Amen to that (and nothing to add)!
My thought for the day
Dance like a toddler
Just a fun thought to end my day. 😄
To bake or not to bake…
Are these not the most beautiful cookies you’ve ever seen?!?
For starters, shortbread is probably my favorite kind of cookie (although oatmeal raisin with walnuts comes close). But then you press colorful edible flowers on top and they’re so magnetic that I almost want to pull out the mixing bowl and preheat the oven.
Almost, but not quite.
I’m not entirely sure, but I think the last cookies I made might have been for my flute teacher at conservatory (I forget why). And that was a really, really long time ago. Yep, I’m definitely not a baker.
But it got me to thinking. As beautiful and magnetic as those cookies are, their appeal isn’t even strong enough to get me to read the recipe.
Contrast that with the uncountable hours I’ve spent on music: practicing, listening, rehearsing, studying, thinking about, talking about, planning, dreaming…
I find it fascinating how for me it’s music, but for somebody else it’s Edible Flower Pressed Shortbread Cookies.
By the way, if there are any bakers out there who want to make these cookies, I’ll gladly buy a few dozen from you. 😄
The best birthday presents
The love of family and so very many dear friends.
Sharing my life with a husband who complements me in every way and loves me to distraction.
Living in a little slice of paradise on earth.
Music, music, music.
Seeing the vision for our music ministry expanding by leaps and bounds in amazing new directions.
I am soooooo blessed! 😊
Tangents
As so often happens, one random encounter leads to another…and next thing you know I’ve gone off on a tangent. Or series of tangents, like now.
A few days ago my blog post was about Beaker (of the Muppets) and his (very) interesting rendition of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
Now, I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I was completely unacquainted with the Muppets until seeing Muppet Treasure Island on DVD in 2004.
I was living in Switzerland at the time and have no idea how I came to own the movie. Perhaps I read a good review or something, because we barely had internet then and movies were still something we either rented or bought. All I know is that I loved it and couldn’t believe I had never seen anything of the Muppets up to that point.
I mention this to explain why I got so caught up in watching video after video of musical scenes from the original Muppet Shows. My goodness, but they were brilliant, hilarious, and musically spot on!
So finally I ended up watching a video of Kermit the Frog singing The Rainbow Connection. I recognized the melody from my days performing it as a flute and harp instrumental with my friend, Vicki. But now I found it deeply moving, especially finally hearing the words.
Which made me want to know more about the songwriters. Didn’t find all that much interesting about Kenny Ascher, but Paul Williams was another story altogether.
I’m still going to write a blog post about The Rainbow Connection and Paul Williams, but for now I’ll just mention that he had a blog, and also co-authored a book, titled Gratitude and Trust. That tells you something right there.
Meanwhile, all these tangents caused me to miss my publishing deadline for tonight. Argghhh!
The apartment is blessed…
I’m paraphrasing the beautiful quote of Yogananda’s — “The instrument is blessed by that which flows through it” — and applying it to our little apartment.
Lots of music is flowing through our living space as all our music-making happens from home right now. Here are a couple of photos of Ramesha offering a mini-kirtan of devotional chants. It was beautiful.
The social path
The topic for today’s Inner Renewal Week class was “The Social Path to Self-Realization: World Brotherhood Colonies”, which ended up being the theme for my entire day!
First of all, I happened upon this recent photo of Ananda Assisi community members and was struck by how deeply connected I still feel to these souls even though it’s been over fifteen years since I lived there. Time and distance don’t matter; they’re family!
Then we ate lunch with Deodan, who just arrived from Assisi last night and will be here for two months learning about managing a community. Our lunch table included devotees from Italy (Deodan), Switzerland (Ramesha ), and Sweden (Anna), showing yet another beautiful aspect of Ananda — people from different countries, cultures, backgrounds, and lifestyles coming together to live, work, and serve in a harmonious unity.
To cap it all off, we led a sing-along tonight in the Temple of Light. Village residents, visitors from other communities, and Expanding Light guests joined together in blissing out to Swamiji’s music; personally, I felt totally uplifted! And I found myself reflecting yet again on how important Swamiji considered music to be in building strong communities. He addresses it in this quote (one of my favorites, no surprise!):
“I can best express through music the feeling of holy upliftment that possessed me. Therefore I tell people, “If you want to know me, listen to my music.” It is through this that people have come to understand what Ananda is truly all about. Without its influence, Ananda would not be what it is today. Books and lectures are only the outer form of the teachings. Music is its coursing blood.“
(from A Place Called Ananda, Chapter 13)
Making music
Ramesha and I were on to do the music for this morning’s Sunday service. Nowadays it comes as almost a shock when we’re called on to perform just the two of us, since we spend most of our time either in front of our computers or rehearsing with the full choir.
But it’s nice to find that — when we do get to stop and just make music together — our unique musical attunement is still very much there. Not that I would have expected otherwise!
It works
It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but Ramesha and I aren’t big ones for having music playing all the time. I think part of it for me is that one of my first cars didn’t have a working radio, so I became accustomed to driving everywhere with just my own thoughts to keep me company. Of course, there’s also the fact that, being musicians, we find it hard not to pay attention if music is playing in the background.
But as we approached the end of this first week in Lugano, I noticed I was feeling slightly out of sorts. Even though I was past the jet lag stage I was still feeling sort of low energy and — true confessions here! — rather cranky.
Then last night it hit me…not only are we outside of the spiritual vibration to which we’re accustomed, we’re also not singing for Sunday service; rehearsing with choir; practicing songs on our own; talking about music with Jeannie; hearing the music in The Expanding Light Retreat dining room; etc… (you get the idea!)
So… Radio Ananda to the rescue! We turned it on this morning and again this afternoon, and — ahhhhhh — I feel so much better!
Music as entertainment
“Music is so much more than entertainment. It doesn’t merely reflect a state of consciousness: It also generates it.”
–Swami Kriyananda
It’s not that music can’t ever be entertainment. It’s just that we can benefit greatly from recognizing that it’s much more than “just” entertainment.
The next time you’re listening to your favorite music, notice where your consciousness is and whether your energy is going up the spine or down. Then ask yourself if where that music is taking you is where you really want to go.