We Are All One Tribe

Two weekends ago, I got to see a talk and performance by the very influential Free Improvisational musicial Fred Frith, who was in town as part of an Improvisation Festival organized by a student group at Lawrence Univeristy. In his talk he addressed themes of composition vs. improvisation, which he has been exploring through his work since the 1960's, and he also gave some instruction for how to perform with other people - how to listen, how to contribute, how to end a piece. The audience was comprised of about 20 music students, all male, as it happened, and three of us members of the community, two of whom were the only women in the room. The performance that night was also attended by a select audience, mostly students, mostly male. Many members of the Music faculty did not attend. Free Improvisation is challenging to almost all ears, and requires some repeated exposure and hard thinking to find your way in. Once you've done the work, though, you can't help but regret that more people can't share in the experience. In conversation around the festival, someone made a comment that improvised music tradionally comes from groups that don't have the money - Blues musicians, musicians in Africa. Composed music, like Symphonies, comes from the upper classes in Europe. People traditionally dressed up in their white tie and evening gowns, put on all their jewelry, travelled to ornate concert houses. The instruments, for example Stradivarius violins, are astronomically high in value. The following Wednesday, I attended the gala opening of the 50th anniversary season of the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra, with special guest Itzhak Perlman, the greatest living violinist. Everyone was dressed up, and there were decorations and cupcakes all in gold in the lobby, for the golden anniversary. While I was watching the orchestra perform, I thought about the traditions of European Symphony orchestra music and free improvisation (sometimes on found or handmade instruments). The fact is, I was able to attend both, and appreciate both. Then a week later I watched again the punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization. I did not fully embrace the punk lifestyle back in the early 1980's (I spent the time in an elite liberal arts college in a bucolic setting in rural Ohio). But this was the music with which I identified. And because of that, I had to hate hippies, had to turn my back on bloated 1970's album rock, and had to hate Disco. I hated Disco with a burning passion. Thinking about those tribal allegiances at this distance, I'm struck now with the race implications, which I'm sure were at play. Disco emerged out of a number of musical traditions that featured mostly black performers, like soul, like the Philadelphia sound. Punk rock maybe started in the Blues and always had adjacency with Reggae, but in my experience really came from England, and was popular with suburban white kids. Like myself. People bemoan the fragmentation of the music industry in this internet age, when everyone can listen to anything ever recorded and compile their own playlists. We do not all listen to the same records any more, as a culture. And my own listening has lately gone all Local and Artisanal - I think every single CD I've purchased in the past 6 months has been directly from the hands of a performer who I just saw perform. I remember a sentence in a Stephen King short story set in the 1960's, where he's setting the scene of a character in college, tying the action to one particular summer, and finishes his description with, "...and Hey Jude played, everywhere, everywhere." We don't have generational anthems like that any more, but we also don't have radio stations that everyone listens to, or record stores that only stock what's selling. As I sat and watched the Symphony playing, I thought, but the good result of fragmentation is the erosion of tribalism. I can listen to Free Improv and Symphony music, I can listen to punk and Disco, and appreciate it all as music, on a spectrum. Once, going to the Symphony would have been a direct attack on the values of those trying to write new music, it would have been supporting the Bourgeoisie and the power elite, it would be a stab in the heart of the revolution and probably exiled me from that group. That music would be against the music the others were trying to create. The same with Punks and Hippies or Disco fans - even listening to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, or a Moody Blues record, would be a demonstration that you were siding with the enemy. As I sat and watched the Symphony playing, I thought, the positive result of the fragmentation of music is the democratization of music. If no one musical form dominates the upper classes or the power elite, everyone is free to listen to and appreciate everything, for what it is, on an equal playing field. Music tribalism becomes music appreciation. European Symphony music can be appreciated as the quaint ethic folk traditional art form that it is, no better than anything else, not trying to say that it's better than anything else. This has got to be a good thing. On the Monday night, instead of watching the first Presidential Debate, the same three community members who had gone to see Fred Frith's talk were in the front row for a performance by Huun Huur Tu, a quartet of Tuvan Throat Singers. The music is deeply rooted in the local history of the Russian province of Tuva. The singing style to us sounds otherwordly. They played instruments made of roots and skins - the leader had to ask for the stage lights to be turned down because their instruments are sensitive to temperature and kept going out of tune. I was astonished at the sounds and the skills of the players. I was reminded of the big world. I was reminded that when you think about loving everybody, equally, it includes people with experiences that are extremely remote from yours, not just the people who live across the street who you've never met.

Three Top-10 Love Songs

Wicked Game - Chris Isaak


I heard a Mile of Music band cover this recently.  What I hope is to put it in a time capsule and have some future person discover it for the first time.  It has the power to stop you in your tracks so that an ocean of feeling can flow through you from earth to the starry heavens (or am I just thinking of an ocean because of the cheesy video? but there is something watery about the blend of lust-drunk but hopeless and melancholy feeling that the song inspired).  But for me it is still too recently associated with a particular time in my life that is just far enough past to seem quaint and childish, and so I react with that simple nostalgia and not with the stunned immediacy any more.  But I'll bet that future person, when they open up the time capsule and hear this for the first time, feels the powerful ocean-feeling.

Kiss From a Rose - Seal


This was an "our song" for a particular relationship that was just new when it initially came out, but I've been surprised how adaptable it has been, staying a favorite and speaking romantically to me, long after that particular rose died and lost all its petals.

Magic Bus - The Who


This one was discovered in High School, during I guess a Who phase when I was feeling profound 17 year old thoughts while lying on my bed listening to the Quadrophenia soundtrack in big puffy headphones.  The polyrhythms in the second half make your insides want to dance in several different directions at once, but it's the words that I think make this song romantic.  I said as much one time when I was radio dj'ing in college, during Finals week of the first semester, when I had signed up for a show outside of my usual time.  Much later that year, I was sitting with a boy two or three years younger than me who I typed term papers for, it was also during Finals I think, just hanging out, and I can't remember why but I think I launched into an explanation of some philosphical concept and so my hanging out voice turned into my lecturing voice, and he jumped, and pointed at me, and said, "That's where I know you from!"  He said, "You were on the radio, and you played the song Magic Bus, and you said, '"Here's the most romantic song on earth, because it's about someone who wants to buy a bus, to go and see his girlfriend.  I don't know, you decide.'"  I could exactly remember giving that introduction, and it was funny because I still believed it, still do now and can't really see why anyone else can't, but I don't think he could, and he thought my introduction was hilarious, which is why it stuck with him.

Is it the most romantic song on earth?  I don't know, you decide :-)

Contemplation of Some Terms around Discernment

Yesterday was the first meeting of my Circles of Light group, a 10-session, 6 or 9 month process of discernment for a small group.

We spent some time talking about what Discernment is and what Discernment is not.  Our moderator wrote our words up on large post-its as we said them, forming helpful real-life word clouds.  This, of course, was right in my wheelhouse, being not just a Verbal Learning but a Written Word Learner.

Several of them sparked a desire to delve deeper, to do some further explanation.

(I am writing all day today, just doing it.  Perhaps this is what it is like to write all day, in which case, I like it!)

(9-5, instead of 11:30 to whenever?) (We'll continue to see what I can organize here.)(And investigate where you can actually get remunerated for this)


One component of What Discernment Is that resonated with me was the notion that when you discover a call, or choose a path, you are also choosing to let other things go. (Strange memory of walking by the Broadway building in Sydney, just now.  Before its renovation and the grocery store being there, when it was known to be occupied by squatters) (Hm.  Home, money, mortgage, maintenance of home, those types of themes) (You know, the whole New Testament, in some ways, is just all about money.)

I had just, just been thinking, it came back to me, the Counselling, Mental Health, Healthy Boundaries whatever phrase - You need to learn to say No.

A recognition in myself that instead of saying no, I just don't do the thing.

"Guilt" came up in our "What Discernment is Not" and plays a large part in this same theme.

"Editing" was added to the What Discernment Is board,

(There is enough blogging space for anyone, for all the words you want to say. There is more or less infinite space, for everyone.) (A song I heard on the car radio on the way home from this first meeting was a reggae sort of song with the refrain, "There is room enough at the table for every one.")

-- I reacted against Editing.  I think my comment was that it felt like it was cheating, and I'm not sure if that really explains it, but it certainly goes against the "Yes, and" stance.  It seems like it's cheating in the sense that your job is to put the puzzle together, the Ikea bookshelf from the flatpack box, with no pieces left over.  You need to look at ALL the pieces of you, and all the possible components in the world, all the pursuits, all the talents, all the subject matter (places to live, degrees to get, whatever), leave nothing out, and then arrange it all into a whole that makes sense, that makes a picture that you can easily interpret, you know what it is at a glance, like a pointillist painting that resolves into a picture (like my splatter style painting hanging downstairs, brought to America with considerable trouble and expense).  The problem is when you keep your focus too narrow.  The problem is when you pick one path too hastily and ignore all the important things it leaves out.

Maybe this rule is derived from philosophical analysis, and definition of terms.  Finding of counterexamples.  You could easily define the word "chair" as "four-legged, wooden object on which to sit", if you forgot to expand your gaze and range and consider the other things that perfectly well qualify as chairs but aren't wood, or have three legs, or one leg or none but more of a base.  I used to love that exercise.  You don't just look at the dictionary, because that's just the fossil record of these activities by speakers and thinkers of language.  What's in, what's out?  Can we draw the lines more finely around this concept?  Do we need a new word altogether?  It illustrated what it is that analytical philosophers do, and I hope showed that it's doable, and worth doing, and needing doing.

Is Discernment Decision?  Our moderator laughed when I asked this question, and said, "Of course, the philosopher!"  But is it?  They seem different.  And it seems worthwhile to explore the difference. Ha - to try to discern the difference.

So, back to editing - after my reaction, the professional magazine editor in the room said that she didn't think of it as cutting things out, as going through with the red pen, she was thinking about editing the magazine, deciding what to call on, what article to commission to include.  Curation.  Trendy word, but powerful word.  Is that what we do with our lives, is that what it is to live a life?  What would it mean if it were?  Why does editing or curation seem so different from existing yourself into the next moment, one at a time?

I have the same feeling as I do when people talk about how to have a job, one job in a career - you should the thinking, at that job, what do I need to learn from this job to get me to my next step?  That always seemed super odd to me, and I know I've never done it.

Maybe the idea that life is a magazine feels inappropriate because it relies on your knowing how many pages you have to work with, that a back cover exists and that you can plan it, that an overview is possible while you're still at a moment in time along the compilation process.

That feels like just a lie, an illusion, too conservative, arrogant in a way.  It ignores the chaos and terror but also the radical possibility of actually living forward into time.  Really, EVERYTHING is possible.  Lateral solutions are available.  Orthogonal change.

Walk across the lines of the labyrinth.  Stomp them out, what the heck.  Punk rock anarchy comes to the medieval meditation walk.

Editing and saying no.  Choosing for and therefore choosing to leave out or leave behind.  Editing as compiling, commissioning, curating.  No vs yes.  Boundaries vs limitations.  Fully existing as a whole self in community vs blowing off favors to people.

Confidence, was another weird word that struck me.  The end result of this process is that we should be able to move forward confidently in the next steps on our path.  With all the other mush about what we should expect - it won't happen in a certain time frame, you can't determine in advance what it will be, you may not have a single illumination at the end or indeed any, blah blah blah, then the idea that we can expect confidence seemed not to fit with that.  Confidence and Confirm start the same, do they have similar roots?  Confirmation - it's the name of a big step in a Christian/Episcopalian life, it's also the name for getting more support for what you already think.

That's sort of comforting, that the end result might be confirmation of something you already feel, supporting evidence, removal of doubt.  So, you don't have to come up with a new future from whole cloth, you should be braced for dramatic reversals or orthogonal zags, but maybe you'll just know that you know.  Test what you feel and find that it is strong and holds up.  That possibility is exciting to me.

(Somehow I feel that I will only be driving back to my chosen career from practical necessity, that it doesn't have enough to it (enough authentic voice, right? working in a corporate context) that it could be the thing calling.  This is my suspicion, and we'll let things roll and see if I'm right)

Another participant sounds like she's also struggling with pursuing gift vs selling out to practicality, and it was interesting to hear that we both use the job of Bank Teller as the symbol of the worst, most empty and meaningless way to spend ones time.  No insult intended to all the wonderful bank tellers out there, who have served me throughout my life.  But seriously, you're basically all being replaced by machines now, right?

I wonder, though, if her struggle is with doing what she has been told she should do, vs having ambition.

I should schedule another walk to maybe pursue these things with her further.  Chica, you have permission to be/become a big deal!

More on Exercise Fear

Again I catch myself procrastinating instead of starting my intended morning exercise routine, again I feel a strong tug and longing to do something fun instead, something that has to do with words and communication, and not with moving around and pushing my body past comfort.

Today I recognize in the procrastination a version of the fear I feel when I have to start a long or hard project.  The second type of fear is always much more acute and debilitating. Imagine having a long report to write, or a presentation to complete, or some kind of dry business task that will require looking lots of tedious numbers up in different places, that kind of thing, you estimate that it will take about four hours, but might go to five or six, and you have four hours cleared, and you simply cannot make yourself sit down and start.  That fear is stronger and more paralyzing, but I recognized an echo of it in my dawdling today, and I recognized it as a fear of failing.  What if I start, and do it, but I fail?

Why would I have a fear of failing at an exercize routine that is completely under my own grown-up control, chosen by me, being done in my own house, observed by no one, accountable to no one, no grades, no having to do this as a prerequisite for something else I really want to do later. I have a perfectly fit, young enough, fully functioning body to do it with.  Why is this not an occasion to live in and experience that body, in motion, rather than some test to which I don't feel up?  (that I don't feel up to)  (up to which I don't feel)

The answer is easy and stunningly obvious.  Gym class was a perpetual opportunity to fail, for me, back in elementary school.  I really couldn't do anything.  I wasn't good with dribbling basketballs.  I couldn't climb the rope, really at all, not even one hand over hand.  I couldn't do a pull up.  I couldn't do a handstand or a flip.  I shook too hard to balance on the balance beam.  I was slow on the obstacle courses.  I made the boys afraid when we did square dancing, and I had a wart on my hand that I was terrified the would feel, and be grossed out by, and view me as an agent of contagion.  I can't think of a single success at gym class.  Well, one - in about fourth grade, somehow I decided to work on Long Jump, and I got good enough to win a Fourth Place ribbon at our end of year field day.  Good enough to place, which astonished me.  You'd think I would have learned the lesson that when you work on something and practice, you can improve and realize success.  I remember thinking that very thing out loud to myself at the time.  But I didn't really go on in sports.

Actually, I did find that I had an aptitude for downhill skiing, and in my first lesson got to go up the lift with the kids who were getting it, rather than the kids who were still working on Snowplow.  I was the only girl in this advanced group.  The instructor flirted with me shamelessly, which probably added incentive (I remember riding up the lift sharing the chair with him, hanging high over the pine trees frosted with snow highlighted by the sun from the bright blue sky, and he burst into the song - "What a day this has been, what a rare mood I'm in! Why it's almost like being in love.")  I skiied a number of times since then, a handful of times, but I always picked it right up.  I even had some lessons at one point to tune up my turning ability.  There is a real possibility that I will never ski again, never have the opportunity, and also that I can't do it now because of my ankle injury, but I did do it, and I can do it really well, and I really liked it.

If playing a musical instrument is a kind of athletic skill, then I have always shown an aptitude for that as well.  I was a pretty competent cello player, it was always just assumed that I would be first chair.  I didn't work on it enough to ever be very musical, but I could do it.  I'm a pretty okay singer, because I can read and can match pitches.  I had a pretty quick aptitude for drums because I have good rhythm.  I was nearly a guitar prodigy, for a while there, because it just came easily and I immersed myself in it so thoroughly.  I plateaued and didn't get beyond beginner prodigy level, but that part had a very quick curve.  If these are types of athleticism, I was good at those right away, those count as successes.

Morning calisthenics to increase strength and cardio fitness, those are in the wheelhouse of the things I'm terrible at.  Like baseball - on the last two days of school when we went outside to play softball, many times they had to bring the stand out to balance the wiffle ball so I could even connect with it, and my friends would gather around 3rd base and shout together, Easy Out!  One year I was sick on the last day of school and did not have to attend softball day, and that remains one of the great strokes of good fortune I can recall in my life.

You know, when I think back on all those things I couldn't do in grade school gym class, why were they having us do any of those things at all?  What kid needs to be able to do ten pull ups, or climb a rope to the gym ceiling?  Are these basic abilities that every functioning human being needs?  No.  No!  So why weren't there any smaller, intermediate goals, achievable goals, presented to me and praised and celebrated?  What was that all about?  Hey, gym teachers of my past, a message from the Ninja Warriors of my present - Everybody falls!  Where was that zen acceptance, that repetition, that additional chance, that acknowledgement of Personal Best, that celebration of what I could do rather than only opportunities to be judged on what I couldn't?  Where was that, "Wow!  You're awesome! You're amazing! Good job!" that I now get for even the most rudimentary musical performance in a teaching setting, and watch all others give and get the same?

There was one day in High School, I had signed up for tennis, but since the weather was bad regularly that year, we had to stay inside and instead play volleyball, a sport for which I never in a million years would have signed up to voluntarily play.  After many weeks of this, we were still inside, and lined up for a drill to practice serving.  My arm was already puffed up and red. I was trying to look down and be invisible.  When it was my turn at the front of the line, the ball would go everywhere, random, uncontrollable directions.  Then I'd bow my head and walk around to the end of the line again, and brace myself to endure whatever time was left in the class, when it would stop and I could go back to the arenas of my success - AP English, speech team practice.  Back in line, bravely braced to endure.  Then the teacher, Ms. Luce, came over and gently pulled me aside, and said, "Has anyone ever actually showed you how to do this?"  I almost didn't understand the question, because gym class had never come with instructions, just impossible challenges and the idea that we all instinctively would know how to achieve them.  I shook my head no.  She pulled me to the side, to the boundary area outside the basketball court outline on the floor, and explained to me how the ball was bouncing of the surface that I made, and how that geometry was steering it, and she showed me where to hit on my hand so it wouldn't hurt, and she stayed with me tossing the ball my way until I was getting it.

That is the only, only, one, single time I can remember receiving any instruction or coaching in a gym class in my whole life.  Thank you, Miss Luce, for that.

How could my life be different if I'd had her for every gym class, every week of my childhood? There is no changing what has gone before.  But I can change now.  I can restore these past gaps, and I can coach and nurture myself now, in the way that will help me, what, improve, flourish, find hidden talents, improve my personal best, better live in my body, become a Ninja?

Addendum:

I only just unearthed this early traumatic cause of my current exercise aversion, but look! I am not alone: http://www.sbnation.com/2015/7/31/9038201/the-sad-sad-stories-of-the-presidential-fitness-test

And for reference, here are the standards.  Looking at the row for a 17 year old girl, there is no way I could achieve these today.  34 sit ups within a minute? a 10 minute mile?

If to win the red badge you had to be in the top 50th percentile, that means half of kids also failed at this test.  Why did anyone think that was a good idea?

Gratitude and Ideas

Yesterday I ran across a post, via a link on Facebook, about setting up a positive morning routine, which is very timely because yesterday (or was it Wednesday) I was plotting out one for myself. (I have found over time that I do best when the routine is fixed, and set in a certain order, because I save time in between activities making decisions about what to do next.)

This post suggested spending some time Free Writing, which is more or less the Morning Pages idea, which I have already been trying to do, although not immediately on waking and while still in bed, because I split my time between my house and my boyfriend's house and often wake up with someone else, and then need to get dressed and get home before I can take on any activities.  I suppose I could probably adjust that, but so far the Breakfast Pages are working well enough.

And also, subpoint, the Morning Pages are more or less a letter to myself, whereas I know that Free Writing is a different thing.  When I have tried free writing in the past, it turns out to be poetry, in the sense that it is all about the sounds of the words, or maybe I should say percussion, because the semantic meaning becomes irrelevant, I just put together strings of consonants and internal rhymes and rhythms.  I should really try that, it's a flow from a different part of the brain.

But beyond the Free Writing/Morning Pages idea, the post also recommended two additional things.  First, they recommended writing a short Gratitude list, a list of things for which one is grateful, as a great way to start the day in positivity and a stance of appreciation to the world.  Three or four or five things, bulleted.  Then, after the Free Writing, they recommended you write a list of 10 Ideas.  They said this helps you become an idea generator.  The author reported that he came up with 10 ideas for Amazon and called and sold them to them, and came up with an idea for an online series of classes and posted then and generated all kinds of leads for his business.  YMMV, as they say.

In fact, I don't think I have any problem with being an Idea Generator.  My problem is probably too many ideas, and a lack of focus and practical action.  "Do the next right thing" is probably better advice for me.

But nonetheless, I wrote out both lists this morning, my Gratitude List and my Idea List.  Gratitude was all about the health and well-being of my immediate family. Probably no surprise there.  I worry about all of them, constantly, but right now, so far so good, knock wood.  The Idea list, I decided to write around the notion of a Feeling of Abundance.  This is another exercise from the Artist's Way book, and her example is to buy oneself a punnet of raspberries, so that's always my go-to accessible luxury, and so item 1 on my list this morning was Raspberries.  But I was surprised how many of the other items had to do with cleaning and sorting and tidying and inventorying what I have.  I spend exactly zero time on this, because it benefits no one but me, being inside of my own home behind closed doors and within these walls, and also because it will bring no immediate profit.  But maybe I should build in some more time for that, especially if it makes me feel more wealthy and secure.

Any other suggestions for things to add to the morning routine, please feel free to comment below.

On Listening

The theme of Listening has shown up in a variety of arenas in my life recently.

The most obvious was of course in the Deep Listening Walks, because they focus on heard experience.  They are a version of Mindfulness exercise.  They ask you to be attentive to the present, to the entirely of the soundscape that surrounds you.  You don't produce sound, you don't compose sounds, you don't think about anything but present sound, you open yourself up to the immediate aural experience, immerse in it, explore it, adventure in it, be in it.

But the same theme came up in the Labyrinth Walk.  You'd think that would be more about journeying, but Missy, our facilitator, suggested that we Listen during the walk, with just the same instruction as in the Deep Listening Walks, to the birds, to the wind, to the surrounding soundscape, to our own feet walking, to our neighbors' feet walking.  But beyond that, the Labyrinth Walk, when done in a Christian context, also included the element of listening for what God is telling you.  This is not done with the ears.  The meditative state of the walking, the arrival at the center, the sending up of prayers (in our case, in bubble form), all prepare you, quite inside, to receive messages, or Calls, or reassurances or whatever.

And then at church, I'm about to start a six-month program that is all about discernment.  The term "Discernment" comes up a lot in Christian contexts, especially when a parish is going through a search for a new Rector, as we just were.  Being in the middle of a Job Search - a Search - it has been very interesting to me to contrast the language.  The job seeker searches, goes out, looks, tries to find, tries to uncover, has to go out of there way, join groups of people in new communities, doing things that are currently hidden, has to find a way in, uncover, unlock, find.  The ordained Priest who is looking for a new job instead goes through a period of Discernment, trying to clearly see what is already there, right in front of them.  The Search Committee at a church looking for a new priest also describes their activity as Discernment.  The process, which took more than a year, involved looking inward, including the whole parish, to find out who we are, who we have been, who we want to be, what we want, what we need.  Then when the committee received the candidate's applications, they had to discern who would be on the short list.  In the interviews, we had to discern who we were called to call, as it were.  Not choose, not pick, but see, but hear.

In this series of workshops in which I'm about to participate, we're focusing on discernment with a small "d".  It's not the formal process one undergoes when called to ordination, as a Deacon or Priest in the Church.  It's for anyone who is trying to figure out a path.  Not seek a path, but discern it.  So this is all about listening too.  Being present to what's already here, quieting oneself inside, and trying to see and hear what's there, right in front of us.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development requires me to continue Searching, and applying for at least four traditionally described jobs per week.  So, inevitably, both processes will be going on at once, for me, for a while here.

The Voices in My Head When I Exercise

Don't hurt yourself.

I'm trying to establish a morning routine for myself.  Because I've been spending so much time in the house, and specifically at the computer, I know I need to include some movement, to ward off neck and back problems, to keep my injured ankle flexible and strong, to burn off some stress and keep my mind focussed, to help with sleep.

After much trial and experimentation, I have discovered that the 7 Minute Workout works very well for me.  I find it challenging, and it includes a variety of strength and cardio activities, but no one could ever argue that you couldn't fit it into your schedule, because everyone always has 7 spare minutes, plus having to do a thing for 30 seconds is very doable - 30 seconds is a management projection into time when you're doing something that's causing you pain or discomfort, especially when the narrator says "Halfway there!", so really you only have to exert mental fortitude for 15 seconds, which really should be doable for anyone.

However, I do find myself procrastinating.  Doing everything else in my morning routine except the 7 Minute Workout.  Grabbing my phone and getting lost in Facebook until I'm out of time and have to stop and go to some other appointment.  Sitting down at the computer and going down the job application rabbit hole which can eat up a whole day.

I know I feel better when I get the 7 Minute Workout routine done.  A few weeks ago when I was managing to do it probably three times per week, I felt like my arms, my posture, my legs were starting to be in much better shape.  Strong, maybe even looking better.  I felt that bright clear feeling in your brain that you get when you are getting some cardio in regularly (admittedly, we were also in the final glorious days of summer with bright sun and green grass and blue skies, and many civic activities outdoors, so that may have also played a part).  However, the motivation of thinking how good I'll feel afterward has still not been working to get me to do the routine.

During the blocks, during the mental conversation with myself when I'm thinking of doing the 7 Minute Workout but then deciding not to, if I listen to the voices inside my head, they are warnings of danger.  "Don't hurt yourself."  "Be careful."  "Don't do too much."

This is only a 7 Minute Workout, with activities of 30 seconds each.  Probably the most unfit person in the world, with the worst chronic conditions, would be able to do this workout all the way through without stopping or cheating on any of the exercises, and would be perfectly fine.

But the voices in my head are very concerned that I might die, or do myself some permanent debilitating injury like a head injury, or losing a limb, or some kind of asthma blackout that causes long term brain damage, or a stroke.

The voices are the loudest in my head during an exercise called "Chair Step-Ups", which if my sister ever found out I was doing I'm sure she would make me stop.  In this exercise, you step up on a chair - in my case, a folding metal chair that I bought from Target a few years ago, with fabric padding on the seat.  It's sitting on the carpet in my attic, away from the low gabled roof line and the ceiling fan.  In the exercise, you step up on the chair, then step one foot down on the floor and back up, so you are raising yourself up basically with the thigh of the leg that's still on the chair, then alternating sides, for 30 seconds.  It is fun, and thrilling, because you really are visually up higher in the room, and you got there under your own steam.  It is especially dangerous, because last year I fell on the last step of a staircase, broke my foot just under the ankle bone in three places, was in a cast and crutches for six weeks and a walking boot for three, and frightened to death my sister, who was with me when I fell and too me to the emergency room, and still has nightmares about me falling down the stairs.  When I go to do the Chair Step Ups exercise, I hear her voice in my head, worrying, suggesting that maybe I don't do it.  The chair could be wobbly, or slip off the carpet, or fall over, or just collapse.  I could lose my balance, which would be a fall from a very high height.  I might tangle my feet up, and fall and hit my head, and die, or sustain permanent brain injury, or break something else like my arm or my neck.  All of these thoughts makes the Chair Step Up more thrilling.

And I do feel a sense of accomplishment when I finish it, in fact throughout the 7 Minute Workout. I am doing something scary, and difficult, and surviving it.  The Wall Sit is another one - you spend 30 seconds supporting yourself with your back pressed against a wall, knees bent and legs at a 90 degree angle. This should not be possible, so I am always astonished and proud when I can actually do it, for the whole time.  You feel it, don't get me wrong, in the quads, you start to wobble maybe a bit at the end, but usually I can stay in the position until the workout narrator says "3, 2, 1, complete!"  This should not be possible for a woman as old as I am, and should not be possible for someone as unathletic throughout her life as I am, but it is possible.

The images that inspire me, once I actually start the workout and get going, are the American Ninjas.  They train on crazy tasks like the Salmon Ladder and rope climbs, in home built gyms, and then compete to do their personal best at City competitions and then in the Finals in Las Vegas, which we just watched last week.  They are strong and swift and graceful.  They trust the strength of their limbs to carry them through these tasks.  Many of them say it's fun!  It's adults playing on a giant jungle gym, basically.  They compete with such joy.  The commentary is always just about each participant's personal best, never pitting them against each other.  The rivals all train together and cheer for each other.  The favorites, many of them, were disqualified from falling on one of the first challenges, but in the post-game interviews, they smiled, and said, "Everybody falls."  They trained all year, and it was disappointing, and they disappointed their fans and family members who were there to cheer them on, but they will be back next year.  Everybody falls, and there's nothing wrong with falling, but they still train to achieve their personal best.

When I'm nearing the 30th second of Wall Sitting, I feel like a Ninja.  I am pushing my leg muscles to grow stronger, and support me in this crazy activity that shouldn't be possible, but I am doing it, bravely and with joy and fun, like a Ninja.

There were many stories of marathon people too, recently, because a big local marathon just took place and I had several friends and Facebook acquaintances run in it.  But that seems like something that really is dangerous and silly, I don't have any desire to overcome my fear of running a marathon.  The 7 Minute Workout is enough for me, and makes me feel like a Ninja.  The example of the Ninjas inspires me to ignore or contradict the voices of fear and reluctance in my head, and just do it.  This morning, I did so, and got it done.

Three Postures Toward Three Kinds of Time

Recently I've been thinking about models of life, and thinking about the tension between life as existing, mindfully and with attention, in the "now", and life as a linear journey or path, as depicted by the labyrinth.

Then, a few years ago, I was very much absorbed in the notion of Story, of Personal Story, of the mental act of shaping one's life into a narrative.

Which is the best model of life - a point, a line, or a Story?

Thinking more about time, I now think the different models each fit a different segment.

The Now

The present, the "now", the universal context, the collection of sensations - sight, sound, smell, taste, feeling - the only time on which one can act, the only time in which one can act, can actively live.  This is like a point, or a single environment or totality.  A "you" built of sensations, in context of a universe as it is, in one moment of time, of history.  The practices that bring you in aware contact with this real moment as it exists are things like meditation, relaxation practices, massage, Deep Listening, mindful eating, slow walking, labyrinth walking, deep breathing exercises.  These are beautiful practices that can leave you feeling clean, bright, centered, whole, with senses heightened, with a feeling of love and appreciation for the universe and all in it.  Those are all great things.

The Past

But there is also the past.  Existentialist-like, you have lived a series of moments already, up to this point, a string of choices and actions that chain together, like a chain, like a necklace, like a sidewalk, like road, like the turns of the labyrinth behind you.  These are real.  There are facts of the matter about these.  You can't change them, but you can remember them.  Memories are the only source of immortality - if you/your actions/your works/your creations live on in the memories of other people. That's real. That's bigger than you, bigger than your life.  Existentialist-like, the meaning of your particular life gets constituted by these, moment by moment but wholly when you cease living/acting/making choices.  The line, the path, the road behind you, the distance you've come are good images for time past.

The Future

The future, the moments ahead, are not yet actual. No facts of the matter pertain to those moments yet. There's a road - is there a road? There is a road sign.  We have reasons to believe that time will continue to move forward, linearly, at a speed of one second per second as it were. (We don't know for sure that it will, do we, Mr. Hume? But we have good reason to believe.)  We can imagine the future, though. The near future will be made out of very much of the fabric of the present moment. We can't stop it, either. We know there are choices and actions out there to make, but we know also that there are forces and circumstances that will impinge upon us in a way that we don't choose, that we can't control.  We can't know.  We can't know for certain what will happen because knowledge requires fact, but we can believe.  We can imagine.  We can hold some things fixed and other things mutable, and we can run the equations and we can imagine futures.  Future time is the subject of Story.

So, there's no reason to argue among the models. Argument probably emerges when someone tries to apply one posture to an inappropriate segment of Time.  If you live your present like a line, in memory, like the model of Inauthenticity that Sartre describes, acting bound by some past definition of yourself, you are missing out on the sensations and experiences (and opportunities to act and create yourself) of the current moment.  If you decide you're going to live wholly immersed in the present mindful moment, you will never get anything done.  One model does not fit all.  All have their role.

And, like a labyrinth, all lives have all three types of Time. We live as creatures of time, stationed in the now, looking backward, moving forward, one second per second.

Life is a Path vs Life is a Moment

Two themes about the nature of Life (that is, of human experience) keep appearing - that life is a Path, or that life is a Moment.

That life is a Journey, or that life is lived in only a single Now.

These two seem to be in opposition to me, which is why I'm thinking about them more.

On the Side of Life Being a Path

• Time proceeds in a forward direction
• Life is lived in only one direction
• Life has a beginning, a middle and an end in time
• You can remember the past, and plan for (or feel anxious about) the future
• Cause and effect works only in one direction, in time
• So, human actions in one moment in time can affect the moments down the track
• Human beings, through their actions, can change which future they have

On the Side of Life Being Not a Path

• You can only act on the present moment, your actions can't directly affect the past or the future
• One treatment for anxiety is to focus on your body and what it perceives in the present moment, in the present location - what do you hear, what do you taste, what do you smell, etc? This practice can calm the mind and restore rational thinking when it has been galloping away.
• There is no particular purpose or end goal toward which life is striving.  Life, intrinsically, is just one moment followed by another one, in which stuff happens and you are in a place.

See this video:

Alan Watts - Why Your Life Is Not A Journey from David Lindberg on Vimeo.

My Labyrinth Experience

We weren't sure whether the Labyrinth walk would be indoors or outdoors until late in the day, when the rain cleared and a breeze blew some of the sticky humidity away.

I was early, but Fr. Jim and Missy had everything set up, so we could just stand in the beautiful space and amiably enjoy each other's company.

The Gilberts arrived, and we looked up and saw about ten bald eagles circling above the clearing. There were jokes about not standing exposed in the meadow or we might be carried off, but then Emily said the best thing, which is that the eagles looked like they were walking the labyrinth from above, which they exactly did. Once they left, they didn't return while we were walking but many other birds' songs accompanied us.

Fr. Jim described the process of asking permission to hold the event, and of finding out that the parking lot belongs to The Refuge, but the labyrinth is on the other side of the small road and so belongs to the Friary.  When they went to inquire, the first two people they talked to didn't know what they were talking about, but the third one did because he said he mows it, and that sure, it was fine if we wanted to use it.

More gathered, about 16 of us in all, and when it was time, Missy called us to attention by ringing a bell, a practice I adore.  She started with an introduction of what we would be doing, and shared many of her experiences, to illustrate that there's no one way to walk, and every walk can be different.  She also added a great phrase to illustrate the difference between labyrinths and mazes.  I had picked up from previous conversations that labyrinths, being just one path, don't have any dead ends or reversals - like, you won't find yourself back at the start and outside the thing by accident, spit out, ejected.  But she said, "It's not a maze, you can't get lost."  You can't get lost.  She said if you did happen to step off the path and get on the wrong course, just keep going! She also said that she liked to open herself up to the sounds around, and if there was a car, just incorporate it into the experience - what does that remind you of?

She said she had written down a prayer, some lines from Psalm 25, which we might want to carry with us or say to ourselves as we walked.  Or we might like to say the name of a person, to hold them in our heart (this hit me with a little emotional stab, the first spiritual shudder of the experience). Some people might want to skip, or sing, and all that is fine, there's no wrong way.

Fr. Jim taught us how to draw a Classical Labyrinth (the other form, the Medieval Labyrinth, which is the one that's on the floor in the Cathedral of Chartres, was on the t-shirt he was wearing). I missed a crucial step of the drawing instructions because I had faded back to take a photo of the group, but picked it up from the paper instructions later on, and actually managed to draw a seven-course labyrinth today so the lesson stuck.

Classical 7-course Labyrinth, which I can now draw

Medieval 11-course Labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral

Stephanie took us through some breathing exercises, recommended for calming the busy mind and centering us in our bodies and in the present moment.  It was a nice blend of her yoga instruction expertise and Christianity - she taught us mantras that have exact parallels in scripture, including one that goes "So hum", which is an "I am", which applies both to us and to God.

Missy then kicked off the walking. She asked Stephanie to start people off at the entrance, and keep us apart so we would have sufficient space and not be running into each other.  She pointed out that she had placed some bubbles, like, for blowing bubbles, at the center, and that she liked to use bubbles at the center because she liked to send something up, like a prayer.

For those not yet walking, she invited us to explore the table full of things she had brought - clay and silver finger labyrinths, and one elegant one that you walk with a beautiful silver stylus; labyrinths to color in, journalling notebooks (which I picked up, and from which notes I write this post).  Different types of wind-chimey bells, which I don't know if any of us carried but several people walked around the perimeter with them, and they made a beautiful, soft, fun background soundtrack.

I decided to start. Stephanie greeted me at the entrance and suggested how to time my entry so I didn't run into Susan who had gone before me.  She suggested taking three breaths before you enter, to adopt an attitude of respect for the experience.

The first thing you do is a straight, so you walk directly in and are walking toward the center, oriented to the center, before you take your first left turn.  I walked in the style of the Walking Meditation that we had used at the start of the second Deep Listening Walk - as slow as you can, don't pick your back heel up until your front heel is down.  This very soon became a walk as if I was on a tightrope, or on a balance beam like the women I'd been watching in the Rio Olympics a few weeks ago.

Balance.

My focus was on the grass just in front of me, and I put one foot in front of the other and then put my arms out to balance, and was making pretty ballerina shapes with my arms and my hands to keep myself steady, and it was really, really fun.

Play.  Circus.

I was reminded, once again, which I always forget, that to be "at peace", to be "oneself", to be "in the moment", to be "okay with just being", does not necessarily mean to be somber, downcast, serious, like a lead weight. When I am most me, I am playful and energetic.  The somber and downcast state that I feel is being prescribed for me is what takes me away from myself.

I wasn't really self-conscious, because I was attending to not causing disruption for anyone else's walk - not making noise, not flailing my arms into the course beside me where someone might be trying to walk in a different way.

There was music in my head the whole time, too, in time with my steps, but circus music.

It is true that you can't tell where you are with respect to your destination.  You get a feeling that you're getting close to the center and then a turn will take you all the way around back to where you started.  Because I was having so much fun, this was wonderful - there would be no scarcity of experience.

Because our labyrinth was mowed into grass, the corners were sort of irregular, some of them pointy, some squared off, some blobby circles.  I used their shapes to improvise lots of different flamboyant turns - pacing off the corners, spinning a full turn and then around far enough to grab the next path, a version of a three-point turn like you'd do in a car.  I almost took Emily out while executing one of these, because she was passing on the inside just as I was backing up, but I don't think she noticed the close call, and it was all good.

As I worked over to the far side, I got into a more settled state.  You can't help but think of the path as representing a life. I remembered the twirling and playful balance beam walking, and I was now more settled, but it was okay, it was like a memory from one's 20's, but still part of me - and I did realized, strongly, that I would be passing back that exact way again once I had reached the center and was coming back.  I think this is an important feature of the labyrinth - no experience is lost, you know that you will pass this way again.

I did look up, at various intervals, to different vistas, arranged orthogonally around me.  There was a bank of trees, with some sort of critter rustling in it, as it got darker. I saw Jorden walking Gillian's little white dog around the perimeter. I saw Missy walking with bells.  The most stunning vista was back toward the entrance - people I love, arranged around the meadow, either walking or finished walking and standing by, with a large weeping willow tree, lit by the golden and rose colored sunset.

I was thinking I was probably more than half way when I met the first person coming back.  This was very strikingly like being greeted by elders, by ancestors, by those who had gone before. This was a very powerful feeling.

I thought, will I be at the center now? And there would be another turn. Now?

And then suddenly I was there, at the turn to the right and the straight that clearly led to the center point, which I could easily see.  And I stopped, with another stab of emotion, thinking, I'm not ready!

I stopped, and turned and regarded that beautiful willow and the sunset and the people I love.

Others passed and it was actually getting a little crowded, and I thought, well, and I turned the other way.

And then I saw Sarah there, blowing bubbles, and I thought, it's alright, because Sarah's there.

I remember those footsteps very distinctly.  One after the other heading to the termination of this walk, and thinking, oh, well, okay, this is what this is like, I'm doing this.

As you can tell, that whole last length represented the end of life and the journey to death.  It couldn't help but represent it.

I arrived near the center and Sarah was blowing bubbles which were so perfect and beautiful, reflecting the evening light. I put my hand out and touched a couple of them, and they burst, and so those prayers didn't go up, if that's where she was sending them, but I thought (with the front part of my brain) that it was okay if I took some of her bubbles for myself. I hope that's true. The last one, I just put my hand behind, and it was like looking at the world itself, that sphere with my hand behind it.

I blew some bubbles myself after Sarah walked on, in several directions, for the others still walking the path.

Leave something behind for others to remember you by.

Now the walk back seems shorter in my mind. I did notice that I was one of the last ones walking - that balance-beam walk turned out to be a slow way of doing things.

The song in my head I tried to change, different fugue variations for each course as I turned each corner.  Walking a musical composition into being.

I had a punk rock moment in which I thought about what it would be like to just diagonally walk across all the courses and head in a straight line to the exit. One certainly could do it, the patches of grass between the courses were only like two inches high. I thought it, but I didn't do it, and didn't feel like doing it.  The borders weren't real borders, but the feeling I had for them was respect.  I felt respect for the borders and the path and the walk, and the way to get back to the exit even though it was going to take a while.  It helped me feel how it would feel to be punk rock but still respectful. You can just walk across the lines, but I didn't.

I did wonder what it would be like to take big steps, so did so for a bit and thought, "Silly Walk," like John Cleese.  I wondered what it would be like to go fast, so on one of the longer stretches, where I could see no one was in front of me, I jogged for about ten steps. I could tell it would be fun.  You get more absorbed in the rhythm of your feet because they're falling faster, closer together, and the cluttered thoughts get more effectively blasted out of your head.  Because it's on grass and uneven, it might be dangerous, ankle-risking, but I'm still interested in going back sometime and trying it for comparison.

The word I had when I came out was "Effervesce."  To truly be my true self, that's what I need to do. When I'm being my true self, playful and happy with pretty ballerina arms, I feel like a glass of champagne with bubbles rising.

Missy had said that Fr. Jim would be available for administering Holy Unction and healing after the walk, "because for some people sometimes it brings up stuff."

I asked him after my walk if he had administered a healing prayer to anyone, and he said no, and I asked, "Do you want to do one?" because my ankle did worry me, from last year's injury.  He had some Chrism oil, which is usually used for baptism but he said he brought it because it smells good. I would say sort of patchouli-y, and the scent stayed with me all night, although no one mentioned it.  Patchouli-y, but subtle.

He free-formed a prayer, which skill I greatly admire and feel like I'm one of those people that don't know how to do it and need a prayer book to read from, he free-formed a prayer which addressed my ankle but also my job search, and questions about life, and, "I'd say", he said, "worth", which I think is fair.  A phrase I wrote down in my little journalling notebook was that he asked God to help me walk "safely and confidently".

Safely and Confidently.

It was dark by the time we helped them pack up the things and the tables, and the mosquitoes were biting and there was reason to hurry.  We all sort of lingered at the cars when saying goodbye.

On Buildings Collapsing

Thoughts are with the people of Italy who were effected by last night's earthquake.

In a macabre coincidence, last night when I was trying to fall asleep, for some reason I was thinking about Stuart Diver.  He survived a landslide at Thredbo village and ski resort in Australia in 1997.  He was rescued after spending 65 hours trapped between two concrete slabs, in icy water in subzero winter temperatures.  The whole nation was focussed on the disaster and on his rescue when it happened, and he made a number of TV appearances afterward, so his story was top of mind for the whole country for a long time.

They don't go into this detail in the Wikipedia pages, but I remember him describing the space in which he was trapped being partially filled with water, so that if he lay relaxed his face was under the surface.  He had to reach his face up out of the water to take a breath of air.  For 65 hours.

His wife, who had been laying beside him in bed when the landslide occurred, did not survive but drowned when she was trapped underwater.

Some attributed his survival to the fact that he was young and, as a ski instructor, extremely fit.  I seem to remember him saying something like, "What else are you doing to do?"  Of course he reached up and took a breath every few minutes.  For 65 hours.

For some reason that story in its detail recurred to me last night, and seeing the news today, it would have been just around the time the earthquake in Italy occurred.

More on Oprah's video, leading to more on Now and Time

Thank you to those who participated in the further discussion of the Oprah video from my last post.

After hearing what you all had to say, I have a better theory on why the video included something that spoke to my friend Bob and sounded grounded in truth, while also including something that set me off on my rant and sounded false.

My understanding is based in an observation by a Boddhisatva of my acquaintance, who after watching the video said that it included some good stuff, but it's presented in a context of material success.

His comment formed a picture in my mind, of the talk as first half Buddhist wisdom, second half American ambition.

The part that comforted my friend was that part that said there is no such thing as failure, where you are now is where you are supposed to be, and every moment adds up to your whole life.

The part that sent me into a range was the part that said that there is a sacred purpose for your life, only one, and it's your job to find out what that is, and any time you feel unease - which, unease is the very definition of living, it's something all human beings experience all day every day about something or other, born of the fact that we can imagine the future and therefore imagine the present being something different from what it is - any time you feel unease, she says, that's evidence that you're not living your life according to your sacred calling, and you'd better change - quit your job, get a divorce - and keep changing until that uneasy feeling goes away.

If she says there's no such thing as failure, she must also embrace the other half of that, which is that there's no such thing as success either.

The second half of the video is an expression of American ambition and striving and continuous dissatisfaction, and if you buy that, then there is such a thing as failure, which is every moment up to and including now, because you're not there yet.

So, those are some further thoughts on the video, and then stay tuned for some further thoughts inspired by these ones, about the Now and about Time, time as a moment you're in and time as a journey.  I'm puzzling these topics through and finding I have thoughts and emotions that aren't consistent, so I'm working on framing a point of view that makes sense of it.

More as I get it written down!

Yin and Yang

Why What Oprah Says Might Be WRONG

Here.  This.  A friend shared this video on Facebook last week, and this is exactly the set of principles I heard from Oprah years ago, but which I'm now thinking are wrong, and directly contradictory to some of the most fundamental principles of my most foundational philosophical beliefs.



Listen to what she says:


"You have a supreme destiny."

"There is a supreme moment of destiny calling on your life." (just one moment, note)

"Your job is to feel that, to hear that, to know that."

"The losses are there to wake you up" (so, if you are in an unhappy or un-supremely-settled state, it's your own fault, for not discovering that one thing that you were put on the planet to do)

"When you're not at ease with yourself, that is the cue that you need to be moving in another direction." (like, you're obliged to keep changing until you are perfectly at peace, and only one thing will get you there)

"The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself what is the next right move." (so, moves can be right or wrong. There's an answer to what's right, and you can get the answer wrong.)


Now think about the situation of the very talented, smart, capable unemployed person, when this voice has been internalized into her head.  Your are unemployed because you are on the wrong path. You are DESTINED for something in particular.  Your JOB is to figure out what that is. And there is only one right answer, which means that there are wrong answers, so every minute of your precious life which is a precious gift from God which you spend not doing whatever that thing is, you are WASTING that time.  Every minute! Every second!

I have had this voice in my head for years, and the people around me know how it hounds me and stresses me out.

I was describing it to the new Rector of my church, and observing that it creates a lot of...pressure, and he laughed and said, yeah, I was going to say.

In the further course of that same conversation, I described how much I was influenced by Sartre in the early part of my Philosophy education, and how it formed my views about the meaning of life - that there is no essence, no meaning is given to you just from being born a human being, it is your responsibility to act, to choose into each new second as it unfolds, to define yourself as you go along by your choices, and only at the end of your life can you look back and read that history of choices and understand your essence, who you were.

This belief underpins my deep belief that the future is not actual, that nothing is determined at this point, that you can't know anything for sure about things that have not yet happened.  Not that this pen in my hand will fall when I release it, not that the sun will rise tomorrow or the earth keep turning, not that if you raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour it will either help or hurt the economy, not that if you tighten or ease up immigration requirements it will make your country either flourish or be destroyed.  People have arguments all the time about these things, but you can't win an argument about what will happen in the future, because the future is not actual.  Things are more or less likely, but you can't know them yet, not until they happen.  This firm belief I get from David Hume and his Problem of Induction, and you can see how it goes with the Sartre views of how one lives a life.

So, Oprah, that means that I cannot have a "destiny".  There is no one right answer for how I exist myself into each new second.  I choose.  No one else chooses.  I can change direction and do something different every second.  I do agree that because of their likely consequences some actions are more likely to result in something good (the greatest good for the greatest number) than others, and are more likely to lead to flourishing, but there's no one set of actions for me that will lead to that. What you say is incompatible with what I believe. No choice is the right choice, so no choice can be intrinsically wrong, there's a huge spectrum of possibilities, not yet written, it's up to me to write them.

And it's also damaging, and puts undue pressure on not just me but on all the people around me, when whatever I'm doing with them does not feel like that thing.

I can't be still and discern, like, see something that exists, what my path is or what I should do with my life.  I CHOOSE it.  I choose it.  I have radical freedom, because human beings have no essence, and the future is not actual, per my boys Jean Paul and David.

This argument will continue, I think, because this video is quite recent, but her views got into my head and started beating me up about my choices probably 15 years ago.  It will take a while to untangle Oprah vs Existentialism.  But I think what she says might not just be unhelpful, I think it might be WRONG.

Highlights from my Deep Listening Walks

During the Mile of Music, the Music Education Team put on two Deep Listening Walks.  I had life-changingly done one a few years ago (not at last year's Mile of Music because I was getting around in a cast and crutches), and so was excited to do both of them this year.

The walks kicked off with Dean Brian Pertl explaining the history and concept of Deep Listening. The term was coined by composer Pauline Oliveros.  The discovery story is that she was experimenting with recordings, while living in New York City. One day she hung a microphone out of her apartment window, and hung her head out as well.  When she played the tape back, there were all kinds of sounds the microphone had picked up that she had not attended to. Deep Listening is the practice of listening as a microphone would, of opening your ears to the full soundscape around you.

We don't do this all the time because it would make communication and getting around in the world very difficult.  When I am explaining the concept in person, I say, "For example, right now you are attending to the sound of me talking, and filtering out the background noises like the air conditioner, the clock ticking, the cars going by.  We have this capacity of attending to certain things and filtering other things out that works very well for you to understand me right now. But Deep Listening is the practice of reversing that, taking the filters off and attending to the whole soundscape."

The other instruction Dean Pertl gave us was to image the sounds we were hearing were a composed piece, organized in a particular way for us to hear.

The first walk was at 5:00 pm on Friday, a very noisy time during the Festival. We took off from Harper Hall on the Lawrence University campus and walked along the north side of College Avenue. The group included five members of the Music Education team, who were all wearing the same orange t-shirt, so at this walk and the second one both, the visual presentation of the walk was of a group of obviously linked people, moving very slowly and not speaking, and adopting very strange postures toward the objects around them - slowly pacing into doorways and nooks in building walls, putting their ears right up to an orange traffic cone, rocking toward and away from walls and glass windows, standing very still or turning in slow circles, putting their heads inside mail boxes.  Someone was taking photos of the second walk and I'd love to see them.

Dean Pertl told us to attend to the point along the walk when music from one venue faded and you could just hear the music from the next one. I heard sounds coming from The Fire, the Alley beside the History Museum and Houdini Plaza - emerging indistinctly as I approached, then loud as loud, then mixing with other sounds.

He asked us to be Sonic Explorers, to interact with things to see how the sound changed.  One Education Team member, who had designed the seven Deep Listening stations throughout the Mile, leaned down and put her ear in the opening at the top of an orange traffic cone, and then stood up and silently caught our eyes and nodded an "Oh, yeah," sort of nod, so we all tried it, and it was the best and most surprising sound I heard, especially the difference between listening to the cone when it was sitting on the ground (ocean waves) and when you picked it up an inch or so (more like radio static).

Walking into doorways and little nooks in the fronts of buildings mainly removed the hissy treble sounds of the music in the distance.  It didn't seem to matter what shape the entry was - large or small, sharp or angled corners.  Perhaps it would it I had more sensitive listening skills.

As we passed under a trestle that has been set up in front of the City Center building as they paint and replace the sign, a man came up behind me talking on his cell phone, and I heard his voice very distinctly say, "Can you hear me now?"

My most personal discovery was as we crossed the street and came to the big gray office building bemoaned by city Placemakers because it doesn't open on to the street.  One thing I always do on Deep Listening experiences is try to hear how big the space is (maybe I do this being a big fan of reverb on guitar amplifiers, and also an authenticist who was trying to discover what the "realest" amp is and considering spending $700 on a Fender Spring Reverb Tank, but then researching some more and realizing the only authentic reverb comes from standing in a big room).  We were looking down at the sidewalk during much of our walk, to focus on the sonic experience (aural experience). But when I crossed the street and entered that space beside the ugly gray office building, I could hear the larger space opening up.  I've tried this since, but it worked much better when there was so much noise being produced.

Dean Pertl's first observation in the debrief of this walk was how few times you fail to hear a Harley-Davidson.  They don't close the road during the Mile of Music, so the passing cars contribute to the music themselves.

The second walk was the next morning, early.  Some people gathered near Harper Hall, two groups with small children because it was an Education event, and they seemed worried that they didn't know what they were supposed to be doing.  I said, "Well, I know how to do it, so if no one shows up, I can lead it," and that seemed to cheer them.  The same orange-shirted Music Education Team members arrived, and then Dean Pertl, who had been stuck in traffic behind the Bike to the Beat cyclists, another Mile-sponsored event that early morning.

We began this walk with a walking exercise, Slow Walking, before we started the listening part.  We went outside in front of the building, which has a lovely array of sidewalks going in all diagonal different directions, for some distance before you hit another building or a street.  The object was to walk as slowly as you possibly could.  Have one heel just coming off the ground as the other one hits, and the same for your toes.  A little girl who was probably two years old was a very keen participant. She stuck one foot out immediately after Dean Pertl did, to follow his instructions, and walked this funny way throughout the exercise, although she couldn't quite master the slowness at first, just walked one foot in front of the other but at normal pace. She's one of those kids who wants to walk up to everyone and find out what they were doing, so she approached a number of people outside, someone moving percussion instruments on a cart, someone putting up a light, walked right up and looked up and said hello.  She looked back once and I reached a hand out to her, mainly to wave but also to keep her connected to our group, and she came right up and held my hand, and we slow walked together for a while. She finally got the pace, and looked up to me and said, "I'm doing it!" We were supposed to be keeping silence, but Dean Pertl had said that he was glad there were some little people in our group, because the sounds they make are part of the soundscape. Her excited and friendly and proud sounds were delightful.

On the walk a few years ago we had spent most of the time in City Park, and much of that playing with the fountain and its sounds as reflected off surrounding surfaces like walls and trees.  This time we never made it past the courtyard between the Chapel and the Conservatory building, because there was so much to discover there.  Dean Pertl gestured toward me and pointed in some indiscrimiate direction, urgently.  I finally realized he was pointing to the air conditioning system at the top of the Con building, and when I saw it then I heard it, I hadn't before. Then he pointed to the plate glass window on the other side, and he rocked back and forth as if he was doing push-ups on the window. I tried it and it made a very distinct and satisfying phaser sound.

At one point the air conditioning of the Chapel building kicked on, and someone had just gone in the automatic door so I thought that's what caused it, but when I pressed the button to open the door again, it didn't really do much, which is how I realized.

Because we were attending to such subtle differences in continuous background noises, it was a shock to hear something like a digeridoo or a trombone, a honking scraping noise.  It was Dean Pertl, stepping on the corner of a loose paving stone, in a way that made it squeak.  (He must know this area of campus amazingly well.)(I asked him, kidding, in the debrief, whether he had had that stone installed specially, and tuned up, and he said, yes, yes, that's right - so I still don't really know for sure that he didn't!)

At one point, in a spot where I could hear both air conditioners plus street noise, the sound almost became overwhelming, and I could imaging how they describe autism feels, with just too much stimulation and an inability to filter it and attend.  I came back away from this feeling by imaging that the sounds were a composition. The Chapel air conditioning system kicking off was very much like the denouement of a composition.  The composer was returning to the quiet themes of the opening, before the climactic build.  Imposition of imagined intention somehow gave me back control (something to muse on - made it a more conversational experience).

I took myself into parts of the staircase on the Washington Street side of the plaza area where you wouldn't normally go - sitting on the steps, on the wrong side of the railing, down into the greenery near the water pumps.  Different parts of the air conditioning noise, different car and street noises, another person on his phone, the park fountain in the distance.  I thought the discovery of new visual experiences was sometimes even more impressive than the sonic experiences of a place. On the steps on the wrong side of the railing, I looked up and the number and depth and arrangement of different square and curved shapes was remarkable.

I would love to see a photo of us, mostly in matching orange t-shirts, standing in various meditative postures arranged around this plaza area, some leaning their ears to walls, some turning in slow circles, some lying on the ground and hanging their heads over the side.

The other visual experience I had was that colors were much brighter after each walk, and I remember a friend, years ago, describing this as one of the key benefits of meditation, and his indication that it works (and is better than drugs).  Deep Listening is certainly a meditation, and a practice of mindfulness.  I suppose you can do it with any of the senses, but it has been a revelation to me to do it with the experience of sound.

Doors in My Recent Life

On May 4, 2016, this door opened, but then on Tuesday July 26, 2016 it closed again.

On July 8, in response to mounting tragedies, these big red doors were opened, and they now open every Friday.

Between July 27 and July 24, 2016, I spent the week in Door County, Wisconsin, surrounded by family and love.

In response to a conversation about how to identify talents and gifts, and what one is supposed to do to use them to the fullest, Father Jim Harrison shared with me this prayer, from the book "Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals".

In response to a conversation about my finances into the near future with my financial advisor, he shared with me this meme.

Welcome in to this latest new Door.