known you, and am joyful when I write to you. And I feel your spirit now as I feel mine and all I
can really do is smile.
Smile again.

I am happy I can write at all, truly. I am happy when I run for blocks each morning and feel blessed by health despite age
and facts of time. I am happy just to think about love, what it means, how to project it, how to manifest it in my conscious
work, my thoughts, my actions, how to reflect it back into the man I am and the man I will always be.

I look at these words like looking into a mirror.

Certainly, what I see might be entirely different than what you find reflecting back at you.

I see a path to a garden of blossoming flowers and rooted redwoods, with brilliant filtering sunbeams breaking through
the mist in rainbow colors that spread across the horizon to the edge of the sea.

I see a man tending that garden, basking in the sun of his time, planting new seeds and becoming one with the earth, a
man at home with the universe.

I see a man who is just happy to have loved you and still love you like the everlasting ebb and flow of the tides.

I see me and only me. I am what I am. I write what I write. I love who I love. That’s me.

Happy to write you, happy to be me.

Love, Mario

As she continued to pile up the letters over the years, Cecilia simply got weary of getting lost in the babble -- she had
gone through this with Mario long, long before, and her reply then was equally valid now, despite his platitudes and new
pronouncements. She still wasn’t impressed in the least by the new words of "transformative" thinking. She would write
him one last letter and the rest, as Mario would call it, would become The Real Story he could never stop writing:

Words. And in the beginning there were words. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Infinite pieces of the cosmos.
Words bounce out beyond our galaxy, endless waves of energy. Words burn up, words become transformed,
a funeral fire, the ultimate soul cleansing. GIGO, gobbledygook, jargon, bureaucratese, misspeak,
disinformation. Words mean nothing to me. If words are so important, where were they when I needed them
the most?
All the world’s a stage and Mario is the only player on it. Give him the car keys. He’s in the driver’s seat. Your
arrogance is unspeakable. Whoops, words again.

Words are an intent to action. When the word was manifest, the world came into being. By themselves, words
are sound or the empty reverberation in my consciousness. And the road to hell was paved with good
intentions. I can’t live on words alone, crumbs from your table. I’m in a recession and I can’t afford to feed
you when I’m starving. It’s cosmic economics, love. There’s no sustenance for me here, you’ve eaten it all
up. The tit is dry, the winter of my discontent.

You want me to heal you. Well I’m struggling to heal myself of crippling burdens people mistakenly call love.
The body never forgets what it was denied. It remembers every lie like a blow. Heal thyself. But that takes
discipline. And it’s not like running with an immediate gratification. The goals are more than adding up the
miles each week.

Dear Cecilia,

I uncovered these letters from you again today in an effort to bridge a gap in the story that seems necessary to include
-- your true voice in responding to 20 years of my feeble attempts to love you with the pure love of God and the pure
love of nature and the pure love of man, not to mention the lyrical love of an angel.

These are all taken from our first few years together, when I truly did need your guidance to set me on the path to a love
that seemed so vital for so many years after those words were written. I allayed your fears, eased your doubts, satisfied
your needs and your desires, fulfilling all that you set forth in those letters. The only trouble was I never fully believed I
could live up to the myth that I made up to reach that level. I was always catching up and falling behind again and again.

You were oh so right and oh so perceptive -- I was logging the miles and going nowhere, or just around in circles with
your love.

Full circle now, the letters establish everything else that will follow in the story to come. I know it is the act of living that
you loved most about me, not the act of writing, something that became a fatal act to our relationship. The letters,
however, resurrect something far deeper than a mere marriage or a divorce, something even more poignant than the
pain and suffering we endured, individually in our own ailments, cancer, mental fatigue, physical changes, stress and
psychological weariness. They reveal a beauty and a philosophy on life that is more relevant in this day and age than
ever.

You talk in that earliest of letters of being in a recession economically where words won’t do a thing for your life. You
even use two images from Steinbeck, my favorite author, in the allusion of the tit being dry (Grapes of Wrath) and
Steinbeck’s last novel, “The Winter of our Discontent.” Were those deliberate or just literary happenstance? The “tit”
image becomes even more prophetic given the two times you later had to endure breast cancer throughout the years
we were together -- in what became such a fractured marriage at the end. I just have to read these letters now and
admit my love may have been fairly fractured from the start.

You always knew that and accepted me, flaws and all. You even let me drive all the time and were so kind to just scowl
when I refused to read a map or get directions about where I was headed. In many ways, you loved me just like my
Grandmother Copsey, and only now do I really, honestly realize how much I miss your words, even the ones that hurt the
most.

I write now in reply far too late, I know, but these words no longer just have good intentions. These words for me are the
truth I now live by and I give them back to you wherever your soul may rest.

A final thought and real experience today: On my run with Babe, I noticed coming back from the beach that she seemed
to have a blue sheen on her black coat. I figured she must have been rolling in some dead animal, so I immediately
hosed her off in the back hard and towel dried her. Well lo and behold, this only seemed to make her fur even brighter
blue, and I looked up and realized that she appeared blue because she was reflecting the pure blue of the brilliantly blue
sky!!!

As I marveled at my discovery into the crystal clear morning, a blue heron began to circle in like one of those C-130
cargo planes at McChord Air Base. Already reeling from finding your older letters, seeing another heron was like
another vision of you, a sign that the writing was about to take wing once again and find its way back to me and to
nature in the cycle of life. It was like a vision of you returning to the man you once loved more than any man on earth;
your fellow traveler and amazing road companion.

“Someone brave and daring, adventurous. Someone who is not afraid of change, or redefining himself as situations
and needs evolve.”

Just watch as the writing evolves now, my love. I will write my Song of Cecilia and I will sing your praises to the wind and
the seas and the stars. I will sing your song to the Gods of love above.

Mario

GRACE OF ANGELS

I hear the bells of salvation, ringing in my ears
Singing out my name, calling us from the fog

I hear the bells of salvation, ringing out for you
Toiling through the rain, singing out my songs

I ring the bells of salvation, calling out your name
Tolling without refrain, as time plays along

Can you feel Grace on the wind, bells ring out so true
Can you hear the harps of Angels, ringing for me, ringing for you

I feel the Grace of Angels, echoing into my soul
Resonance of love, deep inside my bones

I feel the Grace of Angels, chiming in my heart
From the stars above, as our hearts unfold

I feel the Grace of Angels, setting us free on the breeze,
Bells ringing untouched, to find our way back home.

AMBIII: Grace of Angels Video Slideshow

Song of Cecilia soundtrack player:
Control chapter music selection here