One Hundred and Seventy-two

The tin whistle plays and upon the warm breeze floats the cool melody, once blown never to be recalled; released upon the world in the hour before the hour before dawn when night holds sway and day is a remembrance of time gone by and yet to arrive. Long years of learning wash behind the Musician carrying with them all the baggage of his life. Before him lie the notes he has produced, traveling from him in ever widening spheres, each a product of what as gone before in his days upon the earth. To hear his song is to experience his life in his music; music that can only be created by one such as him. For he is long of age and wizened of years gone by, with light yet but still a hope at the end of his tunnel. It is music that weaves the tapestry of his long life and listeners can glean only a fragment of the whole of it yet at once feel the impact of its totality and weight.

His music is carried on the wind, to places well known and to some lost in the dust of history, moving into the small cracks and holes of fractured reality to fill the voids of forgetfulness that litter the landscapes of the world. So the history of those places is forever altered, amended, colored by the softness of the song. Beauty is wrought where the emptiness of memories no longer remembered have left nothingness in their absence. In other places the draught of corruption is amplified by the music. For all that is soft be not always sweet. Flowers grow through cracks in pavement in the hearts of concrete, steel and glass cities while children in other more idyllic places are taken before their time. The music plays no favorites, it deals in life and death with all the dispassionate reserve of an oncologist informing a patient that treatment has failed and perhaps going home now to pass on is the only recourse. As it passes and touches the lives of people, they are changed, and not knowing why or how they become other than once they were; and so go on becoming while friends, lovers, spouses and children can only watch and wonder, for not having heard the music they are left behind.

Moving on, the Musician and his music go forward to work their magic in a world where magic has no place and all magicians are merely the creators of slick illusions… or is that the illusion? Ask the Musician if ever you see him. Perhaps he will answer, perhaps not, but in his music you will hear something of meaning meant just for you, else never the opportunity to ask would have occurred and he would have passed you by without a glance or a note for you from his tin whistle.

The Musician walks bustling highways and lonely back roads all across the world and ever his music is heard in the land by those it is destined to touch and work its magic upon. His boots are worn and scuffed, dusty with the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life. Upon his head sits a hat of faded leather. Softened by years of exposure to the elements the hat hides his face, or most of it anyway, so that the casual passerby will see only the thin line of his mouth above a square strong chin and the sharp point of his nose protruding out of shadow. Clad in grey that mimics twilight shadows and fades to black as night creeps into the remnants of a day once sunny and bright, he moves down a dusty street of some out of the way place long forgotten by even the other out of the way places of the world…

…and so comes to Anywhere.

One Hundred and Seventy-one

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. - Hermann Hesse

The inward looking direction of my training forces me to see myself as I am, stripping away the garb of ego that I use to present an image of myself to the world instead of who I really am. The process of finding myself has been long, difficult and on-going. I suppose, since I am continually changing, finding new and inventive ways to hide myself, the journey will never end. I can approach myself without limit, but due to the unflagging efforts of my ego, never quite reach me. There'll always be another layer of self protection (or should I say delusion?) to peel away.

When I encounter someone I don't like I ask myself what is it about me that I see reflected in him? Then, as I continue to train, I can meditate on the answer and so, hopefully, eventually arrive at an understanding as to what it is about me that I don't like and change it.

I can take Hesse's quote and turn it around to read:

If you like a person, you like something in him that is part of yourself. We like that part of ourselves that doesn't disturb us.

Finding the parts of myself that I like, by seeing them reflected in the people I train with and interact with in the world, and letting them flourish is also an important part of my training. In this way, purging the negative while nurturing the positive, I continue to grow.