I stepped into an avalanche
It covered up my soulWhen I am not this hunchback that you see
I sleep beneath the golden hill
You who wish to conquer pain
You must learn, learn to serve me well
You strike my side by accident
As you go down for your gold
The cripple here that you clothe and feed
Is neither starved nor cold
He does not ask for your company
Not at the centre, the centre of the world
When I am on a pedestal
You did not raise me there
Your laws do not compel me
To kneel grotesque and bare
I myself am the pedestal
For this ugly hump at which you stare
You who wish to conquer pain
You must learn what makes me kind
The crumbs of love that you offer me
They're the crumbs I've left behind
Your pain is no credential here
It's just the shadow, shadow of my wound
I have begun to long for you
I who have no greed
I have begun to ask for you
I who have no need
You say you've gone away from me
But I can feel you when you breathe
Do not dress in those rags for me
I know you are not poor
And don't love me quite so fiercely now
When you know that you are not sure
It is your turn, beloved
It is your flesh that I wear
All words are symbols that merely refer to descriptions and actions in the illusory world of objects. In the spiritual world, they refer to communications between God and man. For example, Jesus was a man who realized that his body (an object) was a symbol for God (Spirit), and so became the Christ, the manifestation of God in the world of objects. He appeared in order to save people from their false beliefs in form, which imprisons them in hell. The Christ in Jesus recognized the Christ in all people, knowing that their bodies were illusory. People believe, as Jesus once did, that the world of objects exists as a temporal reality external to each individual mind. Jesus realized that the Christ within Him is an eternal light that shines away the illusory world of objects. The world of objects is symbolized by "darkness" since it is unilluminated. The Christ light dispels the darkness and experiences the reality of all people as the Christ (Spirit) within them. Since their bodies are illusory, all people are united in the one reality, the Christ (or Spirit, or Light). So the Christ in Jesus awoke (stepped into) in an avalanche of form. The false belief in the reality of form disfigures (as opposed to transfiguring) all who have not seen the light within them an others. The Buddha said that the world is pain. Who wishes to conquer pain? Who must learn to serve the Light of Spirit? Who needs company when All are One? And what of symbolizism of the centre of the world? Jewish tradition identifies the Golden Dome of the rock, in Jerusalem, as the foundation stone of the world.
I will continue later. As an aside, the name Leonard Cohen means "Lion Priest."
woodshadowon December 15, 2008 Link
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Song Meaning
Sorry, I should have made this a comment instead of a reply:
"You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn, learn to serve me well." The Christ is the manifestation of God in the world we perceive as objects (or more abstractly, of form). When Jesus looks at a person, He sees beyond the person's body, and sees only the Christ within ("Jesus" symbolizes any person imprisoned in the (false)reality of exteral objects, as most of us do; but our true reality is the eternal Christ that dwells within each of us). When we view the world as a world of objects, we see illusion. But what we really are (the Christ) trancends the world of objects. If we refuse to view the true reality of the unity of all people as the Christ, we suffer (as the Buddha said). We suffer only when we do not obey the law of our true being. Many use the word "God" as the symbol that created the laws of being (or of existence). When Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, they entered the world of objective "reality," and began to suffer pain. Adam and Eve are symbols which represent any of us currently imprisoned in the world of pain. Adam and Eve disobeyed the law of God. So if a person wishes to conquer pain, that person must learn to serve God well. The word "satan" symbolizes darkness, the absence of the Christ light. Satan is the belief in the world of objects as an external reality. The world of the belief in objects is hell.
I will continue later.
woodshadowon December 26, 2008 Link
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General Comment
36 years ago, a man I know bought a copy of Songs of Love and Hate, went home and smoked his usual brand of cigarette, and listened to Avalanche for the first time. The lyrics shattered his ego at the beginning of the second stanza: “You strike my side by accident, as you go down for your gold.” He realized that the lyrics were a perfect description of himself, and donning the wings of Icarus, escaped the labyrinth of the Minotaur.
The song following Avalanche, Last Year's Man, totally destroyed any sense of the individuality of anyone. In particular the lyric “And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they rolled Far past the stems of thumbtacks that still throw shadows on the wood" flew him too close to the sun.
His moniker, Woodshadow, was stolen from the most brilliant passage in the English language, from the Telemachus chapter of Ulysses, where James Joyce writes:
"Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide."
He had first wanted "Wavewhite" but it was already taken. It is now twenty-three minutes past Christmas.
I will continue later.
woodshadowon December 26, 2008 Link
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Source
https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/74416/
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