Time's Jewel

“…O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

   O, none, unless this miracle have might,

   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

-       Sonnet 65: William Shakespeare

 

Replace “black ink” with “giving Orff workshops” and these lines ring truer than true for me. It is astounding that it is a mere seven days between giving a workshop in Washington DC and about to give another here in Rochester, New York. It feels like seven weeks—or even months. The richness of each day doing the various things that help my love to shine bright indeed have forestalled time’s swift foot rushing through the days and slowed everything down. I find that travel in general can often do that but combine travel with teaching and it’s a good way to “blunt the lion’s paw” of mortality (another Shakespeare metaphor from Sonnet 19). 

 

Today’s workshop is on rhymes, poetry, literacy and music education Orff Schulwerk-style. While walking around downtown Rochester, I pulled up some of my memorized poems to consider bringing into the workshop, Sonnet 65 amongst them. I’m finding myself super-excited about the theme and realized that it’s because it’s one that I have to put to the side when teaching abroad, as I did recently in China. Works much better in the U.S., Canada, Australia or the British Isles (where I haven’t taught in quite a while) and opens up whole rooms in the house of music that I can’t visit in the same way in Hong Kong or Brazil or Spain. I’ve done a couple of 5-day courses on this in Toronto and loved getting to dig deeper into this theme, including giving homework to the students to come back with a memorized poem or two to share with the group.

 

In the midst of the conversation about weaning ourselves from phone addiction, few people talk about the strategy of memorizing poems. Just as re-training your body to crave and genuinely enjoy a good carrot or apple as much as (or more than) a bag of chips or cookies is an excellent diet plan, so can walking around working on memorizing a poem instead of looking at your phone both short-circuit the addiction and lift you up to a higher plane of consciousness. With the added benefit of the poem being instantly available to be your companion and to share with others. And back to time, listen to how a poem well-recited changes the charge in the air and brings all present into a different time zone. Like a profound piece of music, it strums our inside strings and gets our soulful nerve pathways humming with a tonic, healing vibration. 

 

Try it!