Yeah...

So I'll be returning stateside soon, and despite all my promises to myself not to count down the days or feel bittersweet, I am, of course, doing both of those things. England has always felt like home to me, felt like the place I am rooted, and since reading Sharon Blackie's If Women Rose Rooted, rootedness feels so much more important than ever. I seem to be reasonably good at getting myself over here, touching the soil (and breathing in the expanse of landscape, the sound of birds, bells and choirs), but not so good at engaging deep down into the dark earth.


Yet when I rise (literally) above it all and observe the situation compassionately from a higher self perspective, it does seem that I am taking part in a deeper mystery here. Every aspect of my life has had a shamanic "between realities" quality, and this backing and forthing has to be part of it. Right now, I am much more aware of the need to be at home within myself, first and foremost. My few months here have rooted me more in that sense. I am not so much "homeless" or "between homes" but a universal home for some values that just simply do not yet seem to be well established in the world, leaving it hard to find my place. I have made a commitment to write a book this summer, and hopefully it will provide four walls (as it were) for those values. While writing the book, I may blog even less frequently, but I'll let you know about that in a few weeks.


Before leaving? I'm giving an informal talk, attending one or two more choral evensongs, attending one more physical therapy appointment for my wrist, and generally spending most of the days having a normal "go to the shops/make meals" kind of existence. We are living in such decidedly extraordinary times, it just seems crucial to grab hold of whatever feels normal while that's possible.


Yeah...

Smouldering

There was a terrible deja vu about turning on the news Monday night, to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame ablaze. It's hard to believe it has been almost eighteen years since New York's twin towers, but it came back as if it were yesterday, and frankly, for this lover of gothic cathedrals, watching this fire was emotionally much harder. Putting aside religion, even spirituality, these buildings do seem to be unique places of amplification, transporting human yearning and human music out beyond space and time. When a cathedral burns (and it happened a lot in the Middle Ages, evidently, and even York Minster had a serious fire in the 1980s), I wonder if the sounds of conflagration are also amplified. There was no real audio in the news images I saw, and for much of the time, even the observing crowds were silent, stunned.


You cannot help but kind of scan your own personal connections to a place. I visited Notre Dame on a school trip to France when I was 15...I remember being overwhelmed by its scale and beauty, although my "thing" about cathedrals hadn't quite taken hold yet. Monday night, a BBC interview with a prominent musicologist underscored Notre Dame's importance to western music. Many innovations in Christian chant and the development of organum and early polyphony took place there, with the specific acoustics of the building in mind. My own MMus thesis was about a piece of 12th century music that was written in Aquitaine, in Aquitanian neumes. I doubt that it was ever sung at Notre Dame, but I was fortunate enough to see the original manuscript in 1981 in Paris's Bibliotheque Nationale. And my other tenuous link is having met Notre Dame's current organist out at Helena, Montana's Catholic cathedral, when he gave a spectacular recital a few years ago. Notre Dame's was one of the largest organs in the world; organists are in shock.


The impulse to rebuild just as it was before is understandable, although to me, kind of foreign. I've had to drag myself out of the smouldering ashes of so many aspects of my life and focus on the future so many times, I have rarely wanted to return to how things were. But then, I seem to be an unusually "post-" everything kind of person. My life seems to have largely taken place beyond the structures and strictures of the present. Still, I hold all of us in my heart, as we try to decide what of the past to keep or rebuild, what to incorporate or re-purpose for the present, and what to walk away from. If this event is a symbol for nothing else, surely it is that.

Birds and Bells

Last night, I had what I guess you would call a transcendent experience.


The local church has change ringing practice every Tuesday evening. From 7:30 to 9:00, bells peal in that distinctive manner that I only associate with England, mostly down the scale but with interesting variations. Earlier in my visit, it was too cool to open the window to hear the music clearly, but last night was warm, allowing free access for each note to strike a chord, literally, in my heart -- as did the evening birdsong. The most distinctive birdcall was also one I don't believe I have ever heard in the US -- this bird was singing the equivalent of a glorious personal solo. I sat with my eyes closed. I truly couldn't breathe properly for the half hour or so that the two complementary songs interweaved.


I look back on the dozen or so visits I have made to the UK, and it can be hard to choose the most memorable moments: the first time I attended evensong at King's, walking toward Royal Holloway dragging my big suitcase, going in to London for classes in a train going "clickety-clack, clickety clack" down the rails, walking purposefully across Waterloo Bridge through the streets of London towards the British Museum, walking across the stage at the Royal Albert Hall to receive my MMus degree. Or more recently, singing an evensong at King's, visiting Herbert Howells's childhood home and church in Lydney, auditioning for a cathedral choir, doing Howells research at the Royal College of Music, singing a week of services at Canterbury...I have been blessed with an extraordinary path paved with nuggets of musical gold.


But last night, I realized that the England moment that may always stay with me into old age, from wherever I am, will be those birds and bells. They are simply sounds that are not part of the palette of America -- and even if they were accessible in the U.S., they would not resonate with the same history, sense of place, and sense of spirit.


Despite all the writing I have done about divine love, the fact is that all too often, I access that love through my intellect. As an Aquarian, and a woman with a genius IQ, that is my default setting for just about everything. But last night, the birds and bells pierced my heart, and were an experience of joy and grace. I could feel, as well as hear and intellectually understand, the stream of love and beauty around me, and the fact that I was part of it. I am very thankful.

A certain perfection

It may not seem that way from the outside, but there is a certain perfection to my journey, a certain perfection to the way things happen. Last time, I commented on how I was beginning to feel less like a cork (or, to use a metaphor I have used in the past, a rickety boat) bobbing on the water, and more like a more powerful, permanent island in the stream or ocean. And what happens within 24 hours of that? I discover the most wonderful book, Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic. I have underlined so many passages in this book that I cannot possibly do more here than scratch the surface.


Here, essentially, is her theme: "The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to uncover those jewels -- that's creative living" (Page 8). I love the fact that by that standard, by fully engaging with the hunt, my life can be seen to have been successful after all.


The most thought-provoking stretch of the book for me was the beginning of the section entitled "Trust," starting on page 201. She tackles, head on, something I have touched on in one or two previous blogs, the issue of whether the thing we are passionate about is passionate about us. Basically, it has to do with how so many of us assume that the thing we want to devote our life to (her examples are nature and writing) are, in fact, indifferent to us, or worse. This is, in part, what leads to the classic artist's persona of suffering, martyrdom for one's art. We are willing to sacrifice everything to something that may well not care for us in return. Bless her, Gilbert's case is that inspiration loves us, and wants us to create and succeed -- not the opposite.


Having through the years devoted so much love to situations that seemed to be so indifferent to me, I've been a prime candidate for this kind of martyrdom in every possible area of my life. After reading this section of the book, I have decided that with the time I have left on this side of the Atlantic, I'm going to focus on discerning: does cathedral music love me in return? Does England? Even if I feel a special calling to be here and create some unique art form or spiritual oeuvre, is this an inspiration that wants to connect with me? Is there a mutuality to this? Or is my "strange jewel" actually something above and beyond place? Would it be possible for me to leave in a few weeks and finally let go?


If the latter questions should turn out to be true (and if in fact I have graduated to a whole new level of my journey), then some of the material late in the book will be as pertinent to me going forward as it is to anyone trying to discern their calling or gifts for the first time. She talks about letting simple curiosity lead you forward, potentially into a "raw new unexplored universe within yourself." At the very least, I am curious as to how to start really feeling the mutual engagement between my passionate life energy and a wonder-filled universe. I am curious about what it will feel like when the breath of inspiration moves back and forth.