The Procession

INORI: Adorations for Two Soloists and Large Orchestra by Karlheinz Stockhausen Is there a threshold you and I can cross to enter the soul-silence deep within the music of INORI? Or does my saying this open a doorway where moments before was a wall? I have a burden of questions, a tangle of anxieties I bear in my being like the bones jostling my flesh. And then there is the blood, so misunderstood over the centuries. Must it really be shed? Some claim there are angels among us who account for the good will we encounter. Others are skeptical but hopeful. But I? I reach out to you, but my hands flutter helplessly in empty air. I see our whole procession as with disembodied sight: you and I and all these adorants walk slowly, heads bowed or heads raised. There is little difference between the two postures. The music reassures us. Those who bow their heads in humility are saying, I know I am not alone, there is one who counts every breath I take. Those who raise their heads in elation are saying, You are near, Companion of my Fate. I first heard INORI in dark winter, I was the sole prisoner in a prison of my own making. But the music was my reprieve. The second time has been the rest of my life, as the music loops and spirals, playing without end. Our procession loops and spiral, too. We were all born of the same father but our mothers vary. We talk at length about the mother's milk that made us different, and then pray to the father, who makes us one. In the music someone shouts, HU, and that fulfills our deep listening. We know what we know because before us looms the Threshold... When I stretch out my hand, your hand clasps mine.