The cold was to have eased by now, but it hasn't. It was crazy windy in the night, and it isn't too bad at the moment, but it must be about -2 F. I hope to do some food shopping later with a car-owning friend, for the first time in eight days. Funny how, when my pantry is running low, I don't crave fresh vegetables, fruit and brown rice. I crave pizza and soda and chips and dip and cookies. I hope and trust that most of my readers are far more sensible!
A few weeks ago, the scariest part of having COVID wasn't "having COVID" -- it was getting laryngitis for the first time in my life. And the scariest part of that wasn't not being able to speak, it was not being able to sing. At all! I could whistle, oddly enough, but not sing. The singer at the heart of me was terrified that I might never be able to sing again, so I was relieved about a week ago to find that my singing voice was returning.
The other night, I went online to find videos of some of my favorite Renaissance polyphony. As some of you probably know, you can find choral pieces accompanied by scores to sing along with, which I haven't done in several years because it can make me homesick to attend or sing choral evensong. And it's like potato chips...you can't "eat" just one! Over the course of about an hour, I sang the alto part of Victoria's "O Magnum Mysterium", Byrd's "Great Service Magnificat", Tallis, Gibbons...even the Smith "Responses". Overall, it went pretty well, given that I so rarely sing at all. I struggled a bit with the Byrd, since I didn't know it as well and I was sight-reading, and I was weaker in the higher (soprano 2) registers, but my alto 2 was totally in place (!) I am not sure what this hour taught me, except that this kind of music remains my passion, despite having moved -- spiritually -- so decisively into a new Goddess realm.
Here's a complete non sequitur...in the midst of all this, I am looking out with astonishment and horror at all the rising world tensions. And yet in the end, it doesn't surprise me. Paradigms based on conflict and competition don't really want true peace, or even the absence of war. They need conflict the way people like me need music and art and beauty. And, unfortunately, throughout world history, people like me have rarely had any power. As futile as it sometimes feels, I choose to focus on loving harmony in my thinking, writing, as well as in the obvious place, music. It will probably be the only light-filled path through what is trying to become a very dark passageway.
