I love spring. I love the glow the earth gets that pervades the air with a sense newness and wonder that is both comforting and exciting. I love the way new leaves and new shoots erupt from the earth, all wrinkly and tender, like a newborn child, unfurling long green stems embracing its surrounding with the miracle of life. This time of new beginnings has gotten me thinking about beginnings and endings in my own life, and how life is a funny mixture of old and new, familiar and strange, and that they are interconnected in a very crucial way. I've decided that experiences are like mulch: over time the feelings break down into matter, energy and impressions that eventually become the nutritional source for new opportunities. We have so much influence over what type of mulch our new seedlings will have to available to them. It lies in how we choose to accept experiences, both of a positive and a negative nature. Holding or hoarding experiences: living in the past in an effort to procrastinate taking responsibility for the unknowns of the future turn the mulch moldy and toxic, too wet and too pungent for anything desirable to grow healthily. It's basically like a malaria epidemic waiting to happen. But to see only the negative, to live in the guilt of what ifs and shoots, and whoopsies will suck the nutrients dry, leaving the soil of the soul chalky and embittered. I guess the goal then is to expect the best from each situation. Now I don't mean that everything will work out just the way we planned, but we can always expect that we will be able to learn, grown and become stronger from each situation. To me, this is real perfection. That no matter what happens, it will help me become a better and stronger person. In this way, I will never really fail, and therefore, will never really need to fear.
Failure is a choice, not an event.
In the spirit of accepting experiences I have been trying to deal with facing some issues within my flute technique that have handicapped my progression for several years. I think it's finally time to accept and move on. It's one of those things that I have allowed what happened yesterday to govern the possibilities of today, and therefore, stunted my own growth. I've allowed regrets to build a foundation of fear and frustration, placing the walls of my musical expectations on a shaky pillars. I am afraid of runs. Excess notes cause me a severe amount of unnecessary anxiety, which has very little to do with how much I have practiced and much more with the expectations I have entertained. I was discussing some possible strategies with a friend, and she mentioned approaching the measures in question from a rhythmic standpoint. She pointed out the merits of breaking down the mass of notes into manageable and logical groupings that will not only make the notes more accessible to my brain, but will also make them more musical, because they will have shape and structure. I have always known that this is what I should do, and I definitely attempted to do this, but it wasn't until then that I really understood what that means. And let me tell you, it works. They say the technique is 90% rhythm and I agree. I wonder if that is really what sets music apart from noise. This organization, or simply an architecture of some sort, is what provides structure for the intent of the music. Even free-form music has a sense or underlying structure. If it requires instructions, it has structure.
Commandments provide structure to the chaos and possibilities of life. And not only do they bring structure, they provide a specific type or architecture to life's choices. They are the blueprint to building the kingdom of God. If we follow God's commandments, we will be creating something that He has designed. If we follow the moral compilation of any other person, society, or corporation, we will create something that reflects the original source. You could say that the commandments are the rhythm of Heaven.
If this is the case, then we should not feel boxed in, cramped, suppressed or offended by the commandments. What we really should be doing is asking ourselves what we really want from life and as we decide, we should choose a floor plan that will provide appropriate instructions that will empower us to create the desired result.
As for me, I want a life filled with happiness, progression, and healthy acceptance of life's experiences. I want to become a better individual, a better family member, a better musician, and eventually a better spouse with each passing day. I want to believe my capacity to succeed and in so doing believe that everyone else can succeed as well. I know God lives, and I believe in His rhythm, His architecture. I believe in the perfection of His commandments, and will gladly strive to live in accordance with His blueprint, because I believe in the results. I believe that in is in obedience to His will, His structure that the greatest source of success can be found, inner peace can be achieved and happiness and joy can be felt now in this life on a daily basis, as well as in the eternities.
I like it Gabbi! It's a happy mother that gets to watch her daughter progress!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Your mother :)