Affirmations

I had a one-day transition between family vacation time in Michigan and preparing for two more Orff courses in Beijing and Shanghai. Got a haircut, bought a new case for my glasses, re-packed my suitcases, caught up on e-mails, watered the plants, had dinner with my daughter, ticking off the items on the list. And now in the United Club Lounge at the International Terminal, a miraculous no-line check in and security entry and ready for the next adventure. 

 

At least I hope I’m ready. Tiresome to keep mentioning this dizziness but more tiresome to keep experiencing it. It feels like a big risk to fly halfway around the world and commit to two-five-day courses where I’m teaching some 6 hours a day when I’m feeling like this. Really? Is this a good idea?

 

Why do I do it? Of course, for the money! Ha ha! Not! First and foremost, for my own pleasure in having found a way to be of use to the world. Then come the affirmations from the teachers I’ve trained and the kids I’ve taught, first tucked into a drawer of handwritten postcards and letters and later, copied into a folder on my computer desktop title Affirmations. 

The order is important: first, the inner sense that this work makes sense and the pleasure I feel in teaching affirmed by the happiness in the room. When the written or spoken testimonies come, it is a further affirmation that my intuitions seem to be correct. That the ideas and material and the humanistic sub-text have a direct impact on how people teach, how they think, how they feel. All of which feeds back into an encouragement to keep going. Even if it means flying 15 hours to China feeling less than wonderful.

Peeking back at that folder today, I found this little Facebook comment on one of my birthdays:

 

We are so glad you were born. Happy Birthday, with all our love.

Signed,

Anyone You Have Ever Taught

 

May it continue!

News From the Other World

Having happily received a different kind of news this morning (see Footprints in the Sand), I walked to the back lake and eased effortlessly into the perfect temperature calm waters. Mostly I’m at the back lake in the late afternoon, but it was a good choice to come mid-morning, when the world was still fresh, fewer boats out and the sun slowly warming up the world. 

 

I headed for the usual raft some 200 strokes away and on the way back, felt a profound sense of oneness with the waters. Perhaps some ancient memory of the peace and security of the watery womb from which we all began life. A blessed happiness flowed throughout my whole body and in the midst of it all, I envisioned a Harris-Walz victory to come. Not just imagine the scene in my mind’s eye but feeling the full dimension of all the joy and hope and love it brought with it in my whole body. It was as real and tangible as if it had been happening right in the moment. 

 

I’m far from claiming a prophet’s second-sight, but I’ve had such pre-visions before and they all came true exactly as I had imagined them. Not to say we all should relax and stop writing postcards and calling people to remind them to vote and such. But to offer the possibility that this news came from the Other World where it is in everyone’s interest that their descendants still walking this earth can bring the joy, healing and justice we all deserve one step further down the road. 

 

I often quote an Irish saying that “what’s wrong in this world can only be healed by those in the other world and what’s wrong in the other world can only be healing by those in this world.” That is to say that we have the bodies and breath to continue the work our ancestors left unfinished and they are depending upon us to help heal those wandering lost because their stories were never told and no one grieved for them. But we can’t do it alone and so the notion of angels watching over us and ancestors showing up at the dancing ring blessing us with their invisible presence is part of the full conversation we all need to have. 

 

So having had a visitation from those ancestors while swimming in the healing waters of Lower Herring Lake in Northern Michigan, I’m just here to report it and keep it in mind as we continue the necessary work to make it so. 

 

And may it be so! 

Footprints in the Sand

Lauren Van der Post’s two books, A Story Like the Wind and A Far-Off Place tell the story of a European boy coming of age and learning a new perspective on life from his Bushman friend. Instead of the European “civilizing” the African, it's reversed: the latter “naturalizes” the former by teaching him how to live on this earth in company with all of God’s creation. Whereas the Europeans wake up and read the newspaper to get the news, the Bushmen read the tracks on the ground to find out the news of what went on the night before. Likewise, they listen to the wind, tune into the bird song and animal chatter, attend to the weather. 

 

So this morning, my last at Lake Michigan for this year,  I had the good sense to walk on the beach before opening the computer and there on the sand was all the news from last night and early morning, written in the hieroglyphics of bird tracks, bug tracks, dog and deer tracks. Of course, being the modern civilized man I am, I am completely illiterate in sandtracks. I could figure out the signatures of seagulls and dogs and people, but there were others unfamiliar. And simply recognizing them is like naming letters of the alphabet, but being a long way from understanding War and Peace. When were they made? Did the tracks that crossed happen in real time? Did any of these creatures actually meet and if so, what happened? 

 

Whether or not I could literally decipher them, it was so much more uplifting to just notice them and wonder than to listen to a talking head. So much more interesting to figure out a real fox's news than the fake one on the screen. 

Then walking back noting my own footprints that came the other way and thinking  how, at the end of the day, our legacy is pretty much just footprints in the sand, never seem by most, ignored by those walking by them, quickly washed away in the sea. But no matter. We were here, we left our imprint and then moved on to other unknown shores. 

 

A good way to say goodbye to Michigan and so I will. But first one more swim in the back lake.

Organ Recital

As mentioned earlier, my daughters and grandkids left the cottage and the new visitors arrived—my wife’s cousins, all in their 70’s. How different the conversations are! It started with the “organ recital” of each’s aches and pains and bodily diminishments and then continued to wills, trusts and cremation plans. Quite different from my conversations with Zadie and Malik!

 

But of course, only natural that the talk turns to the particular joys and challenges of our times of lives. From the teen’s talk about who has a crush on who to the 20’s discussions of the coming revolution (my experience back in the 60’s and 70’s) and landlords and getting jobs to the 30’s sharing of diaper services and mortgage rates. The 40's was sharing stories about the kid's schools and vacation spots, the 50's about visiting colleges and the empty nest, the 60's about grandkids and retirement. The 70's seems to be both the organ recitals and the joys of pickle ball and cornhole.   

 

Which is why it feels important to keep mixing with all ages. There is a comfort and familiarity hanging out with your peer group and making references to Leave It to Beaver, Metrecal, 8-track players and such and knowing you will be understood. But equally important to spend time with all ages, feel the fresh energy of the young with slight nostalgia to be in our young bodies again and gratitude that we’re in our elder’s minds mostly unconcerned about being in the cool group and comfortable with who we are. 

Besides still teaching children, the Orff workshops I teach tend to be teachers in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and it’s a healthy mix. 

 

When I was in 8^th grade, I gave an organ recital that actually was recorded on a LP record (remember those?). Now the organ recitals are different. That’s life. 

Shift in the Wind

I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. My perception, media-driven and purposefully designed to keep the horror going and stamp out hope, is that half the country if perfectly fine with 120-degree temperatures (climate change is a hoax!), the ultra-rich excused from paying taxes and flying themselves into space while children go hungry, people of color winning so many gold medals in the Olympics (Yay, U.S.A.!) while still kept out of jobs and neighborhoods and a pathological liar, convicted felon and morally vacant sub-human man getting their vote. I know those people exist, but it is so out-of-my-experience because in the circles I run in, I simply hardly ever meet them. It just baffles me, disturbs me, brings me down and makes it hard to keep the flag of hope flying.

 

But the shift in the wind with Biden so generously and selflessly stepping down and Kamala Harris and Tim Walz stepping up is palpable. Suddenly those like myself feeling helpless and hopeless feel empowered and revved up and the donations, rally attendance and general vibe is that we’re rising up, stepping out and are newly determined to save our democracy and keep bending  the arc of the moral universe toward justice. Can you feel it?

Then came this well-timed reminder from Michael Moore. In the full Substack article, he gives the details of those heart-lifting statistics. This is not fake news and affirms my own experience with the people I know and meet. Read it, pass it on and let’s take to the streets with the power and freedoms that democracy offers us to get out the vote and gather people to join the march toward simple decency, kindness, compassion and justice. For those who feel needlessly threatened by other ways— the wonderful diversity that actually defines our country—let’s remember that there is nothing more American than ensuring “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and nothing more Christian than throwing the moneylenders out of the temple and learning to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are the new Moral Majority.

 

Come join the winning team!

 

The Joy of Continuity

Well, the next two generations below just left the summer cottage and it’s only us old folks left. Despite my minor health issues, it was a most marvelous time. The 2^nd or 3^rd explosion-free visit with the grandkids and a good sign that they are maturing, happier with who they are, more clear about who we expect them to be and in general, so much more of “very, very good” and so much less (none this trip) of “horrid.”

 

One of the highlights was 12-years-olds Zadie and her friend Zulia cooking dinner for all of us. Watching them take it on in the kitchen, their kitchen clean-up before serving, the beautifully arranged serving and the most nutritious and delicious Mexican-style taco meal was a wonder to behold and a grand pleasure to eat. Then the next day they baked me a ricotta raspberry birthday cake, again, to perfection. Yet another day 9-year-old Malik was my sous-chef for a pasta meal and that was also fun and new territory. 

 

Today we watched the Women’s Basketball Olympic final and so beautiful how many of the team players looked like Zadie and I could actually imagine her on a team like that or running Olympic track-and-field some day. Probably not, as it would take a passion for either sport and a determination, indeed, obsession, that is most likely not her Soul’s path. But just imagining the possibility was a grand pleasure. 

 

From beating us in races (both Zadie and Malik actually beat their Aunt Talia who is pretty darn fast), to geometrically-increased paddleball records (Zadie and Talia got 486, Talia and Malik 94), to beating us in card games to joining us in artful and hilarious Charade games, the human drama is being played out just as it should. The old lead and then step aside as the young people move on up. The elders feel the needed sense of continuity, that everything they cared about and cared for will continue beyond their mortality and perhaps done better than they could in their particular time and place. That’s how it’s supposed to happen. 

 

All of which makes me look forward to the next incarnation of their emerging selves, with faith in their ability and character. On we all go!

  

"I Will Arrange"

46 years ago, my wife and I were in the midst of a year-long trip around the world and in early December, arrived at the small town of Cheruthuruti in Kerala, India. It was the site of the Kalamandalam School, devoted to training musicians/ dancers in the art of Kathakali Dance Drama. I had hopes that I could study a drum there, which indeed happened. 

 

As soon as we entered the town, we headed toward the Government Guest House, a clean and affordable (I believe it was $1.50 per night!) accommodation. There on the front porch were two Western travelers talking with an Indian man named Raymond. Raymond spoke good English, was interested in the U.S. (with a special affection for John F. Kennedy) and was quick to offer us help in settling in. So began a three-month relationship which was captured in three words, “I will arrange.” Whatever we needed, whatever we were interested in, he spoke those magic three words and Poof! it happened! From a local festival to a shadow puppet play to lunch cooked by a local woman to helping arranging my drum lessons to getting us a house to rent in a rice field ($20 a month), Raymond did it all. He accompanied us to these various events, came over just to hang out and talk and generally made our magical three months there possible and memorable. 

 

When we returned to the U.S., we continued to write letters every once in a while and then that faded away. Many years later, when Facebook had emerged, I noticed one of his two sons now living in Atlanta, Georgia in a post. The timing was perfect, as in 2011, I was planning to take my daughter Kerala to the place she was named for in honor of her 30^th birthday. My wife at first declined to come and then decided to, as well as my daughter Talia. I had great hopes to reunite with Raymond, as well as my drum teacher Narayana and our lunch cook Sainaba. His son gave me Raymond’s phone number and when we arrived in Cochin, Kerala, I called him and lo and behold, he answered! We agreed to meet at that same guest house on a proposed date. 

 

We took the train from Cochin north toward Cheruthuruti. My excitement mounting as we passed familiar town names, finally getting off at Shornur. A quick tuk-tuk ride across the river and left turn up the hill to the Government Guest House. And there he was, sitting on the same steps where we met 32 years ago. “Raymond!!” I bolted from the tuk-tuk and hugged him and felt his body shake—and mine to follow—with big, heaving sobs. Then he broke down again as he hugged Karen and met Kerala and Talia for the first time. Like me, a larger belly, his grey beard to match my grey mustache, but indisputably Raymond. This was a promising beginning, what felt at once like the next moment in a long 32-year day and an unexpected chance to resume a friendship after so much had happened in-between—the long trail of marriages, births, deaths and day following day as we spun out the threads of our destinies. When I asked about seeing Sainaba and Narayana, he said, “I’ve already arranged it.” And indeed, he had. 

 

At that time, Raymond, when asked about his religion, answers,  “I am a member of the Human Religion. Take care of the poor, comfort the afflicted.” When we met him at 35 years old, his wife taught school and he seemed aimless, happy just to hang out with us. Soon after, he got some bit parts in movies, often as the villain. And now he had arrived at this new place in his life, volunteering his time to help the needy.

 

Yesterday I got a Facebook message from his son that Raymond had passed on after a short illness. At my age, this kind of news is far too commonplace, but I must say that this one really hurt. Since our visit in 2011, we didn’t keep in touch via e-mail and such, but I often thought about him, always with great affection, appreciation and love. 

 

Raymond liked to tell the story of our send-off at the Shornur train station back in 1979. I was distraught that I had nothing to give to him to remember me by and vice-versa, so right there in the station, we traded shirts. And this somehow symbolized the life he was living now, willing to give the shirt off his back to help those who might need it. And I’d like to think that I would too. Or at least give it to Raymond.

 

I still have that shirt, but now I don’t have Raymond. I’m imagining all his friends in the Other World gathering to meet him and as he enters this new world, they hug him and ask what he needs and tell him, “We will arrange.” 

The News, Such As It Is

It’s a windy, cold and grey-skied day in upper Michigan, the third in the row. Grandson Malik and Zadie’s visiting friend Zulia are playing cards and sweet how the 9-year old and 13-year old have grown to enjoy each other. I caught up on some e-mail and am obsessively reading a mystery (The Flight Attendant) to try to take my mind off my continued and disturbing undiagnosable dizziness. 

Two days without swimming now, but still some fun moments playing Miniature Golf with the group, cornhole at the Cabbage Shed restaurant where I first encountered the game, a sweet show of select Broadway tunes in a beautiful church in the woods, a rollicking card game of Five Crowns. Life goes on in spite of my inability to be wholly present to savor and enjoy it. 

 

With a long flight to China and two five-day workshops there starting next Friday, I’m getting a bit anxious over it all. It comes, it goes and hopefully will go in the next few days. Maddening to feel helpless without a clear diagnosis or plan to manage whatever it is. I’ve tried—bloodwork, MRI, talks with my doctor— all to no avail. Aargh.

 

Meanwhile, my daughters and grandkids will leave tomorrow, I’ll stay three more days— hopefully with some better weather! Today we’ll watch the final Olympics basketball game live on TV (instead of the usual post-game highlights) and perhaps I’ll go back to the Art Center to play their gorgeous Steinway piano. It has been a lovely family time all in all and soon back to my working self. 

Had hopes that writing might bring out something worthy of sharing, but alas, it’s simply my personal news, such as it is, likely not useful to anyone. But having written it, might as well post it. Dear reader, savor every moment of good health and go USA basketball! 

What's at Stake

These two photos say it all. A sad lonely man who never has had a kind word for anyone, who’s “friends” are only those who think he can help them get ahead, only to have him turn on them at his whim, a convicted felon, an unfaithful husband, a psychopathic narcissist who is obsessed with his image over any common good in the country he’s supposed to represent. Then, by contrast, there’s the unstaged and unabashed authentic joy in the photo of kids and parents celebrating a good-hearted man’s signing of a free-lunch bill. A man devoted to public service, to the common good, a former beloved teacher and coach who understands all pronouns beyond “me.” 

 

One is running for President again, having won once through his campaign based solely on fear and hate, lost once and then refused to graciously accept his clear defeat, is back on the campaign trail without addressing a single useful political issue and just ranting to his “Stepford-Wives-brainwashed followers” about his hero Hannibal Lecter and bragging about passing a cognitive test a 2^nd grade could ace. His main strategy is to come up with demeaning nicknames for his opponents to avoid discussing the actual issues a candidate needs to address. His main promise seems to be an above-board dismantling of Democracy— “vote for me and you’ll never have to vote again.”

 

One is on the Vice-President ticket representing actual issues the Presidential nominee is addressing. Just little things like climate change, women’s rights, health care, child care, things that are not about her but about us and the things facing us that we need help with from those in charge. 

It’s clear that issues don’t even make it onto the debate stage these days, it’s all about hype and image and branding and slander and false claims. One side is based entirely on promoting fear and hate, the other on help and hope.

 

So in this election year, what is really at stake is our national character. Yes, there are also frightening political ramifications if we spiral down to the pit of fascism, but asking voters to vote based on that very real fear is still based on fear. I think the questions to ask are these: 

 

Do we want the fellow in the photo with the kids to inspire us, to represent us, to offer something to aspire to or the other guy sitting alone in the dark chamber of his confused mind and shut-down heart? Do we want to react to purposefully manufactured fear or to mind-opening, heart-opening hope?

 

To be more specific: Look at those two photos again. Who would you choose for your child's teacher? Who would you want for your neighbor? For your co-worker? Who would you pick to represent your values? Who would you entrust decisions to that can impact your life? (Literally, could be a matter of life and death when it comes to health care, elder care, pandemics, etc.) 

Then go to the polls and vote accordingly.   

 

New Kid on the Block

 Just watched the movie Footloose last night and being about a town that outlawed public dancing, I could honestly claim a tax deduction for the rental fee. That’s an issue that’s at the heart of my career path.

 

But my comment here is not about the acting, the dancing, the issue, but about the scene of a new kid coming into high school and the same thing happens to him that happens to every other new kid that comes into any high school in every single movie I’ve seen that marks that moment. Every. Single. Movie. 

 

Can you guess? It’s without exception the agreed-upon ethic that any new kid is fair game for ridicule, insult, abuse, both emotional and physical. Without exception. Of course, without it, the plot would not be able to develop as it always does, as the kid finds a way to stand up to bullies or works around them or finds one or two true friends. If everybody was nice to the new kid, there’d be no movie. 

 

But it does make me wonder how much this happens in real life. I suspect a lot. Has anyway thought to look into this as the root of human cruelty? That the mere fact of newness or difference is grounds to exclude, bully, torture in all sorts of ways? That schools would excuse this in a “kids will be kids” kind of dismissal of something that needn’t be?

 

For example, at The San Francisco School, new kids are always welcomed with enthusiasm by both fellow classmates and the teachers. Even adult visitors often commented on how actively friendly and welcoming everyone they met is. It simply became an expected behavior in the school culture. Really, knowing how nervous people are on their first day in a new school— or office or neighborhood— why wouldn’t all choose to be hospitable? To be nice, remembering their own feelings in these situations. 

 

Toxic culture is that which passes on the abuses we suffered without considering the opposite possibility. Why continue the cruelty instead of healing it with the tonic of kindness? 

 

This is no small question. It lies at the root of our current American atmosphere of institutionally approved mean-spiritedness, malice, spite, nastiness, bullying that eats away at our national soul like a cancer. It affects our quality of life, our sense of well-being, our politics, our business practices. The maddening thing is how unnecessary it all is. Who thinks that it’s a good idea to create an identity based on making others miserable? Who in their right mind would refuse that great joy of being kind to others and receiving their kindness, gratitude and appreciate in return? 

 

Teachers, administrators and students, pay attention. Next time a new kid comes into your high school, defy the movies and treat it as an opportunity to perhaps meet your new best friend. Draw the line that passes the toxins down and begin to be part of the tonic. You’ll never regret it.

Carbonated Holiness

… is what author Anne Lamott calls laughter. I agree. I’ve had a few deep belly laugh moments being with my kid-funny grandkids and still playful middle-aged (?!) children and it is a cleansing tonic indeed. Combined with the vigorous exercise of kayaking, dune-climbing, biking, swimming and walking the beach, great meals, spirited games and leisure to just hang out without a watch on, it makes for a perfect vacation in what has become my retired forever-vacation. 

 

However… I’m still getting these mysterious attacks of mild dizziness that no doctor has yet been able to diagnose and throws me too many degrees off-kilter to fully savor these moment as I would like to. I’ve been thumbing my nose at the aging process, but it’s starting to catch up with me. 

 

Nevertheless, I persist. With laughter when I can. 

  

Still There

In spite of the Buddhist notion of impermanence that I’ve tried to embrace, I’m a big fan of continuity. It warms my heart when I return to a place I’ve been away from and see the same places that I’ve developed an affection for. Like here in our little summer paradise in northern Michigan. Most importantly, the embrace of the constant Lake Michigan. There are small changes—some years the beach is narrow, sometimes wide, sometimes there are lots of stones, others few, sometimes the waters cold, sometimes warm, but the changes are small and predictable in their own way. There is that happy feeling of something we can count on to welcome us back. And thanks to the Nature Conservancy, it is all protected from further human invasion and development. 

 

In the surrounding area, we have our favorite spots we look forward to re-visiting. In the nearby town of Frankfort, there’s the lovely library, the Cool Spot Ice Cream Parlor, the Garden Movie Theater, the Cabbage Shed Restaurant. The cornfields still wave to us as we bike by, Mystery Hill still astonishes us as we seem to coast uphill, the Sugar Bowl sand dune remains constant as our ability to climb it is tested year after year— almost 50 years now that we’ve been doing it! Of course, the ebb and flow of businesses happens here as it does everywhere. No more Brookside Restaurant or Conundrum Café or Trick Dog Gallery. But the Gwen Frostig store lives on, the Miniature Golf place is holding steady and joy of all joys, the Cherry Bowl Drive-In continues its 50’s nostalgia family-fare movie showings.

 

That’s where we went last night to see Inside Out 2 and it was especially fun as granddaughter Zadie is here with her friend Zulia who had never been to a Drive-In. But there’s trouble in paradise as I talked to the ticket-taker about the fact that the Drive-in is up for sale and while they’re hoping to find a buyer who will keep it open, there’s a chance that they won’t be able to and it will meet its demise. Fingers crossed that last night was not my last hurrah at the Drive-In, but it’s possible. Any buyers out there?

 

Meanwhile, life goes on, things ebb and flow and come and go like the tide and we mortal humans would do well to remember to savor everything we love while we can.  

A New Experience—Almost

Amongst the thousands of things I’ve never done—bungee jumping, firing a gun, giving an Orff workshop in Antarctica— I have never written a blog on a plane. And as we start to taxi out onto the runway, looks like I won’t get to do that either. 

 

(Sent after arriving at the summer place in Michigan.)

The Vale of Tears

 

"As they pass through the valley of tears, they make it a place of springs.”

                                         –  Psalm 84:6

 

That well describes our closing circle of our Level III Orff course. As with the Jazz Course a month earlier, there was nary a person sharing their final sentiments around the circle that did not speak through the mist (or shower!) of tears. It wasn’t the first time during the course that the waters were flowing and I myself told some ten or twelve stories in which my voice caught and the trickle began. Always a signal that the body’s cells that store both our traumas and epiphanies were calling forth moments of great beauty and tender emotion. Stories often about kids or sometimes elders who themselves are unexpectedly moved by a musical experience or a moment in music class when some truer self jumped out of its hiding place and revealed itself to both the person and all those present. 

 

And indeed, beyond the carefully crafted and effective musical activities, the well-designed sequences and development of material, the imaginative fairy dust that sprinkles everything with a touch of magic, this is perhaps the best I have to offer as a teacher of teachers. A model of someone vulnerable, openly moved and unabashedly willing to cry in front of the group— and thus, give them permission to accept their own tears speaking the grand emotions that few people want to see. 

 

But I do. And stumbling into this translation of a Bible passage above, I feel the truth that a walk through the valley of tears creates springs from which the waters of our true life flows. That water that we need to quench our inmost thirst, that brings life to all plants, that cleanses and refreshes and heals us in a perpetual baptism. 

 

Our closing circle with tissues on hand, with choking sobs amidst heartfelt testimonies, was the final group evaluation ten thousand times more meaningful than a Google form. From that closing circle, the 27 graduates walked through the singing tunnel of some 60 other Levels students and then joined the spiral of all three Levels and the teachers singing our closing canon, punctuated at the end by the youngest student sounding the small Tibetan bowl and the oldest ringing the large one, as they did in the opening ceremony. Three times each one and they both ring together. Amidst the powerful vibrations of the bowls and the deep silence came the punctuated sobs of more people and as we hugged at the end, once more, there was barely a dry eye in the house. The springs were flowing and the world was refreshed.

 

Friends, this is not normal and all praise to “not normal!” This tiny “Hidden Valley” in the Carmel Valley is both a mountain peak of great joy and a valley of tears and they both are necessary to each other. Now we all will disperse back to the world of “have a nice day,” where a little hiccup of impending tears is often accompanied by “I’m sorry!”, where everything conspires to make us feel less because it sometimes hurts. And so we let the world swallow us with distraction, with hyper-speed addictive sensation, with deadly boring meetings talking about everything that doesn’t matter. It can be a difficult transition.

 

But for the 92 people who had the good fortune to spend these two weeks together, it will be a forever place of comfort and connection, one we all can return to time and time again in our imagination. Praise to it all and may the springs gush forth. 

 

From Peak to Peak

Back in the 1960’s, humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote about peak experiences. One definition was “high points in life when people feel in harmony with themselves and their surroundings.” As an emerging young adult reading this, it felt much more appealing than the going definition of life as a “rat race” and the models I saw around me of unsatisfied adults doing unfulfilling work and getting through it with nightly cocktails. The idea of ascending a mountain not as a trudge fighting against gravity but as a walk through the woods rewarded by the stunning view from the peak felt much more appealing. 

 

Maslow knew that such inspired moments were often few and far between, a short time at the mountain’s top before descending again into a necessarily more mundane day-by-day. He suggested that we strive for a plateau experience, a place we can build our house and daily enjoy the view. 

 

So here I am in the last day of this two-week Orff Course, which could well be described as leaping from peak to peak. From the excitement of the opening gathering to the folk dance evening and my evening lecture and the little release of the weekend with beaches, movies and cornhole games to the choral session and the Level III practicum and the fabulous Untalent Show and then last night’s sharing from each Level, there is no time for the mundane and business as usual. And our closing ceremony coming up today will cap it all off. 

 

So here I am again, reporting on this life of moving from one peak to another, not (hopefully) with any boastful glee, but profound gratitude and sense of blessing. The past few months, for example, going from the Slovenia bike ride to the grandkids San Francisco visit to the New Orleans Jazz Course to this Orff Level training in Carmel Valley, with delightful plateaus back home in-between. Next up is Michigan, then two courses in China and then a Fall ahead of also promising peaks. 

 

It's such a unique way to feel immersed in this constant garden of love and delight and I hope the reader is not impatient with my testimonies, but glad to witness from afar such possibilities. And of course, I wish all of you your own version of mountain scenery born from the unique contours of your own life’s paths. My phone is buzzing with the WhatsAp messages from my colleagues figuring out the details of our closing day, so off I go. Whoever you are, wherever you may be, I wish the wild geese are flying overhead announcing “your place in the family of things” (Mary Oliver). Happy Friday!

 

Take Off the Glasses

The month has turned and this Orff course where the miraculous is the norm is rolling to its final cadence. Last night was the Untalent Show, that always astounding, hilarious and breathtaking showcase of unprecedented, uninhibited, unbelievable talent that went on for three glorious hours. People who you casually have lunch with or partner up with in the folk dance turn out to be quite extraordinary in one thing or another— singing an opera aria and or hot jazz tune, dancing flamenco, playing a dazzling choro piece on flute. Another vote for the capacity of human beings to uplift themselves and others. 

 

In the midst of all this come some stories about committees formed to listen to complaints about unacceptable micro and macro aggressions when it comes to race, gender, sexuality or more. Or those things real? You bet your bottom dollar. Are they worthy of concern? Yes, again. Should we make clear where the lines are of acceptable conversation and behavior? Mostly yes, that’s a good idea.

 

But being the flawed human beings we are, it feels like we’re mostly going about it in the wrong way. Forming committees to deal with complaints that should be handled face to face. Committees made up of people with no training in mediation and their own limited views that make them unqualified to be the arbitrators of what’s acceptable. People who were not present at the "transgression" and can't possibly understand the context within which whatever happened happened. 

 

We all look at the world through the glasses we choose to put on daily, glasses made from our preconceptions or narrow viewpoints handed down to us. In my experience, the new prescription glasses of looking for examples of “inappropriate” songs, stories, vocabulary to be reported makes for a police state of sorts that is the exact opposite of what we need. A “gotcha!” culture that has well-meaning and good-hearted people afraid to open their mouth for fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. Really? Is that helpful? We might as well stay in bed all day, though I’m sure the sheets would eventually find that offensive.

 

By bringing those glasses to every table, we not only feed the culture of fear and division but we miss what’s actually going on. To give a simple non-controversial example: 

Today my hope was to teach the way that a major song can go to minor and a minor song to major. One of my aims was to give the students the tools to arrange and orchestrate music with that concept in mind. And so we sang three pieces that demonstrate exactly that. 

 

All three were exquisitely beautiful and powerful 3-part songs that not only illustrated this concept but went straight to our hearts. When I revealed the meaning of the lyrics (the songs were from the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Sweden), the tear ducts opened wide. All spoke directly to who we are in this moment of graduating from Level III and saying goodbye to friends we will never see again in this particular context. We're feeling the pain of bidding goodbye to these special friends and experiences and so these songs hit us right where we lived. 

 

Now had there been a narrow-minded music supervisor watching, that person might have criticized me for straying from my spoken objective. Or had the P.C. lens been firmly in place, the visitor might be looking at who sat next to who or whether I mispronounced a Swedish word or whether I got permission from x number of culture bearers to share their music. They would have missed it all.

 

And the “all” is this group of 27 people from Croatia, Spain, Catalonia, China, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, the U.S. and Canada, men, women and trans folks, gay and straight folks, rich and poor folks who, through their open hearts and the power of music and dance, erased every single one of those categories (while still owning them) to get to the core of our shared humanity, to truly see ourselves in each other. They took off the glasses of their preconceived notions about both others and themselves and for these brief two weeks, came to see themselves and others as we truly are. 

 

I expect nothing but division, ignorance and hatred from the right, as that is what they show without fail. But I expect better from the folks on the left and am profoundly disappointed that it seems to be getting worse. It’s so damn sad. Those are ugly glasses to wear out into the world. Yes, like reading glasses, sometimes the situation calls for them, but not all the time. Let’s learn to take them off and truly see.