Etude for Memory

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Recently, the notes of this particular composition increasingly vie for my attention. They are as seeming real as these keys beneath my fingers. But when viewed in the cold light of day, to quote Billy the Bard [we are very close] "they have melted into air, into thin air .  .  .  and leave not a rack behind."

For example, my wife and I went to Colonial Williamsburg over Thanksgiving and - as always - attended a concert in the Capitol. The room is large but not huge. and lit only by candles. We sat in the back row where we could see the hands of the harpsichordist, whom - over the years - we have come to love. About midway through the concert I noticed a woman sitting in the front row catty-corner from us. The mannerisms were unmistakeable. The glances at her partner. The profile. What’s it been? 15 years? But there she was. Or was she? My eyes are not what they used to be, and the candlelight was deceptive. But still. Maybe. It could be a woman who had bewitched me for more than a little while. Approach? Acknowledge? However, the bard again, "that way madness lies." So I returned my attention the harpsichordist who, sadly, had told us that he would retire after the holidays, and deserved my full focus. After the concert the woman and her companion left with nary a glance in my direction. Obviously not her, right?

Still, add to that a few weeks before, I had stopped at the pizza place across from the office for a quick lunch.  From the booth behind me two voices became clear - two guys with whom I had gone to high school. The nuances were unmistakable, the references plausible, the laughter was spot on. These had been good friends. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind. But a couple of problems: Ken had sort of disappeared after graduation. No one really knew where he went and no one had been in touch with him. Facebook drew a blank. And yet there he was deep in conversation with Alan whose fate was known. Alan, as the narrator in Dickens’s, A Christmas Carol informs us, was, like Marley, "dead as a doornail.” When they rose to leave the illusion was shattered. Both were alive and the ethnicity was wrong.

Finally, recently, as my wife and I were walking along the Miracle Mile in downtown Chicago, I paused at a crosswalk. A young woman turned around and looked at me. No more than three feet away. It was Julie, my first “serious” girlfriend from high school. She stared straight at me, smiled, and slowly turned away. She had not changed at all in 50 years. It took me a moment or two to realize that, unless she had spent the last half decade hanging out with Peter Pan in Neverland, this was simply not who it appeared to be.

Why, suddenly, are these people showing up around the seams of my reality? I’m not at all sure, but I have a hypotheses. It takes us back to the first tenet of Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony. (If you are, understandably, a bit fuzzy on the ins and outs of Distilled Harmony, I'm not going to do all the physics here, but you can catch up at www.distilledharmony.com.) The underlying notion is that there are people who are literally, physically, harmonic or discordant with us.  Their DNA is comprised of strings that are either harmonic with or discordant with ours. The result can be "love at first sight" or "instant creepiness." You have probably experienced one or both phenomena.

I am thinking that previous powerful experiences apparently have broadened my sensitivity to certain "genres" of individuals. Were any of those individuals who I thought they were? Maybe. But, perhaps, and more likely, the mannerisms of the woman at the concert, the voices in the cafe (certainly the one of my friend who is dead as a door nail) and the facial features of the young woman on the street were "close enough" to fool my memory. They were chords so similar to ones with which I had been closely, powerfully, associated, that the concert master in my mind nudged "close enough" right over into "the same as."

Good? Bad? Depends. If the previously associated chord is discordant, we just shake our heads: "Whoa. I'm pretty sure he's dead. Can't be him."  And we walk away. However, if the associated chord was harmonious, the experience is largely positive. Perhaps we literally "re-call" them to "re-animate" them for a little while. In our minds, we take their hands again, free from whatever complexities might have bedeviled or terminated our real life relationships, and wander down a path comprised of purely pleasant memories. Beneath the gentle parasol of peaceful forgiveness, like that which dreaming often brings, we can smile, and say a quiet thanks for another moment that fosters, and maximizes, the harmony in our life. 

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Break-Up in Dreamland

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A mysterious woman deserted me last night.

But not before I had chased her

Through a fanciful city -

Part modern urban metropolis,

Part post-war, Vienna, Austria,

Hazy hometown for a couple years 

During my impressionable youth.

I often find myself there

Tracking down some imagined 

Or remembered waif of my dreams.

She rises as our streetcar slows to a stop.

Definitely Vienna now.

"You will be back won't you?" I ask.

"Maybe," she replies,

Her face still averted,

Identity familiar, yet

Still maddeningly vague.

"In the spring, 

Or perhaps the following year."

I might have kept her from leaving,

But somehow I got trapped

There, in that tiny landing,

Where the stairs meet the door - 

Past the line upon the floor

Beyond which you are not supposed to stand.

A stack of coats had appeared in my arms.

And for some quite important, 

But now forgotten, reason

I had to put them all on before 

Pushing past the collapsing doors.

Finally free upon the pavement, 

I looked around and saw she was

Well and truly gone.

As was the streetcar,

And the street, for that matter.

My breath slowed,

And I turned my pillow,

Seeking that cool side

Which always, somehow, slips away.

I smiled, listening to

My wife breathing quietly

Across the landscape of 

sheets and comforters.

"There!" I thought, looking for a spot

To place the final period.

A few more rounds of shadow boxing,

Here just beyond dreamland,

And it may make a decent poem.

It owes me that

Considering the slumber

It has cost me.

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We'll Always Have Paris

The opposite of love is not hate. It is fear.  

Millennia ago our ancestors saw the darkness of winter devour the sun's time in the sky. As each day grew shorter, their fear increased; a fear that one day the sun would descend into darkness and fail to rise again. 

Against this fear they brought light. The warmth of the hearth. The joyfulness of song. Faith that the sun would return again. Faith that light would always drive away darkness. Faith that love would ultimately conquer fear. And it was from this faith, that the world's great Faiths evolved, and we came to understand our varied faiths through prayer and philosophy. 

As we sought to deepen that understanding, we turned our intellect and our curiosity the the waxing and waning of the light, and Faith's studious twin, Science, affirmed the permanence of the return of the sun, affirmed the resilience of light, and life, and love.  

Alas, we have not yet found the ultimate antidote to fear. There are still those who fear that they will awake one day to final darkness. And from the foul soil of that fear, springs hatred. Such hatred is self-affirming. To live in hatred is to live in darkness. By hating, one chains oneself to the darkness that spawns the fear. Such is the incestuous intertwining between fear and its child, hatred. 

Terrorism, by definition, seeks to instill fear. The recent attacks in Paris affirm that terror stems from those chained in darkness. In Paris it was the tool of those who would cloak themselves in language of Islam, one of the great faiths of light in order to terrorize the innocent and bring once more the darkness of their own fear into the world. Terrorism is the language of fear and hatred. Its use is cowardice. 

The four tenets of Distilled Harmony are: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm. By assaulting harmony and actively destroying beauty, terrorism calls forth the fourth tenet. The first three tenets allow for disagreement, discussion, debate. Those activities move wisdom forward. But they are internalized. Interactions that allow for the meeting of minds. 

The cowardly murders wrought by terrorism are the ultimate public, external expressions of fear, devolved into hated - and that must be opposed.  At its core, an individual violent attack on an anonymous, innocent stranger is often the result of the panic brought on by unreasoning fear of “the other,” and as such is the result of an individual pathology. However, what we witnessed in Paris, the religious/political motivations asserted by the perpetrators notwithstanding, was the manifestation of a societal pathology, not unlike that that presaged the rise of Nazi Germany. The leaders of global terror hijack a twisted version of a religion, in the case of ISIS, Islam - Hitler chose a strange occult interpretation of Christianity - and weaponize it. Germany at least, to its eventual shame and disastrous result, owned its hatred, paraded its fear in the streets, and led a nation to disaster. The terrorist leaders of weaponized Islam, hide in the shadows of the Internet, or erupt like a cancer in the midst of a host nation, and claim ownership of a portion thereof. 

And that touches on a central issue, and, perhaps an eventual solution. Let us call it "painting the bullseye."  Traditional warfare pits individual nation states, or competing alliances of the same, against each other. In the past that has allowed warring parties to say "the bad guys live there." We "paint the bullseye" on that piece of real estate, and we can "win" the war by destroying the territory that is synonymous with "the enemy."  

When a group weaponizes an ideology that cannot be geographically defined, it becomes impossible to "paint a bullseye on the enemy," and no matter how sophisticated one's weapons, you cannot hit a bullseye that is not there. That does not keep us from trying, from raining devastation upon the places where we believe the enemy to be, or where the enemy claims to be.  But the tortured history of the Middle East, from the Renaissance to the present, seems a continual affirmation that the “solution” to the problems of the Middle East must be home grown. Despite the allure of the treasures of that region, all attempts to militarily impose an external logic on its deep-seated antagonisms have ended in frustration and failure. So we should stop trying. 

In the wake of the attacks in Paris, we are already hearing calls for “boots on the ground,” for banning Syrian immigrants - or only Muslim Syrian immigrants - depending on the source.  So, in effect, we are painting a bullseye where the wielders of weaponized Islam are telling us we should. No doubt they are delighted. Our hasty reactions will allow them to claim “Look! We have been right all along. The Americans and their lackeys are not fighting a war on terror. They are fighting a war on Islam!” That dynamic should be obvious, yet still, we seem poised to blunder in again where the Crusaders, the British, the French, the Russians, and our own military have bogged down in the swirling sands and vendettas of tribal cultures.  I would ask again, is this really our job? 

The arena in which a larger “victory" is possible is defined by the first two tenets of Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony and Enable Beauty.  Those who fear us, who have come to hate us, who would destroy us, assert that we are “infidels” estranged from all that is good and beautiful in life.  In the long run we can best frustrate the fear-strickened weaponized terrorist by demonstrating the falsehood in that claim.  We can turn inward, not in a rejection of our global identity, but in a re-evaluation of that identity. In the face of external claims that we are a coarse and violent people, we must demonstrate with a new vitality that we hold true to the establishing document of our nation, The Declaration of Independence, in which we assert that: 

  

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, [and further that we] institute a new Government, laying at its foundation such principles .  .  . [that] seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” [My text in the parenthesis to smooth transitions.] 

The point is that we already have a government founded on the principles best suited to allow for the fostering of harmony and the enabling of beauty.  And we have grown ever better as Americans, native and foreign-born who accept and advocate those principles, knit together a culture more complex and engaging than the ones that we, or our ancestors, left behind in search of a better life.  Perhaps it is time that we exerted a more public and unified effort to manifest those unique principles. I often rail against the idea of a “hyphenated American.” African-American, Irish-American, Swiss-German-American, Japanese-Italian-Columbian-American. I find it irritating that, no doubt observing some arcane rule of grammar, American gets tacked on at the end.  The reality is that without the establishment of those uniquely American principles I cited above, no one would have left those other countries to come here - for a life better than the one they left behind. 

Only a fool would argue that we have completed the creation the state envisioned by the signers of the Declaration of Independence. We have myriad issues that still vex us.  The central notion of equality, a more unfettered route to the pursuit of happiness, safety - all provide ample challenges. But, like the challenges that face the Middle East, these are our internal challenges. Ones that we can address by placing them at the forefront of our national agenda. There is much domestic work to be done in order to complete the challenges set forth in the Declaration of Independence. Our schools are in desperate need of direction and resources, children still go to bed hungry - most likely in your own city, pockets of our great cities remain shopping centers for drugs and violence, our police and those they are sworn to protect appear to speak completely different languages, our highways and bridges crumble, the Great Lakes are threatened by invasive species. Pick your own pressing concern - the one you encounter as you look out the window or drive to work. 

This is where we need to paint the bullseye. And it should designate a target of construction not destruction. 

No doubt, in light of the recent Paris attacks, the media will continue to subject us to a great wringing of hands as politicians and pundits paint bullseyes all across the globe and propose strategies to smite them with our might and righteous indignation.  And yet again, is that our job? We have plenty to do here to Foster Harmony and Enable Beauty, to actualize the dreams of all those who have come here, in this generation or in generations past, seeking a better life. Perhaps if the continual development of that better American life becomes patiently obvious to the world beyond our borders, the words of those who fear us, who then come to hate us, who would do us harm, will fall on increasingly deaf ears. 

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A Cautious Welcome to an Old Friend

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An illness steals a lot. What was reality yesterday is no longer. You change. And learning to deal with those losses and changes is a big part of moving on. "I can't do that anymore? OK, let me find something else to fill that niche in my identity." You learn not to look back, or at least not very often or for very long. You learn to see old aspects of yourself as trappings that have had their day. You remain thankful for those experiences, but you move on - finding new paths to joy and harmony. It is not terribly different from simply growing older.  Watch a baby crawl around, casually sucking on its toes, bending its body into knots that would make a yoga instructor blanch. When was the last time anyone over 3 or 4 months old could do that? A teenager collapses on the floor to check her phone, unconsciously executing a full lotus with a half-twist, and then pops up again to check the fridge for Greek yogurt. Ouch. Can we party til the wee hours and hop up and go to work at 7 AM? Would we even want to? Those moments pass us by. We grow older and life changes.

But the plundering that illness brings is different. It often steals precious things with which we are not ready to part. This is not the normal transition of youth into maturity, the gentle pace of lush summer into russet autumn.  It is often harsh, and always feels unfair. But it is what it is; so you seek that new path to harmony, putting the past aside. Which is why it is all the more disorienting when one of those dear old former friends unexpectedly shows up at your door. When a loss, to which you have adjusted, seems to return, you have a hard time trusting that reunion - it's like the lyrics of an old "hurtin' country love song," 

"Hey there, darlin', If I let you in the door,

Will you turn around, and walk back out,

And break my heart once more?"

You see, my illness stole my voice. Oh, no, I could still talk just fine. Maybe my voice would be a bit tired after a long lecture. But it was still my voice, I still sounded like me. But I couldn't sing anymore. I used to sing all the time. Well, usually not where others could hear me. But in the house, in the shower, in the car. All through high school and as an undergraduate I was going to be god's gift to the American musical theater - and I was pretty good, just not that good. Still, the people to whom, and for whom, I sang seemed to enjoy it. Or they faked it well. 

Point is, I loved it. There is something truly magical about hearing a note in your head, and when you open your mouth, out it comes. You can actually taste the sound, it rolls around in your mouth like honey. So, long after I disappointed Broadway with my career choice, I kept singing. All the time, and in all those places. And then I got sick, and it stopped. I say "it stopped" because even though the voice stopped, for a while, I didn't. I would hear a note in my head and open my mouth, but what came out bore little resemblance to the note in my head. It rolled around in my mouth like vinegar. Harsh and disappointing. So eventually I stopped trying to bring back the voice. I have been without that part of my voice for years now. I moved on and became a more attentive listener to the voices of others. I listen to all kinds of voices. Professional voices. Lovely and enchanting voices. And that has been OK. Sort of.

Then a few weeks ago an envelope arrived in the office mail; a big one, 8 X 12. The return address was a media production company, and I was about to toss it when I noticed that the address was handwritten. So I opened it.  Inside was a letter from a former student and a CD. It was a demo for a radio show. More than a demo really. It was a whole program - about ten and a half hours of "the 150 best selling country music singles of all time." The student, who had taken the nom de radio of Winston Hall - the campus building in which our department is located - has really done a delightful job. The various songs are separated by fascinating bits of history about the country music industry, the genre, and the performers. There are slight pauses where the commercials would go, but, delightfully for me, those elements had been omitted from my copy. It was wall-to-wall music and commentary.  I popped the disk into the CD player in my car, and the tunes have been following me around ever since.  I am amazed at how many of them I know; lyrics, tunes, the whole Megillah.

And then, one day somewhere in the midst of the "countdown" the strangest thing happened. I don't even remember what the song was, but suddenly a solo became a duet. I knew the second voice, but it took me a moment to place it - it was mine, filling the car, rolling around again, honey in my mouth. I tried not to think about it and just let it glide along, terrified that if I thought about it, it would "turn around, and walk back out, and break my heart once more." I pulled into the driveway. And just sat there quietly for a bit, more than a little shaky. I am not used to the illness giving anything back.

I'm still testing it, but the voice seems to be sticking around, at least for the time being. I don't let it out of the car yet, let alone try trotting it out in public. Strangely, it seems shaded more towards tenor than my former baritone, and flows more smoothly on the drive home, when I am tired. But all those little details can wait.  Right now I'm just cautiously welcoming it back; shyly exploring where it might lead. It's sort of like a first date. We'll see what develops. 

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Smoothing The Canvas of Your Mind

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There are a number of medical conditions that require a “rescue inhaler.”  Something goes wrong and you whip out your inhaler, take a deep breath and, hopefully, the world gets solid again.  We don’t usually think of a rescue inhaler of playing a role in our meditation routine.  After all, meditation is usually long and slow, gentle and planned.  But anxiety doesn’t always give you time to gently and calmly slip into your quiet place, clear your mind, and so on.  So the options available when stress blindsides you and you need a little emergency transcendence, seem to be limited to going a little crazy for a while or, certainly in 21st century America, popping a pill.

I have been playing with an alternative - maybe “a meditation rescue enhancer?”  Basically it’s an exercise you can do when you feel the pitter patter of anxiety sneaking up on you, and you really can’t just go home and chill out. Here is how it works.

First, if at all possible, get out of the space that is stressing you.  Fake a phone call. Walk outside. Go into another room.  If that isn’t possible, close your eyes or just “defocus” your gaze into the middle distance.  It will look like you are still “there” but the idea is not to be.  Also get your appendages into a relaxed position - one that takes no energy to maintain.  If you are seated, get your feet flat on the floor and rest your hands in your lap or on your thighs. If you have to stand up, try to find a wall to lean against. Consciously slow your breathing. Slow, complete exhalations.

Once you have physically and emotionally removed yourself, as much as possible, from the stressful environment, reach inside yourself and pull up your most soothing visual and olfactory stimuli.  Obviously it is great if you can actually put yourself in the presence of those stimuli, but that is usually a luxury reserved for “planned meditation.”  In rescue mode, we imagine them as intensely as possible.  My smells are lilac and pine trees. Sounds - rain and thunder or crickets. The object of these two steps - getting away from the stressing environment and mentally immersing yourself in a couple of primary calming spaces - is to create a space from which tranquility can emerge.  Once these steps have allowed your heart rate to come down and your breathing to slow, we move into the visualization stage.

In the visualization stage you literally smooth the canvas of your mind. Envision a smooth white space that completely fills your visual field.  You are going to paint on it.  Wait, wait. I know. You can’t paint. Well, neither can I - in the “real world." But this is the canvas of your mind.  Here you are a genius. Think any scene, any form, and Ta Da! There it is! Just the way you imagined it - here, in your mind.  Don’t like it? Smooth the out canvas to pure white again, or just fade out the portion you do not like. It is your space you can make it do whatever you please. Relax a little further and begin again.

So where do you reach for these images?  Research tells us that the songs of our youth - those we encountered  twixt twelve and twenty - are the ones that remain emotionally powerful for us throughout our lives.  I find that, for me, in this visual stage, a step back it time is also beneficial. The objective is comfort, and to get there it is incredibly helpful to put away our adult armor, and draw upon the gentleness of childhood memories. 

So as you draw, don’t be shy about playing with those images from long ago or far away.  I find it easiest to focus on images from nature. You may have a greater affinity for rooms, buildings, cityscapes, whatever. The idea is to go to the "comfort food" of your childhood images. The earliest images I can recall are the illustration from a series of books by Thornton Burgess collectively called the Old Mother West Wind Stories featuring Peter Rabbit aka Peter Cottontail, Jimmy Skunk, Sammy Jay, Bobby Raccoon, Little Joe Otter, Grandfather Frog, Billy Mink, Jerry Muskrat, Spotty the Turtle, Old Mother West Wind, and her Merry Little Breezes.   Written in the early 19-teens, they were contemporaries of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 classic Wind in The Willows, with Mr. Toad, Mole, Ratty and Badger.  And, of course, A. A. Milne’s timeless stories of Winnie-the-Pooh from the 1920s. There are several version of both Wind in the Willows and Winnie-thePooh. Not surprisingly, I remember the drawings for each work done by the wonderfully insightful illustrator, E.H. Shepard. If you were not introduced to these works in your own childhood, go take a look now - at the original versions with the original illustrations. That exploration alone will lower your blood pressure.  [If you have children who have been raised primarily on Pixar and latter-day Disney - do share these ancestral works with them.] And naturally, I was exposed to all the original Disney animated works, Snow White, Dumbo, Bambi, etc., with the incredibly detailed animation of the various creatures of the forest; unmatched in my mind until Avatar.  And Avatar’s jungle, while quite beautiful, is not one I would suggest for the kiddies.

OK. So we have this wonderful smooth white expanse rolling out inside our head.  Our favorite smells tickle our nostrils, accompanied by our most calming sounds. Do a calm, "breath in, breath out," and reach out in your mind and let the images unfold.

An example.  Last week I came out of class completely knackered. I had tried to put too much content into one 75 minute lecture. I have always told my public speaking students that the amount of energy you put into a presentation determines the amount of energy your audience will give back to you. So if your aren't exhausted at the end of a presentation, you aren't doing it right.  This must have been a fairly good lecture, because I was completely wiped out. Fortunately, my office has a couch onto which I lowered myself. Big stretch. Still, even after lying there for a few minutes, I still had the shakes. So I called up my lilacs and some rain on the roof. And gradually, after a few more minutes I was able to smooth the canvas in my head and begin to draw.

I’m not sure why - maybe because the AC in my office has been flirting with frigid lately - but I decided to go with a winter scene.  So I traded the lilacs for a deep pine scent; the kind you find in a clearing in a cold forest. Maybe not Alaska cold, but certainly Wisconsin cold - the kind of cold that freezes your nose when you breath in. The rain sound faded out as the wind sifted through the pines, rattling the branches with tiny pellets of sleet that shifted to a soft snowfall. One nice thing about painting on the canvas of your mind is that your can do still lifes and video simultaneously.

So now I have a soft snowfall sifting through a frosty winter clearing.  I bring a small ridge into the side of the clearing. Long grass, weighted down by the falling snow, droops down across the openings of burrows that now become visible in the bank below the ridge. A pink nose wrinkles in the cold air, and a snowshoe rabbit, hops cautiously out into the moonlit clearing. That is another wonderful thing about painting on the canvas,of your mind - the natural incongruity of having moonlight illuminating a snowfall is no problem at all.  

Soon a cluster of kits bounce out from behind their mother, and begin to explore the clearing, eventually tumbling down the side of the bank, more like otters on a river bank, than bunnies in a snow filled hollow. But, it is still the canvas of your mind, where you determine what is normal.  I decide to take a final stab at an incongruity of nature by inviting two great snowy owls to the party. They glide in on huge and silent wide white wings, the perfect predators for the Artic north woods, who settle comfortably and congenially among their preferred prey.  The kits frolic about them, stumbling over the carefully sheathed talons, as snow continues to fall heavily from a clear and moonlit sky. The wind still sings softly through the pines. And there it is, a peaceable kingdom made delightfully possible here on the cool smooth canvas of my mind.

I let my eye roam over the clearing where the quiet play of the kits soothes the eye. A kit seeking a nap, snuggles into a hollow provided by furry folds or a feathered niche. The breeze sighs a lullaby as the snow pulls a fluffy blanket over the moonlit scene.

Not surprisingly, I find myself calm and at peace, now able to return to the obligations of what some choose to call "the real world." Or I can continue my explorations here. Smooth the canvas, pick up my mental pen, and see what lies around the bend in the road. The little horse and sleigh stand ready to take me over the bridge that crosses the stream that I have sketched at the bottom of the hill .  .  .  .

PS. No animals or natural environments were harmed or disturbed in the creation of this fantasy. 

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Michelangelo, Emily Dickinson, and the iPhone 6

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He felt as if he had been suspended here forever. At least a full year for every letter in his truly impressive name: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.  And he would gladly sell all the vowels for a just a few minutes to stretch his back. Well, his back and legs. And his arms. God, yes, to get his arms below his shoulders, and let them dangle. Ah, now that would be a prayer, well worth the answering.  A dozen candles, maybe later tonight when he could finally clamber down.  And what was he doing here anyhow, flat on his back, high above the floor of the Sistine Chapel, arm and brush reaching awkwardly toward the ceiling? He was a sculptor for god's sake.

Muffled but familiar footsteps echo on the marble floor far below and remind him of the answer: His Holiness Pope Julius II walks in and cranes his neck to peer up into the gloom. "Hey, Mikey!," he hollers, "Mikey! Hold everything! I've got this new gizmo - you're gonna love it. It's called an air brush. "

Fast forward three and a half centuries, and hop the ocean to Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily Dickinson is, as usual, holed up in her bedroom in the family home. She gazes out the window at the snow-draped countryside.  The soft white glove on her right hand lacks most of the thumb and the first two fingers. They have been trimmed away to give Emily a better grip on her well-worn pen. The rest of the glove is liberally spotted with ink.  She dips the nib of her pen into the inkwell, scratches out a word on the page before her and deftly inserts another. She stares at the page for a moment or two, then sits back and returns her gaze to the white world beyond the frosty pane. Her mother, also named Emily, but so unlike her daughter, slips quietly in and glances with resignation at the evidence of yet another sacrificed pair of gloves.  "Maybe," she thinks briefly, "she could wear some of the left-handed ones backwards." But then she gives her head a shake and crosses to where her somber daughter continues her inspection of the cotton-cloaked world outside. Emily the Elder is carrying a large, heavy box in her arms, which she rests gently on the edge of the young poet's desk. 

"Emmy dear," she murmurs. "I know you love your ink and paper and pens. But you might want to give this a try. They call it a typewriter."

I, for one, am hugely grateful that these scenes have played out only in my imagination. I've been fighting a cold - maybe it was the NyQuil. Still, I wonder what would have occurred had Mikey had an airbrush? If Emmy had had a Remington or an Underwood? I'm afraid we would have gotten more art, faster, and of questionable quality. And I am also afraid that there is a cultural dynamic alive and well in the 21st century that is nudging us down that slippery slope.  I refer, of course, to the iPhone6. Well, not really to just that phone, but rather to the narrative constructed in the tv commercial for the phone. [I'll put the YouTube link at the bottom of this post.] The commercial, which begins with the tongue in cheek assertion that nothing much has changed with the new phone, gradually unrolls a staggering list of new capabilities and features. The commercial ends with a bevy of youngsters who appear to be about the age of my university students - except for those who seem to be in middle school - holding their phones skyward, awe etched on their faces as the voice over intones something like, "Nothing has changed in the iPhone 6 - except everything!"

Hey Mikey! Want an airbrush? Want to try the new Remington, Emmy?

It is that forced change in a dominant medium that most concerns me.  We have all experienced the phenomenon to a certain degree when a piece of software that we use daily decides to change.  It can be something as pervasive as a operating system, or something as specific as the user interface on your email.  The effect is the same; suddenly something that was second nature now has to be relearned. One's attention is forced away from the task the tool performs and must be refocused on learning how to tame the tool so we can once again have it do our bidding.

For artists the transition can be tragic. The task of any artist is the liberation of an internal perception. Taking that which is inside and somehow recreating it in the outside world so that others may, to a certain degree, share the perception. Central to that process is becoming adept with a series of tools; be they pens, brushes, chisels, keyboards, a specific musical instrument, whatever. Step one for any fledgling artist is to learn the craft necessary to their preferred form of expression. Truly insightful art lovers enjoy nothing better than observing that process of maturation, seeing a young savant round into a mature, creative artist.  Mathematics seems to be the only field in which practitioners do their best work when young. Far more common is the gradual growth of the creative talent whose external expressions become deeper and richer as the artist's mastery of his or her tools keeps pace with a deepening internal vision.

So, the tragedy for the artist can be that moment when "everything changes." The tool with which they were intimately familiar becomes a stranger, and an entirely new creative courtship must begin. I am, at best, a part time artist. But I have become quite adept with Photoshop at a moderate level. Still, if someone asks me "How do you do this or that in Photoshop?" I cannot "tell" them. I have to show them. I have to sit down in front of my graphics tablet, take my stylus in my hand, balance the keyboard on my knee, and let muscle memory take over. My fingers find the right key combinations, the stylus knows the where it needs to go to perform the tasks my head envisions. It is an intimate partnership. When "everything changes" the partnership is dissolved.  The primary task is no longer making the internal visible, the mandatory new task - and often one that is months long and tedious - is re-establishing that intimate relationship with the tool. Only then can the primary task of making the internal perception external be once again addressed.

The problem, however, goes beyond this contention that changing an artist's tools can retard their expressive development in their chosen medium. The problem extends to the very different and competing agendas held by artists and the companies who, increasingly, provide their tools. The objective of the artist is, again, making an internal perception accessible to others. The objective of a company is to make money. And Apple is very, very good at making money. Furthermore, a staggering portion of that revenue, between 60 and 70 percent, comes from the iPhone. Apple needs to keep selling iPhones. They do that in large part by introducing new features - by changing the tool. They keep old customers and hope to attract new ones by "changing everything." The attraction for the customer is to the expanded capabilities of the tool, to how the tool is new and different. That is not an intimate relationship. That is speed dating. 

And Apple is certainly not alone. Everyone in the digital marketplace is playing the same game. Adobe, the company that makes Photoshop, follows suit with new features for the high-end graphic artist segment of the marketplace by increasing the power of both Photoshop and Illustrator. Those changes are the major reason that I stay in the shallow end of that particular pool.  Video recording, editing, and distribution software like After Effects and Mediasite, Learning Management Companies like Moodle and Blackboard, "information management" companies like Evernote, even old stand-bys like Word; they are all "changing everything." The corporate marketing focus becomes a radical increase in power of the tool, not the logical, gradual development of the artist.

My concern? As I said before, I worry that we will simply get more art, faster, and of questionable quality. But I do not think it is an irreconcilable divide. Perhaps it is simply a question of emphasis. Japan has a designation of "national living treasure." The high honor of that title is bestowed upon someone who has spent a lifetime mastering a craft or an art form. It is encouraging that Japan, home of Hello Kitty and often the epicenter of the quick and the kitch, still manages to designate as "living treasures" these artists who have spent a lifetime mastering their tools and using those tools to make their internal perceptions accessible to us all. It is not an “either-or” mindset, it is more a “both-and” view of the world.

We can do that too. After all we are the country that can share a simultaneous fascination with stalking the McRib at McDonalds restaurants across the landscape, while also embracing the slow food movement and supporting all things organic and vegan and gluten free. Given that cultural flexibility, one would think that our tech companies could see both a cultural and a monetary advantage to building “both-and" creative products. Software that can “change everything”  but can also "default to the original version.” Applications that can still "change everything" without destroying and failing to support the old.  Seems like a fairly easy coding exercise. After all, the old code is all still there. Why throw the baby, that some customers still love and some artists depend upon, out with the bath water? 

And there is, after all, some risk attached to "changing everything." 

Remember New Coke?

================================

Link to iPhone ad:

 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBYWGjIzvyw)

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Magical Transcendent Convergence.

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This idea began as I lay listening to some tracks from the Naturescapes collection.  I have often used classical music as a score for films I visualize when trying to sneak past consciousness into sleep. These make-believe films tend to be nature documentaries, birds taking flight with the violins, elk raise their majestic antlers in time with brass, thunderheads appear with a roll of tympani. You get the idea. But on this particular evening, as I listened to the sounds of rain and wind, surf and thunder, occasional counterpoints of bird calls and crickets, I found myself on another path. I wondered, and wandered, with the wind and the raindrop - steering their path, hopping neatly from one to the other. Dancing on the back of thunder.  It took more concentration than was conducive to sneaking off to sleep, so I let go of the notion. Or at least I tried to, but instead I found myself grabbing my iPad as I began to struggle with these thoughts on transcendence - a process which has now driven sleep completely off the radar. Anyhow, here goes. 

It occurs to me that transcendence is not really transcendence - it is convergence. We can miss this realization as we control our breathing and seek to be transported to "somewhere else" by the quavering note of the native flute, twinkling chimes, a gentle piano glissando. But transcendence does not act upon the "where" of existence, rather we transcend the "how" of existence, the experience, and that transcendence in turn renders the "where" unimportant. What I mean is that which is  "transcended" in a transcendent moment are perceptual barriers. Rather than sensing existence in a specific way, we merge with "that which is sensed", experiencing "existence from that entity’s perspective." We ride the raindrop, crest with wave and wind.  But here too words do not quite suffice, as they imply a duality where none exists. Rather our consciousness magically merges with that which we formerly merely observed. We no longer need to understand the entity or phenomenon, because we become the entity or phenomenon.  I know how "new age" that sounds, but it is probably quite old school.

In this way great art, science, philosophy are "reports" from these magical moments of transcendent convergence. Beethoven's Ode to Joy, Michaelangelo's David, Einstein's, e=mc2, Hawking's observations on the nature of black holes and the universe, Asher Brown Durant's The Catskills - create your own list of examples of perfection: all are reports from magical moments of transcendent convergence. These "reporters" use the palette of their particular genius to report the perceptual insights gleaned from their moments of magical transcendent convergence. They can write, paint, score, these works of art and science not because they imagined them, but because one, or a series of, moments of magical transcendent convergence allowed them, by escaping the barriers of normal perception and experience, to actually become one with those phenomena, experiences they later transcribed or “recreated” for us. 

This assertion fits with an earlier Distilled Harmony notion that an artwork shares an essential/elemental chord with that which the work depicts, and with the artist who creates the work. Such agreement is imperative in these explorations of existence and the universe.  Distilled Harmony is a conjectural explanation/exploration of the nature of existence. Since it deals with the purported impact of the interaction of strings, it must build along lines of conjecture, not direct observation, since its objects of concern - strings - are, by many orders of magnitude, too small to be observed. Furthermore, as I do not bring the palettes of math or physics to this exploration, I find myself immersed in the consideration of, and perhaps constrained by, a conjectural world that shares, at first blush, more with art and poetry and music than with the hard sciences. I do not see that as detrimental. The hard sciences themselves have a rich history of being driven by hypotheses deeply informed by the poetic. What could be more poetic than Einstein's exhortation to imagine yourself riding on a beam of light? Magical transcendent convergence simply nudges the notion a bit: imagine you are the beam of light. 

Given our current inability to measure the interactions of strings, the sole constrictions on Distilled Harmony are a simple rule against self-contradiction, and for the description of universal, sentient Harmony. The idea of magical transcendent convergence passes both those tests and hence seems worthy of further consideration.  

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The Mythology of our Youth

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We see the world through the lenses of the life we have chosen.

A biologist, I imagine, sees the forces of nature at play as he or she walks down the street. A business person see profit potential, the politician - policy and power. An artist, form and color. As someone who teaches about media and technology and society, those parts of the world jump out at me. New tech toys with great potential and scary invasions of privacy. The lenses of our life bring into focus those things we feel professionally obligated to think about, take note of, to understand.  It gets to be a bit much after awhile. Those things we "ought to think about" can overwhelm those things that intrigue us, that we like to think about, that allow us to revel a bit in curiosity.

We all need to take a break from the adult, serious, "stroke-my-whiskers-and-frown" issues. Often, given the opportunity, I spend my breaks doodling. Other times I use my leisure breaks to read mysteries and thrillers. I do not expect these novels to stray far beyond entertainment. I read them like I eat popcorn. Not quite Evelyn Wood super-speed, but zipping along pretty quickly. You know the basic framework so you cruise along looking for the identity of the power broker behind the curtain, the former black ops operative out to revenge the death of his family/lover/father, or the twist in an intellectual 'Holmesian' puzzle.  We are not expecting great literature here, just good story telling. 

But occasionally these modern troubadours surprise us with an arresting construction. After all Shakespeare was just a simple playwright, right? And a novelist is likewise a storyteller, staring at their screen or moleskin sweating to find just the right word.  It is probably inevitable that sometimes even the most commercial scribbler hits a few out of the park, and there it is; a sentence or a phrase that pulls you out of the narrative and spins you off into places the novelist never intended - or maybe they did.

A few days ago I was reading Dry Bones, book number 11 in Craig Johnson's  Longmire series. And there it was at Kindle location 1140 of 3561. Longmire muses, "My youth is becoming a mythology to me."  Whoa. Excellent sentence. Whipped me right out of, where is it, Wyoming? And sent me staggering back into a consideration of my own personal mythology.

Here is the issue. If we live, as I believe we should, intensely in the moment, parts of the past inevitably fade a bit, in spots it is virtually forgotten, until it is recalled when we stumble across an artifact from what we could call the archeology of the self. And like traditional archeology, the archeology of the self begins with the discovery of, and the examination of, these scattered artifacts

The dig that reveals the self forces us to travel paths no less remote and dusty than those trod by the explorers who walked the Valley of the Kings, America's four corners, the Mayan rain forests, or the highlands of Peru. But the mystery that draws us forward is not the mystery of an ancient or lost civilization; rather we seek the often forgotten corners of our self - the past that leads us to a clearer understanding of ourselves in the present.

So where do we find these artifacts of the self?  Social media - Facebook and the like - would have us believe that their timeline is the mother lode of our personal artifacts. Here are the faces and places that defined our life. Here, neatly woven together with the narratives of our "friends" lies the best possible description of our life and our culture, here are sketched the beliefs and attitudes that will allow our children, our friends, our family and possibly just curious strangers to "know us."

Nothing, I'm afraid, is further from the truth.  Our efforts to parse the Internet in pursuit of an broad, public understanding of our culture may bear fruit as we slice huge data sets to look for general trends in law, fashion, art and politics. But, even for those who have a significant social media presence, to look to the Internet for an understanding of ourselves, to understand any unique individual,  “an n of 1" is most likely an exercise in futility 

One profound flaw in any such attempt is the fact that often individual information on the Internet is - like Facebook - a self report, one that most often paints the most positive depiction of our self.  The notion was underscored for me recently.  I think I was in Bed Bath and Beyond.  I was waiting to check out, when I noticed a "Selfie Stick" hanging by the register.  You know, one of those telescoping poles that lets you use your phone to take a picture of yourself, or you and a cluster of your friends, that depicts how much fun you are having in some far-flung travel spot, or awesome party, or wedding or a Disney World of some stripe or another. The “tag” is vital as the cluster of faces often obscures the actual venue.

The problem is that "Facebook-Google+-Selfie-Stick" messages are designed to be seen by a group, possibly a large group, hence such postings are intentional public artifacts.  Public artifacts that define us as we would have others see us.  The monumental sculpture of the monarch/god, that hides the graves of the slaves who died in its construction. OK, that may be a bit much, but you get the idea. An examination of social media trails might tell others how we want them to see us, but certainly reveals little to us about “the mythology of our youth,” the person we used to be and how we got from then to now; from that person in the past to the person who now shares our skin.

It seems to me that such a revelatory “archeology of the self” necessarily centers on private artifacts, private reminders of private lives. Such artifacts are the antithesis of Facebook posts.  Social media posts are, by design, public. By “sharing" them we - by definition - give up our unique ownership of them.  They are now public artifacts. These are very different from private artifacts. Private artifacts are stored in spaces presumed private - diaries, journals, letters, paintings, artworks, photos in private albums. And these artifacts are jointly owned by the those who possess either the artifacts or the memories, the participants in the moments. 

I once did a rather lengthy - no surprise there - proposal of a social media application called The Trunk in the Attic.  The idea was to replicate, digitally, the iconic storage space of private artifacts.  It has, however, become increasingly obvious that the phrase “digitally private” is an oxymoron. An artifact simply cannot be simultaneously digital and private. For something to be digital makes it public, if not immediately and overtly so, then at least potentially so. For every digital lock there is a key. Sometimes it can be staggeringly ponderous - but it is there.

Contemporary privacy then takes on two primary guises.  The truly private moves back into the realm of digitally-free media.  Pen on paper.  The written, the drawn, the symbols that never - even temporarily - have a digital version. These artifacts are those where the only copy really can be stashed in the trunk in the attic. And there they are safe except from old-fashioned breaking and entering.  And strangely a big hulking padlock on a trunk just feels more secure than a website “protected by” a password of 32 letters and characters that should not contain the  name of my first pet or girlfriend. And who’s going to look for the trunk for crying out loud?

Yet, in the digital world privacy becomes largely a matter of intention.  Since we know that anything made digital can be accessed without our permission - hacked, stolen, whatever, we need to distinguish between artifacts we wish to share and those we wish to make private. Public is no problem. Put it online.  Post it, blog it, self-publish it.  Hit send and it is public. "Private-ish” is more complex.

As I think about discovering the mythology of my youth, the first challenge is remembering. Because what was central then is now peripheral. So, when I try to consciously recall those revelatory artifacts that may be out there, but fading, I try to construct “memory boxes,” maybe closets: I open the door to the walk in closet and enter a different era - when I lived in that house, when I went to that school, when we had that pet, when I lived in this city, or that one, when I was in that play, when I loved that girl, that woman. I look around me for anything that allows me to isolate a series of remembered artifacts. Of course, traditional artifacts are also wonderful touch points; photos of my childhood, of my parents and grandparents - all are artifacts that push me back to the mythology of my youth and even further back into a history I did not share, but which led to the one that is mine. That mind game has led me to some interesting memories and shifting assumptions.

Most important is that I have come to believe that I am not ethically at liberty to move recollections of private artifacts that are shared with another, into a public sphere without the specific consent of any “co-owner” of the private artifact.  This presents a couple of problems.  First, I have no idea where many of those “co-owners” are or if they would want to hear from me, let alone allow me to make public those private artifacts.  That realization is complicated by the realization that many of those private artifacts enhance my personal understanding of ways of approaching Harmony. And I feel increasingly bound to share those insights which might aid others in the exploration of their own harmonic self. So how do I share without revealing? How do I make the artifact public while respecting the co-owner’s right to keep the artifact private? Or am I honor bound to keep the artifact hidden? Destroy it? Nah, That sounds too Taliban, too ISIS. Unless it is solely my artifact, I cannot destroy it.  Even if it is wholly mine, I still have a problem with destroying it if it might be meaningful to others.

The better answer, it occurs to me, is sort of like Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak, but different. It is an Anonymity Cloak.  Writers have used the device for centuries.  We see it on all kinds of disclaimers: "This story is based on actual events but names and places have been changed to protect the innocent."  And a good writing mentor always tells us to write what we know .  .  .  .

So this then is the rather strange conclusion into which I have chased myself: If I wish to understand the mythology of my youth I must seek out the vital private artifacts of my life and write passionately about them, but as if they had happened to someone else.

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Socrates Weeps

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Socrates Weeps

No doubt a number of my undergraduate students assume that Socrates and I were contemporaries.  Which isn't all that strange as they also think that Socrates was the drummer who Ringo replaced in the early days of The Beatles. And it is usually only the graduate students who know that The Beatles was the band that Paul McCartney was in before Wings.  But I wax cynical, which is problematic as I often have trouble just finding cynical, let alone reserving the time for waxing it - I think it is out in the garage somewhere.

But back to the Socratic method.  For those of you who live in towers other than the ivy-covered one in which I have spent most of my life, the Socratic method defines the bucolic myth of higher education; wise teachers sit with a cohort of curious students - ideally in an olive grove - engaging in a lively and penetrating dialogue about issues both enlightening and profound. 

It sprang to mind last week when I stood in front of a classroom in which every one of the 78 seats were taken.  

"Wow," I thought. "It has been what? a decade? since I have taught a class this small!"  Socrates weeps. 

I did my undergraduate work at Kalamazoo College in the late 1960s.  It is a small liberal arts college in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  A couple hundred students north of a thousand constitutes the student body. While I recall large classes - maybe 40 students in Western Civilization and Entomology - it seems that most of my classes had fewer than 20 students.  The main campus consisted of picturesque brick classrooms, dorms and a student union surrounding a shady lawn that climbed a rolling hill, topped by the steepled chapel that smiled benevolently down on us as we scurried along to class.  I do not actually remember having had classes out under the oaks, but we may have done so. A former professor of mine from Kalamazoo College is one of us here on The Wall, if his memory of the view from the other side of the desk conflicts with my recollections, I will pass those revisions along. 

In contrast, I teach at an institution of about 35 thousand students, 2000 faculty and some 3000 administrators. So 40,000 of us call NC State home to some degree or another. It is a huge institution, and one that has grown increasingly dependent upon technology to accomplish its most central objective: teaching students.  Well, maybe its second most central objective - behind grant writing, and there is publishing . . . But let's leave that tangle for another day. Back to Socrates and teaching. 

While I considered it aberrant at the time I now find bittersweet the memory of a colleague in the English department who, decades ago - when the task simply entailed dropping a coaxial cable from the ceiling - refused to allow "that thing" into his office. Now we simply cannot do our job without "that thing."  We, either by choice or mandate, post our syllabuses on the Internet, we handle the sensitive concerns of students with disabilities on the Internet, we present our classroom notes over the Internet, we record student grades over the Internet, we distribute lectures to distant students over the Internet, we even manage our own University retirement accounts over the Internet.

And in the ten or eleven days since the semester began, when I called upon those various functions, every single one has malfunctioned. And no, I have been doing this for years. Operator error was not the issue. The cause was, in each case, the Glitch Who Stole Christmas. The "outages" have ranged from minor irritations to major disruptions in my ability to do my job. 

However, as surprising as it may seem, the primary motivation behind this post cum rant is not the fact that the Internet is so untrustworthy - I have taught about the Internet for years before there was an Internet. I have always known it is a fickle lover, promising more than it ever really can deliver. I try, often futilely, to instill that same wary attitude in my students.

No, the burr under my saddle this time is that having to take care of the Internet makes it increasingly difficult to take care of my students.  I spend hours making sure the technology necessary to interact with my students works, which compresses the time I have available to consider what I wish to share with them, horribly. We may have fooled ourselves into believing that the swift and efficient exchange of texts, or voice mails or skypeing counts as a Socratic dialogue that encourages relationships and critical thinking. That is simply not true. At the very best, these tools serve as compromises for a conversation under the elms. We have come to believe that the compromises are the equal of the human systems they have come to replace.

And that is why Socrates weeps.

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Love is Harmony’s Handrail

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I have always considered my myopia more blessing then malady. As a youngster it was not a matter of choice; when I took my glasses off, all the world more than 12 or 14 inches distant dissolved into an impressionistic haze - soft and gentle, like life lived within a cloud. At the same time the objects an inch or two in front of my face leapt into sharp relief.  The small became all. Horton may have heard a Who, but I could see them. I have no doubt that the way I have always seen the world outside my head has had a significant impact upon the way I interpret the world from inside it.

For example, I quickly learned that, if I needed to go to the bathroom at night, rather than find my glasses, turn on a light and make my way down the hall it was far easier to keep my eyes shut, and trace the path - with my hand against the wall guiding me to my destination.  And, once there ensconced I could, if I so desired, peruse the illustrations of House at Pooh Corner or Treasure Island in incredible detail.  Those experiences, while decades removed in time, are conceptually snuggled up right next to my current assertion that love is Harmony's handrail.  Come on along.

I do not know if the eagle-eyed among us use handrails.  I assume they do, for in my youth when I had my glasses on, or later my contacts in, I would use handrails or their posh kin, banisters, to hurtle down stairwells or haul myself swiftly up the other way - they served me like poles serve a skier, all zoom and schuss! But in the dark, without light or lens, their existence became imperative. Without them I would be lost, scooting butt-by-board until I reached my destination. So, handrails are constructions that lead the way; they guide us to our destination. Which is what? A question with a singular answer: Harmony.

It follows then that if the first tenet of Distilled Harmony is to foster Harmony, it only makes sense that we seek the meaning that arises from those times when we stumble upon that destiny; from those precious moments when Harmony rises unbidden from the mist, like Brigadoon. That is not to say that we should not consciously seek Harmony.  We do that in a variety of ways.  Some of us meditate, others work out, paint, play music, rock climb, hang glide, cook, pray, sing, play an instrument, work in the garden, hike the Appalachian trail. Whatever. To be human is to seek Harmony, and we should, and do, all explore our own paths to that ultimate goal.

Still it is quite amazing in those other, unplanned, special moments, to suddenly realize you are there. To discover that, without even trying, there you are, covered all over with Harmony. That's incredible. There is really nothing else in existence like it, or, perhaps more accurately, there is nothing else in existence but it - Harmony is existence.  Still, we so rarely recognize that existential truth, we should consider how we might better, and hence more often, hail Harmony.

Some 20 years ago, when I started to write the book that would eventually become The God Chord, I decided to begin by recounting a variety of "stunning moments" in my life: a youthful  night at the Vienna Opera House, magical moments along a mountain stream in Northern California, the birth of my first child, opera again, with both daughters and their mother in the mountains outside Santa Fe, an unexpected encounter with soft eyes across a cup of coffee.  Those moments were, I now realize, moments when I spontaneously found myself "all covered in Harmony."  

Recently I have been trying to "cross-reference" those moments from my past with my current explorations in Harmony. I'm looking for correlations between those stunning Harmonic moments and other less ephemeral clues that Harmony may be slipping by unnoticed, something that nudges our shoulder and whispers, "Hey, pay attention! Something potentially very important may be going on here!" I, as we all should, do consciously try to recognize and acknowledge the harmonic moments around me everyday. Clouds, trees, birds in flight, these are the dependable old stand-bys. And I'm going to head out on the deck in an hour or so when the Perseid meteor shower is due to peak. Still, life in the 21st century usually seems a tad harried for the bucolic sensing of Harmony. So I put some time aside everyday to do some focused "Harmony hunting."

That time is, of course, my meditation time.  Sometime between 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM I slip away from the "have to do" stuff and the "ought to do" stuff, even the other "want to do" stuff and take 30 or 45 minutes to do my "ritual" - a basic Reike routine combined with Pandora supplying the Bose-world-and-noise-cancelling-headphone-assisted music. An interesting pattern has begun to emerge. When selecting the music for the evening's ritual, the first and most basic decision is: vocal or instrumental?  If it has been a fairly mellow day, I go with instrumental. The purity of sound. I lean toward the symphonic, or "spa-ish" piano or violin pieces. Those take me to some very soothing places. However, if the day has been hectic, those unfocused strains can quickly fade to background music as I continue the day's debates in my head.  On those more hectic days I opt for a vocal background. The stories in the songs, most of which I know word for word, blunt the dramas the day may have rained upon me.

Strange thing about those poems set to music - they are almost all love songs. Some are happy love songs, some sad love song, some "guy and gal" love songs, some "I love the mountains" love songs, I love the sea, the rain, the wind, some "wanna-be-but-don't-quite-understand-love" love songs; but almost all are some kind of love song. Here, I am coming to believe, lies a easier map to finding Harmony, a clue to when we are - for at least the moment - in tune with the harmonic sentience of the universe. When we are in love, we are in Harmony. Not all Harmony is love, but all love is Harmony. Thus, if we gently and steadfastly follow the handrail of love, it will eventually lead us to precious moments of Harmony.

Still, both love and Harmony wind us along an intricate path though existence. Sometimes, as in the musical Oliver it seems mysterious and unattainable: 

Where is love?

Does it fall from skies above?

Is it underneath the willow tree

That I've been dreaming of?

Other times we, like the Bard in sonnet 116, we think we have it nailed: 

Love "is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark."

But perhaps the most callow definition comes closest to the mark: I may not be able to tell you what love is, but I know when I'm in it.  

Harmony, I think is much the same. The noun itself may be irrelevant. Wisdom, Transcendence, Nirvana, Salvation, Grace - call it what you like.  I am coming to believe more and more firmly that those words all describe the same state of existence, one defined by our ability to hold the Harmony of existence - and by extension, love - within and before us at all times. A tall order to be sure, but, how did Browning put it? "A man's grasp should exceed his reach, or what's a heaven for?" 

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Swatting "Isims" at Three O'Clock in The Morning

Which one startles you awake 

In these small hours?

Cynicism? Pessimism? Optimism? 

Or, perhaps romanticism?

It is a question worthy of consideration

As it is unlikely that our essential inclination 

Is so lightly ascertained

That we may consider these wakings

As but slight disruptions

Of a night's repose.

My own has been sorely won

In countless jousts against the foe.

Until now, like all romantics, 

I fence my way through life, 

Holding discord at bay 

With the point of my pen.
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Piece of My Heart

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I doubt that many would point to Janice Joplin as an advocate of transcendent spirituality.  But one of my wanderings between "wide awake world" and Alternia raised that possibility for me.  I have already confessed to talking to myself, but I take it a bit further - as do many of you.  I chat with what I think of as "the sentient essence of the universe."  More mainstream belief systems would see a parallel to prayer.  I shy away from that slippery slope because of the baggage that any organized religion, and its notion of prayer, brings.

Still, the conversation goes on between me and the sentient essence of the universe - SEU.  No, I don't begin with "Hi SEU." Or Hello There, Big Guy."  I remain enough a product of my western Judeo-Christian heritage, that "Lord" still comes most naturally to mind as a good noun of address for the sentient essence of the universe. So anyhow, the other night I finished my meditation, turned on my crickets, wind and rainfall soundtrack, and drifted off beyond the edges of wide awake world. And I said/thought/whispered, I'm never really sure which it is, "So Lord, how are you doing?"

The thing that sort of rocked me back on my heels was that the question was sincere. I realize it is somewhat silly to inquire after the well-being of the sentient essence of the universe, because the implication of "How are you doing?" is that the question poses an offer to be of aid if things aren't going so well. I mean, what do I have to offer to the sentient essence of the universe? Ordinarily a sit down with the sentient essence of the universe centers around what we want; please give me this or that. If we do offer anything in exchange it is that we will do what we already know we should be doing. Furthermore it implies that the sentient essence is watching our individual actions, as if there is so little else going on in existence. Right. I'm sorry. I just can't push belief that far.  My relationship to the sentient essence may well be personal, but I cannot see that it is reciprocal.  I think the sparrow falls unnoticed, save perhaps by the neighborhood cat.

But that is when Janice kicked in "Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now baby. You know you got it, if it makes you feel good!"

Admittedly, it is presumptuous for us to offer aid to the sentient essence of the universe, more presumptuous still to address the essence as "baby." Yet a further assumption, that partners my assumption that the universe and existence are sentient, is the notion of an objective. The reason for our existence is to - wait for it: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm. We do those things because they enhance the harmonic will of the universe - and in doing so we are doing our bit for the sentient essence of the universe.  That Harmony is probably sensed at levels we can't really grasp, the way a skilled conductor can hear the Harmony or discord being contributed by the e-string of the sixth chair viola. But the idea is that we can contribute to the Harmony of existence and it does - somehow - make a difference.

So if somewhere deep in our being, after asking, "So Lord, how are you doing?" we sense a little returned whisper of "It was a rough day." Then maybe we need to let the universe know that we are still in there doing our bit, and affirm Janice's rock offering: "Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby. You know you got it, if it makes you feel good!"

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Aire on the Bell-Shaped Curve

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Foster Harmony is first tenet of Distilled Harmony because it is the primary task of our lives.  The other tenets, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm can certain serve as guiding principles in their own right, but they all serve the ultimate goal of fostering harmony. Given that assertion, everything we do should point to, or be interpreted in the light of the first tenet - everything.

Meditation is a task that most would assert is inherently linked to fostering Harmony. Yet, meditation does not mean the same thing to everyone - and, yes, there is a delicious irony there, that we should aggressively debate the tranquil nature of meditation. But let us leave that for another day.

I understand that for many the object of meditation is to empty the mind - to stop thinking. But that need not always be the objective. Meditation can be guided meditation - you can nudge meditation with both music and gentle focus. Rather than emptying the mind, the proces is more like stepping aside from the mind - letting go of the idea of authorship. Perhaps a better analogy is getting a seat in the front row, first balcony, and watching the performance your mind provides if you just nudge it a bit. The show that unfolds is multifaceted.  Naturally the music you select to aid your meditation provides a bed of Harmony, but images and phrases make their contribution as well.

Recently my view from the balcony has provided some delightful interactions among a variety of harmonious elements. Foremost has been the bell-shaped curve. The bell-shaped curve is a simple graphic representation of the normal distribution of anything.  Having been a teacher all my life, my most common interaction with the bell-shaped curve has been in the way in which it uncannily depicts the performance of students in my classes.  Despite the current farcical grade inflation infecting our education system, when I construct a legitimate, discerning test for my students - no matter if it is a small graduate class of 20 students, or a large undergrad survey course of 200 or more - the grades will fall along the bell-shaped curve: a handful of As, a larger chunk of Bs, a whole bunch of Cs, a chunk of Ds (quite similar to the number of Bs) and a handful of Fs. It is quite amazing. It is a most harmonic depiction. It simplifies one aspect of a diverse group of individuals. It distills complexity. Ah ha.

The Bell-Shaped Curve

I began to consider the potential insights one might gain by viewing other aspects of life through the lens of the bell-shaped curve, and it struck me that there may be a distillation within the distillation. Consider this: there is often a maturation, or an "increasing insight" variable attached to the bell-shaped.  The most callow, uninformed students loll beneath the F and D portion of the curve, most students reside under the C spot, while a deminishing population have struggled to claim spots beneath B, with only a few finding their way to an A.  Hence the curve not only describes the number of individuals who will be placed at particular spots on the curve, it simultaneously indicates the extent to which each person on the curve has mastered the content, or come to the understanding that the curve describes.

Consider a brief, albeit important, example, and one perhaps in flux in the digitally redefined modern world: life and friendship.  And here I reach back to my own life and lives of my children, so the example is admittedly culturally skewed, but the idea retains broader validity nonetheless. 

When a child is born their world is relatively small. Perhaps as small as the family unit.  That portion of the bell-shaped curve hovers barely above the baseline. Then the child begins to encounter a wider group of "others."  Maybe informal "others," children in the neighborhood, maybe more formal groups, preschool, what have you, and the curve begins to rise.  As the child grows toward adolescence, the number of people beneath the bell shaped curve also increases.  The increase is both numeric and experimental.  Numeric is obvious.  We meet more people, at school, at work, and in a variety of voluntary affiliations - religious, political, extra-curricular, or extra-employment groups. These last become those who swell the experimental aspect of the curve.  We experiment with a variety of interests, a variety of identities if you will.  It is during this time in our lives - past adolescence and into our adult life - that the curve rises to its highest point above the baseline.  We have more people "in our life" than we ever have had before, or will ever have again.

After that the curve begins to descend again towards the baseline. The driving factor is selectivity. Our areas of interest contract. The child who was carted from music lessons to team sports practice to play group to study group to whatever and whatnot, has decided where their true interests lie. The college student who changed majors 5 times, finally settles on one. The adult who has moved through four or five jobs, becomes more clearly focused on one path.  All areas of our lives contract as the focus becomes not quantity but quality.  The number of people in our lives becomes far less.  They become important in the ways in which they enrich our lives, the ways in which they make us smile. In the ways in which they are truly our friends.

So this descent down the far side of the bell-shaped curve is a distillation.  From the complexity of the herd we distill the value of the few, the vital, the harmonic. It is true that mystery lurks where the curve meets the base line.  Does the final dip define us alone as we internalize all our life's experiences into a single purely harmonic chord?  Or is that intersection with the baseline a transcendent moment? Do we, at that moment, flip our existential poles, like the Earth flipping its magnetic field and what was the end of one bell-shaped curve creates the beginning of another?

Perhaps it never was a single bell-shaped curve but rather a series of waves, each of which charts both population and insight. Perhaps we mistake the numerical peak for insight, when it more truly reflects the mentality of the herd.  Perhaps we lack the patience to travel the longer road to the selectivity at the far end of the curve where we encounter far fewer numbers of far greater quality. 

Most likely, life is a process of repeating distillations. Each distillation begins with a seed, a magic bean, perhaps a singularity which expands into a plethora of potentials. We winnow those to a precious few, distill those few to the essence of the current distillation. And that essence becomes the singularity that fuels the subsequent distillation. A fundamentalist believes they understand and/or represent the "last distillation.” Deeper reflection reveals that we have simply turned a corner, discovering the beginning of a new distillation.
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