This Life

I am strolling up and along an unfamiliar coastal trail, slowly making my way to its highest point. I can smell the salt air, as I drink in the ocean view and distant horizon. Such quiet moments in nature often surface memories long forgotten. This time it is of a bronze statue in Scotland that I once loved of two figures on a bench gazing out at a placid lake.

I am contemplating the memory of the statue, the calmness of the ocean, my rhythmic footfall over dry leaves when I suddenly come upon two figures sitting on a stone bench with their backs to me. They are no more than twenty yards away, two women in their later years gazing out at the Pacific. One has white, short, wispy hair; the other has hints of gray woven through a thick, cocoa braid. Their bodies, both gentle and sturdy, could have been cast from the same mold.

They are all stillness. They could be statues. But their energy is palpable.

Not a word passes between them. And yet I sense a conversation in progress.

I take one quiet step closer. I am affected by their solitary yet dynamic field of relatedness. I watch them scan the scene, each in their own way, content yet so present in the experience. A dance of vitality and serenity.

Without them ever knowing, I join them in this compelling dance. With it comes a deep sense of aliveness and peace. From this ground, it is as if they are saying, “It is only this life that matters—yours, mine, ours together with all living beings—this life with all the nuances of challenges and breathtaking bounty.”

This life.

Thank you for the reminder.

A Persistent Question

Breathing a sigh of relief, I settle into the easy chair that has held me so many times in its arms.

Within seconds, it shows up… again. This constant, haunting question that began as a fleeting whisper so long ago.

Not so now. A ferocious discussion is transpiring. I would rather ignore the discourse altogether. However, it has come to the point where that is simply impossible.

Like sand in an oyster shell, this persistent question is changing me. I’m not sure who I am becoming. However, I am certain it is opening me to another way of being, if I can only stay with this irritable, extraordinary inquiry long enough for it to create its own pearl of wisdom.

Guileless

As I approach the park bench, I recognize those blond curls resting midway down her back, refusing to conform.

It’s been many months. I’m already happy to see her again.

I come around the bench to greet her. She leaps up. We hug and then sit down without a word.

As though mid conversation, she begins, “What is happening to our world? I think we are very ill.” Her eyes are gentle and inquisitive.

The guileless nature of her inquiry prompts me to respond with reassuring conviction, “Once, when I was feeling despondent about the state of our world, a wise woman shared something I’ve never forgotten. She said, ‘The circle is the birthplace of the new human; and when millions of those circles take shape and connect, we will realize a profound evolution of humanity.’* I believe she meant that we do not do this alone. We do this in the company of others, and with others what is possible is beyond our imagination.”

Our conversation carries on from one idea to the next. Then we sit closely in silence for a long time. Minutes disappear, until we must part once again.

“To be continued,” we vow to one another, as we re-enter the world, both hopeful and guileless from our meeting.

*Quote by Ann Dosher

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The Duo

In rare moments when he is vulnerable—softer, more open than usual—he begins to speak of his friend, his mentor. We are all listening, the group of us, held in wonder beneath the wooden beams of this majestic hall.

As I listen, I ponder whether this hall was built in the custom of barn raising: in the tradition of using the labor of a community to build a barn for one. It feels that way. And it feels the same now. Our collective alchemy has opened a space for one, in a way that makes us all stronger.

He says, “I loved him. And he challenged me. We differed and with that difference came disruptions between us. These disruptions became openings for emergent ideas, creative impulses that I believe could not have been possible had we not allowed for such openings to occur.”

After a barn is raised, the community can gather there, work there. Similarly, when a space opens for one voice, that voice becomes an invitation for another. As I listen to him speak of this dance with his mentor, I can feel music rising within me, responding to the sound of his words in this hallowed hall. It is a new song, this song, dancing with his words, arising from my heart for the first time.

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In the Flow

This simple piece sends its sonic waves to all those courageous enough to move toward a dream without an easy map to follow.

And yet, just maybe, each note, each cluster of sound, follows another, and before one is even aware, a song is born by reason of being in the flow with what is being created.

May we take one note at a time, listening only to the very next one, building one upon another.

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Clementine’s Song

Clementine came to my studio when she was only eight years old. She and her mother often held hands and kissed good-bye, then Clementine would quietly enter, whisper hello, and sit down on the piano bench.

She was one of those students who I never “taught.” I might have guided her, but her natural ability with music allowed quick learning, the easy interpretation of pieces, and improvisations that originated in her fertile imagination. When she improvised, I could always hear her signature sound. This sound matched the way her entire body emoted. She looked like a waving palm tree in the warm breeze of a tropical climate. No effort. All flow. “Clementine's Song” incorporates a piece that she improvised when she was 10 years old. I recorded it and later morphed it through software, adding cello and my own piano playing. It became one piece in a larger show called Listening Between the Worlds. The show begins with this evocative question: How might your life have been different—once when you were somewhat older than young, struggling to fulfill what you thought ought to be done—if you had slowly walked away from the noise crowding in on you until you heard, from within yourself, a silence you had almost forgotten? As a child, Clementine lived in this world of timelessness where the imagination gives rise to new possibilities. I will be forever grateful to her for this reminder.