Summer Solstice

Amidst the whirling and swirling of the daily news, the calendar marches on and the Seasons make their appointed rounds. Today marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Back in England, it was getting dark close to 10:00 pm, here in Ghana it’s around 6:00.

 

But much more than the length of days is the deeper meaning of summer for this lifetime schoolteacher. Whether I simply tolerated school as a kid or thoroughly enjoyed it as a teacher, summer always signaled a release from schedule and responsibility. It sometimes felt like Fall, Winter and Spring where simply warm-up acts for the real deal of the way life is supposed to be. Long days that invited you to simply be, temperatures that threw off the burdens of layered clothes, beaches and lakes that offered both refreshment and some primeval return to the watery womb. The music of the ice cream truck and the dance of cool sweetness on the tongue. Lying in a hammock reading a book, the smell of grilled chicken and vegetables on the barbecue, fresh tomatoes and sweet corn and eating outdoors, sitting on the front porch at night watching the fireflies or looking up at the star-studded sky. 

 

And of course, travel. Breaking free of the overly familiar and drinking in large gulps of the new and exotic. The ecstatic call of “Road trip!” watching the road spool out before and behind you, digging up the passports from the filing cabinet, stepping out of an airport into a new world with new sights, sounds, tastes and textures. However you spent it, wherever you were, Summer’s rallying cry was “Renew! Refresh! Rejuvenate!” And you happily answered the call. 

 

Now that I live in a perpetual retired summer, the yearning for the day of school, our family’s ritual celebratory dinner in San Francisco’s Tadich Grill, Fog City Diner or Il Fornaio a scrapbook memory, the lure of the Michigan beach partnered with the delight of teaching Orff Courses has changed a bit. Not the dramatic contrast it once was, but still with same forever circling pleasures. Happy to wake up in a Ghana hotel room under a ceiling fan with people I’ve already shared summer Orff teaching delights with before in San Francisco, Carmel Valley, New Orleans, Salzburg and beyond. And equally delightful to hang out around the swimming pool yesterday afternoon. Leisure, work and study all of one piece and so delightfully so. 

 

Happy summer, my friends!

 

 

The Real News

The air is hot and sticky and there’s a palm tree outside my window. I had jollof rice and fried plantain for dinner and waiting for my luggage at the airport, I was a dot of white in a sea of beautiful black bodies. As Dorothy noted to Toto, “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Welcome to Ghana. 

 

Meeting some of the lovely people who have convened here for our 5^th Orff-Afrique course, we were happily eating dinner under a TV set that was showing the same-old same-old. That was a deep cognitive dissonance and got me thinking about the news. 

 

The dictionary definition of “new” is: Produced, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time; not existing before.

 

In light of that definition, why do we call it the “news?” Pick any day and you’ll see that there is nothing new whatsoever about people thinking bombs solve problems, that politicians lie and cheat, that a traumatized population is addicted to drugs, violence, alcohol, chronic abuse, depression. The news is nothing new at all, just the endless sad list of human failing and folly replayed over and over and over again. What would really qualify as news?

 

• The President admitted that he has lied repeatedly to the people, is supremely unqualified to meet the requirements of this esteemed office and hurt innocent people. Showing deep remorse, he resigned from his office, fired JD Vance and Mike Johnson, appointed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to take over and assigned Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, replaced Clarence Thomas with Barack Obama, Brett Kavanaugh with Stacey Abrams, Amy Coney Barret with my SF School alum lawyer David Edeli.  

 

• Israel, Palestine and Iran have convened a cabinet of mothers with young babies to meet and watch their children play together before making any decisions about sharing land, resources and laws that protect human rights. All men previously in power are sent to a rehabilitation camp to care for young children and learn the lessons they’ve refused. 

 

• FOX news has announced it will be off the air and deeply apologized to the American people for filling their minds with fear, disinformation, misinformation, truly fake news and overall brainwashing of a population clinging to an identity formed by a white supremacy and patriarchal narrative. They will pay back all the money they earned to invest in free health care, free college tuition, arts programs and trauma healing centers. 

 

• Hollywood has agreed to stop making its relentless movies with macho men, sexy women, mindless plots and guns, guns, guns to help lead viewers to better versions of themselves. 

 

• The NRA disbanded, stopped the manufacture of assault rifles, lobbied for strict gun control laws, apologized to families of school shooting massacres and signed up for perpetual community service. 

 

• Dr. Kofi Gbolonyo has been appointed by both Canada and the U.S. to be the Minister of Art and Culture. He is currently training 35 music teachers from around the world in the fifth Orff-Afrique Course as ambassadors to their respective shithole countries to show how playing, singing and dancing help create a genuine and joyful community.

 

Now that would qualify as news!

Onward and Upward

If you ever need a place to stay near the Munich Airport, maybe I recommend the nearby Premium Inn? A short bus ride from the terminals, best bed ever, good pizza at the bar and best price all trip—63 Euros! A happy ending to a happy six weeks on this most marvelous continent. Here’s what I posted in Facebook. 

 

And so a farewell toast to Europe with my favorite Austrian beer. Six memorable weeks in the Dordognes, Paris, London, Oxford, the Cotswolds, Vienna, Salzburg, Linz and now the Munich Airport. A grand pleasure to meet old friends and make new ones, to bike, hike and wander and also to teach, to feel touched by the exquisite aesthetics of these European cities, the beautiful countrysides, the uplift of art and architecture and cultivated cuisine, the kindness of strangers and shared concern with just about everyone I met about the unravelling of the world and the shared commitment to help stitch it back together. 

 

Tomorrow it’s off to Ghana and a different kind of uplift from extraordinary music, dance and song and the exuberant welcomes the Orff Afrique students always feel. On this Juneteenth day, the Civil War is raging again back home, but I’m here to report that healing forces are everywhere. A toast to what has been and to what will come.

 

There were some lovely comments:

 

• Thanks for letting us all travel vicariously through your posts and keeping hope alive.

 

• Thank you for your positivity, Doug.

 

• It is to the benefit to so many during this stressful global time that you share yourself and your wise thoughts. Thanks for your vision of healing. It does not go unnoticed.

 

These meant a lot to me to read. When the unimaginable happened back in November, I didn’t know how I would survive it emotionally. I’d been there for four terrible years, living reactively and in a constant state of outrage and despair. 

So this time I made a vow: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” Still speak out at workshops and on this blog/ social media, show up at protests, write letters or make phone calls—no head in the sand ostrich escapes. But focus on positive action, not negative reaction. Play defense as needed but keep playing the offensive game of aiming for the three-point baskets of love, fun and compassion, focusing on my great teammates more than the opposing team’s cheating and rough play. In short, living well is the best revenge. 

 

Of course, I have my days when I hunker down in the dark tunnel of despair—don’t we all? But as the old African American ring play suggests (Little Sally Walker):

 

“Rise, Sally, rise. Wipe those cryin’ eyes. Turn to the East, Sally, turn to the West, Sally, turn to the very one that you love the best.”

 

Onward and upward!

Renewed Again

One of my class goals that I communicated with my students over the years was simply this: That you walk out the door feeling happier than when you walked in. Did that always happen? Of course not! Life is unpredictable, consistent good behavior is unreliable, moon cycles and biorhythms and the toxic leakage of the daily news makes an impact. 

 

But more often than not, that’s exactly what happened. 

 

And it’s exactly what happened today. I got picked up by my host, who I had never met, and we drove to a site where I had never been (Anton Bruckner Private University) meeting mostly college students who didn’t know me. I had a plan drawing from material I had just done in London/ Vienna/ Salzburg, but the moment I walked into the room, I threw it all out. Here were two giant marimbas, a drum set, a stand-up bass, chromatic Orff instruments,  many bass bars, conga drums and Latin percussion and within one minute I knew what to do: Jazz. Quickly put together an outline in my head from my considerable storehouse of fabulous pieces and magical sequences. 

 

Two minutes before I started, I felt that damned dizziness again, fairly strongly and was briefly terrified that I might fall to the floor in front of the students and not get to do the workshop. But the moment I started in the circle, it all disappeared and I never thought about it again for the next 7 hours. Just dove into the refreshing waters of jazz taught Orff style and felt the infectious energy of these young people with great skills, great spirit and great enthusiasm. By lunchtime, we all walked out the door buzzing with excitement and glowing with happiness. 

The afternoon never sagged and had the good sense to end with one of my favorite games, Johnny Brown. On the last note, I had them look at the clock and it was exactly 5:00 o’clock (our closing time) to the second! How satisfying was that?!

 

My host offered to drive me back to the hotel and asked if I was exhausted and once again, I could honestly testify, “Not in the least! I feel more energetic and happier than when I started!”

 

Because of wanting to hear the reports of the marches on Saturday, I’ve been dipping back into the cesspool of the news and starting to feel dirty all over. So I will take a break again, focus on the living beautiful beings around me and continue this extraordinary blessing of releasing music at its height and depth everywhere I teach and to everyone I teach. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I accept it all with a grateful heart. 

Dear Dad

Sorry I missed writing to you on Father’s Day, but I did begin a letter and certainly thought of you. 18 years gone, but always my father. And I’m grateful for that. You provided the needed food, shelter and safety,  got me started playing the organ and then piano, let me play your great collection of records—Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and beyond, filled the house with good books and your own paintings, paid for private high school and then college, never said the “n” word as many of my friends’ fathers did, spared me the shackles of organized religion, introduced me to Crostic puzzles and Solitaire and in your own way, let me find my own way in turbulent times—long hair, hitchhiking, political protest, Zen practice— with a caring measure of acceptance and no judgement about refusing the good ole American way. Though never outwardly effusive in your love, I knew it was there and certainly in our later years, you found your way to let me know. Likewise moving from perhaps reluctant acceptance to genuine pride in who I had become and what I did and how I did it. And I think you know how I moved from the typical struggles between fathers and sons, the critiques of what you didn’t give me to the deep appreciations of what you did. At the end, there were no unspoken words that needed to be said.

 

In one of your letters I unearthed recently, you wrote “This is a lousy world” and you lived in a time when that was accepted as just the way things are and nothing you can do to change it. But somehow, some foundation of my childhood convinced me that everything could be changed. I could work on myself through meditation, music, reading and more, I could change little parts of the world like trying to transform music education to something more joyous, more musical, more community-bonding. I could join others trying to change big parts of the world by standing up against injustice, war, greed, racism, sexism, tyranny and speaking up for more kindness, fairness and inclusion. Often, but not always, with some deep optimistic conviction that we are moving, however tiny the steps, towards the world as it could and should be. 

 

But in the past week, events in the United States, Turkey, Colombia, Iran, Palestine (as always) make me wonder if you’re right. This is a fuckin’ lousy world! And yes, I was uplifted by the massive protests, but this morning, even though the sun shines in Salzburg and the distant mountains and nearby park offer solace, I’m feeling the darkness spread over me. Hasn’t happened often lately, but here it is. So in this simple act of writing to you and thanking you yet again for both the gift of life and the gift of loving life, I hope you’ll take my hand and walk me back into the light. Let’s go.

 

Your always loving son,

 

Doug

 

Decency

I’ve long been so impressed by the way Germany and Austria handles facing the horrors of their history. Amongst other things, every school child takes a mandatory trip to a concentration camp, is prepared for it ahead of time and discusses it afterwards. No one has shut down that practice because it “makes the children uncomfortable” and teachers don’t impose shame and blame on innocent young children. They simply understand that the children have to know what happened and recognize the toxic narratives that made it happen so that it will never happen again. We have so much we can learn from Germany and Austria in this regard. 

 

How many mandatory fields trip do American school children take to plantations? And if they did, how many of the tours would accent the beautiful architecture and the genteel sipping of mint juleps on porches? As far as I know, there is only one place that tells the real story of these forced labor camps that made America rich through unimaginable systemic brutality—the Whitney Plantation outside of New Orleans. I’d like to think that some school groups do go there, but how many in the face of all the schools in the United States?

And of course, there are many sites school groups could go to to learn the stories of the places where witches were burnt, Native Americans were exterminated, striking laborers were beaten or murdered. The surest ways for such atrocities to continue (see this week’s news) is to make sure the population is ignorant, forbid the teaching that reveals the narratives behind the curtain, pump the people full of lies, misinformation, distraction. And we're doing that very well. 

Here is my Facebook post on the subject. 

 

This sign on one of the Salzburg bridges. This is what it looks like when a country owns the horrors in its history, educates its children to take “never again” seriously and refuses the toxic narrative of white (Aryan) supremacy that makes otherwise decent people behave indecently. A timely reminder to your cousins and such still in the grip of the Fox News brainwash and the depraved “decency is weakness” storyline to get off the hatred train and join the 5 million plus Americans who rallied on No Kings Day. 

 

And please note: The Toddler King and his goons called the violent insurrection and riot of January 6^th a “rally” and the peaceful rally in L.A. a “riot”. Watch the language closely—it’s a huge part of the strategy to again make otherwise kind people do cruel things. Part of the conspiracy against decency and kindness is also mainstream media reporting their bias as fact, most casually saying “thousands of people protesting” far below the millions obvious inn all the postings from the 2000 different towns and cities. 

 

What made Saturdays gatherings so hopeful was that people were not proclaiming a new political dogma to replace an old, which invariably, as history shows, creates the next round of havoc and horror. They were simply saying, in their own words artfully shown on creative signs, that they choose decency over brutality, kindness over cruelty. And are waking up like slumbering lions, learning to recognize the language, hidden narratives and the torrent of lies that make monsters of us all. And as more and more awaken, the empire begins to crumble, the few lose their grip on the many. If the poet Shelley would have been on the march, this would have been his sign:

 

"Rise like Lions after slumber. 

  In unvanquishable number, 

  Shake your chains to earth like dew. 

 Which in sleep had fallen on you 

 Ye are many – they are few." 

Three Homecomings

“Home is where the heart is” is one of those clichés that rings true. You might also say “Home is where the heart has fully opened” and when you find yourself in the physical place where that has happened, the cellular memory of it all kicks in. 

 

So here I am in Salzburg again and this indeed is where my heart has opened time and time again these last 35 years. The whole city, to be sure, but also in the hallowed halls of the Orff Institut, alive with the echoes of Orff’s vision come alive these past 62 years in the place where he laid the cornerstone. The vibrations of the Orff ancestors present and palpable. Likewise the felt presence of all the marvelous people I’ve met here who became such a notable part of my life. First and foremost, my colleague Sofia Lopez-Ibor but then expanding out to so many others from this world over who I first met here and later was invited to teach in their country. Spain, Finland, Iceland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal, England, Estonia, Turkey, Russia, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil and some 30 more countries! More importantly, such sweet memories of all the stirring music and dance we shared together in rooms 5 and 4 and 27 and 9, the joy and laughter and comradery, the walks and bike rides and lunches in the park and dinners at the biergarten and on and on. So to teach yet another workshop yesterday to yet another Special Course and some 20 others folks in the Orff Institut was indeed a homecoming.

 

The second homecoming was simply yet another opportunity to teach a workshop and create yet again that miniature universe I’ve crafted for over a half-a-century. It was three hours of laughter and tears and my ideal world given body. 

 

The third homecoming is described in this Facebook piece I posted: 

 

At the end of my workshop yesterday at the Orff Institut, I said: 

 

“Never have I been more ashamed to be American and never have I been more proud.” The pride swelled when that night I spent over an hour looking at Youtube videos of the No King Rallies in some 2,000 cities and towns across the country with the millions and millions of American citizens standing together peacefully in strength and humor to say “Enough.” Alongside the contrasting footage of the pathetic tanks rolling down empty streets revealing the empty strength of this soulless pitiful excuse for a human being and his equally dismal enablers. 

 

What happens in America reverberates around the world, where evil is afoot unleashing chaos in the Ukraine, Iran, Colombia and beyond. There were students in the workshop from all those places and we ended singing This Little Light of Mine sending love and light to these countries (including the U.S.) and more. 

 

Not one of us can predict how this will ultimately play out, but I believe the tide is turning and the tsunami of love and compassion and justice and just plain human decency is rising to wash away the cruel and greedy and hateful and deceitful from the halls of power.  Stay together, friends and keep singing!

It’s a beautiful sunny day outside and I’m ready to get out, with three homes alive and singing in my heart.