“Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think.”
Happy Soul Food Friday!
This week:
The Zen Awards
Insights Inspired by Albert Einstein:
“I didn’t arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses.
Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.”
“Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think.”
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world.”
“Time does not exist – we invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.”
“The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”
“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
“Our separation from each other is an optical illusion.”
“When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.”
“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all.
They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”
“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which s/he has attained liberation from the self.”
“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.”
“The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.”
“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”
“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.”
“The common idea that I am an atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone who interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them.”
“Everything is determined, every beginning and ending, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”
“Everything is energy and that is all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”
“I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care about money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. I claim credit for nothing. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”
How to Express Your Gratitude (Without Feeling Awkward)
YOU MAY ALREADY have a regular gratitude practice—mentally savoring sunsets and other everyday wonders, or even journaling about your many blessings. But when it comes to communicating your heartfelt appreciation to others, it can feel, well, kind of awkward. What if they get embarrassed—or they think you’re sucking up? What if you start gushing and come off as insincere?
International Credit Union Day 2021: “Building financial health for a brighter tomorrow”:
This week on October 21, Mission Fed joined more than 86,000 credit unions from 118 countries to celebrate the 73rd anniversary of International Credit Union Day. This year’s theme is “Building financial health for a brighter tomorrow” and speaks to how the COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge the financial well-being of credit union members around the globe, and how we as credit unions are helping members rebuild their lives financially.
ICU Day 2021 is a celebration of the impact we have made—and continue to make for our members. It is also a chance to be thankful for the lives and communities that have been improved by our movement.
In the spirit of this International Credit Union Day, let us look beyond our local community to recognize credit unions and other financial cooperatives for the important role they play in many distressed urban and rural areas worldwide. Many people would not have been able to afford to own homes, start new businesses or attend school without the help of their credit unions. In some areas of the world, people would have no access to financial services at all without their credit unions.
Whether members are affluent or less fortunate, from villages or cities, in communities at peace or in conflict, credit unions are present across cultures and languages, helping members turn hopes and dreams into reality. Here in San Diego, we are working to build a stronger community – one member at a time.
Thank you for joining us to celebrate International Credit Union Day!
Drone Photo Award winners capture a dizzyingly fantastic view of the world This year’s best pictures include two friends sunbathing on giant shards of ice in Kazakhstan, workers at a red chili factory in Bangladesh and a white mangrove forest in Vietnam.
Special thanks this week go to Dan C for helping me launch Soul Food Friday more than 13 years ago. Dan is retiring this week.
Thanks also to Marcy M and the Bright Lights, Eric K and the Conscious Leaders for their energy & inspiration and to all my credit union brethren working hard for social justice and equity!
Please pay it forward.
Love,
Neville
“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”— Albert Einstein: The father of modern physics
When Tony Bennett’s family announced he had Alzheimer’s disease in February, few of the 94-year-old singer’s fans imagined they’d ever see him on stage again. But this summer, with his family’s help, the legendary crooner began rehearsing for two concerts at Radio City Music Hall, with his friend Lady Gaga. No one knew for sure if Tony would be able to pull it off, but his family believed that Tony’s story could give hope to others struggling with Alzheimer’s. And invited us to follow him preparing for, what would likely be, his final act.
In each stage of life, our brains morph and change. This hour, TED speakers explore pivotal chapters where the brain can either flourish or decline — and what control we might have over brain health.
Psychologists are calling upon Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to treat insomnia, so here are the CBT techniques to help you sleep Simple steps towards better sleep.
High School Football Player Goes Viral for Helping Injured Opponent During Game Senior Mario Hoefer, an Iowa football player, is being praised for his sportsmanship after helping his opponent who had a cramp mid-game
See Stunning Undersea Images That Showcase Our Blue Planet From reef sharks to bioluminescent squid, the Ocean Photography Award highlights the wonders and perils of life in the sea
We are playing at Teo Leo’s 5302 Napa Street in Linda Vista this Saturday at the very reasonable hour of 7pm, if you are ready to get funked up and let your hair down. This outdoor venue makes it both fun and safe to rock out and socialize – all things considered, with San Diego’s #1 rated cover band… Tio Leo’s live music (tioleos.com)
My son Arman will be playing keys and I will sit in on percussion, when I am not shake, shake, shaking on the dance floor with my wife Barb!
Hope to see you there..
Love,
Neville
Mentorship 2.0, Fostering a Community of Practice:
Most of us intuitively know we can learn and grow with the help of experienced mentors and/or peers who share our same values and are committed to our success. The value of mentor and peer relationships are arguably even more critical in a post-COVID environment with uncharted seas and frequent storms we have not experienced before. Since no one of us is as smart as all of us, and we are all striving to make sense and create new ways to grow and improve our results, those who can tap the collective wisdom of the group might find themselves at a clear advantage.
North County Philanthropy Council (NCPC) is planning to unveil Mentorship 2.0, Fostering a Community of Practice, in November 2021. This new mentorship model creates cohorts of experienced and caring peer learning communities to help professionals grow and maximize their value for the causes that matter most to them.
We are conducting focus groups with community leaders like you to obtain feedback on Mentorship 2.0, prior to its launch. Each focus group will consist of approximately 10 participants on a one-hour Zoom conference call.
Focus group times – you will choose ONE:
Wednesday, Oct. 13 from 9 am to 10 am
Thursday, Oct. 14 from 3 pm to 4 pm
We invite you to attend one of these sessions to share your thoughts abouts this new NCPC mentor/peer development program. Space is limited. You may sign-up HERE if you are able to join us. Please let us know by October 11 if you are able to participate in this exciting new offering from NCPC.
Happy Soul Food Friday for the Week of a Full Moon, World Peace Day and the Fall Equinox!
This week: Attention, Intention, Attitude & Energy
‘What do we need to let go of to achieve more balance in our lives?
Earth’s Population Statisticsin Perspective So We Can Count Our Blessings:
The population of Earth is around 7.8 Billion. For most people, it is a large figure. However, if you condensed 7.8 billion into 100 persons, and then into various percentage statistics the resulting analysis is relatively much easier to comprehend.
Out of 100: 11 are in Europe 5 are in North America 9 are in South America 15 are in Africa 60 are in Asia
49 live in the countryside 51 live in cities
12 speak Chinese 5 speak Spanish 5 speak English 3 speak Arabic 3 speak Hindi 3 speak Bengali 3 speak Portuguese 2 speak Russian 2 speak Japanese 62 speak their own language.
77 have their own dwellings. 23 have no place to live.
21 are over-nourished. 63 can eat full. 15 are under-nourished 1 ate the last meal, but did not make it to the next meal.
The daily cost of living for 48 is less than 2 USD (US Dollars).
87 have clean drinking water. 13 either lack clean drinking water or have a water source that is polluted.
75 have mobile phones 25 do not.
30 have internet access 70 do not have the availability to go online
7 received university education 93 did not attend college.
83 can read 17 are illiterate.
33 are Christians 22 are Muslims 14 are Hindus 7 are Buddhists 12 are other religions 12 have no religious beliefs.
26 live less than 14 years 66 died between 15 – 64 years of age 8 are over 65 years old.
If you have your own home, Eat full meals & drink clean water, Have a mobile phone, Can surf the internet, and Have gone to college, You are in the minuscule privileged lot. (in the less than 7% category)
Amongst 100 persons in the world, only 8 live or exceed the age of 65.
If you are over 65 years old, be content & grateful. Cherish life, grasp the moment.
If you did not leave this world before the age of 64 like the 92 persons who have gone before you, you are already the blessed amongst mankind.
Take good care of your own health. Cherish every remaining moment.
International Peace Day or World Peace Day 2021:
The 2021 theme for the International Day of Peace is “Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world”. We invite you to join the efforts of the United Nations family as we focus on recovering better for a more equitable and peaceful world. Celebrate peace by standing up against acts of hate online and offline, and by spreading compassion, kindness, and hope in the face of the pandemic, and as we recover.
The Equinox reminds us about the passage of time, the motion of the Earth, and the changing of the seasons.
It marks the start of Autumn for us in the Northern Hemisphere. For our friends in the Southern Hemisphere, Spring has just begun.
Translated literally, equinox means “equal night”. On the equinox, the length of day and night is nearly equal in all parts of the world. Twelve hours of each, because the sun is positioned above the equator. It’s one of two times a year that the day and night are about the same length.
After the Autumnal equinox, the days become shorter and the air cooler.
On this day, the Sun rises directly in the East, and sets directly in the West.
Wishing you a special day, symbolic of balance in our life and with the environment. Stay in tune with nature and wellness!
Unleashing Your Magician for the Equinox:
Each of us is a “magician”, and our predominant thoughts are the magic spells that produce the life we are experiencing.
All the situations you see in front of you can be changed, but first you must change where you mind is fixated.
The Magician is in complete control of his/her environment. S/he represents the power of your mind’s focus, which creates the reality you are living in.
You don’t have to believe in tarot cards or magic, but you DO have to believe in yourself!
The Best Fall Equinox Ritual To Practice, According to Your Zodiac Sign Even if your back-to-school days are behind you, there’s just something about September that ushers in an energy of a fresh (and cozy) start. Astrologically speaking, this new beginning energy is credited to the autumnal equinox, the official first day of fall, happening on September 22. And since every sign is different, learning the best fall equinox ritual for your zodiac sign can help you maximize the energy to its highest potential.
How Music Can Literally Heal the Heart: In a maverick method, nephrologist Michael Field taught medical students to decipher different heart murmurs through their stethoscopes, trills, grace notes, and decrescendos to describe the distinctive sounds of heart valves snapping closed, and blood ebbing through leaky valves in plumbing disorders of the heart.
The Secret Way Sitting Can Extend Your Life, Say Experts Health experts agree that sitting too much every day is far from good for your body in the long run. When you sit too much every day—and rob yourself of many of the basic movements that can bolster your health and your body—you’ll find that your brain isn’t as sharp, your mood is worse, you develop tight muscles and poor posture, and, if you’re a woman, it may in fact affect your ability to conceive a child. Also, you’ll be essentially shaving years off your life.
Looking for Fulfillment at Work? Here’s Why Following Your Curiosity (Not Your Passion) Is Essential In fact, dropping the concept of a passion career can be incredibly freeing.
3 Tips to Help You Develop the Mindset to Adapt to Change The ability to consistently see change as an opportunity, not a threat.
The past 18 months have been a crash course in change and uncertainty. Almost overnight, we reimagined what an office can look like. We redefined workplace rules and communication norms. You may have experienced waves of uncertainty about your own job, your colleagues, or your company’s future. You may have had your dreams dashed, or had new dreams emerge. Collectively, we learned that we can adapt. But, by and large, we were forced to adapt. A pandemic flipped our world upside down, and we had little choice in the matter. Nevertheless, I reckon you’ve been thinking: I can’t wait for all this change to end. And yet, change isn’t ending. Quite the opposite: It’s accelerating…
Your Soul Food for the week of 9/11 Twenty Years Later: Being the Best We Can Be, When the Need is the Greatest
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It is hard to imagine that twenty years have passed since September 11, 2001.
The sights, sounds and feelings of that day and the days that followed are unforgettable for those that lived through it.
This week, let’s honor and memorialize those who struggled and were lost on 9/11- both first responders and helpers as well as victims of the attacks.
In a divisive world, let’s come together in shared support and unity to forge a more perfect union together because of our differences, not in spite of them.
Twenty years later, Covid has made clear how transient and impermanent live can be.
It has redefined “essential workers” and helped us appreciate those that are willing to risk all to keep us safe.
Here are some examples and stories to help us turn our stumbling blocks into stepping stones and will restore your faith in HumanKind.
Courageous!
60 Minutes Remembers 9/11: The FDNY:
On September 11, 2001, 343 members of the Fire Department of New York perished while trying to rescue people trapped in the World Trade Center. Scott Pelley speaks with firefighters who were there that day and the loved ones of those who never made it home.
20 Years After 9/11, San Diego Firefighters Remember Recovery Efforts at Ground Zero:
This KPBS News story features one of our hometown heroes and a dear friend and martial arts colleague Sensei Matt Nilsen.
“I was on a forward mission and was on top of the Western Union building the very first night that was looking directly into the pile,” he said. “And I was climbing up on scaffolding and installing antennas and establishing communications for a task force.”
As we pause to reflect on the events of 9/11/2001, you’ll likely remember down to the finest detail exactly where you were, what you were doing and how your life was altered that day. This story narrated by Tom Brokaw is about a little town in Canada named Gander, about the people there, and about what they did on 9/11 and in the days that followed.
A beautiful moment: Paralympic cyclist lauded after slowing to will on another rider Australian Stuart Jones pauses to encourage South African rider Toni Mould, who was doing it tough in a different race at the Tokyo Games
“At this point I wasn’t going to podium and I knew how hard that climb would be on her own, so I basically ceased my race there and then and put everything into encouraging Toni to climb.”
Thanks this week go to all our neighbors relying on neighbors, Matt N as emblematic of all our essential workers, Bob C for the Gander story, and ALL OF YOU that choose service before self.
“Simple kindness to one’s self and all that lives is the most powerful transformational force of all.”–David Hawkins
On Climate
We’ve been radically underestimating the true cost of our carbon footprint The Biden administration needs to factor in climate change’s cost in human lives — and what we owe to future generations.
Bigger ears? New study shows climate change is causing animals to ‘shapeshift’ A study of warm-blooded animals found beaks, tails and legs have been growing in species living in places with rising temperatures.
Dolphins Alert Rescue Crew to Lost Swimmer Who Had Been Stranded for 12 Hours A lost swimmer was found off the coast of Ireland when rescuers spotted him surrounded by a pod of dolphins
Can pets provide a path to spirituality and world peace? How companion animals benefit our lives Can animals teach us life’s lessons? Anyone who has had a companion animal is certainly nodding, “Of course, animals enrich our lives.”
Caring for a dog makes us more spiritual, thriller writer contends, and animal-behavior experts agree
A great escape: Wild boars team up to free a pair of fellow pigs caught in a trap Wild boars at a Czech nature reserve teamed up to free two other pigs captured in a trap, a rare observation of rescue behavior in animals.
Left-handed vs. right-handed face-off: Dog edition In the human world, there’s a growing body of scholarship around handedness and any possible link to superior talent, intellect, or athleticism. Are some of us more fated to succeed in life, solely by virtue of which arm our five-year-old selves used to pick up a writing utensil? Scientists have scoured nearly every corner of the brain for answers, but results are still relatively inconclusive—and so, in the spirit of tribalism, we’re going beyond the limits of our species.
6 Tips For Coping With COVID Anxiety This Fall And Winter It’s clear the next couple of seasons won’t be the “life as usual” we all hoped for. Rituals, deep breathing and reaching out to friends are just a few ways to manage anxiety when the days grow dark.
31 photos from the Nat Geo archives that capture extraordinary moments in time See some of the unforgettable images our editor discovered in Nat Geo’s historic photography collection.
Dave Grohl performs with Nandi Bushell, 11, at Foo Fighters Gig:
An 11-year-old girl said being invited on stage to perform with the Foo Fighters was the “best night” of her life. Nandi Bushell challenged the band’s lead singer Dave Grohl to a “drum off” over social media in 2020, with the pair exchanging videos. Nandi, who began drumming aged five, joined the Grammy Award-winners on stage in Los Angeles on Thursday to play their song Everlong. John Bushell, her dad, said his daughter “just has this massive love and passion for drumming and music”.
The 42 finalists in this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards have been announced, each one showing anthropomorphic expressions from the animal kingdom:
Your Soul Food for Friday August 27 2021: Indigenous Wisdom for Our Times and the Transformative Power of Art (Music)
Happy Soul Food Friday!
This week:
Indigenous Wisdom
Hopi Indian Chief White Eagle’s comments on our current situation:
′′ This moment humanity is experiencing can be seen as a door or a hole. The decision to fall in the hole or walk through the door is up to you. If you consume the news 24 hours a day, with negative energy, constantly nervous, with pessimism, you will fall into this hole.
But if you take the opportunity to look at yourself, to rethink life and death, to take care of yourself and others, then you will walk through the portal.
Take care of your home, take care of your body. Connect with your spiritual home. When you take care of yourself, you take care of everyone at the same time.
Do not underestimate the spiritual dimension of this crisis. Take the perspective of an eagle that sees everything from above with a broader view. There is a social question in this crisis, but also a spiritual question. The two go hand in hand.
Without the social dimension we fall into fanaticism. Without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and futility.
Are you ready to face this crisis. Grab your toolbox and use all the tools at your disposal.
Learn resistance from the example of Indian and African peoples: we have been and are exterminated. But we never stopped singing, dancing, lighting a fire and rejoicing.
Don’t feel guilty for feeling blessed in these troubled times. Being sad or angry doesn’t help at all. Resistance is resistance through joy!
You have the right to be strong and positive. And there’s no other way to do it than to maintain a beautiful, happy, bright posture.
Has nothing to do with alienation (ignorance of the world). It’s a resistance strategy.
When we cross the threshold, we have a new worldview because we faced our fears and difficulties. This is all you can do now:
– Serenity in the storm
– Keep calm, pray everyday
– Make a habit of meeting the sacred everyday.
Show resistance through art, joy, trust and love.
Hopi Indian Chief White Eagle
July 2021
Welcome address to freshman parents at Boston Conservatory
given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston Conservatory
“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated.
I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician.
I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, “you’re WASTING your SAT scores.” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was.
And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function.
So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment.
Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works. The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks.
And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin.
Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects.
Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us.
Let me give you some examples of how this works. One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940.
Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp.
Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire. Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture – why would anyone bother with music?
And yet – from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art.
Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life.
The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art.
Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are.
Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”
On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter?
Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost. And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day. At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall.
The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic.
The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on.
The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.
From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.
Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.
I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings – people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding, cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way.
The Greeks:
Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.
I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago. I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist.
We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.
Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70’s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece. When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.
What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle.
How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”
Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects.
This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.
What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this: “If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life.
Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary.
Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft. You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies.
I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker.
You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet.
If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace.
If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do.
As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”
Tribute to Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones-
No One Impressed Charlie Watts, Not Even the Stones Rock’s ultimate drum god didn’t want the spotlight. He was there to do a job, which was knocking people off their feet, night after night, year after year
How to Show Proof of Your Covid Vaccine on Your Phone Your vaccine card could soon be required at many of the best restaurants, clubs and shows; store a scan of your card on your phone, and check if your state has a verified digital record system
Your Soul Food for Lucky Friday Aug 13 2021: From Climate Change to Emergency to Crisis to Climate Catastrophe- We Must Act NOW!
Happy Soul Food Friday!
This week:
Indigenous Wisdom from the Hopi Elders
Distant Early Warning by Rush
“Edge of Extinction“: Nations issue warning after U.N. climate change report
The U.N.’s newly-released Climate Report is sending shock waves through much of the world
How Can My Family’s Back-To-School Shopping Protect The Planet?
Indigenous Wisdom:
Distant Early Warning by Rush:
“The world weighs on my shoulders But what am I to do? You sometimes drive me crazy But I worry about you I know it makes no difference To what you’re going through But I see the tip of the iceberg And I worry about you”
Health Crises, War, Refugees, Dying Reefs: A Look At Impacts Of Climate Change
The U.N.’s newly-released climate report is sending shock waves through much of the world.
Among its findings is that even if nations immediately cut carbon dioxide emissions, global warming is likely to rise by about 1.5 degrees Celcius in the next two decades — a number long-cited as crisis point where the planet struggles with worsening storms, water shortages, dying reefs, fish and animal die-offs, refugee crises and more.
How Can My Family’s Back-To-School Shopping Protect The Planet?
5 eco-friendly ways kids can ‘shop’ for back-to-school
The key, say sustainability experts, is not necessarily to go down rabbit holes searching for companies that use bicycle power to run their factories. It’s to shop more mindfully in the first place. For instance, taking the longest delivery option available means that even if your order comes from more than one warehouse, it’ll likely arrive in a full truck, which cuts down on vehicle emissions.
Thanks this week go to all protectors of and advocates for Mother Earth that choose to intentionally lead with and behave in accordance with their values.
Happy Soul Food Friday! 