There’s a lot of struggling and resisting what is in daily living.

If you want to change your life, the life that you feel you’re supposed to have, which infers that your current life isn’t it, I say you try simple living. It’s not about what you want, or hope for, or dream or imagine for yourself, but rather what you’re actually doing – it’s not a concept, it just is right now.

True words lack eloquence and seem paradoxical, but your life is what you do, that’s the essence of simple living.

Want to change your life?
Change what you’re doing – It’s just that simple.

Interesting article here, called A Little Light Music. Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead is working on a project called “Rhythms of the Universe,” where he’s attempting to make music of the sounds of the cosmos. There are some sound samples in the video embedded below.

If there’s anyone who seems right to tackle a project like this it seems that Mickey’s the guy. I highly recommend Mickey’s book Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion, to anyone who’s never read it. In this book he talks about percussion and spirituality and using percussion as a spiritual bridge or stairway to ascend to timeless spirit realm; really a beautiful book but also a great study on the ethnomusicological aspects of percussion that inspire him.

I do think that trying to sonify the cosmos is kind of silly because the cosmos already is full of sound, even if there’s no sound in space, but nevertheless the concept is neat and the sounds created thus far are kind of spooky and vaguely reminsicent of Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer’s musique concrete, as well as John Bullitt’s Deep Earth Dome work.

We were all listening,
heard every
sound,
and experienced
it with the
fullness of our
being.

It pulled us
in,
brought us
together,
and when the
music ended,
the sound faded,
and the last
echoes of the
shining sun
dissipated,
we were all there.
More alive
and more completely
connected to the source
than ever before.

For a moment
we captured the light
and I hope to get
back there as often
as possible.

Sri Chimnoy said: “Silence is the source of everything. It is the source of music and it is music itself. Silence is like a stream that goes to one place and becomes a river, or to another place and becomes a brook, or to the sea where it is totally expanded.”

Similarly, I believe that music is like a stream that goes to one place and becomes a river, or to another place and becomes a brook, or to the sea where it is totally expanded. This is so because music, unlike many other creative arts doesn’t suffer the problems of physics and is free to expand and contract, thus allowing the energy of the music to be distributed, flowly freely outward. This is what  gives music and the acts of listening, performing and/or composing the potential to be a timeless experience; the energy of the sound, whether emotional, psychological, or otherwise, has a way of transporting us by touching the core of our being, affecting the way we feel, the way we experience the world, and enhancing our sense of well-being. I’ve heard the composer Steve Roach refer to this as being in the “sound current“; I like to think of it that way.

I imagine being in the sound current as being one with a timeless state.

Music has always been a spiritual portal for me, both performing and listening. I got to thinking about this recently when considering that this blog had been abandoned as I worked to bring my band, The Elevator Conspiracy, out of hiatus. The band has been doing a lot of work to get ready for a series of shows we have coming up, as well as breaking in a new singer. Interestingly, though, as it’s something I’d never considered, is that the performance and social interaction part of the group is more of the focal point than it ever was for me. Whereas, it used to be all about the tunes, sonic creations, etc… and I do enjoy the listening and composing part of creation, but as I thought about playing with these guys, and the musical communion that is when we come together the more I thought that music has always been spiritual portal, and now more than ever, the priority is going through that portal as much, and as frequently as I can. I wonder if anybody reading has ever had one of these timeless, or spiritual moments playing, listening or creating music; if so I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Reading this last night, it stuck with me; thought it might be nice to share:

Taken from Sri Ramana Maharshi‘s Forty Verses on Reality:

Apart, from us where is time and where is space? If we are bodies, we are involved in time and in space, but are we? We are one and identical now, then, and forever, here, and everywhere. Therefore we, timeless, and spaceless Being, alone are.