Distilled Harmony Scripts: To Begin at the Beginning

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To Begin at The Beginning

Ever since I was a small child,

I  have been forever ambushed 

By moments of pure harmony.

While growing up in Springfield, Ohio, we lived in a modest house. I had to repeat a recent “Google Earth Fly By" to make sure I was in the right place, as the current reality seems overly modest. Yet in my memory, certainly when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, it was quite large. The porch especially was a world apart, screened by shrubbery, much taller than that in the image.  At night in particular, it was a magic place bathed in the warm glow of those yellow "bug lights" now largely gone, replaced by squat fluorescent spirals. The bug lights have been sacrificed, like smoke-tinged autumn, to keep the planet safe and sterile. But in memory the porch floated serene on their golden halo.  Serene and apart as rain drummed down all round.

Then in fifth grade and sixth, in connection with work my father was doing, we lived in Vienna, Austria.  I remember, one night, being ushered into a box in the world famous Staatsoper—the State Opera House.  I wasn't an opera fan, had never been to one before.  But one of my school chums was the son of a Scandinavian ambassador.  So we claimed the Ambassador’s box that night, as the usual adult occupants took a break from the endless social obligations of their diplomatic life.

We settled into those opulent surroundings a little self-consciously.  The elite of one of Europe’s oldest capitals swirled below us like schools of tropical fish.  Gowns and jewels nestled on the aromas of perfume, strong coffee, exotic drinks and the hint of expensive cigars.  Handsome men and glamorous women bantered in a half dozen languages.  Then, a beautiful young woman, carrying a champagne bucket and a tray with glasses entered the box, and—as though we were men—opened the bottle, poured two glasses, and whispered “Enjoy.”  With a slight chuckle at our stunned faces, she pulled the invisible velvet-covered door closed behind her and disappeared down the corridor to serve the more jaded patrons to whom she would appear as something less than a goddess. The lights faded like a sunset in the magnificent crystal chandeliers that floated above the quieting throng,  while on stage, dawn breaks as the orchestra swells and a single heavenly voice floats across the footlights, effortlessly filling every corner of the gilded hall.

Later, a year before I entered college, I went to Northern California. It was a trip sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee to build cabins at Clearwater Ranch in Philo, California, which was a permanent treatment center for emotionally disturbed children. Each morning we "Friendlies" would hike up the creek a ways, eventually settling ourselves on some rocks, to share a bit of silence and get focused for the coming day. On one such morning I went away, or maybe "in." I'm not sure. Physically, I was still perched firmly on my boulder. But everything around me became hyper-focused.  The water rushing over rocks covered with intensely green moss. Behind me birds were handing off solos in the trees that lined the creek. Sunlight danced about as it does in poetry. It seemed I sat there transfixed, or maybe transcendent, for a very long time. Then I noticed my friends stirring, standing up and making their way back to the worksite for another day of hauling, hammering and roofing beneath a wide sky of blue and gold.  I followed along, and hesitantly asked several "Was this morning different for you?"  Either they chose not to share, or mine was a solitary journey.

There were more moments like these, scattered across the decades of my life, as I would assert there are in yours, if you claim some quiet time and consciously try to remember them. Together, for me, they have come to weave a tapestry of intensely personal, resilient, harmonic chords that resonate with other more public expressions.

Landscapes, for example, particularly ones from the Hudson River School. Those works sound the call of a simple, romantic and without doubt, idealized, vision of rural life. 

And, rain.  Not so much the "Caught out in it, cold rain down your collar" type rain.  But more the "Just beat it, peeking out through the door of the barn, guess we can't work anymore, might as well take a nap" kind of rain.  Or the "Wild storm watched from a place of safety" type rain.

I have the same cautious harmonics with fire.  Given the media's tendency to emphasize damaging and destructive fires whenever they get the opportunity, it would not surprise me to learn that mostly, nowadays, we fear fire. But there is a far older, more comforting version of fire that lives within me yet, the campfire beneath a starry sky, the cook fire, the ancient call of hearth and home.  

Each of these harmonic moments sounds a calming chord within me.  My blood pressure drops. My breathing slows. I am at peace. I smile.

It was not until I passed the half-century mark that I began to consider these moments of pure harmony as something more than the occasional gifts of existence, but as something deeper.  Here, I began to think, may be glimpses behind the often banal haze of everyday life.  A peek at the harmonic clarity that enfolds all existence, but goes largely unnoticed as we scurry from one momentary obligation to the next.

I began to read a magazine called Science News back in the 1960s.  It is still around, and I still read it.  It is a neat little magazine that does a few feature stories and then lots of shorter tidbits from all areas of the hard sciences - but written for the lay reader.  I first found it interesting primarily because it had nothing to do with my major - Theater. Hence I could read it and feel absolutely no obligation to "learn" anything. I could just enjoy what I was reading. Well, as any good teacher will tell you, the trick to getting students to learn is to not let them know they are being taught.  Sort of make everything recess.  Needless to say I, the math phobic Theater major, was soon absorbing information that would have brought on a panic attack in the context of class in which I would be graded.

I became fascinated by theoretical physics and its audacious attempt to discover a "Theory of Everything."  So I spent the last decades of the 20th century with Science News eavesdropping on astrophysicists and cosmologists and mathematicians pursuing their own version of the Holy Grail. That is, after all, what a TOE, "a theory of everything" is, right? The main difference between the physics of a theory of everything and the theology of an established religion is that while theologians wrestle with understanding exactly how they are right, some of the physicists acknowledge that they may be wrong.

So back around the turn of the millennium I found myself trying to connect the dots between my increasing powerful intuitive sense of a harmony that pervades existence; the stirrings of a new "theory of everything" in the physics community dealing with "strings" and "multiverses"; and a variety of readings in both old and new age theology and philosophy.  Thank god - or whomever - in 1999 Brian Greene wrote his delightfully titled book: The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. In the book Greene explains all those things that the title promises, but more important for me he explained "string theory" in a language accessible to the dedicated lay reader. 

That was vital because String Theory was to become the glue that finally stuck the fragments of my musings together, allowing me to construct what I originally called "chord theory" and now call "Distilled Harmony."  For us to move forward together, you, too, need to have a basic understanding of string theory.  Don't panic.  Remember the third pillar of Distilled Harmony is distill complexity.  In my next presentation I am going to attempt to "distill" string theory, revealing the functional basics necessary for us to move further into Distilled Harmony. For those of you who are formally trained cosmologists, and especially to Brian Greene, should he ever stumble across these conversations, my apologies for what will surely strike you as simplistic and reductionist.  Still, I might have done a better job with Professor Greene's work had he answered my emails.

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Link to the video presentation:
http://mymediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Play/26fd8ec88a8441779daa9a6256f677fa1d

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