You are not alone:
draw on the love that surrounds you.
Invest in people, and love
will be your dividend.
You know what really matters:
do it with all your heart.
Noone is more important
than you in this plan I have
for bringing love into the world.
Simply go out there and do it.
2008/09/05
2008/08/29
2008/08/28
Thou
To whom I cry I know not:
yet into that echoing dark
I raise my voice, asking
only for shelter against the
storm, and workman’s wages.
To whom I sing I know not:
yet my dancing heart
is fuller than a nest
of nightingangels
all the day long.
To whom I weep I know not:
yet my soul is sore
to see such cruelty,
such greed, such ignorance
of nature’s sacred laws.
To whom I plead I know not –
for justice, for respect
for all planetary life,
for compassionate restraint between nations
and for love between neibours.
O thou, thou listening space,
thou answer in the wind,
thou song in silence heard,
thou all-enclosing otherness,
honour my heart’s wishes.
yet into that echoing dark
I raise my voice, asking
only for shelter against the
storm, and workman’s wages.
To whom I sing I know not:
yet my dancing heart
is fuller than a nest
of nightingangels
all the day long.
To whom I weep I know not:
yet my soul is sore
to see such cruelty,
such greed, such ignorance
of nature’s sacred laws.
To whom I plead I know not –
for justice, for respect
for all planetary life,
for compassionate restraint between nations
and for love between neibours.
O thou, thou listening space,
thou answer in the wind,
thou song in silence heard,
thou all-enclosing otherness,
honour my heart’s wishes.
2008/08/19
Building
It wasnt until last week that I realised what a responsibility it is to build a completely new space. On the R is a picture of my old studio. It was a fairly ramshackle affair, built on the site of a greenhouse, whose refurbishment had been kindly borne by a delightful elderly pupil about 10 years ago.
For a couple of years it has been clear that rebuilding would need to take place, as the poor insulation had already had already taken its toll on my piano. Here is a picture of the interior in 2002 with my sister and late mother.
Hitherto all Ive ever done in terms of building might best be called intelligent conversion. Recently I dawned on me that what I am doing here will stand as an objective statement of who I was in the same way as my music – more conspicuous, perhaps, for who knows what fate that will enjoy?
I relish the responsibility, while realising that here, as in so much else, what we put on display is not our conscious intention, but our subconscious value system. At this stage I am greatly concerned about cost, but the whole process has been a great opportunity to engage (with) the energy of my guide Sai Baba.
2008/08/10
Amor & Psyche
The Golden Ass of Apuleius is one of Marie-Louise von Franz's most insightful books. And in it her chapter explaining the tale of Amor & Psyche contains some of its finest passages.
p82
Love with its passion and pain becomes the urge toward individuation, which is why there is no real process of individuation without the experience of love, for love tortures and purifies the soul. Expressed differently, Eros presses the butterfly painfully against his chest, representing the soul being developed and tortured by the love god.
On one beautiful gem the goddess Psyche, with her hands behind her back, is being tied by the god to a column which ends in a sphere. One could say that this image expresses in a beautiful way the process of individuation. Eros tying Psyche to the column surmounted by a sphere, the symbol of totality which is realized by suffering. Sometimes one would like to run away from the person to whom one is tied, in order to run away from the dependence, but Eros forces us to become conscious through this tie. Love makes us dare everything and leads us thus to ourselves. Therefore one of Eros's main epithets, which he had in antiquity, was "purifier of the soul."
p90
What happens to the gods if this process of [incarnation] takes place? A relationship is never only a one-way thing, so the gods get pulled into the human realm and, in the counter-movement, the ego expands its conscious awareness. That is the process of the incarnation of a god. Actually … in the impulse towards individuation and integration [within a human individual] it is the god who wants to incarnate.
p107
[Eros] wakes up and gives her the greatest punishment this god can give: he leaves her. To be left by the god of love is really worse than anything else he could have done to her. Psyche now is completely in the dark, and now her real deeds begin with the long and agonizing search to find Eros again.
p113
… stages of unconscious harmony, like that in the story of Paradise, result in the stagnation of life, and naturally certain disharmonious or evil impulses are excluded.
Some people by a great mental and psychological effort will sacrifice the one pole of an essential conflict in the hope of establishing peace in their souls with the remainder. For instance, in the monastic life money and sex are cut out, and with them the source of innumerable conflicts, and by retiring from these difficulties the establishment of peace in the soul is sought. The whole Christian idea of inner peace is in this direction; that is, one first cuts out a certain aspect of evil which seems impossible to integrate, and then one tries artificially to establish harmony with the remainder. All over the world mankind has a tendency to go in this direction. It is probably inevitable, for one needs from time to time to be able to set aside an insoluble problem.
It is as though there were rest places where one has a moment of peace, though one has the dim feeling that the conflict is not solved and will reappear after a time. One can observe this in people who draw mandalas and in doing so leave a part outside. They put the dark things outside the border of the mandala and imagine that they have now reached a state of relative wholeness and totality. But in this way they exclude certain aspects, and they can be sure that this state will not last. Some of these left-out elements will break in and a new process of integration must begin.
At this point we have the essence of the whole novel, for all through it (though sometimes the author seems to be gripped by feeling) a mocking, skeptical tone creeps in, a devaluating judgment which works like the knife in Psyche's hand. When things go well, a devil whispers in our ears that it is "[only …]" a rational devaluation which destroys everything. In a woman it is generally the animus [inner masculine] who is the artist in this field, and in a man it is a certain aspect of the anima [inner feminine]. The more sensitive and delicate and untouchable a man's feeling is on one side, the more he tends to mock himself. The Swiss recognize this type of man in their poet Gottfried Keller, whose feeling, on the one side, was extremely delicate, while on the other he showed the typical mockery of an old bachelor. That was his defense against his own hypersensitivity.
p115
Venus then orders Psyche to sort out a quanity of different kinds of seeds during the night.
… this could have to do with the Eleusinian mysteries, for corn is the mystical substance which represents the mother goddess as the goddess of corn.
---
A chaotic host of seeds is, in a way, an image of the collective unconscious, which seems to be, at the same time, a single essence and a multiplicity of images and creative impulses. One could say that as long as the archetypes of the collective unconscious are not [activated] by a human being, they are not real. They only become a psychological reality if they are experienced by a human psyche. It is for this reason that the archetypes of the collective unconscious resemble a host of chaotically dormant 'seeds' inborn in every human being, which, if not activated throu contact with human consciousness, could … be regarded as nonexistent.
p116
In the tale Psyche cannot cope alone with the corn. But there is still something which can rescue her, for ants turn up and sort out the grain. The chaos of the unconscious always contains a relation to order as well. In talking about the unconscious one must always talk in paradoxes, and when we emphasize its chaotic aspect we know at the same time that the unconscious is not only chaos but it is also order. In the last analysis, only unconscious order can overcome unconscious disorder. Man cannot do anything but be attentive and make the utmost and, so to speak, hopeless effort, until order is established again by itself.
This is something which Christian theologians would call faith.
p118
So one can say that in the right way faith is a great achievement, or rather pistis; loyalty to the inner law. When this loyalty or feeling constellates, it calls forth the secret order which is the chaos of the unconscious.
---
Jung always said that truth does not speak with a loud voice. Its low but unsuppressible voice announces itself as a malaise, or a bad conscience, or whatever one may want to call it. Great quiet is needed in order to feel these small hints. When the unconscious begins to talk loudly and to manifest itself with car accidents and such happenings, then the situation is already very bad. But in the normal state it has been whispering softly for years, before the thunderclap comes …
p82
Love with its passion and pain becomes the urge toward individuation, which is why there is no real process of individuation without the experience of love, for love tortures and purifies the soul. Expressed differently, Eros presses the butterfly painfully against his chest, representing the soul being developed and tortured by the love god.
On one beautiful gem the goddess Psyche, with her hands behind her back, is being tied by the god to a column which ends in a sphere. One could say that this image expresses in a beautiful way the process of individuation. Eros tying Psyche to the column surmounted by a sphere, the symbol of totality which is realized by suffering. Sometimes one would like to run away from the person to whom one is tied, in order to run away from the dependence, but Eros forces us to become conscious through this tie. Love makes us dare everything and leads us thus to ourselves. Therefore one of Eros's main epithets, which he had in antiquity, was "purifier of the soul."
p90
What happens to the gods if this process of [incarnation] takes place? A relationship is never only a one-way thing, so the gods get pulled into the human realm and, in the counter-movement, the ego expands its conscious awareness. That is the process of the incarnation of a god. Actually … in the impulse towards individuation and integration [within a human individual] it is the god who wants to incarnate.
p107
[Eros] wakes up and gives her the greatest punishment this god can give: he leaves her. To be left by the god of love is really worse than anything else he could have done to her. Psyche now is completely in the dark, and now her real deeds begin with the long and agonizing search to find Eros again.
p113
… stages of unconscious harmony, like that in the story of Paradise, result in the stagnation of life, and naturally certain disharmonious or evil impulses are excluded.
Some people by a great mental and psychological effort will sacrifice the one pole of an essential conflict in the hope of establishing peace in their souls with the remainder. For instance, in the monastic life money and sex are cut out, and with them the source of innumerable conflicts, and by retiring from these difficulties the establishment of peace in the soul is sought. The whole Christian idea of inner peace is in this direction; that is, one first cuts out a certain aspect of evil which seems impossible to integrate, and then one tries artificially to establish harmony with the remainder. All over the world mankind has a tendency to go in this direction. It is probably inevitable, for one needs from time to time to be able to set aside an insoluble problem.
It is as though there were rest places where one has a moment of peace, though one has the dim feeling that the conflict is not solved and will reappear after a time. One can observe this in people who draw mandalas and in doing so leave a part outside. They put the dark things outside the border of the mandala and imagine that they have now reached a state of relative wholeness and totality. But in this way they exclude certain aspects, and they can be sure that this state will not last. Some of these left-out elements will break in and a new process of integration must begin.
At this point we have the essence of the whole novel, for all through it (though sometimes the author seems to be gripped by feeling) a mocking, skeptical tone creeps in, a devaluating judgment which works like the knife in Psyche's hand. When things go well, a devil whispers in our ears that it is "[only …]" a rational devaluation which destroys everything. In a woman it is generally the animus [inner masculine] who is the artist in this field, and in a man it is a certain aspect of the anima [inner feminine]. The more sensitive and delicate and untouchable a man's feeling is on one side, the more he tends to mock himself. The Swiss recognize this type of man in their poet Gottfried Keller, whose feeling, on the one side, was extremely delicate, while on the other he showed the typical mockery of an old bachelor. That was his defense against his own hypersensitivity.
p115
Venus then orders Psyche to sort out a quanity of different kinds of seeds during the night.
… this could have to do with the Eleusinian mysteries, for corn is the mystical substance which represents the mother goddess as the goddess of corn.
---
A chaotic host of seeds is, in a way, an image of the collective unconscious, which seems to be, at the same time, a single essence and a multiplicity of images and creative impulses. One could say that as long as the archetypes of the collective unconscious are not [activated] by a human being, they are not real. They only become a psychological reality if they are experienced by a human psyche. It is for this reason that the archetypes of the collective unconscious resemble a host of chaotically dormant 'seeds' inborn in every human being, which, if not activated throu contact with human consciousness, could … be regarded as nonexistent.
p116
In the tale Psyche cannot cope alone with the corn. But there is still something which can rescue her, for ants turn up and sort out the grain. The chaos of the unconscious always contains a relation to order as well. In talking about the unconscious one must always talk in paradoxes, and when we emphasize its chaotic aspect we know at the same time that the unconscious is not only chaos but it is also order. In the last analysis, only unconscious order can overcome unconscious disorder. Man cannot do anything but be attentive and make the utmost and, so to speak, hopeless effort, until order is established again by itself.
This is something which Christian theologians would call faith.
p118
So one can say that in the right way faith is a great achievement, or rather pistis; loyalty to the inner law. When this loyalty or feeling constellates, it calls forth the secret order which is the chaos of the unconscious.
---
Jung always said that truth does not speak with a loud voice. Its low but unsuppressible voice announces itself as a malaise, or a bad conscience, or whatever one may want to call it. Great quiet is needed in order to feel these small hints. When the unconscious begins to talk loudly and to manifest itself with car accidents and such happenings, then the situation is already very bad. But in the normal state it has been whispering softly for years, before the thunderclap comes …
2008/08/09
Ray Wyre
In terms of someone willing to engage with his own darkness and use it as a medium to help others negotiate with their demons, Ray Wyre deserves a permanent memorial. Which in a way he has - in hundreds of changed lives.
The article contains an interesting example of how the unenlightened unconscious operates. Despite Wyre's manifest success rate in non-reoffending, both his residential clinics closed due to local paedophobia. As a society we project all our hatred onto paedophiles - they are the scapegoat for everyonelse's issues with sexual boundaries - & yet when someone demonstrates an effective way of dealing with the 'evil' he receives little or no collective support.
The same thing happened with (Quaker) prison shrink Bob Johnson 10 years ago. Michael Howard & others simply buried him because his successful therapeutic regime at Parkhurst did not fit their political agenda.
We all have our own issues with 'what we can get our heads around' within ourselves. And hence the level of integration to which we are willing /feel safe to go. I heard Ray Wyre interviewed In The Psychiatrist's Chair, & what really imprest me was his talk of how he prepared spiritually before & after sessions, so that in it he could be completely open & nonjudgmental yet also detox himself afterwards so as neither to become corrupted nor lose his vulernability.
That I thought was one truly wise man. I honour his passing.
The article contains an interesting example of how the unenlightened unconscious operates. Despite Wyre's manifest success rate in non-reoffending, both his residential clinics closed due to local paedophobia. As a society we project all our hatred onto paedophiles - they are the scapegoat for everyonelse's issues with sexual boundaries - & yet when someone demonstrates an effective way of dealing with the 'evil' he receives little or no collective support.
The same thing happened with (Quaker) prison shrink Bob Johnson 10 years ago. Michael Howard & others simply buried him because his successful therapeutic regime at Parkhurst did not fit their political agenda.
We all have our own issues with 'what we can get our heads around' within ourselves. And hence the level of integration to which we are willing /feel safe to go. I heard Ray Wyre interviewed In The Psychiatrist's Chair, & what really imprest me was his talk of how he prepared spiritually before & after sessions, so that in it he could be completely open & nonjudgmental yet also detox himself afterwards so as neither to become corrupted nor lose his vulernability.
That I thought was one truly wise man. I honour his passing.
Direct pointing to reality
Essentially the Jungian idea of wholeness /wellness /health /wholth expresses in psychological language what is also the philosophical substructure of all polytheistic traditions, namely that we become one by digesting & assimilating what is diverse – ie, that as we can accept antitheses (perceive the underlying unity of cognitive dissonances) we come to see the nature of existence.
On the inner path the reward for resolving one (existential) paradox is a bigger one(!)
One of our biggest hindrances to self-realisation /achievement of power-full integration is that we project those very hindrances onto an external reality – which /whom we suppose is itself the hindrance. Jung has a useful phrase 'the [personal] unconscious always first manifests in a hostile form.' IE, while our consciousness is a stranger to our unconscious it perceives the latter as something other: the more alienated we are from our true self, the more hostile we perceieve this otherness. Which explains Horror movies.
Part of the great game of a successful life is to engage with this inner otherness (which is sometimes called the shadow) so that by assimilating rather than rejecting what is unattractive about ourselves we actually release its inhibited power to integrate within the natural diversity of our personality.
Often when we achieve what we think of peace /stasis in life it is by blanking elements which disfigure our concept of it. IE by a philosophical trick we place them outside our charmed circle where all is light. Monotheists for instance think that by focusing exclusively on the 'saviour' they can consign all their unintegrated elements to a 'devil' for which /whom they do not have to take responsibility.
To achieve full personhood we have to acknowledge & accommodate within ourselves all that we dislike – so that we no longer have any illusions. To use an eco metaphor, we become our own compost. That way the flowers grower stronger and more vivid. In Von Franz's books she speaks of a recurrent experience as a therapist of finding that within every client there seems to be an inner otherness (manifesting particularly in dream) with whom the therapist can create the conditions for a self-healing dialog to take place, and that when this does it invariably produces a holistic self-realisation which Jungians call the [true] Self – but which in traditional language might be called the soul. Jungians call this journey individuation.
This is contemporary language for the nature of the perennial search for wisdom ['direct pointing to reality' as the Buddhists call it] which is embodied in every religious /philosophical tradition worth the name. Some people personalise this as G/god, others don't. Yet we can never achieve full inner awareness without the integration of the otherness-within-us. In other words the I (ego) has to explore, discover & befriend the not-I (id) so that we achieve a consciousness balanced between egoic awareness & intuitive 'alter-egoic' perception – & in the position we become equipt to unleash the magical powers entrusted to us. But, this is the fascinating double-lock on esoteric reality, they are only fully open to the human mind when the possessor of that mind has consciously & profoundly renounced the personal advantage that such power offers.
On the inner path the reward for resolving one (existential) paradox is a bigger one(!)
One of our biggest hindrances to self-realisation /achievement of power-full integration is that we project those very hindrances onto an external reality – which /whom we suppose is itself the hindrance. Jung has a useful phrase 'the [personal] unconscious always first manifests in a hostile form.' IE, while our consciousness is a stranger to our unconscious it perceives the latter as something other: the more alienated we are from our true self, the more hostile we perceieve this otherness. Which explains Horror movies.
Part of the great game of a successful life is to engage with this inner otherness (which is sometimes called the shadow) so that by assimilating rather than rejecting what is unattractive about ourselves we actually release its inhibited power to integrate within the natural diversity of our personality.
Often when we achieve what we think of peace /stasis in life it is by blanking elements which disfigure our concept of it. IE by a philosophical trick we place them outside our charmed circle where all is light. Monotheists for instance think that by focusing exclusively on the 'saviour' they can consign all their unintegrated elements to a 'devil' for which /whom they do not have to take responsibility.
To achieve full personhood we have to acknowledge & accommodate within ourselves all that we dislike – so that we no longer have any illusions. To use an eco metaphor, we become our own compost. That way the flowers grower stronger and more vivid. In Von Franz's books she speaks of a recurrent experience as a therapist of finding that within every client there seems to be an inner otherness (manifesting particularly in dream) with whom the therapist can create the conditions for a self-healing dialog to take place, and that when this does it invariably produces a holistic self-realisation which Jungians call the [true] Self – but which in traditional language might be called the soul. Jungians call this journey individuation.
This is contemporary language for the nature of the perennial search for wisdom ['direct pointing to reality' as the Buddhists call it] which is embodied in every religious /philosophical tradition worth the name. Some people personalise this as G/god, others don't. Yet we can never achieve full inner awareness without the integration of the otherness-within-us. In other words the I (ego) has to explore, discover & befriend the not-I (id) so that we achieve a consciousness balanced between egoic awareness & intuitive 'alter-egoic' perception – & in the position we become equipt to unleash the magical powers entrusted to us. But, this is the fascinating double-lock on esoteric reality, they are only fully open to the human mind when the possessor of that mind has consciously & profoundly renounced the personal advantage that such power offers.
2008/08/03
E Pluribus Unum
'From many, unity.'
Nobody could have lived a more scattered, scatty life than I. Yet as I wandered /wondered throu the different rooms of my personality I had a single purpose. To uncover the Christ in my life. It was as if by visiting each person within me I was excavating an aspect of the whole, what the Vedas call purusha or fully-achieved human. I sought unity within the diversity of my experiences.
If we are not seeking a unified awareness then all the diversity we experience has no context. It's like sitting on a train & seeing an unfamiliar countryside flash past the windows. It may be pretty but we have no identification with it and it is ultimately meaning-less for us, the memory is quickly erased.
I had the experience of working with a group of voice hearers. Two things struck me: 1) was that many young poets & authors would have traded a limb to 'hear voices': 2) the patients were tormented by experiences which had neither meaning nor context for them. Why was that? Sadly because, as far as I could discover, not one of them had this essential impulse to seek unity or intunity (a word I have coined to indicate a state of inner harmony). Buffeted about as they were by the vagaries & diversity of life they could only see it as random and appeared to lack any sense of an underlying unity, let alone the impulse to rendezvous with it.
The challenge is to distil the essence of life's many flavours until one's sense of them becomes visible as a quintessence.
Nobody could have lived a more scattered, scatty life than I. Yet as I wandered /wondered throu the different rooms of my personality I had a single purpose. To uncover the Christ in my life. It was as if by visiting each person within me I was excavating an aspect of the whole, what the Vedas call purusha or fully-achieved human. I sought unity within the diversity of my experiences.
If we are not seeking a unified awareness then all the diversity we experience has no context. It's like sitting on a train & seeing an unfamiliar countryside flash past the windows. It may be pretty but we have no identification with it and it is ultimately meaning-less for us, the memory is quickly erased.
I had the experience of working with a group of voice hearers. Two things struck me: 1) was that many young poets & authors would have traded a limb to 'hear voices': 2) the patients were tormented by experiences which had neither meaning nor context for them. Why was that? Sadly because, as far as I could discover, not one of them had this essential impulse to seek unity or intunity (a word I have coined to indicate a state of inner harmony). Buffeted about as they were by the vagaries & diversity of life they could only see it as random and appeared to lack any sense of an underlying unity, let alone the impulse to rendezvous with it.
The challenge is to distil the essence of life's many flavours until one's sense of them becomes visible as a quintessence.
2008/07/09
The enigma within the riddle
Out of the chaos and muck order forms:
Out of randomness and misfortune fertility.
At the edge of society I clear a path,
but don't know where it could lead.
Following it, I come into my self, yet
my destination is anybody's guess.
I am drawn to it as to the distant
drumming by a waterfall.
Is this drumming
from a clearing in the land of the living
where families celebrate life's flow
and new partners find each other?
“I don't know what the ancients knew:
I only know what others know.”
Or is waterfall one of exquisite beauty
awaiting my solitary admiration –
a place apart for communion with spirits.
“I have no common knowledge:
yet am in tune with the ancients.”
Bringing together such temples in the jungle
and the wild celebration of being alive –
is the trick to be performed –
integrating the impulse to immortality
with the anarchic fullness of life.
If I express my heart I get no response.
I do not know whether people draw silent benefit,
or regard me as an idiot, not worth commenting?
It's safer to assume the second.
And so I make these public keys
to unlock whatever is hidden.
This dawn writing captures the life
which poetry distils, whose jewel is music
and whose children are my pupils.
Out of randomness and misfortune fertility.
At the edge of society I clear a path,
but don't know where it could lead.
Following it, I come into my self, yet
my destination is anybody's guess.
I am drawn to it as to the distant
drumming by a waterfall.
Is this drumming
from a clearing in the land of the living
where families celebrate life's flow
and new partners find each other?
“I don't know what the ancients knew:
I only know what others know.”
Or is waterfall one of exquisite beauty
awaiting my solitary admiration –
a place apart for communion with spirits.
“I have no common knowledge:
yet am in tune with the ancients.”
Bringing together such temples in the jungle
and the wild celebration of being alive –
is the trick to be performed –
integrating the impulse to immortality
with the anarchic fullness of life.
If I express my heart I get no response.
I do not know whether people draw silent benefit,
or regard me as an idiot, not worth commenting?
It's safer to assume the second.
And so I make these public keys
to unlock whatever is hidden.
This dawn writing captures the life
which poetry distils, whose jewel is music
and whose children are my pupils.
In the midst of life ...
It is in the times when I am most under pressure that I feel the sovereign grace of Sai Baba.
At the moment I am caught in a vexatious circle with my bank trying to remortgage in order to rebuild my studio. I do not know the outcome, but I do completely trust my spirit helpers, that they will produce the right result whatever that is. It's a rerun of what happened 14 years ago. Which of us hasn't learn the lesson in the interim?
At the moment I am caught in a vexatious circle with my bank trying to remortgage in order to rebuild my studio. I do not know the outcome, but I do completely trust my spirit helpers, that they will produce the right result whatever that is. It's a rerun of what happened 14 years ago. Which of us hasn't learn the lesson in the interim?
2008/07/07
What do we value?
Looking at the billions spent on CERN researching the theology of quantum physics, reminds me of the jibe that there are 600 churches in New York City yet still noone knows the way to find their inner truth (/God).
The real question is 'what are we looking for?' If we think the missing element in our lives –the hunger to find meaning which we project onto some external entity– is to be found outside us then we will be looking for some 'god', or some external validation, to our inner anxiety.
If we were to remove the God-projection from our mental vocabulary, & start to think about contacting our inner 'live line' then we would start to ground ourselves in a reality that takes account of our true nature as the first dot on the paper from which all lines & designs must be drawn.
The real question is 'what are we looking for?' If we think the missing element in our lives –the hunger to find meaning which we project onto some external entity– is to be found outside us then we will be looking for some 'god', or some external validation, to our inner anxiety.
If we were to remove the God-projection from our mental vocabulary, & start to think about contacting our inner 'live line' then we would start to ground ourselves in a reality that takes account of our true nature as the first dot on the paper from which all lines & designs must be drawn.
2008/07/02
Life line
The word god is like a deep jam jar. After humans have extracted the contents to suit their taste/s, it has been given to the dogs. They have licked almost all the remaining nourishment out of it, except for a tantalising patina at the bottom where their tongues can't reach.
How then to communicate this sense of an inner liveness, of an intunity to the wellsprings of existence which animals know, but humans have to (re-)discover? Looking at my dog, observing life-forms growing around and considering the unceasing flow of springs, makes me think that the best description of the liveness which humans can know throu union with the intuitive otherness that is integral to consciousness is to describe it as a live line or life line. It is the spiritual equivalent of erectile tissue which is aroused by certain configurations of stimuli.
I have been seeking an expressive but neutral word to make the 'idea' of god comprehensible & live line or life line seems to work well.
How then to communicate this sense of an inner liveness, of an intunity to the wellsprings of existence which animals know, but humans have to (re-)discover? Looking at my dog, observing life-forms growing around and considering the unceasing flow of springs, makes me think that the best description of the liveness which humans can know throu union with the intuitive otherness that is integral to consciousness is to describe it as a live line or life line. It is the spiritual equivalent of erectile tissue which is aroused by certain configurations of stimuli.
I have been seeking an expressive but neutral word to make the 'idea' of god comprehensible & live line or life line seems to work well.
2008/06/26
Messiaen & Ray Charles
By the time I'd been at King's Canterbury a couple of years I had grown so alienated I'd retreated into my own world where I did little else except play the organ and occasionally get beaten for noncooperation. My active antipathy to sport meant that I was singled out for bullying in that hellish academy of barbarians.
Messiaen was my salvation. I had first encountered him throu Allan Wicks, who also taught me organ. All weekend long I'd practise on the crypt organ, and by the age of 15 I could play all Messiaen's then-published oeuvre.
I had evolved a burglary kit that included a cathedral key & a coat hanger to gain access to the main organ loft. Being insomniac, I would wait until everyone in my dorm was asleep and then leave by the fire exit from Meister Omers, adjacent to the Choir School /House, go to the cathedral & let rip for several hours. Amazingly, I was never challenged, and no enquiry was ever raised about the organ being played 'Phantom-like' at midnight.
I ran up awful music bills for my poor father at Forwoods. £60 a term when a term's boarding fees were only about £250. (Hard to believe now!) And he couldn't even pay that half the time. Psychologists will understand something of the (non-)relationship that this way of demanding my father's attention was intended to provoke. Unsuccessfully.
When I'd first begun to compose, around the age of 12, I received no encouragement. My voice /idiom developed spontaneously under the influence of Messiaen as I learnt to play his intensely mystical organ music. Therefore I had the youthful experience of finding that exposing what was intensely meaningful for me produced indifference in everyonelse, including my parents who probably thought that composition was a just phase I'd grow out of when I needed to get a job.
This brought me to a crisis, which was essentially one of my own authenticity /self-worth: the more I followed my calling, my creative daemon, the more isolated it made me. Since those sounds that seemed most real & vivid to me aroused to response, except embarrassment, where did reality lie? The final straw for me was when I could find noone at Kings, boy or master, willing to read throu Messiaen's La quattuour pour le fin du temps with me. I just thought 'well if I'm in a parallel universe' maybe there's another one I do belong in, and if it does Messiaen must be in it. So to Paris I prepared to go.
I knew my grandfather had taken out War Bonds in my name, and discovered they'd matured & could be cashed. So I did so during the holidays & returned to school with my passport in the Easter term 1963. I could speak intelligible french – about the only thing I learnt at Kings.
Having been to the Trinité twice to hear Messiaen improvise after High Mass -wonderfully- and then seen him descend from the organ loft into a small sea of fidgety organophiles I knew I should never be able to approach him. Who was I? A a kid on the edge of a breakdown with no credentials, nothing to offer, barely able to give an account of myself. How could tell him -in french- I needed him to save my life? And if my god were to spurn me I must necessarily embrace the devil of suicide with which I had flirted constantly for at least 3 years.
The end of it was, my money ran out and I returned to England with my tail between my legs - determined on one thing only, never to submit myself to the confederacy of dunces called education. Accordingly I started work at Gala Cosmetics as a sweeper. My salvation was to meet harpsichordist Jane Clark & her composer husband Stephen Dodgson, who took me into their home and made me into a musician and a human being.
But my time in Paris was productive in another way, for I saw Ray Charles on his first European tour. Never before had I seen this level of incandescence, and rarely have I encountered it since. Ray was so attuned to his music that as a performer he seemed to be without physical limits - pure spirit. Nothing I'd absorbed about ice-race spirituality at Canterbury prepared me for a sun-race spirituality that was earthy and vibrantly sexual. Achieving a spiritual fusion between these polar antitheses of musical being, the intensely literate and the intensely intuitive, has been guiding principle of my evolution as a composer, music producer and teacher – not a superficial idiomatic synthesis, but an exploration of the nature of the energy relationship between intentionality and sound.
Messiaen was my salvation. I had first encountered him throu Allan Wicks, who also taught me organ. All weekend long I'd practise on the crypt organ, and by the age of 15 I could play all Messiaen's then-published oeuvre.
I had evolved a burglary kit that included a cathedral key & a coat hanger to gain access to the main organ loft. Being insomniac, I would wait until everyone in my dorm was asleep and then leave by the fire exit from Meister Omers, adjacent to the Choir School /House, go to the cathedral & let rip for several hours. Amazingly, I was never challenged, and no enquiry was ever raised about the organ being played 'Phantom-like' at midnight.
I ran up awful music bills for my poor father at Forwoods. £60 a term when a term's boarding fees were only about £250. (Hard to believe now!) And he couldn't even pay that half the time. Psychologists will understand something of the (non-)relationship that this way of demanding my father's attention was intended to provoke. Unsuccessfully.
When I'd first begun to compose, around the age of 12, I received no encouragement. My voice /idiom developed spontaneously under the influence of Messiaen as I learnt to play his intensely mystical organ music. Therefore I had the youthful experience of finding that exposing what was intensely meaningful for me produced indifference in everyonelse, including my parents who probably thought that composition was a just phase I'd grow out of when I needed to get a job.
This brought me to a crisis, which was essentially one of my own authenticity /self-worth: the more I followed my calling, my creative daemon, the more isolated it made me. Since those sounds that seemed most real & vivid to me aroused to response, except embarrassment, where did reality lie? The final straw for me was when I could find noone at Kings, boy or master, willing to read throu Messiaen's La quattuour pour le fin du temps with me. I just thought 'well if I'm in a parallel universe' maybe there's another one I do belong in, and if it does Messiaen must be in it. So to Paris I prepared to go.
I knew my grandfather had taken out War Bonds in my name, and discovered they'd matured & could be cashed. So I did so during the holidays & returned to school with my passport in the Easter term 1963. I could speak intelligible french – about the only thing I learnt at Kings.
Having been to the Trinité twice to hear Messiaen improvise after High Mass -wonderfully- and then seen him descend from the organ loft into a small sea of fidgety organophiles I knew I should never be able to approach him. Who was I? A a kid on the edge of a breakdown with no credentials, nothing to offer, barely able to give an account of myself. How could tell him -in french- I needed him to save my life? And if my god were to spurn me I must necessarily embrace the devil of suicide with which I had flirted constantly for at least 3 years.
The end of it was, my money ran out and I returned to England with my tail between my legs - determined on one thing only, never to submit myself to the confederacy of dunces called education. Accordingly I started work at Gala Cosmetics as a sweeper. My salvation was to meet harpsichordist Jane Clark & her composer husband Stephen Dodgson, who took me into their home and made me into a musician and a human being.
But my time in Paris was productive in another way, for I saw Ray Charles on his first European tour. Never before had I seen this level of incandescence, and rarely have I encountered it since. Ray was so attuned to his music that as a performer he seemed to be without physical limits - pure spirit. Nothing I'd absorbed about ice-race spirituality at Canterbury prepared me for a sun-race spirituality that was earthy and vibrantly sexual. Achieving a spiritual fusion between these polar antitheses of musical being, the intensely literate and the intensely intuitive, has been guiding principle of my evolution as a composer, music producer and teacher – not a superficial idiomatic synthesis, but an exploration of the nature of the energy relationship between intentionality and sound.
2008/06/25
Joyce Grenfell
I saw an excellent doc on tv about Joyce Grenfell last Sat. What I found fascinating about seeing her from 20-80 was that in everything she did there was an inner truthfulness, an inspirational quality that was a testimony to her faith. She was never malicious, tho she could be acid enough to show she was well aware of the dark side, yet always chose the light. She probably felt her talents were trivial, but to my mind her memorial is not her work, it is that she was true to her Self. Apparently many pro actors denigrated her 'amateurism' - but actually that was pure jealousy because she had 'it' - that vestal quality that comes from ‘intunity’.
Where I vibe with Grenfell is that like her I was never ‘professionalised’ by the education industry. Therefore what I write I write because I feel it compellingly important. It is of course a source of intense frustration that it is totally unimportant to the world at large: but I've learnt to understand that spiritually. I am motivated by my faith in Christ, and therefore the soundworld I (wish to) evoke reflects that belief system. The rest of the world (largely) isn't & therefore doesn’t respond to the vibe I'm into. I have come to accept that my task is not to ‘be conformed’ to the world’s values, but to respond principally to the truth I sense within me.
On the whole subject of inspiration, see http://msteer.co.uk/analytical/creativoxtext.html
Interestingly, music seems to be the one area where faith persists in our faithless world. Messiaen remained an undeviatingly devout Christian, and it was the mystical integrity of his soundworld that first gave me hope when I was at my lowest and lostest. Charles Ives put up with ridicule, obscurity & never heard his music performed, yet is now regarded as the father of 20thC US music thanks to the evangelism of Lenny Bernstein. He was an intensely inner-led Christian – who used his prodigious creative energy to found what is now the worldwide pensions industry because of his compassion for the elderly poor. There are numerous others I could tell you of: Stravinsky was a sincere Russian Orthodox: Schoenberg an observant Jew. Contemporary UK composer Jonathan Harvey is a devout Buddhist despite being as experimental as all get-out. Tavener’s Greek Orthodox faith is doubtless known to you. Duke Ellington wrote only religious music at the end of his life. Funkmeister Herbie Hancock is a practising Buddhist. The list is far longer.
Often, it is the intensity of someone’s mystical inner sound world that makes hir unafraid to be experimental – because the integrity of that world is validated by the spirituality of their world-view.
We each of us have a path to tread; and the issue –for the composer as much as for each human– is not to achieve great things in the world’s eye, it is to behave with an integrity and vision that balances one’s inner truth with the greater truth as one sees it. And to leave the results to God. Despite the great joy of the relationships in my life, that inner personal walk has often been wearisome & unrewarding, but what has always guided & inspired me is the confidence of hearing the Saviour’s greeting: “well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into thy rest.”
Everyone has cultural preferences based on their personal world overview. For some of the reasons why western musical history has evolved see http://msteer.co.uk/analytical/jmtimbre4.html. Suffice it to say there is always an intimate, if circuitous, link between a person’s ‘intentional proprioception’ [their (non/) belief system about how the world is] & their aesthetic engagement/s. The difference is our individual human identity: the harmonics of those differences create genres and styles according to the number of people who experience their place in the world similarly.
How much easier my life would be if I didn’t ‘hear’ things & didn’t feel obliged to ‘externalise’ my inner world … but how infinitely poorer. The prophet Jeremiah said much the same thing but, I would say from reading him recently, never reconciled within himself the anger he experienced at having his (divine) vision rejected! What I or any composer write/s is a ‘negotiation’ between a collective perception (genre /idiom /style) and a personal inner voice.
All my life I have experimented with bringing the popular and the esoteric, the sacred and the profane, together. After many failed attempts, I see my latest experiments bearing fruit, and still regard this as my sacred vocation to bridge those worlds – to reconnect people brought up in the trivialising environment of electronic culture to the timeless depths of historical cultural continuity, while at the same time providing a contact point for those who exist in those depths to gain access to the energy latent in the surface tensions of modern media.
Writing about this is my way of clarifying my own intentions, of articulating to myself what I need to do further to manifest this reality. Our power as artists is that we create the future (‘unacknowledged legislators’ & all that) – so anyone who seeks to be artistically-conscious is required to be clarify their intentions that they may be vessels for ‘what is of God’ to enter the human dimension. That’s all I've sought to d0: it doesn’t make sense to ‘the world’ because they're not looking for those values. But it’s been an amazingly improbable journey. I've kept a record of it here because, far as I have been from any kind of acceptance to date, I know how the story ends (as certainly as I know Christ is my saviour) and therefore I wish what occurred in my life to be a matter of record, so that other people 'undergoing' what I have may see how salvation comes from holding to faith not from conforming to prevailing trends: and obversely to make clear to those who judge from the surface of my music (when it is finally heard as I intend) that my life was smooth & light-filled, just how dark the journey really was.
There is profound insight into the psychology of 20thC European culture to be gained from Dreaming With Open Eyes by Michael Tucker. He depicts a mainstream European culture that had become sterile & formulaic by the time of WW1 being swept aside by a shamanic irruption of the collective unconscious that had been repressed by Christian & post-Christian orthodoxies – not necessarily rejecting them in essence, but certainly rejecting them in their existing form/s.
There is, and will always be, a tension between the rational world of science & social order and the inner anarchy of the creative subconscious. This was first exposed in the rise of the Gothic movement paralleling that of early-modern science. Today we feel it more acutely because, under the impact of science, as a culture we have lost the ability to see meta-physically or meta-phorically, and can only see literally. [Hence the furious battle between Creationists & Dawkins-ites!]
Where I vibe with Grenfell is that like her I was never ‘professionalised’ by the education industry. Therefore what I write I write because I feel it compellingly important. It is of course a source of intense frustration that it is totally unimportant to the world at large: but I've learnt to understand that spiritually. I am motivated by my faith in Christ, and therefore the soundworld I (wish to) evoke reflects that belief system. The rest of the world (largely) isn't & therefore doesn’t respond to the vibe I'm into. I have come to accept that my task is not to ‘be conformed’ to the world’s values, but to respond principally to the truth I sense within me.
On the whole subject of inspiration, see http://msteer.co.uk/analytical/creativoxtext.html
Interestingly, music seems to be the one area where faith persists in our faithless world. Messiaen remained an undeviatingly devout Christian, and it was the mystical integrity of his soundworld that first gave me hope when I was at my lowest and lostest. Charles Ives put up with ridicule, obscurity & never heard his music performed, yet is now regarded as the father of 20thC US music thanks to the evangelism of Lenny Bernstein. He was an intensely inner-led Christian – who used his prodigious creative energy to found what is now the worldwide pensions industry because of his compassion for the elderly poor. There are numerous others I could tell you of: Stravinsky was a sincere Russian Orthodox: Schoenberg an observant Jew. Contemporary UK composer Jonathan Harvey is a devout Buddhist despite being as experimental as all get-out. Tavener’s Greek Orthodox faith is doubtless known to you. Duke Ellington wrote only religious music at the end of his life. Funkmeister Herbie Hancock is a practising Buddhist. The list is far longer.
Often, it is the intensity of someone’s mystical inner sound world that makes hir unafraid to be experimental – because the integrity of that world is validated by the spirituality of their world-view.
We each of us have a path to tread; and the issue –for the composer as much as for each human– is not to achieve great things in the world’s eye, it is to behave with an integrity and vision that balances one’s inner truth with the greater truth as one sees it. And to leave the results to God. Despite the great joy of the relationships in my life, that inner personal walk has often been wearisome & unrewarding, but what has always guided & inspired me is the confidence of hearing the Saviour’s greeting: “well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into thy rest.”
Everyone has cultural preferences based on their personal world overview. For some of the reasons why western musical history has evolved see http://msteer.co.uk/analytical/jmtimbre4.html. Suffice it to say there is always an intimate, if circuitous, link between a person’s ‘intentional proprioception’ [their (non/) belief system about how the world is] & their aesthetic engagement/s. The difference is our individual human identity: the harmonics of those differences create genres and styles according to the number of people who experience their place in the world similarly.
How much easier my life would be if I didn’t ‘hear’ things & didn’t feel obliged to ‘externalise’ my inner world … but how infinitely poorer. The prophet Jeremiah said much the same thing but, I would say from reading him recently, never reconciled within himself the anger he experienced at having his (divine) vision rejected! What I or any composer write/s is a ‘negotiation’ between a collective perception (genre /idiom /style) and a personal inner voice.
All my life I have experimented with bringing the popular and the esoteric, the sacred and the profane, together. After many failed attempts, I see my latest experiments bearing fruit, and still regard this as my sacred vocation to bridge those worlds – to reconnect people brought up in the trivialising environment of electronic culture to the timeless depths of historical cultural continuity, while at the same time providing a contact point for those who exist in those depths to gain access to the energy latent in the surface tensions of modern media.
Writing about this is my way of clarifying my own intentions, of articulating to myself what I need to do further to manifest this reality. Our power as artists is that we create the future (‘unacknowledged legislators’ & all that) – so anyone who seeks to be artistically-conscious is required to be clarify their intentions that they may be vessels for ‘what is of God’ to enter the human dimension. That’s all I've sought to d0: it doesn’t make sense to ‘the world’ because they're not looking for those values. But it’s been an amazingly improbable journey. I've kept a record of it here because, far as I have been from any kind of acceptance to date, I know how the story ends (as certainly as I know Christ is my saviour) and therefore I wish what occurred in my life to be a matter of record, so that other people 'undergoing' what I have may see how salvation comes from holding to faith not from conforming to prevailing trends: and obversely to make clear to those who judge from the surface of my music (when it is finally heard as I intend) that my life was smooth & light-filled, just how dark the journey really was.
There is profound insight into the psychology of 20thC European culture to be gained from Dreaming With Open Eyes by Michael Tucker. He depicts a mainstream European culture that had become sterile & formulaic by the time of WW1 being swept aside by a shamanic irruption of the collective unconscious that had been repressed by Christian & post-Christian orthodoxies – not necessarily rejecting them in essence, but certainly rejecting them in their existing form/s.
There is, and will always be, a tension between the rational world of science & social order and the inner anarchy of the creative subconscious. This was first exposed in the rise of the Gothic movement paralleling that of early-modern science. Today we feel it more acutely because, under the impact of science, as a culture we have lost the ability to see meta-physically or meta-phorically, and can only see literally. [Hence the furious battle between Creationists & Dawkins-ites!]
2008/05/30
Getting to the point
The main game of life needs to be finding our right relationship with the earth – which means finding both where /how we belong on earth but also where & with whom to make our stand – collectively & personally.
Our inner life dynamic & dreams guide us towards this – if we let them(!)
This process works best if we consciously unpack the content/s of our psyche & resolve its incongruities. Thus by encountering & attuning to our selves as creative artists we discover how to make a harmonic interaction with something within our subjectivity that is, if not objective, then at least carries within it an overtone or archetype of our true selves (regardless of whether this or we are constructive in attitude) that contributes a resonance to our work which then carries it beyond its immediate context.
Our inner life dynamic & dreams guide us towards this – if we let them(!)
This process works best if we consciously unpack the content/s of our psyche & resolve its incongruities. Thus by encountering & attuning to our selves as creative artists we discover how to make a harmonic interaction with something within our subjectivity that is, if not objective, then at least carries within it an overtone or archetype of our true selves (regardless of whether this or we are constructive in attitude) that contributes a resonance to our work which then carries it beyond its immediate context.
2008/05/27
Inspiration
The way it works (best) for me is when ideas come in dreams or the half-awake lucidity that follows. From studying my dreams over the last 20 years, I've learnt never to second-guess this process. I simply write down whatever I'm shown. This gives the ideas both a clear feeling-tone & an integrity, from which I find it reasonably easy to transcribe or scale them up in a way that preserve their essence. It doesn't necessarily mean everything I write is wonderful, but I find the results have an owned quality to them which is different from the brain-spun work I did earlier in my life.
Even where they attract no external interest I feel I have obeyed George Fox's injunction 'to (ac)quit my soul' - which he meant in the sense that if we utter what is shown to us without fear or favour, then the reception of that utterance is not our responsibility. It rests with the Powers That Be as to whether it evokes a direct response, or whether our function is to contribute to some evolutionary process that we may not understand at all.
This concept is part of both Christian and Vedic thought. The former says 'Deo dat augmentum' - God gives the increase: our reward is to play our part, the nature of its fruitfulness is 'in the lap of the gods' (to borrow a pagan phrase). The Vedanta says that it is the prerogative of Vishnu /Krishna to reward or withold.
All that is important for us as humans is to be truthful to the inner dynamic. The more we sync to it, the more harmonic synchronicity it produces.
Even where they attract no external interest I feel I have obeyed George Fox's injunction 'to (ac)quit my soul' - which he meant in the sense that if we utter what is shown to us without fear or favour, then the reception of that utterance is not our responsibility. It rests with the Powers That Be as to whether it evokes a direct response, or whether our function is to contribute to some evolutionary process that we may not understand at all.
This concept is part of both Christian and Vedic thought. The former says 'Deo dat augmentum' - God gives the increase: our reward is to play our part, the nature of its fruitfulness is 'in the lap of the gods' (to borrow a pagan phrase). The Vedanta says that it is the prerogative of Vishnu /Krishna to reward or withold.
All that is important for us as humans is to be truthful to the inner dynamic. The more we sync to it, the more harmonic synchronicity it produces.
2008/05/21
Mantra
For years Ive been working with the mantra SamBhaVa. Those syllables came to me so long ago I don't even remember when, but probably more than 20 years ago – some time in the 90s. I certainly associate their reception with the inspiration of Sai Baba in my life at that time. And I continue to find it very heart-opening to chant them. 5 years ago I sensed a new one given to me.
The seed meaning of syllables is balance-devotional love-movement. That can be interpreted in several ways, but the one that spoke to me was the idea that the mantra's function was to 'balance the flow of love' in my life: ie, to help me get over the binge-bust responses of elation at times of inner connection and despair at its absence; and indeed to get over the idea of personal ownership of &/or identification with such emotions. One can argue whether it is the sole agency accomplishing this ;) but the fact that the chanter is constantly made mindful of the thought means that it percolates into hir wider consciousness.
Mantram (pl.) are very sacred, yet as intimate as a vest. (I was going to say 'pants' but you can see why I didnt!) In the Vedic tradition they are given by the guru /teacher to the chela /student as a uniquely personal gift. I was therefore suitably cautious about adopting SamBhaVa, yet it has served me well.
My adoption of another mantra came about in about 03 when I read Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living & Dying. The founder of his Tibetan lineage was none other than Padma Sambhava, who gave his followers the mantra: Aum ah hum - vajra guru padma siddhi hum. Since then I have added that one. The meaning is eternal-I-am, diamond-teacher-consciousness-miraculous-am. IOW, the eternal is within me, educated by /to a shining & incisive consciousness I am /attract the miraculous.
Seemed good to me!
The seed meaning of syllables is balance-devotional love-movement. That can be interpreted in several ways, but the one that spoke to me was the idea that the mantra's function was to 'balance the flow of love' in my life: ie, to help me get over the binge-bust responses of elation at times of inner connection and despair at its absence; and indeed to get over the idea of personal ownership of &/or identification with such emotions. One can argue whether it is the sole agency accomplishing this ;) but the fact that the chanter is constantly made mindful of the thought means that it percolates into hir wider consciousness.
Mantram (pl.) are very sacred, yet as intimate as a vest. (I was going to say 'pants' but you can see why I didnt!) In the Vedic tradition they are given by the guru /teacher to the chela /student as a uniquely personal gift. I was therefore suitably cautious about adopting SamBhaVa, yet it has served me well.
My adoption of another mantra came about in about 03 when I read Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living & Dying. The founder of his Tibetan lineage was none other than Padma Sambhava, who gave his followers the mantra: Aum ah hum - vajra guru padma siddhi hum. Since then I have added that one. The meaning is eternal-I-am, diamond-teacher-consciousness-miraculous-am. IOW, the eternal is within me, educated by /to a shining & incisive consciousness I am /attract the miraculous.
Seemed good to me!
2008/05/07
Going & Doing
When I wake in the early hours I follow after my mind, as it emerges fresh from sleep. In these moments it is reborn each day, with a love/energy that springs from the stars. I listen to what my dreamworld is telling me; and if /when specific people appear present I engage with them throu prayer – respectfully holding them on the altar of my heart and invoking light in their lives.
So it is that I send you love from the profoundest part of my heart. I make no claim to understand exactly where you are in yourself, but I am familiar with the terrain your creative life is now traversing, and so my purpose in writing is to reassure you that you are held in love, and that the turning you took is correct (provided you persist), and that it will bring rewards.
The advice I offer from experience is that the way /path is itself the purpose of your journey, not the goal you aim for, important as that is to motivate your progression. For it is in following the path that transformation occurs, not in reaching the goal. The goal you do reach, will almost certainly not be the one you were aiming for – but will be a greater fulfilment than you could have dreamt.
So it is that I send you love from the profoundest part of my heart. I make no claim to understand exactly where you are in yourself, but I am familiar with the terrain your creative life is now traversing, and so my purpose in writing is to reassure you that you are held in love, and that the turning you took is correct (provided you persist), and that it will bring rewards.
The advice I offer from experience is that the way /path is itself the purpose of your journey, not the goal you aim for, important as that is to motivate your progression. For it is in following the path that transformation occurs, not in reaching the goal. The goal you do reach, will almost certainly not be the one you were aiming for – but will be a greater fulfilment than you could have dreamt.
2008/04/22
What is it to be?
We do not become truly human until we acknowledge the divine (undying) aspect of our personalities.
2008/04/09
Finding your point of balance
Yesterday I had a solo harpsichord concert in London, and been practising for 3 hours a day during the final month. To do so is so ridiculously uneconomic in relation to the fee that even the phrase ‘pay to play’ pales into irrelevance.
What then is the reward? I think it is the gain/s in focus & self-awareness (during the learning process) & in self-confidence (from successful performance) – which are like the payoff a sports person gets from reaching peak condition & then pushing themselves even further to achieve a personal best.
The important life lesson for kids in music is even more valuable than sport & it’s this: a personal best does not involve you winning or losing in relation to other people (thus it is without an emotional downside, given adequate preparation) – what it does do is to put you in touch with the bedrock of your own psyche & help you to decipher your personal hand-eye-brain coordinates & the illusions /cultural mythology of how we all see, hear & respond which form the delusions or programming which govern most people's perception.
Where music is unique among the arts is that, once you’ve mastered your craft sufficiently to be able to hear yourself objectively, the sound you make offers instant feedback to keep you centred in the experience itself, and because, when you succeed, it is auditorily gratifying. Thereby a virtuous circle is created which validates your ego, and so reinforces your self-worth. One of my arguments against exams is that this ‘affirmation of human uniqueness’ is such an important discovery for each and every person to make by some means in their life, and one whose importance so far transcends ‘piano’, that creating conditions where a particular type of human (to wit those with an aptitude for music) can begin this long slow self-circling is the most valuable thing a music teacher can offer pupils. It’s an infinitely subtle & on-going evolutionary process and to mislead students into believing that the purpose of acquiring musical skill is defined by what can be measured in exams, or even as a shortcut to applause, is completely to misinform them about the re-creational possibilities music offers for refreshing their inner world in adulthood.
If you know yourself only in terms of other people’s valuation, then your well-being remains dependent on the opinion of others: but if by engaging with the confluence between intention & execution (which making music demands) you come to discover where /how your personal physical and psychological truths interact, you are thus led towards your human uniqueness – and from this all that is best human achievement springs, for this gives the individual a fulcrum to move the mass.
What then is the reward? I think it is the gain/s in focus & self-awareness (during the learning process) & in self-confidence (from successful performance) – which are like the payoff a sports person gets from reaching peak condition & then pushing themselves even further to achieve a personal best.
The important life lesson for kids in music is even more valuable than sport & it’s this: a personal best does not involve you winning or losing in relation to other people (thus it is without an emotional downside, given adequate preparation) – what it does do is to put you in touch with the bedrock of your own psyche & help you to decipher your personal hand-eye-brain coordinates & the illusions /cultural mythology of how we all see, hear & respond which form the delusions or programming which govern most people's perception.
Where music is unique among the arts is that, once you’ve mastered your craft sufficiently to be able to hear yourself objectively, the sound you make offers instant feedback to keep you centred in the experience itself, and because, when you succeed, it is auditorily gratifying. Thereby a virtuous circle is created which validates your ego, and so reinforces your self-worth. One of my arguments against exams is that this ‘affirmation of human uniqueness’ is such an important discovery for each and every person to make by some means in their life, and one whose importance so far transcends ‘piano’, that creating conditions where a particular type of human (to wit those with an aptitude for music) can begin this long slow self-circling is the most valuable thing a music teacher can offer pupils. It’s an infinitely subtle & on-going evolutionary process and to mislead students into believing that the purpose of acquiring musical skill is defined by what can be measured in exams, or even as a shortcut to applause, is completely to misinform them about the re-creational possibilities music offers for refreshing their inner world in adulthood.
If you know yourself only in terms of other people’s valuation, then your well-being remains dependent on the opinion of others: but if by engaging with the confluence between intention & execution (which making music demands) you come to discover where /how your personal physical and psychological truths interact, you are thus led towards your human uniqueness – and from this all that is best human achievement springs, for this gives the individual a fulcrum to move the mass.
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