The cord snaps

We stood around the bed,
some listening,
some full of thought.
Another entered.
Greetings filled the space.

Procedures were uppermost
in people’s minds,
or at least that was
what was spoken.
I wanted to honour the moment

of a passing;
but all I could hear
was the sound of ties
snapping, the clicks
of an era ending.

It was as if
the fruit that had fallen to earth
now broke apart
allowing the seeds to find
their fate alone.

The gift in death

The gift in death
is one of ultimate clarity.
All that obsesses us
in our humdrum lives abruptly
and permanently
reduced to extreme simplicity.

We are here, now,
alive, forever united in death –
that crystaline moment
when flesh & spirit separate:
each discrete path
released from its earthly mold.

The physical, visible:
the meta-physical seen only by
the inner eye.
The path that was trodden in life at last
made manifest:
earth-bound or sky-borne in destination.

A time of uniquely
valuable focus, an aquifer
feeding our well-spring,
tears arising from long-dry ducts,
burning to light
deep-buried truth of hopes and fears.

Cherishing
the bleakness is honouring the dead –
each special feeling
bringing us contact with our own truth.
Every heartbeat
proof that the dead are always with us –

birth & death
just marks on an eternal cycle,
weaving together
the seen & unseen worlds, each as
close to other
as blood to its surrounding tissue.

My mother waits in the great ante-chamber

When I kissed my mother for the last time, she was no longer there.
Her hands still waved, as if seeking to drink,
but her mind had already passed over the great river
and was safe on the other side, beyond the power of hurt.

As she has lain, falling slowly towards death, this year
I have found in her the mother I could not find in life.
All that jammed our mutual radar fell away,
and I could experience the love she always meant, but which,
somehow, got so jangled in transmission.

Towards the end we met on equal terms, she
no longer feeling that ancient need to stand her ground,
her insecurities always on display around me;
and I no longer needing to attack, for now she was beyond
anywhere where I could, at last, have made her hear me.

So, finally, we were together.
Just … together, nothing more.
She told me what she wanted at her funeral – had saved,
not pills, but a stash of service-sheets against her end.
And so, finally, I knew her – as she had always known me. Two angels
unable to recognise each other throu their mortal clothing.

In fact my mother was admitted to the sky a couple of hours more or less as I was writing this.

Quaker Meeting

Here in this space I am made welcome.
There is something which allows me
to enter within some greater mind.

It is here that I first learnt –
to detach my consciousness
and trust others to anchor my soul –

to see the ego’s identity
merely as gatekeeper, aggrandising
its role by masking my inner being.

There is something unique about
this goal-less space, where all contribute
yet which no one person leads.

It is a constant affirmation:
that there exists within the human
spirit a profound capacity

for wholeness: that where there is
goodwill there is spontaneous healing
for all the griefs of humankind –

a world made new and green as spring,
suddenly perfect, like virgin snow,
where all is soft & trembling with love.

This is the route to the maze’s heart,
the secret path that avoids dead ends
synchronising death and birth.

It is an everyday miracle,
an always-to-be-discovered oasis
that cannot be made yet which always is.

Intunity, or 'what makes the heart sing' (?)

Like many artists, I am searching for a universal language, a form of expression which may be instinctively perceived by people from a differing cultural background. My consciousness (the author of these words) is engaged as a translator in negotiating meanings between two clients: my inner reality & the outer (poly-cultural) world we all now inhabit. All art is simply the result of how each individual negotiates this maze.

Part of the issue for me, as for anyone, is first to define myself to myself. Few of us are as sure-footed as Mozart! Ive tried many different styles of clothing, both sartorial & musical, but none has exactly met my inner ideal; tho people have responding by finding some more in tune with the image they have of me than others. For me, the synthesis I achieved in Sonnets to Orpheus expressed everything I wanted, but the result apparently spoke to noonelse(!)

As a classical musician, literacy gives access to all the emotional worlds encoded within the historical record of the last 500 years' music. For instance, I adore the heart-felt simplicity of William Byrd. Each musical epoch has a special quality which encodes the 3-dimensional emotional reality of those who actually lived the music. I enjoy equally: entering the claustrophobic paranoia of Shostakovich: the unihibited joie de vivre of Little Richard: the libertas in carcieri (freedom within restraint) of Bach.

Yet now, for the first time in history, all options are open in our polyvalent polycultural world. Yet there is not total freedom, in the sense that the music has to be paid for in one currency or another, and that currency is provided by listener/s. In essence this proposition isn't different from magic or stand-up comedy - both mean little without an audience. They are a unique concordat between actor & engaged observer/s, wherein it is the 'plausibility' of the actor's vibration that initiates the process.

All of us imagine that communication from heart to heart is incredibly simple. And it is when those hearts are attuned. But anyone has only to think of hir own sexual history to be reminded that success is merely the tip of a fairly large iceberg! Evn tho it's magic when it works.

So what attunes hearts? There are many levels at which communication can occur, from the superficial style-tribes of the emerging personalities to the quiet certainties of the resolved heart. And in between, the cash-rich desert of morally-torpid consumerism. Each attracts a different 'elective affinity' based on the consonance or consanguinity of any given actor's heart vibration. This accords with the saying "beware of what you wish for in youth, for in middle age you may well achieve it."

This energy is, if you like, a god energy. In polytheistic cultures you align yourself with a god who expresses /symbolises the energy you desire. Now we are aware that this power is a heart power latent in each of us, and it therefore matters tremendously (tremendsouly!) that we honour this power by 'offering it back' to the dynamic life-force which defines our life trajectory. (See para Each birth is the firing of an arrow) By so doing we align ourselves with our authentic, un-consciously-knowable soul purpose in incarnating. The problem we face today is that the word God has been completely devalued by unmindful usage. The volcanic reality the first Jews were so terrified of conjuring that they refused to utter the name by which they cognised it, JHVH - I AM, has degenerated into a plaster figurine. No wonder people don't put faith in anything like that which they see, quite accurately, as a projection.

However, the reality that concept embodies, defines all that gives us humans our greatest life-force. I therefore think it more useful to discuss the idea of a 'heart matrix' since everyone knows they have a heart, even if they don't think they have a soul, a god, or a life-purpose! The image I have of the heart-matrix is of a bank of heart-buttons which illuminate when pressed signalling the gamut of software connections within our consciousness. Different buttons /lights all wired to different aspects of our psyche: some to positive (wanted) emotions, some to unconscious shadow-realities arousing negative emotions, some to ambition & the outward journey, some to otherness & the inner journey, some to biological needs, some to in/security.

Thus what we respond to in others is their capacity to press our buttons, for better or worse. There seems to be a mechanism in life like 'Indian' Poker (a variant where 4 cards are dealt in common on the table while the 5th card is held by each player in front of hir head, so that everyone knows what everyonelse's card is but not their own!) where we see all the more clearly in others what we fail to see in ourselves!

My observation of life suggests that the more of other people's positive buttons we press the fuller the life we enjoy; perhaps because the heart mechanism makes it hard to reach our own(?) - thus like herd animals we have to stimulate reciprocal behaviour in others to get what we in fact want ourselves. In other words, the most fulfilled people are those with the largest social networks.

So it doesn't take a vast leap of imagination to see that those who are ablest at pressing other people's buttons are likely to be the most illuminated themselves. And what else is intunity but the multivalent synchrony of hearts?

What feedback does that then give me about the music I should write? Well, I've recently been spending a lot of time organising Nadder Music Café – & for me the payoff that justifies all the hassle is to see a crowd of happy faces. I think the role of musician & magician are essentially synonymous – & therefore in order to 'do' magic you have to find out what (musical) buttons connect other people's shining heart-lights in exactly the same way that you have to find which keys to press as a pianist to generate the music which is the vehicle for that magic.

Reconciliation

When the earth turns you don't notice it. It is always turning, yet the movement is only visible by its effect/s. For me, two days ago a similar revolution occurred.
. My parents divorced some 33 years ago, having been separated for around 12 years. This was preceded by 5 years of increasing friction and acrimony. At the time of their separation my father Charles claimed they had not made love since the birth of my younger sister in 1953. They have remained on superficially friendly terms. My mother Elizabeth never ceased to love Charles & never had a relationship with anyonelse. My father had a number of relationships & eventually married again. It was his second wife Trudy who brought him, as Charles would have been unable to travel by himself.
. Both are now 87 and in increasingly frail health. Knowing that my mother is dying, my father decided he must come from the Isle of Man to pay her one last visit earlier this week, despite the fact that he had previously announced his intention not to fly again as his legs are not good. Elizabeth is not always clear of mind these days, but she knew who he was & was delighted to see him. Their simple act of being alone together, all passion spent, was a reconciliation that effected a very profound healing on the 4 of us present, including my wife Clancy. The significant part for me was that I could embrace my father on equal ground. For the first time in my conscious memory he let go of his emotional armour & we all cried as he held onto Elizabeth's hand and we hugged each other, genuinely, & for the very first time.
. It felt very profound, but its deeper significance has only really become apparent to me in the days since. To my surprise I have found myself thinking peaceably of certain authority figures who have hitherto always bugged me. Thus, I can measure the true affect not by my subjective feelings but observing how much my world has turned around, by such a simple act.

To find the point of death is finding the centre of life

I spend a fair amount of time these days mother-sitting. You don't really notice old age until you suddenly realise: you're next!
My mother has been in & out of hospital for a year. Without modern medicine she probably wouldntve survived into this century. (Indeed she wouldntve survived her first brush with cancer 40 years ago.) But I don't know how much kinder the modern way is? The hospital she's spent most time in is collectively so unaware of the first principles of healing that it really is a travesty of language to describe it by that name: it is a place where materialistic medicine is an industrialised set of technical procedures practised by faceless relays of people employed because they possess a paper qualification – for which empathy with patients is evidently not a criterion.

What I've been struck by is the complete loss of any sense that the process of healing requires the reciprocal response from the patient. Medicine, like entertainment, is something that is done by experts to passive consumers. In the days before science decided it knew everything (or rather, that everything it doesn't know doesn't matter) the person seeking healing needed to go on a journey – maybe a physical one to find a healer, maybe a spiritual one to find an inner place of healing. At all events, it seems a very much healthier approach to illness to demand an engaged consciousness, for without the will to decode & transcend the experience what is physical healing actually for?
"Oh I had an illness but I got over it." "Did it change your life?" "No I was determined it wasn't going to." How often do you hear that said? The entire life lesson in the experience has been missed. If the journey into health isn't synonymous with a journey into wholeness what is gained? Will the individual be any more reconciled to their end-point? Will they have completed /uttered their true sentence before the final full stop?

I read recently that there is now a theory that the dolmens of Stonehenge were transported thither from the Pengelly mountains because the latter is a place of springs & geo-logy/-mancy that had a long association with healing among the Goidelic peoples. Thus the purpose behind the epic undertaking of transporting them to the rising cultural capital of Stonehenge was to make it a healing centre in addition to everything else.
But then it would would never have occurred to neolithic tribes that healing was an individualistic function, they would have seen it as part & parcel of collective unity / wholeness. Whatever took place at Stonhenge probably combined ideas we parcel out to Lourdes, Wembley, Westminster, Glastonbury, Findhorn, old Covent Garden & the Hammersmith Palais - with a bit of Minos, Pamplona & Tenochtitlan thrown in for good measure. (Ritual sacrifice that is.)
I had the extraordinary experience recently, driving home from Mother-sitting, of coming along the A303 in the gathering dusk listening to Gergiev's blistering performance of Le Sacre at the end of BBCr3's Tchaik/Strav week. And with absolute synchronicity the tremendous crashing sacrifice was reaching its climax as I drove up the hill from which the stones are first seen, leaving the ghostly final movement drifting in te ether as passed by this age-honoured point of connection with the inner world. (BTW This performance is available on iTunes. It is more completely intune (/aesthetically aligned) with the music than any I've ever heard.)

Is it any wonder, with all these functions spun off into specialist arenas perceived as having little or no interaction, that half the neurotic illnesses today seem to centre on an inability to experience wholeness - or, to centre on an inability to find a centre? Certainly there is a prevalent view (held, I suspect, by my brother the doctor) that there's very little a patient does that affects the progress or outcome of a condition in comparison with the application of scientific treatment.

It seems to me that feelings of belongingness & healing & psychic unity & purpose which we cherish with/in those rare moments of experiential magic speak to us of the clarity of focus which was once our birthright with/in the collective relationship of a tribe. I'm not talking of the anthropologically-discounted Noble Savage myth - yet I certainly have experienced something of it within that strange tribal assembly which is the Big Green Gathering, an 'elective affinity' wherein irritation & affection are as inextricably intermingled as in a birth family but across an infinitely wider social spectrum.

We compose /write /organise for no other purpose (maybe?) than to clarify our own minds, to express what is in them – in the hope that by discharged our obligations we can achieve some equilibrium, & thus gain an unobstructed view inward throu the divine lens in our heart to the infinite goodness & interrelatedness of all created matter.
Each birth is the firing of an arrow. Its natural energy sends that arrow as high into the sky as nature & nurture allow. As it soars into the air its shadow is invisible on the ground. But after reaching its zenith the arrow turns back towards the earth. And as it nears the ground its shadow becomes ever more clearly visible.
That arrow is the physical manifestation of a person's soul. The mind /consciousness is the observer. In early life the process is not usually clear because even if anyone looks in the sky for the arrow they are generally dazzled by the sun. Only later in the day, when the angles are easier to spot & the shadows larger, does the bigger picture become clear. Even then, many people do not see that to complete the process, to fulfil the arc of life, demands that we become present at our own death.
If the ultimate purpose of life is to find union with 'all that is' & by this alignment to transcend metaphysical gravity (the time & space in which death is a reality) then it seems to me - a day after yet another massacre in that most unbalanced of countries, the USA – the only way is by integrating the shadow - by assimilating within ourselves the duality holding us back from our true purpose in life. This involves engagement with all that is distasteful about ourselves.
It may involve some kind of wilderness experience, & that is why the disorientation following a job loss, a breakup or bereavement can be a blessing in disguise. Only by embracing all that is unlovable can we truly discover love, and only in uncovering the endless spring of love that we can discern what lies in the shadow's penumbra.
Thus we learn to pick our way throu the deceptive attractions which the shadow offers (& which so entertained us earlier on the journey) & come to the heart of life, the point where the arrow, striking the turf, opens to us the infinity that lies within material existence.

I pulled these thoughts together (if indeed they can be said to be together) perhaps as a result of an alchemical dream last night, whose full extent I don't recall, but they left me feeling utterly blissed, & calm enough to decode a lot things that usually slip throu my mind like mercury. I've recently had a sequence of very (self-)impressive dreams, which seem to have arisen as a result of the energy raised within me by playing by heart for the first time in my 60 yearold life.
Finding unity within oneself is a necessary precursor to plant it as a seed on the earth. We cannot bring peace, we can only be it. The gift in death /dying is that it boils everything down to a few simple things, reminding us that how we choose to leave life is probably the single most important thing we have to do. And we all have to do it. So where is it in today's televsion schedules?
It is the small persnal steps we take that matter in this process, not the big public events. Great art links these two: it is the abracadabra that unfolds the mystery for a moment or two, the aufklärung that displays the landscape of existence. Death, or its aproach, is the very public performance of a very private ritual. Playing it by ear will not do, it demands nothing less than playing by heart. Our tribal ancestors once had a grasp on this crucial aspect of life. What is left of that now?

In love

Easter Sunday

My wife Clancy suggested the words Easter/Eostre & Oestrus/Oestrogen might be linked by reference to eggs. I looked them up & found they're from quite different sources, neither of which refers to eggs.
> Easter derives from a pagan spring festival named after a goddess whose name, rather opaquely, is simply cognate with east. Maybe there is a symbolism of dawn /spring /new life rising in the east that also links the tradition of Christian churches facing east?
> Oestru-s/-m derives from the graeco-latin word indicating a sting or frenzy. It was apparently first employed 300 years ago to denote female sexual receptivity & the rutting season (sic!).

> But that was not why I sat down to right this. We were talking about a range of subjects, including the fact that Arts Budgets are being cut by a third to fund the 2012 Olympics; & Clancy remarked that it was remarkable how Blair seemed unable to see beyond his obsessions. (Tho why should we expect him not to be human?) It came to me that the power of projection in someone who suffers from delusions, ie someone who has not clarified their karma & thus achieved any significant integration, is naturally bound to contain a tremendous shadow effect - because it represents the unacknowledged elements in the projector's psyche. For someone with the psychic potency of leadership, integration or the inward process is literally the very last thing on their mind since they spend all their lives juggling with the concrete manifestations of other leaders' & nations' psyches. Thus they are deprived from much chance to cultivate inwardness & so will inevitably project both the positive & negative affects of their unacknowledged subconscious.

Depression created by compression

> It came to me in meditation today that we humans experience Life in a way analogous to the way audio processing works. The system is set up to transmit the signal /content /lifeforce at full bandwidth. but the mind works like a volume control (in old language a potentiometer) to restrict /repress the transmission to a level it (the mind) can handle - as a result of natural or nurtural programming. hence depression.
> Not until we've experienced the full amplitude of the reciprocal nature of the not-I ('that of God') present within each of us throu grace entering our lives, be it by meditation /awakening /spiritual practice /love or as a free gift, can we really begin to understand how the social mechanisms of education & the limited language of public discourse act like audio compressors bashing our natural signal down to a predetermined level.
> The answer to depression is de-compression. Allowing the natural signal to emerge. Of course that feels extremely unsafe to the depressed person, because they've been programmed to believe there are all sorts of limits that they'll inevitably overstep, causing distortion – & it's correspondingly hard for such a person to accept that after the initial splurge of their repressed /compressed signal things settle down natural to a reasonably balanced flow.

Playing By Heart

> This weekend I'm playing an entire ragtime program by heart, something I've never done before - & it has been the most profound inner journey, in which I've had to encounter all my self-loathing WRT performance [around the cognitive dissonance between how well I think I play & how well I actually do play] as well as my hitherto-unresolved complex of emotions connected with musical language & the/its consequent cultural assumptions.
> And then there's the process of programming the physical memory without literacy, which has been surprisingly easy in general but also extraordinarily difficult around the 'corners' or junction moments. In the long run this has been a very joyous form of self-embrace.
> I feel that by facing my fears (the nightmare of forgetting onstage) & not losing my grip on this very intimate engagement with my inadequacies some profound resolution is taking place where I can allow myself to be within the music even tho, or perhaps because, ragtime is not the obvious choice for a spiritual encounter(!)
> And within all of this I came to realise this morning -with 2 days to go- that by not relying on the music 'as a cheat' I am in some profound way engaging with my life-purpose. And having the courage to overcome my youthful propensity to cheat on Life itself because Life itself seemed out to get me, to do me down, to barricade the avenues down which I'd planned that my life would progress.

A Letter to parents of my pupils

Colourful ideas
> Some will already know that I resigned from the Junior Royal College of Music in 1991 because I felt the whole structure of conservatoire pedagogy was like an awful medieval inquisitorial system designed to stretch children on a rack of musical abstraction. A lot of well-meaning colleags could see that it was not a particularly effective way of teaching but it was politically impregnable since nobody could fault the underlying theology – or dared to try lest they themselves be thought 'unsound'.
> I made myself unpopular by arguing in favour of a more child-centred development pattern – because the smart money is in the highly pressured music-industry-driven approach demands 'winners' at ever earlier ages, & colleges know they have to produce their share to secure their prestige.
> During the 10 years I've taught in Tisbury my principal aim has been to develop an approach that enables musical children to progress, whilst retaining /growing their love of music. Blindingly obvious as such an objective might seem, my observation is that exam-based music learning does not tend to produce those results. Certainly judging by the disaffect individuals to make it to & throu colleges.
> Whilst fully aware of the standards undergraduate music demands, I believe they can be approached differently. But it takes several decades to produce a sufficient body of pupils to demonstrate convincingly that an alernative approach has coherence & validity. The weight of professional skepticism is oppressive - even to 'a natural-born contrarian'. Thus I am tremendously grateful to a parent for this feedback:
> ... a very big thank you for the work that you have put in with J to get his head (and fingers) around Joze Bluze. As you know, he played in the Spring Concert, (put on rather obviously for the inspectors) and he really did everybody proud, not only because he managed to keep his rhythm but also because it was so different from the tedious graded pieces that the other children played -it really did stand out that he is not taught at school and there were many enquiries as to whom his teacher was- perhaps it is time that your Colourmuse scheme be introduced to schools. I certainly know many parents at [school] who simply want their children to enjoy making music, as opposed to making the grade with the Associated Bored of Music!

Contact Time
> In essence, the whole process of piano learning/teaching is the art of creating a virtuous circle. Pupils need to feel enthused in order to practice – they want to practice if/when they can feel themselves making progress – they will make progress if they can be shown how to practise. All 3 parts are as-it-were simultaneously chickens & eggs ... it’s impossible to say which comes first, & a teacher has to be opportunistic about nudging the components into alignment whenever possible. The lesson time is the only opportunity, and if this is rushed it doesn’t allow the child to begin to feel ownership of the process, & this is a necessary precursor to enthusiasm.
> 5 years ago I was introduced to the idea of offering two lessons a week by a colleag –a real antediluvian dragon who lurks at Wells!– She said she would only take beginners if they agreed to come twice a week. Fearing parents would merely think I was trying to pick their pockets I offered this idea tentatively & was pleasantly surprised when a couple of families enthusiastically adopted the idea.
> If I say that progress in the early years of musical learning is defined by tutor contact time I don't mean to flatter myself. It is simply that where a relationship of trust exists pupils will accept being floated over difficulties by a tutor where, left to themselves, they might flounder & sink. Apart from the obvious benefit of never getting stuck for more than 3 days -as opposed to 6 days- the value of a twice-weekly lesson is that an increased 'musical fitness' leads to a significant increase in enthusiasm and thus promotes the virtuous circle, which ultimately leads to self-motivated musicianship.
> This is not a prelude to a commercial, I haven't any more slots at present! No, it's a reflexion on a situation where someone who had had twice weekly lessons for a couple of years has had to slip back to once weekly for school reasons. Parent, child & myself have all noticed that music has suddenly got 'harder' & small discouragements more mountainous. To my mind this unfortunate experience vindicates the two lesson concept.
> Following on, I should say that I'm always mindful that parents are making a substantial monetary & emotional investment in piano lessons, and have a right to expect some return. In my role as devil's advocate I have argued in professional circles that 'qualifications' should not be awarded to teachers for at least 15 years, because their competence can only really be assessed by the number of people still playing 5 years after they stop lessons. Unsurprisingly such a view was as welcome as a fart in a tightly packed room.

Nadder Music Café
> Moving quickly along I need to tell you how wonderful the Nadder Music Café has been. Last saturday night there was a performance of such grandeur by a 21 year old cellist that one of the audience said to me: 'to hear this in Tisbury – I just can't believe it!' ... & I should say that the mood of the evening was brilliantly established by Johnny Murphy. Clips of this will eventually be viewable at Vision-news.tv where there are clips of the previous concerts.
> The point I sought to make to parents & pupils when announcing the concerts is that musical imagination is only really developed by personal encounters with live music. If you want your kids weaned off trashy television & playstations then open their horizons by putting them in direct emotional contact with that strange psychic alchemy that occurs at live events. Recorded entertainment can never replicate this.
> We even made the concerts free to children – but so far only one child (& none of my pupils) has attended. And I'm not saying this to make anyone feel guilty or because we want more audience. We were bursting at the seams last Saturday & as we know the next one will be fuller we’re having to devise a new seating plan. And we are also extremely grateful to those parents who have come themselves, no doubt glad of a night out unencumbered!
> The glory (& horror) of concert-giving is that noone can predict when magic will strike. We've had 3 where it really has -& that's why people have been returning– so they were 3 occasions when little musical ears could have been pricked up. It's really important for kids to begin to make some connection between what they do at a keyboard & a wider musical environment – that begins to make them aware that is more than just another task like schoolwork.
> I would like to see the formation of an 'intelligent' musical culture in Tisbury, by that I don't mean a backward-looking one, or one that appeals only to one sector of society, or one designed to attract an audience that already 'knows what it likes' – I mean one where people come to listen. Hence the strategy of basing it around a meal, which takes some of the pressure off the music itself, and therefore gives the musicians both greater head-space & elbow-room within which to weave their magic collaboratively: as opposed to the 'confrontational' pressure of a concert situation which seeks to differentiate performers & audience.

Music & life
> I just don't think life is about targets & statistical achievement. More than that I think they're a crap way of educating human beings to perceive their function cooperators in social enterprises of mutual value. (The ultimate one being the survival of life forms on the planet.) The question then is, how can anyone change anything?
> The late avantgarde composer John Cage (who 'wrote' the notorious 3'44" work of silence) published a diary which he called How to improve the World (You will only make Matters worse). Despite that prudent advice I think one can, in a very small & local way, set about promoting virtuous circles calculated to encourage the necessary but difficult balance between excelling and cooperating, where personal excellence (eg, piano) is not seen as competitive or divisive but is encouraged within a holistic social context (eg, concert).
> All my life I've worked with the same vision that led the septuagenarian jazzer (now, Sir) John Dankworth to create Wavendon All-Music 30+ years ago. Why not Tisbury All-Music? Change always comes from the margins (& it doesn't get more marginal than Wavendon or Tisbury!) - the centre can never change, it is the property of the status quo. Inevitably.
> I did not discover how to change myself or anything else until I followed my disenchantment all the way throu its own labyrinth to the middle of nowhere (Tisbury). And since utopia means nowhere, what better place to be utopian?

Going too fast for love?

"You can have speed (excitement) – or you can have love. You can't have both, tho it's easy to mistake one for the other, since love produces an energy which speed merely mimics. Love is being present & allowing your presents to present themselves in their natural form – speed is to do with the race to become, 'career', the pressure to shape things into a predetermined pattern.
"There are two worlds here. The outward journey, the prodigal son's adventure of differentiation, the process that drives someone to the farthest point away from the self, so that by charting their extremities their centre at last becomes clear. The return journey involves the reconciliation of all one has needed to distinguish oneself from in order to achieve clarity.
"Like the firing of an arrow or the throwing of a javelin, the initial phase outward /upward involves the projection of energy & will; but as the projectile reaches its zenith it turns back towards the earth, and in the return the priorities are reversed. You are no longer the doer, the driver, gravity is; and everything that hindered the first part of the arc accelerates the second. Obstacles become friends: friends become obstacles.
"This paradox means that as you return to the earth the essential nature of the inner or return journey is hidden from those blasting off on their life path – but love can imprint markers to guide those who come after, which they will recognise in time & be grateful for."

Fire starters wanted

"Each person on the planet has the capacity to contribute their pin-prick of light. Yet glow as they will no individual is visible from space. However if you spread the light by setting others ablaze & by combining to make common cause – then light clusters can be created that are truly visible in the heavens."

Enjoy

"At each & every moment of your life there is a message both to you & throu you.
The latter you may never see, just as you may never know whom you have really helped, but the former you need to decode to stay in the game. If you get too goal-oriented you'll never see the real point of any stress that arises – namely to help you grow into a perception that you, soul-you, is quite separate from the pressures which ego-you, the body-mind complex, may be enduring.

Where can enjoyment be in being gript by the jaws of disaster?
"Once you can see stressful situations, even potentially fatal ones, as simply a test then you're on your way to discovering the indwelling joy which is the fruit of the spirit, and birthright of every true child of god – the peace that passes all understanding. Literally so, because, rationally, it is inexplicable.
"If you have truly made a relationship with your inner otherness, then the vexations /dangers /losses /disasters /sicknesses that afflict everyone to one degree or other become grist to the mill, not distractions. Just as you can use boring repetitive actions for reciting affirmations, so everything that is a stumbling block for those on the outward journey can be an accelerator for those on the inward journey.
"Enjoyment becomes injoyment. Encouragement becomes incouragemeant. Energy becomes innergy. Entertainment becomes innerattainment. The choice is always yours."

Affirmation

I AM the being I AM:
I allow the process of transformation.

The Arrow

Each birth is the firing of an arrow. Its natural energy sends that arrow as high into the sky as nature & nurture allow. As it soars into the air its shadow is invisible on the ground. But after reaching its zenith the arrow turns back towards the earth. And as it nears the ground its shadow becomes ever more clearly visible.
> That arrow is the physical manifestation of each person's soul. The mind /consciousness is the observer. In early life the process is not usually clear because even if anyone looks in the sky for the arrow they are generally dazzled by the sun. Only later in the day, when the angles are easier to spot & the shadows larger, does the bigger picture become clear. Even then, many people do not see that to complete the process, to fulfil the arc of life, demands that we become present at our own death.

How do we do this?
> By integrating the shadow - by assimilating within ourselves the duality holding us back from our true purpose in life. This involves engagement with all that is distasteful about ourselves. It may involve some kind of wilderness experience, & that is why the disorientation following a job loss, a breakup or bereavement can be a blessing in disguise. Only by embracing all that is unlovable can we truly discover love, and only in uncovering the endless spring of love that we can discern what lies in the shadow's penumbra.
> Thus we learn to pick our way throu the deceptive attractions which the shadow offers (& which so entertained us earlier on the journey) & come to the heart of life, the point where the arrow, striking the turf, opens to us the infinity that lies within material existence.

Christmas

> In the same way that I don't see any contradiction at all between science & the existence of a primordial intelligence who, like the 'shared intelligence' of herd instinct, exists within & yet transcends all life-forms, I don't see an inherent contradiction between the evolution of humans souls throu reincarnation & the potential of Christ-energy dramatically to accelerate the accepting out of the earth plane.
> I'm sure that the highest calling we can have is to reach a point of poise, by integrating our shadow, & so to free ourselves to move off the earth-plane & become a sustaining spirit in the metaphysical structure that connects the pure raw energy of that primordial intelligence to the physical world. It would appear to me that the gift in martyrdom is that by accepting death in love the soul us freed to zoom up a celestial ladder, while those who die 'rag[ing] against the dying of the light' attract a celestial snake!
> Underneath the tinsel, stomach-stuffing & refuse mountains, it is the entry of that 'powerless' Christ-energy into the world at the darkest point of the year which this day celebrates. To me this does not exclude the perspective & gifts of other traditions, particularly the Tibetan & Vedic lineage from which I have gained so much amplifying awareness. But in recent years a lot of focus has been placed on the negative record of Christianity, which is undeniable, & it's easy to lose sight of the idea which opens John's Gospel that there is a light which, from the beginning of time, has been continuously entering the world & irradiating the darkness and which has manifested discretely in certain avatars.
> Marie-Louise Von Franz's analysis of/in The Grail Legend is that the concept of the grail represents a mystical essence which is required to complete /integrate /transcend the unresolved dichotomy between light energy & dark energy which is the philosophical heredity of medieval churchianity. She argues that while we continue to see 'the devil' as having potency over /expressing unintegrated aspects of human behaviour we are condemned to repeat the patterns of denial that perpetuate the very duality projection which the devil represents. And that this itself is a feature of the churches' projection of an unnatural or superhuman 'lightness' onto the figure of a male Christ, & a projective reduction of the feminine to a bloodless sideshow - which in turn has led, as we know, to the 'demonisation' of ordinary sanguinary females. More on The Grail Legend
> The paradox being that we have to let go of capital-C Christ in order to find our own small-c christ /annointment within. This is the teaching of that classic of late medieval mysticism, The Cloud of Unknowing.
> Altho I find the run-up to Christmas utter hell, the commercial 'sincerity', the faux-bonhomie, the feeling that present buying is like a terrible exam you have to re-sit every year & always fail(!) I still wish you a really Happy Christmas.

They

They do not require justification,
They are.

Their hearts beat lightly
in time with the great heart.

They do not strive to consume,
nor to possess, nor to advance themselves.

They bring light into the world,
weaving rainbows & starlight into everyday life
as spiders spin the magic dew into morning jewels.

They aspire to be no more than a feather on the breath,
and dying have no greater wish than to be the breath itself
wafting seeds of hope around the globe to fertile soil.

They cannot be disappointed who have no appointment.
Tho sorrow, tho loss, tho suffering touch them
it cannot etch bitterness into their heart,
for their heart is enclosed in the hand of a loving parent.
Having one wish, to serve, they cannot be discouraged
when service is long and hard.

They who transform humanity’s inhumanity,
they alone resolve injustice,
refusing to demand the second eye, the second tooth.


They? Who are they?
They are we who have ventured into our own darkness,
who have journeyed to the point where I become you.
They are we who see that to beggar my neibour
is to beggar myself – who have perceived that the goal of life
is not to acquire wealth, but to acquire wisdom –
who’ve realised that materialism ties the soul to the earth,
while spirituality releases it to fulfil the destiny of the sky-born.

They are us:
We are you:
I am hir.

As I become,
you too become,
& thus we are.

If you are,
I also am,
but if we are not – noone is.

All is thou – & yet ‘thou’ is more.
Thou art more.


Light and dark are alike.
Antitheses moulding each other
to give existence form.
Night yields to day;
flood turns to ebb;
up becomes down –
each an index of the other’s power.
So it is with love & hatred – no aspect
of experience unrelated to its opposite.

In the dynamic equation of the cosmos
the outcome is always 1 or 0.
The light of I hovering between the 1,
or subjective atma, & its enclosing zero,
the luminous dark brahma of not-I –
each higgs-boson dancing just for me,
yet for nobody – being being the centre point of Being.

It is you, it is me, it is the hidden clarity of I AM
that draws us from the sweet illusions of sleep
into the longed-for dream of waking to a higher self.

Miss this one point & its circumference is invisible.
You see it? You don’t? Both are the background OM,
the ever-oscillating alpha & omega,
as infinity yields its presents.

In the slow process of coming to at-one-ment,
our attunement to what was always inside us,
I & U are the binary vibration of harmony –
an intunity radiating from the heart-wise.

At this point of oneness, there is no I,
for we’re invisibly they, & thou invisibly me.
Resolving this equation fills the beggar’s bowl with stardust,
calming hir aching belly with edible meaning
– rain bringing new life to a dried-out plain.
Balance requires no justification
if the (w)holeness of no-thing
is made perfect in loving one who is nought.

Night

"Truth is visible even in the darkness - it is heard when the busyness of day falls silent.
Love blossoms at night, & in the wee small hours all is renewed.
Love stands in the moonlight listening & waiting for the right moment to act."

Love is all around you

"Dont think of love only in terms of relationships; realise that it exists in the whole natural environment & fabric of life on earth. It's not cuddly or sentimental 'Christmas-only' love, but a vital, vigorous force that enables life to grow round obstacles. It's your job to make that real to people. Humans could do so much to make the planet a paradise, instead they end up making much of it a hell, both for themselves and for all other life-forms, because they don't understand vast scope & simple-complexity that how true love encompasses. They think love applies only to humans, and only in a certain kind of way. How tragic."

> Why then is this deeper reality not seen?
"Because of ego & intellect. Christ said 'unless you become like a little child you cannot (even) see the kingdom of heaven,' far less enter it. To understand, you have to see the natural goodness around you and amplify that – instead of seeing all the deviousness & crookedness, and responding to that."

> What is the kingdom of heaven?
"It is no more, no less than to be at peace with(in) yourself. You put yourself on the pathway to it by setting aside nearly everything your education taught you about becoming an adult!"