Fortune Telling

While visiting the 10,000 Buddha Temple, I shook a cylinder of sticks and when one fell out, got a corresponding piece of paper that was a fortune of sorts. For some $6 U.S., a man would interpret it and in this way, got my fortune told. 

 

Apparently, it was considered a good one. I was a person of medium high good luck and was advised to initiate and follow through with projects while gathering good people to help me. Admiration and respect for my work would follow and I should not be shy about being more aggressive about getting things done. You can imagine that such a prophecy was pleasing to me, as it aligned with everything I’m already doing or trying to do. I was also told to pay attention to my bones and perhaps avoid heavy lifting. Apparently, I’m to hold on to this paper for a year and after that, this particular set of predictions would expire. 

 

I suppose I’m as curious as the next fellow about fortune telling and happy to accept any kind of good omens as an affirmation from the Other World to carry on. At the same time, I take it all with many grains of salt, knowing that Fortune (O Fortuna!) is a fickle mistress and anything can happen at any time for no reason. So I simply meet each moment with the full measure of my authentic self, open to outcome but not attached to it. 

 

Like this, I’ve passed the last two days with what looked on paper to be an impossible situation— classes with 320 kids that mostly involved group singing and more “intimate” classes of xylophone playing with 60! It was both a testimony to my lifetime preparation of working with children in any size group and the particular focus and well-mannered attention of these Quarry Bay School kids in Hong Kong. Likewise the good spirit of 40 faculty members willing to play, sing and dance for an hour at their staff meeting. 

 

Should good fortune gather to solve the challenges of all my publishing projects, expand my Podcast listeners and movie viewers, increase exposure to my jazz education work and Family Jazz performance, I am ready, happy and willing to receive it all. But meanwhile, time to plan tomorrow’s classes.