Description
A mystical composition, originally written as a song for alto and guitar. It attempts to reach the spiritual and to go beyond the sexual, the transsexual and the physical… It is inspired by the story of the desert hermit Saint Anthony (ca.250-350), who made commentaries on the dual nature of man: shadow – light, male – female, saint – demon.
The text of the original song was originally written by Claude Louis Combet for the film “Les Tribulations de Saint Antoine”, translated into English, is sung from the point of view of the saint:
I sought only to meet myself
I bade myself welcome
there in that part of me which thus far
my consciousness could not penetrate
the man that I was
laid naked the woman
that I was.
Turn as I might in ev’ry worldly direction
the night traced all the while
the arc of its circle
I was one and the same body
one and the same body now.
Man enamoured of himself
in his femininity
woman enamoured of herself
in her virility
I had absolutely no need
to imagine a woman
at my side
any more than I needed
to evoke the landscape
of the outside world
to feel myself
rooted within it.
The realms of nature
may intermingle
and recombine
the hybrids thereof
seek a soul and a name
The great madness thereof
affects me no longer
which is the name of my God
and of my love
I have found my heart’s place
this place that I thought I had lost
and that I had never quitted
I keep myself together
in the cloistered garden
of one word,
which is the name of my God
and of my love
all the rest is a mirage.