Music

I’m writing this morning about music. All music. Music is an expression of the soul. It is the melody of the spirit as experienced in the mind of creation and shared by the sensitivity of sound.

Classical music generally is in financial trouble. It needs help, not only from the cities that encourage it, but also from the unions and managements, but also especially from people who appreciate the healing qualities of music and who see the sharing benefit that a concert brings to a community.

Music is a reminder of our harmonic connection to grace, to nature, to each other and to the infinite melodies of the universe. A symphony is a visual and audible link between the spirit of a community and the Divine.

Modern music as delineated as Pop, Rock, Country, Alternative, New Age and even Acid is a connection in appreciation to a deeper part of one’s being. Only the young usually appreciate new expressions of sound for they are attuned to the higher vibrations of precipitated creations.

All compositions, both those of the great masters, as well as modern lyricists and composters, calm the turmoil of the heart and body and soothe the worries and pains of daily life and transport us to another place.

Music cultivates the intellect, echo’s the longing of the heart and embraces the sustaining spirit of wonder into a synergy with the sacred and through its vibration a new understanding of the glories of life emerge.

Appreciation from an audience is the gift you give back to the artist. Purchasing product and ticket attendance support is a gift you give the gifted and the future. It is an essential modality for a civic soul and a young spirit to expand and someday they blend into ONE.

No one can live without music and no one should.

Dreams and Reality

It's been suggested that ancient man sometimes had trouble distinguishing between reality and the dream world. It's possible that when the "gods" told him to go plunder and pillage, he was simply, in a very real sense, "thinking out loud".

Most of that internal debate has been ended. The brain of modern mankind, usually, has a firm grip on reality. Except when we sleep. Sleep can still be the playground of “what if’s.” No barriers, no limits, it is what you imagine it to be.

Most of us don't keep track of our dreams, though maybe we should, since dreams are supposed be symbolic. Sometimes revealing our deepest self or our supra-consciencesness. The people who study these sorts of things have come up with some statistics about dreaming.

It seems that most of our dreams focus on individuals. Only 30% of the dreams recorded have a large cast and the choice of characters is important. We generally include ourselves in just about every dream. Men tend to dream more often about other men. In fact, as they get older, men tend to dream about men three out of four dreams. It's also interesting to note that more than half the time we dream about strangers or at least people we don't know in our waking state.

We also keep emotions out of most dreams. But when they creep in, worry takes the lead. We seem to expect problems more than we anticipate joy. 40% of the time, the emotion remembered in a dream will be fear. Happiness trails behind at 18%.

There are some who say that dreams are only a reflection of what we are. If only 18 percent of our dreams are happy and 40 percent deal with our fears, maybe it's time to change our thinking.

Native Truth

Over 200 years ago a Seneca Indian prophet, named "Handsome Lake", made a dire prediction. He told his people:

"There will come a time when the good water that we use to cook our food, cook our medicines, and clean our bodies will not be fit to drink....and the waters will turn oily and burn....the cool waters that we use to refresh ourselves will warm and heat up...our misuse of this water will turn it against us and people will suffer and die..."

 In 1855 Chief Seattle of the Duwamish tribe wrote a letter to President Franklin Pierce. The letter was in response to a government request to buy Indian land.

Chief Seattle wrote:

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls also the children of the Earth."

Sitting Bull:

"See brothers, spring is here. The Earth has taken the embrace of the sun and soon we shall see the children of that love. All seeds are awake and all animals. From this great power, we too have our lives. And therefore we concede to our fellow creatures even our animal fellows, even to every living thing, the same right as ourselves, to live on this Earth."

Powerful words from the spirits of truth.

Wild Fires

There are 37 wild fires currently burning in the western party of the United States.

There is nothing anyone can do to change it, to stop it. We can fight it and the fire fighters do so with skill, daring, courage and a danger to themselves, but still it chews the hard-dry brush into a soft ash.

Lightening starts most fires. The drought too hurts and so does the ill wind that carries glowing ash to great distances. Homes are burned and destroyed.  Other people’s tragedy reminds us of our vulnerability. The tears of loss and smiles of safety on the same face parallel our conflict of and our appreciation of nature.

The stories of neighbor helping neighbor, confirm our desire for community. There are hundreds of stories not only of crushing flames and charred places, but stories of hopes and wishes, shattered dreams and shock.

In times of such destruction values change rapidly. The acquired stuff of daily living is no match for the loss of a treasured family picture or the ache of not knowing if a pet survived.

There is never a quick end to tragedy. No easy answers to the wailed questions of why and no relief when cries have run out of tears.

It is not possible to hold each hand of so many so hurting from these fires. All we can do, in this human family, is to be aware and to care. There is something powerful in that and it heals.

Arizona's torture

Shame on you Arizona. It took one hour and forty minutes to execute a prisoner.

Joseph R. Wood III gasped all that time before dying.

How barbaric!  And such hubris for state officials to say he had been comatose throughout the procedure and did not suffer.

A double shame on the Supreme Court for overturning a stay of execution.

A Thought and more

With all the crap going on in the world, wars, jihadists, terrorists and a non-compromising Congress I think it’s important to look outside the conflicts and into a peaceful place comfort and safety.

Everyone has that place that they can go for just a brief respite from pain and propaganda. The young have it what we call imagination. The elderly have it what we call memory. It is those of us in the middle who must struggle a bit more to put aside the angst and anger and find a way away from the conflicts of life and perhaps even find a way to the peace we all seek. It is egos, prejudices and greed that keep so many of us locked into the circular path of conflict.

So on this day I am only going to think about forgiveness, but first of myself, for in order to start anew, I must first forgive myself of all harmful thoughts and actions I inflicted upon others. Only then can I truly forgive others for any harm I perceive to have received.

I try not to judge, but parsing my conversation I can see that I do. The evil of the world needs judgment and the hopeful majority needs to exit the individual safe and peaceful place in order to be the evidence of what we believe.

It may be more infectious that we expect.