As Above, So Below

Is anyone noticing their dreams these days? How what happens in our life above trickles down like water and seeps into the mind below? Last night, my grandson accidently knocked over my guitar and broke four strings (three have already broken in the “real” world) and with my online classes soon to start, I was distraught. The father of an Iranian family comes through the door of the gathering and starts to circle the room shaking hands. Should I do the elbow bump without insulting him? My granddaughter is playing cards with a new friend and I’m worried they’re not six feet apart. 

Nothing new to report here, how the conscious and sub-conscious mind play ping-pong with experiences, thoughts, images, keep a thread raveling and unravelling between the day world above and the night world below. But striking how images of clicking on links suddenly appear in our dreams and for some, fascinating to follow those conversations.

In some traditional cultures, families gather at breakfast to share their dreams and discuss what they might suggest. As so often in Western “civilized” cultures, that practice continues, but is run by a clock and charged by the hour. I never delved deeply into dream analysis, either as an amateur talking with my friends nor the recipient of professional help. But I do notice them and spend a little time occasionally—like now—marveling at their presence.

My funniest dream story comes from a roommate who kept a tape recorder by his bed and dutifully told his dreams to the machine as soon as he awoke so he wouldn’t forget them. One morning at breakfast, he emerged from his room with the machine and said, “You’ve got to listen to this!” We eagerly gathered around and heard his sleepy 3 am voice begin to recount his dream: 

“I’m walking into a deep, dark, cave. There is a small light at……”

30 seconds of silence. And then… snoring. To the end of the tape. 

Open the Door

“…but the greater glory is to figure out how to care, how to keep the heart wide open without bleeding too much. When we close down, the world narrows and both the pain and the joy are left on the doorstep.”

Somebody sent me these words recently with a note that she found them both poignant and necessary. They came from a talk someone gave in 2011 and surprised I was to find out that the speaker was me! Part of a talk I gave at our annual Orff Course titled “Opening and Closing.” And though these days I’ve been partially on a diet of eating my words (“Orff online?! NEVER!!”), it’s good to also stand by them nine years later.

So the question is this: How does the closing of our world, the narrowing of our possibilities, the limitations of our choices, contribute to the opening of the heart, the expansion of the mind, the increased freedom that comes from attending to the blessings still within reach? If we close down with the world and step outside when it re-opens with the same width as when we began sheltering, we will have wasted a precious opportunity. Open the door and let the joy and pain enter. 

(After they wash their hands, of course. )

The Bees in the Hebes

Every once in a while, I actually make a good decision. Like today. I was resigned to a long rainy indoor day of taking care of business and dueling with Bach, but the weather predictors forgot to give the memo to the weather gods and by 10:00 am, skies were blues and the sun was shining bright. So I actually walked out the door. On to my bike, out to the ocean and sat watching some bees swarming around the purple flowers of a hebes bush. And then this arose, with several drafts on the ride home:. Read it out loud, please.

The bees in the hebes,

The hebes and bees,

Gleefully gliding

‘Midst blossoms and leaves,

In the billowy breeze. 

Which pleases the bees. 

Busily buzzing,

Dizzily diving

Frantically fussing

Joyfully jiving

Wavily winging

And Springily singing.

The bees in the hebes.

The hebes and bees.

Impossible Mastery

The 10^thweek of sheltering begins, but who’s counting? (Whenever anyone writes that, the answer is obvious—“I am.”) It’s raining in May in San Francisco, more proof that normal has changed its address. April to November used to mean no rain and you could count on it. And yet we always need it, so there’s no complaining, even if it means long hours of being housebound with no bike ride in sight. 

Now some friends are saying that this is it for a year or so. My wife worries about when she’ll get her teeth cleaned and my daughter wonders where to get hugs. I maintain my “one day at a time—let’s see what the morning brings” attitude and continue the making of lemonade and searching out silver linings and walking on the sunny side of the street even when it’s overcast and raining. 

Today is the only day of the week I have no appointments on the screen, that glowing rectangle that used to be my work room and is now virtually the house I live in. Yesterday was a Zoom greeting with the 100 plus people I won’t meet this summer in the Orff Course, just a chance to connect a bit after sending the “course cancelled” letter. Later that day, my 90 minute Orff class with a few hundred teachers in Canada, not only the pleasure of sharing my work in ways that actually are useful, affirming and thought-provoking, but a chance to scroll through the 19 screens and see the lovely faces of so many people I have worked with in that lovely country. 

This would have been the week leading up to my long-anticipated retirement party next Saturday.  Maybe the mice will be there, but the men have abandoned those best-laid plans. I maintain an upbeat “oh well” attitude and it is sincere, but I know that great expanses of grief are lying in wait to rise up someday. Not just about my tiny personal disappointment, but gathering all the havoc of death, pain and suffering. And always just below the surface the profound, profound disbelief and astonishment that people in my country willfully elected, maintained, excused, supported (and at least 1/3 who still do!) this most vacuous incompetent soulless leader and his cronies. 

But I pull back from that rabbit hole and instead look up the origin of that term—ah, so, it’s reference to Alice in Wonderland! Perfect metaphor, as the White Queen is now the Orange King playing golf with upside-down flamingos crying “Off with their heads!” to the people he’s willing to sacrifice to the economy so he can maintain power. Oops, I’m down that Rabbit Hole!

Okay, Bach’s Goldberg Variations awaits me on this rainy day, with it’s constant invitation and challenge. “Yes, you’ve kept at this instrument for 63 years now and are getting a little bit better, but here are Variations 5, 14, 28, 29 to keep you properly humble and here’s Glenn Gould to either amp up your determination or confront you with the truth of “Why bother?” Well, stepping on the path toward a Mastery you will never achieve is still worthy, especially knowing you’ve achieved some mastery in other areas. Challenge Glenn Gould to a teach-off with 3-year-olds and see what happens! (Yes, I know he passed away a long time ago and that makes it easier. But you get my point, yes?)

Thank you for bearing witness as I step into the day through the doorway of language, another practice that promises a mastery impossible to achieve, but uplifting to attempt. If it is raining where you are, take a listen to Glenn Gould while figuring out your next inch of progress in mastering the field of your choice. If it’s sunny and warm, by all means get out of the house. Whether we step into it or not, summer is still around the corner. 

Buddha's Brother-in-Law

For the second night in a row, I had flying dreams. Not the kind where you’re free and soaring through the air, but the kind involving airports and planes. Now I’ve spent a good deal of time in those enclosed tubes looking down at the earth from 30,000 feet. But not now. Maybe some part of me misses it, but really, it’s just fine not taking off my shoes at Security and hoping I don’t get stuck next to a broad-shouldered man and wondering if my luggage makes it to Singapore. 

Now no one cares to hear another’s dream. But I’m going to tell you anyway. This one involved flying to a tiny airport in a place called Jacinto, Texas that was right on the border of Mexico and Texas and belonged to neither country. One could walk freely to either side without any paperwork. (Yes, I never heard of such a place and just looked it up and there is a Jacinto City in Texas near Houston, but your guess is as good as mine how this entered into my dream.) I got out and wandered the streets a bit for no purpose I could fathom and then decided it was time to go home again. But when I looked at my ticket, I noticed that it was flying me to Toronto where I would sit until 3:00 in the morning, and then go to Atlanta and then finally back to San Francisco some 14 hours later. How had I missed this? Asked in the little airport to talk to an agent but there wasn’t one. My ticket had cost $717 and I wondered how much more I would have to pay to change it. 

The dream shifted here to visiting my Pentatonics Jazz Band after months apart from sheltering, having a profound conversation with the drummer about how Orff teaching had unified everything he knew. I was struggling to remember what he said so I could write it in my next blog post and though it makes no sense whatsoever in the way that dreams do, came up (in my sleep) with the perfect title: Buddha’s Brother-in-Law. 

The mind is unfathomable, mysterious and often, just plain weird. 

But I do like that title.

The Perfect Ones

Of all the words that can be said, sometimes the perfect ones are spoken. 

Of all the notes that can be played, sometimes the perfect ones are sung.

Of all the people that can be loved, sometimes the perfect ones appear. 

And so, I turned my calendar page (13 days late) to May and read this quote by Samuel Johnson. 

                                                           Of  the blessings set before you, 
                                                           make your choice
                                                           and be content. 

Perfect!

Urban Farm

After nine weeks of shelter-in-place, the days have names again. Things started off like Groundhog Day, one day pretty much like the last and promising to be like the next. But we are rhythmic beings and if our job or school doesn’t offer it, we will create the routines that sustain us with that needed balance of repetition and variation. 

The calendar I have lived by became nothing but scheduled events crossed off, but now a new blossoming of things to prepare for and look forward to have inked themselves on those blank pages—three different workshops filling up each Saturday, the virtual Men’s Group Wednesday’s and while my last school May Spring Concert, Samba Contest and my retirement party have been cruelly erased, discussions have begun as to how to create some new version of our closing ceremonies and graduation.

Then the week itself has taken on a shape and design. At least one live class each day and each—5-year olds, 4^thgrade, 8^thgrade—drawing from a different room in my teaching storehouse. Still the weekly Staff meeting, the weekly check-in with my colleagues, the recorded weekly Singing Time. 

And then my life outside of school. The Thursday Alum Singing time, the Friday live-on-the-street neighborhood sing, the Saturday online workshop, the Sunday shopping listening to Ann Patchett’s new book on Audible while waiting in line, the weekly dinner with my daughter in her back yard, the Zoom call (and now online Pictionary game) with the grandkids. Not to mention the inspired cooking, daily piano playing, afternoon bike ride, evening TV Mini-Series (now The Amazing Miss Maisel) and such. I could—we all could—sit and fret about this unprecedented pandemic and that will weave itself throughout the days. But how does that help? If we all take who we are and what we’ve been handed and actively shape the best response and enjoy what we can of each day, I believe it can help us write the future we’d like to read. I’m not suggesting head-in-sand repression—we indeed need to keep informed and abreast of the essential news. But a few minutes a day is probably sufficient, tucked into the most life-affirming routines we can create. 

So what is this Urban Farm? Am I planting a Victory Garden? Well, I could and perhaps should, but I’m referring more to the variety of activities I’m now attending to each day like the varied life of a farmer. Feed the pigs, milk the cow, stack the hay, plow the field, tune-up the tractor, the endless list of things that need attention. My farm routines are much more abstract, but have a similar quality of noticing what needs attention and trying to keep track of it all minus the outwardly imposed schedule with kids showing up at my music room door. 

So off to write some music notation sheets for my 5-year olds. What’s on your schedule today?