Sum Total

"Life did not begin at my birth. ... I am the sum total of [others'] experiences, their quests."

Although my thoughts and my dreams often circle around my personal life, I am continually expanding those horizons. I have the choice of limiting myself, of putting blinders on. All I see then is what's in front of my own face. It's easier to live that way. I don't have to see, acknowledge or encounter what is going on around me. I don't have to read opinions or ideas that I don't already have or agree with. That would be the simpler way to live.

What Wiesel suggests is that life is not that simple. When we stop learning, refuse to expand our knowledge and experience, we miss the fullness of beauty. We lose sight of the beauty that lies in diversity and difference. Just as a flower garden is made up of a variety of sizes, colors and blossoms, so the world around us is made up of beauty.

His words ~ "divine beauty" ~ suggest that through diversity, exposing ourselves to what has come before as well as what walks beside us, we are lead to whatever we find or name as Divine or Holy.

As we look beyond ourselves, we have the choice to envision a different world and create a different mythos for the present and the future. We have the opportunity to leave things as they are, to believe we are powerless, or to broaden and share our experiences and our quests, adding them to the sum total that balances our world.

In light of recent events, what do you want to learn? How do the stories of your ancestors affect your choice? What do you want to leave for the generations that follow? How will you contribute to the sum total balancing the world?

Memory and Music

Every now and again, a song or a performer strikes the heart deeply enough to rock us to the depths of our souls. The right music. Different songs for many people. Different performers for them as well.

Last night, one of those performers played his heart out in one small bar. Why was this performer different? What did he have that touched our souls? Not an easy answer. Perhaps it is that all who were there to hear him were immersed in the same mythos ~ the one created by and for this particular performer.

Over a decade ago, we celebrated this performer with and at a fundraiser because we were certain he'd be leaving our presence soon. He'd been living with AIDS for a decade and things were looking dubious. He remains with us, in this world, on this side of the veil, and filled with a passion when he performs that puts all in his presence to shame.

Although he no longer has the stamina to play three or four hour gigs, what he does play brings all of us to that point of letting go and riding the wave of the music to forgetfulness or remembrance, whichever place we need to reach at the moment. During one of the songs, with a band consisting of drums, piano, trumpet and trombone complementing his guitar and vocals, I was swept into an ecstasy of spirit that had nothing to do with the half-glass of wine I'd consumed. I could feel the music within and beneath me, carrying me away. Even as a music lover, very few performers and performances bring me to that point. Suddenly, everything was in its proper perspective, The music, the people, the time ~ all was right with the world.

What music brings you to that place of forgetting or remembering? Is it a type of music? a performer? a particular song? Does certain music bring amnesia? Other music bring memory? Are you in the moment with the music? To what era/time in your life does it transport you?