PSYKĒ
Singing the inner life.
The Fifth Element
The Fifth Element is about reconnecting with what truly matters. Set to one of Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus, it is a meditation on the heart and an invitation to let go of what no longer serves you. The only acoustic track in the album, its minimalism—both in instrumentation and musical style—provides a moment's respite amid the wild complexity of the other tracks.
How this song came to be
This song came straight out of nature. I composed it on a lyre I carried with me on hikes and kayak trips throughout Patagonia. Bit by bit, through improvisation on the shores of lakes and in remote forests draped with old man’s beard, this song emerged: unsought but hardly unwelcome.
Shaped by my love of the sonnet it’s set to by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, the piece is a homage to the Orpheus-like transformation true reflection can bring. It calls us inward, to touch what nature awakens in all of us—an uplifting of spirit, a remembering of breath and body, a connection to the whole.
Lyrics
"You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing
that is more than your own.
Let it brush your cheeks
as it divides and rejoins beside you.
Blessed ones, whole ones,
you where the heart begins:
You are the bow that shoots the arrows
and you are the target.
Fear not the pain. Let its weight fall back
into the Earth;
for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.
The trees you planted in childhood have grown
too heavy. You cannot bring them along.
Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold."
Source: Part One, Sonnet IV, "Sonnets to Orpheus," by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. Used with permission.