This week a student and I were chatting, when she burst open with her dream, about moving and setting up a new life for herself. It was exciting and she beamed as the words tumbled from her lips. A magical encounter without limits or judgment.

 

Later in the week, I was in yoga class. And before class began the teacher had each of us mentally set an intention for the class. Whether it be to relax, to heal, to release- the intention was ours, personal and didn’t need to be verbally shared, just held in the mind. It was a chance to dream about who I would be at the end of the class.

 

These experiences got me thinking about dreams and intentions, similar ideas, both free of boundaries. Like the intentions of the yoga class, dreams were directional, like a road map to a destination.

 

As children, we are always asked to dream, reading fairy tales, given play time to act out fantastical worlds, and nap time to relax and reflect. People ask children about their dreams, “What do we want to be when we grow up?”, allowing dreams to exist outside the child’s mind.

 

As an adult I find people less available to dreams, to change, and fantastical ideas. I find many grown ups are moving through a world of ROUTINE without intention and fearing dreams of others because they might bring change.

 

Dreams are beautiful and give dimension to life, a purpose and meaning. Maybe as an adult, they should be shared in hushed tones between best friends so they can be carried on wings to the heavens, like a prayer.

SUMMER'S END

It's Labor Day, marking the end of summer in Alabama. Sigh, maybe the heat and humidity will subside but there will be less time, as school starts back.

I took the summer off from any blogging to reacquaint myself with Inspiration, the driving force behind all curiosity and creativity. Here are the odd place I found my inner desires lurking.

 

Hours on end were spent canning tomatoes. I eat a diet that is preservative free, so any long term planning of winter food happens in my kitchen and my summer garden. My need for tomatoes is greater than I can grow, so on the hot days in summer, I head out to visit my local farmer, Butch Haver, which always proves to be an adventure.

 

As we wheel and deal on the price of 200 lbs of tomatoes, I pet the dogs (he has 9 at last count. Mostly strays or dogs that were dumped out of a car along the highway he lives off of). When I arrive up his winding narrow concrete driveway, which he will proudly tell anyone he built himself so he could eat more, the dogs act as a welcoming committee surrounding the car barking. The rottweller is the first to get his head in my door for some love, he’s a sweet heart and bossed around by the midsize poodle.

 

I leave with a car full of whatever surplus he has on hand; potatoes, peppers, or eggplant, and then the chaos begins.

On return home, it becomes a race to see if I can process the tomatoes into juice, marinara and canned whole tomatoes before they begin to rot. I stand in my kitchen halving and peeling tomatoes, almost in a meditative trance. The tomatoes move from the water, into my giant antique bowls, to hot jars, while I am entertained by podcasts. My favorite podcast is from APM: On Being . The show traces religions, societal impact and theology. I’ve found it brings an integral role into my ethnomusicology teaching, not to mention- I find it fascinating. As I process each jar of tomatoes, knowing they will be a jar of sunshine in winter, I travel the world, learning about religion in communistic China, Haitian Voodoo or Einstein’s view on God- all from my kitchen.

Photo: Student Dylan Holiday and his first reed.

Another form of inspiration takes hold when I teach my reed making seminar to bassoon students in the summer. I take students through all of the steps of how to make a blank and then begin scraping the reed for response. As the students learn the steps- I am reminded of how far I have come and how to be gentle. Learning a new skill always take a strong amount of patience. The students find, it can be frustrating to watch the steps and then attempt to execute the steps, finding difficulty. As I remind the students to breathe and take their time, it is a tender form of teaching, a reminder (gift) I myself need many a time. It is soothing to be as gentle to myself as to the students.

By the time they clip the tip of their first reed, the room fills with crowing and large amounts of success, no matter how the reed turned out! The spirit of excitement enlivens my own reed making, and drives me toward my own reed experimentations. More to come on that subject.

The summer is a reminder to return to basic principals. As an educator and a performer, one can easily fall into the exhaustion (uninspired) mode. The lifestyle can lead to burning the candle at both ends. And at times it seems that there are more people with negativity of spirit than positive, people that create an atmosphere of “what’s the point?” It seems they breed their disruptive spirit through complaining and creating excitement because they have lost their own inner inspiration. Death of the inner artist (soul) is the most tragic death. The beauty is the curiosity can be resuscitated through careful thoughtful desire.