I had the incredible blessing of playing flute on Secrets of Love back when I was still very new to Ananda.
I hadn’t yet met Swami Kriyananda (who was living at Ananda Assisi at the time), but I spent three days and nights at Crystal Hermitage, playing his exquisite melodies for hours each day. By the end I felt very close to him.
Ananda was so much smaller then, and marketing and promotion were a very different story back in 2000. Word of the new album spread throughout the immediate Ananda World and then that was pretty much it, as far as I could see.
So, one of the goals of the music ministry’s collaboration with Crystal Clarity Publishers is to reintroduce the classic albums that might be unknown to newer Ananda members — hence, the relaunch!
And I must say, I absolutely love the amazing artwork of the new cover.
In the courtyard of the Ananda Palo Alto community, back in the day.
I’ve been receiving an increasing number of out-of-the-blue comments from people hoping to hear me play flute more often.
I’m also getting a lot of encouraging feedback about my recent, more regular practice sessions.
Then — to top it all off — I just “happened” to stumble on an old blog post from August 2019, in which I shared something I wrote way back in the early 2000’s, when I was new to Ananda:
“What I want more than anything is to be able to simply be the vehicle for music to course through. I want to be the pipeline and the music the water. And I want to be a wide-open, pure, smooth, silvery pipeline for the sacred water to flow through, not a rusty, corroded, constricted, obstructed pipeline that blocks the flow.”
I can still remember that the inspiration behind writing those thoughts was to more deeply understand (and communicate to others) WHY we need to practice and improve and aspire toward perfection.
Not to impress or to compete or to gratify our ego. But to be an ever more pure channel (or vehicle) for the Divine Flow and, through our ever-deepening attunement, to eventually merge into oneness with that flow of the Divine.
I don’t want to celebrate too soon, but I think something might have shifted between me and the flute.
It’s not just that I’ve practiced three days in a row. It’s that it felt like real practicing — exceedingly brief, yes, but real.
On the second day I even did slow scales in all twelve major keys, through the entire range of the instrument. (I think I hadn’t played a high C in fifteen years!)
I’ve also felt like doing it, which at this point in my life is strange and unusual behavior. 😄
Photo of Crystal Hermitage Upper Gardens by Kent Williams
I’m not sure whether I mentioned it in a previous blog post, but one of my first big spiritual lessons after arriving at Ananda Palo Alto was that no one seemed particularly interested in the fact that I was a professional flutist.
For starters, there was already a woman in the community who played flute. And at my first meeting with Asha Praver — basically a “getting-to-know-you” chat — I described some of the musical activities I had offered at my previous church homes, including benefit concerts and the like. Her response? Pretty much no response. I mean, she might have said something like, “Oh, that’s interesting,” but I received no energy from her at all regarding my flute playing.
It took me back a bit, but it was also rather refreshing not being primarily identified as a flutist.
However, within a few months a friend in the community somehow learned more about my musical background and convinced me to give her a copy of my resume, which she then shared with the music people up at Ananda Village.
What I had no way of knowing was that they had been slowly working on a recording of Swami Kriyananda’s music using mostly synthesized sounds for the various instruments. They had a live harpist (the late Donnelle Page) and professional cellist, David Eby, had come to Ananda Portland a year or two before I arrived in Palo Alto. So, now they invited me to provide live flute to the album.
And that is how it came about that in late October 1999 I was blessed to come up to Ananda Village for a long weekend at Crystal Hermitage, recording “Secrets of Love” with music arranger, David Miller, and recording engineer, Agni Ferraro.
What a blessed experience it was! Crystal Hermitage was Swamiji’s home whenever he was in residence at the Village (although this was during the time that I still hadn’t met him because he was living in Italy). I got to stay in a small apartment at Crystal Hermitage, doing my Energization Exercises in the beautiful upper gardens and meditating in the dome.
Of course I spent hours and hours in the studio, with photos of Yogananda and Swami to keep me focused on the goal of allowing their vibration to flow through my playing. Although recording is always intense, there was also plenty of joy and laughter in working with my fellow devotees.
I was transported by the melodies I was playing, especially “Love Is the Aspiration toward Perfection” (click here to listen) and felt Swamiji close to me throughout the entire process. By the end, I understood that this was the raison d’être for all my years of training and experience as a flutist.
I played flute tonight on our final rehearsal before tomorrow night’s Oratorio and came away with the thought that maybe playing flute is similar to riding a bicycle.
What I’m referring to is the saying that “you can never forget how to ride a bike.” Because tonight I was actually able to play flute moderately well despite months and months of hardly touching it due to my shoulder issues (after years of playing only occasionally with no serious practicing).
Which must mean that one can’t forget how to play the flute either.
I started to feel curious about it, so I did a little search on the internet. Here’s an excerpt from an interesting article I found: Learning to pedal is no easy feat. But forgetting is harder. For most people, even after decades-long hiatuses, cruising still feels like a breeze. The key is how the brain remembers the task.
Mastering cycling requires a ton of higher-level thinking: Your noggin’s motor cortices plan and execute precise muscle control, the cerebellum helps you balance and time your pedal strokes, and the basal ganglia keep these movements fluid rather than jerky.
It’s precisely this colossal load of cerebral coordination that ensures the skill sticks around.
Well, it’s certainly true that mastering flute took a ton of higher-level thinking and lots of effort (back in the day)! And I guess that “colossal load of cerebral coordination” is why the skill has stuck around.
Ramesha and Christian were in the studio every day from last Friday to today (Wednesday). They couldn’t record Saturday or Sunday morning, due to the Sevaka retreat and Sunday service, but they still ended up with five entire days worth of recording time.
Others joined them at various times to record tablas (Lewis), keyboard and harp (Prashad); and background vocals (Satyana, Prashad, and yours truly).
And today I dug deep in order to do the one intro Ramesha requested on flute. I wouldn’t let him take a video of me playing because I was using such a compromised position in order not to engage my wonky shoulder! And I’m soooo out of shape it was downright embarrassing. But I somehow managed to get it done.
Ramesha poured a ton of energy into this — working out a detailed schedule; planning arrangements; coordinating times; doing his own musical “due diligence” (of course). And it shows in the end result.
A non-musician friend sent me this joke and I can’t resist sharing it!
Two musicians are walking down the street. One says to the other, “Who was that piccolo I saw you with last night?” The other replies, “That was no piccolo, that was my fife.”
Yeah, I know…but it made me laugh! And speaking of laughter….
For years I kept a Bizarro comic that showed two cowboys; one is holding a double bass and the other has a flute. As I remember it, the caption read: “You’d better wipe that smirk off your bass unless you’re looking for treble.” At the time I was half of a double bass/flute couple, so that lived on our refrigerator for years!
Not familiar with Bizarro? Well, here’s a sample; one final chuckle to wrap up the day (with apologies to banjo players everywhere).
Doing something is always better than doing nothing.
While studying at the SF Conservatory of Music I struggled to establish consistent practice habits (and, yes, consistency in all my practices has been a lifelong issue). I’ll never forget the lesson in which my flute teacher expressed his frustration with me by saying: “Just get the flute to your lip once a day!”
In other words, don’t focus on the hours of practicing I needed to do; just get the flute to my lip…for two notes. A scale. One phrase of a piece. Consistency.
Then there was the mentor who suggested a similar thing for exercise: “Just put the shoes on and get out the door…” For half a block. For a block. For a mile. Consistency.
When I started a serious meditation practice the struggle was just as real as ever. So I told myself: “Just get your butt in the chair!” For five minutes. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. Consistency.
It’s never gotten easy for me, but if I do it….it works!
Last summer I wrote a blog post about the very first duo concert Ramesha and I did, before we were even a couple! It was titled, “How it all began…”
When I listen to the recording of that concert now, what amazes me the most is my flute-playing. It was a unique time really, when I was able to draw on my decades of experience as a professional flutist, but I no longer had to deal with being a professional flutist.
In other words, I no longer had the stress of driving all over the metropolitan SF Bay Area for gigs. I wasn’t spending hours practicing difficult music, followed by more hours sitting in orchestra with a mixed bag of musician colleagues playing that difficult music.
Instead, I was living in beautiful Umbria, surrounded by a level of calm and quiet that I’d never before experienced in my life. I didn’t have to drive at all. And virtually all of my time on the flute was spent playing beautiful uplifting melodies which — by professional flutist standards — were a piece of cake!
Don’t get me wrong; I loved being a professional musician and being part of an orchestra. I had a ton of awesome experiences and worked with lots of lovely people. But somewhere along the way it went from being something I did because I loved it, to turning into a job where I felt I never quite measured up. I pushed myself, then pushed myself some more, and eventually that sense of strain and stress started to come through in my flute tone.
Finally, I was ready to give up on being a flutist altogether, to the point where I tried (unsuccessfully, thank goodness) to sell my instrument. But within a couple of more years I had found my way to Ananda, Yogananda, and Swami Kriyananda; to meditation, Kriya Yoga, and spiritual community; to Ananda’s music, singing(!), and touring Italy for almost two years sharing that music.
And what I found in my first months living in Italy was that the dramatic shift in lifestyle resulted in a relaxation and renewed enjoyment that could be heard in my flute playing; it was like returning to the simple joy in making music that I had experienced from childhood up until about halfway through Conservatory.
Ramesha and I did include a few classical pieces on that India Benefit concert, but it’s far from a “perfect” performance. For one thing we talked and laughed through most of our rehearsal time, instead of working on the music. But really, we were there to have fun getting to know one another, while also sharing our joy in making music with our spiritual community.
We didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of our musical dharma, the best gig of all.
Largo from Sonata in B minor by Georg Philipp Telemann | India Benefit Concert CD by Bhagavati & Ramesha
