Reflections on music in our society

Music:

I also am amazed to see how music is now a packaged commodity to most folks - and how that market is nurtured as part of the mindset of technological consumer man. I don't fight this - I just notice it. It seems as if we are to buy our own soul back from "corporate business mind".

As a live musician I am very aware of lack of value - in societal terms - for music. But I am also aware of a general preference for a packaged life that can be suited to private ends - as opposed to cultivating the relational qualities of trust and generosity of spirit - out of which truly moving music is created or shared.

I have a sense that 'sharing the gift' is the Calling and purpose of living - and that if I let this be true - then other things will be added to me. But I don't have any sense of how others should live - excepting that they too need to discover their guidance for their particular needs and responsibilities.

One of the things I remain deeply grateful to circle dancing for - is the discovery within myself of learning from within in a context of joy. This has extended into my life in every way. Fear guilt and punishment are deeply embedded in our minds. I don't feel that that is the way I want to live - (or can in fact truly live).

To try and enforce the 'sharing' via rules open or hidden, will create a more complex block upon the heart that shares. The heart is often associated with the feminine - as weak and ineffectual wishing, while the mind divorced from the heart seems to have usurped power as the active masculine principle. The divorce is a split mind. When we live out from such an identity we may gain the world (experience) - but we lose Soul.

We may learn that it is ourselves we hurt or limit by the mindset that we currently hold - and that discovery is a natural and automatic trigger for changing our mind in light of a heart more truly revealed.

I am discovering that as I trust that others are following their own guidance - I become more able to discern and trust my own. When I dabble in becoming involved in the motives of others - I become entangled in those very same in myself - for that of course is where they are. I cannot know what is in your heart and mind without involving my own filters and judgements and distortions.
But I can extend active trust and willingness to communicate wherever I feel a prompt or a welcome to do so.

There is always more to life than the terms which I - or anyone - may set. The appeal of a self-certainty can be seductive if we haven't a direct sense of our own peace and wholeness. Joining in an inclusiveness allows the judgemental armouring to fall away - and I sense that this is an ongoing step by step willingness by which we are weaned from a mistaken attempt to control life by divide and rule.

Unless the gift is shared on - it withers and becomes fruitless. Bankruptcy of culture can be disguised in complex derivatives - but only to that which plays the game by which the heart is denied its truth.

My primary sense of music and dance is that it is a vehicle; an instrument; a portal; a receptivity and expression of a direct energetic sense of life; a language of communioned being. Therefore I act in ways that align with an open channel rather than those which shut it down. And have joy in life that has nothing to do with targets, comparisons or goals of attaining validity or becoming a someone in my own right.

Our way of life is currently destructive to ourselves, each other and our environment - (our greater self). But the cause has to be discovered in our own life - in our own thinking - not to be compounded with guilt, but in order to be replaced by a better choice.

If we were in truth a machine - we could not observe the machinery of mind in action. Yet we can - in stillness - experience the shift or perspective from the definitions and thoughts of our self image, to awareness itself.

In a book I read about Jesus recently he allegedly said "take only what you can truly love". Whoever said it - I can feel it speaks to me as my own heart's knowing. If I truly understand it, then I'll teach it by living it - and the gift shares on through whatever forms that might take.

Reflections on cultural vitality and renewal

In most general terms I am a proponent of accepting responsibility for the thoughts, beliefs and values that I operate out from. I teach by example and by invitation - because I do not value coercion as part of the way I live, or the world I live in. I am the primary learner of what I teach. Giving as I would receive.

Ideas that we live out from (and thus validate and propagate) are not always conscious - and so there is necessarily a process by which they rise to awareness.
This may be through a sense of dissonance where our beliefs are called to into question - and can be identified as beliefs instead or being experienced as real.
I feel that the attempt to manage or control 'others' by using guilt or fear is the old way of doing things - and not my living choice - so I look to my own guidance - in whatever way I can feel or find it - such that I can be free to "Share the Gift".

For through the willingness or even the grace of receiving - arises a desire to share on as I myself have received.
There are many levels and aspects to this - and also pitfalls - of 'making a self image' out of what is essentially a living relational culture. I value the opportunity to discover hidden aspects of my own distrust or selfishness - even though it might be a difficult process for me. But not as an exercise in guilt and atonement - but rather of truth, understanding and acceptance.

There is obviously a purpose and a place for obeying the laws of the land, but we are not machines - (or at least such is my assertion ;-) I feel that the heart and mind that freely chooses to align with an awakened perspective of a greater love than self alone is the living seed of cultural vitality and renewal. I feel that we are all in some sense in the learning of life - where we seem to be in a conflict between selfishness and some ideal of love.
This tends to play out as good and bad, right and wrong, worthy and unworthy.

I don't subscribe to this - or at least I dedicate my life to cancelling my subscription to this. Underneath any rational argument or appeal I feel that the truth of what is in our heart is the primary communication of what we live and not the human meaning attached to the form. Of course this can be misconstrued to mean anything to anyone on an intellectual level - but I am not speaking at an intellectual level. That we can fool ourselves should not be in doubt - but that we want to believe our deceptions is less easy to own.