I found this little fairy tucked away in the ferns on the path to the library at Wild Acres.
And look what I found in my knitting bag last night!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise
postaweek2012
Gratitude For The “No-Toothache”
Thich Nhat Hanh writes about our human tendency to notice that which pains us and to not notice the absence of those same troubles. We complain bitterly about the toothache, but do not notice or give thanks for the “no-toothache,” for the days when the tooth does not hurt and so does not capture our attention.
Tonight, at this moment, my loved ones are safe and well. Tonight, I am also safe at my computer, closing out my thoughts for the day, my body and my life far removed from Connecticut. I feel dismay and sadness over this senseless killing, over the loss of these young lives and the lives of the adults who dedicated themselves to the education of children and the betterment of the human spirit. But my feelings are abstract, full with compassion, yet safely distant from this event. I am not a parent burying my child. I am not a husband whose wife will never return home from work, or a child whose mother will never again walk through my front door. My body has not been slammed into an entirely new existence containing only pain and horror. My memory does not rewind and replay the terror of those moments when life was stolen from so many innocents, young and old.
Tonight I notice the no-heartbreak and give thanks.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Delicate
December Beach Sojourn
My soul needs the sights and sounds and smells of salt water, no matter that it is December and the wind blows cold off the Atlantic. No matter that instead of summer’s warmth, the water is now a chilly 58 degrees. My feet need to feel waves breaking on top of them and sand being sucked out from beneath them by the retreating water. My feet know that there is but one ocean circling the earth. The names of the oceans are but conventions invented and assigned by human beings. Today my feet touch sardine fishermen in the Mediterranean, polar bears swimming in the Arctic Ocean, and baby sea turtles rafting in the Sargasso Sea. This water laps the shores of western Ireland and circles the Antarctic continent. The songs of humpback whales tickle my toes. Entering these rifling waves with my bare feet should be a sacrament.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons
- Fall Maple
Autumn Walk
Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflection
Harp Weekend, Rehearsals, and Socks, Oh My!
No, the space gypsies did not return me to my home planet – I’m still here, despite my long absence from my blog. I returned from an intense, inspiring and instructive four days at the Southeast Harp Weekend blown about by the edges of what was still Hurricane Sandy, and fell into three weeks of extra rehearsals and practice for the upcoming end-of-semester concerts.
The Harp Weekend ended up being totally perfect for where I am with my harp and what I want to learn. Not only were the instructors in my classes excellent players, they were also excellent teachers. I’m already using new ideas from Dee Sweeney’s Music From the Soul class when I play at the hospice unit, as well as Nadia Birkenstock’s approaches to learning a new piece of music. I’m experimenting with Kim Robertson’s Musical Sandwiches as segues between my arrangements of Christmas carols.
The outer bands of Hurricane Sandy arrived in Asheville on Sunday afternoon, bringing spitting rain and a temperature drop of 20 degrees within two hours. I drove home in wind gusts following a glowing column of rainbow light until the sun dropped behind the western mountains. We had two days of potent wind gusts at home but no serious rain, snow or damage.
I left Harp World and reentered normal time and space facing extra Consort rehearsals, harp ensemble repertoire still not up to tempo, and recorder ensemble repertoire not yet mastered. Three weeks later, the recorder ensemble repertoire is in pretty good shape – there are a couple of entrances that still throw me, but with two more rehearsals before our concert, I think I’ll be ok. The recorder pieces for Consort are in my fingers; it’s the harp piece that continues to prove that I cannot actually count to four.
The harp ensemble concert is next Monday, and my brain/eye/finger/two-hand coordination is maxed out several beats below our performance tempo. My friend and I have a secret pact to divide up the left and right hands for the two most challenging pieces, creating one whole harper between us. I’ll play a good bit of one-handed harp on the remaining tunes, with selected left-hand notes added in when there is no danger of my right hand crashing and burning. Last year the prospect of one-handed harping created an engraved invitation for the Inner Critic to come calling. This year I remain grounded in gratitude to be playing what I can play, and that’s slammed the door in IC’s face.
Knitting socks is now my before-sleep decompression activity. My brain slowly winds down with the meditative repetition of looping one strand of yarn over another strand. I finished my second pair a couple of weeks ago, and started another sock that will be a Christmas present (so no pictures yet.) These socks are knit with self-striping yarn, so while they look complicated it was the yarn that did all the work.
I am looking forward to reducing my practice and rehearsal time so I can catch up on all the blogs I’ve not read, and all the comments I’ve not replied to. Alas, that probably won’t happen for another couple of weeks. And now I hear my harp and metronome calling, demanding that I get those descending passages of Angels We Have Heard On High lined up with the metronome’s 100 beats-per-minute clicking.
In case I don’t find my way back to the computer next week, I’d like to wish everyone a bountiful Thanksgiving Day. May we all enjoy sharing the gift of gratitude!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette
Enjoying This Year’s Harp Ensemble, Thanks to Gifts Of Time And Gratitude
I figured out that 2012 is my sixth year of playing in the community college harp ensemble. This year there are two new people, and they’ve played the harp less time than me. It’s quite a strange experience, this being able to play exercises and parts of the tunes that others are finding difficult. It’s usually me sitting there befuddled and clueless about what my fingers are supposed to do. Not that I don’t still have my own clueless and befuddled moments. I still can’t sight-read new music, I still have to white-out the many pesky notes that I am not going to play, and I still struggle to play at anything approaching a performance tempo. But this year, I am playing more of the right notes at the right time. And I am definitely enjoying myself more.
Last year the harp ensemble became the Inner Critic’s Olympic venue for beating me up and taking me down. This year, I am determined that harp ensemble is not going to be spoiled by the Inner Critic. I will play what I can, enjoy what I can play, and be grateful for being able to play the harp at all.
In last year’s post, Time Is A Teacher, I reminded myself that by steadily working on tunes throughout the eight weeks of the ensemble class, I can learn them and play a passable version of them by the time we do our concert. This year, instead of wasting precious time and energy bewailing how the music is too hard, I’ve worked on them measure-by-measure, day-by-day. One month later, the tunes are in my fingers and I can play them slowly. Now the metronome and I are partnering to steadily increase my playing speed. And last night in class I played Angels We Have Heard on High at our performance tempo. Amazing!
What is helping me most of all is being grateful for having a harp, for having a life that allows me to learn to play it, and for being enfolded in a community of musicians who share this same, crazy harp dream. When I remember how unlikely and remarkable it is that I am playing the harp at all, how many notes I play and how many mistakes I make become irrelevant. So many people do not dare to dream, so many people have lives that grant them no opportunity to follow their hearts’ desires.
Thursday I’m off to Asheville, NC to attend the Southeastern Harp Weekend. I’m looking forward to a weekend spent totally immersed in harp world. I’ll come up for air and return to the blogosphere next week.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Big
Macy’s Department Store, Philadelphia
On my summer trip to New York City, I stopped in Philadelphia to hear the Saturday noontime concert of the Wanamaker Organ at Macy’s. With 28,500 pipes, it is the largest playing pipe organ in the world.
Heart To Harp 