Why “Music.Life.Joy.”?

Because music has been, and still is, both my life and the primary joy of my life.

Believe me, I didn’t choose this. There were times when I envied friends who had “normal” lives, with “regular” jobs. I wanted to be “normal” myself; to have a “regular” life!

But music wouldn’t leave me alone.

I felt so much joy in making music, but there was a lot of angst involved as well. Because it was all I could imagine doing, I needed to make a living at it. But that meant ambition. Competition. And lots and lots of practice—a challenge for someone who really was just in it for the joy and who wasn’t very disciplined by nature!

I stopped playing for a while in my twenties (“time off for bad behavior” I called it); but couldn’t stay away for long.

Later in life—after two degrees in flute performance and a few decades of professional experience—a lot of my joy in making music had dissipated. I got so serious about quitting that I tried to sell my instruments. The piccolo sold pretty easily but I couldn’t find a buyer for my (incredibly wonderful!) flute no matter how hard I tried or how low I dropped the price.

And then I came to Ananda.

Less than a year after moving to the Palo Alto community I found myself staying at Crystal Hermitage (located at Ananda Village) for a weekend while recording the flute parts for the CD, Secrets of Love. What a blessed experience. I was struck with the realization: “Oh, this is why I spent all those years becoming a flutist…and this is why Divine Mother wouldn’t let me sell my flute!”

My life finally started to make sense and (twenty years later!) I’m still gratefully offering every bit of my musical training and experience in service to God and Guru.