Music Poll (Part II)

[Guest guest]

Part II

 

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.....It's very good to *be* music.

..............

Regarding my experiences with music, I've had many that were

transcendent, that is, ranging from simply enjoyable to emotionally

ecstatic, but I feel I've only had one that was truly mystical, in that

it was born of the music itself as opposed to just being an aspect of an

experience.

 

In 1976 I went to "An evening of poetry and music with Patti Smith" ... Patti

Smith is very innovative, edgy rock singer and an accomplished neo-beat poet

from

New York. In her interviews she would often express the desire to reach

a state of "total abandon," during her performances... to break through

a "hole in the air" to a timeless dimension.

 

That night at the Roxy in West Hollywood began with poetry and some of

her earlier, kind of jazzy songs... a few jokes and banter. Then

Hendrix's former drummer took the stage to accompany her on congas...

then a few others joined them.

 

A rhythm started....

 

Patti entered an intense steam of consciousness while her guitar player

followed beautifully and effortlessly.

 

It kept building.... then for an instant, time ceased to exist. The

air... everything.... all reality became pure energy.

 

Then it passed and I was aware again that I was in a club attending a

very amazing performance on a Saturday night.

 

I consider this an important mystical experience because is helped

change the course of my life. It showed me the reality of the

transpersonal potential of music and it inspired me to pursue a

rewarding career as a rock music journalist. It was a brief moment that

pushed me forward in several directions. <snip>

 

Singers and musical styles come and go, but the song goes on forever.

Whether it's a circle of dancers around a tribal drum, a prim and proper

audience enraptured by a finely tuned orchestra... or the wild abandon

of a rock 'n roll club, the mystical is in the ear of the beholder...

and it's the beholders in who's company I feel privileged.

 

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    Depressed one day more than 10 years ago, Peter Gabriel's "Solisbury

Hill" came on the radio.. blew me wide open and helped me make a decision I

hadn't known I needed to make.

 

Story of most Kundalites, actually.. 

.........

 

Preparing to send a splinter ego into the light, August 1998 was an

emotional rollercoaster as the adult part of me blissed out in a romance

with death, being guided stop by step to manifest an ego death ritual.. and

the very resistant child splinter played the "Terms of endearment" doomed

drama queen. Worn out, I asked for mercy and did a shower tantra ritual.

Midway through the ritual I got "Don't fear the Reaper" blasting through my

head ecstatic!

   For the next few weeks Death/my Divine Beloved serenaded me with it,

everytime I needed comfort is blasted me into ecstacy. It showed up in my

head, often and seemed to be playing on the radio, everywhere I went!

Hades was seducing me into ego death.

..........

   Other times.. other songs so evocative, coming like a gift of insight to

pave the way to a shift of consciousness. Too many to remember them all..

they still come, the Beloved's serenades, singing a song or a fragment of

song to me to communicate a message, words and emotions as only music can be.

 

.......The body-mind loves music.  I dreamt of a delft-blue speckled horse,

that

was asking for music, the radio in a Rain-man like mumbly horse-voice..

metaphor for the body.

 

    There was a thread about a year ago, on what music is especially

K-fired.. the results became an addition to the K-list cybrary.. David

Bowie, Kate Bush and Hildegaard von Bingen are among my favorites

 

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I have a few music stories, not too surprisingly, in my career was

as a musician and record producer, ...

 

When I was five I would go to sleep listening to my father playing

the piano. It was one of my favorite times. One day, a 16 year old neighbor,

was over at our house for some reason or another and my father asked him

to play as he was reputed to be very good. I crawled under the piano

and sat there

utterly transfigured by some "Sturm und Drang" piece that he was thundering

out above my head. It felt like the piano was cracking and exploding like

thunder during a summer storm. I couldn't think at all and was utterly

outside myself. It was the most thrilling experience of my then young life

and it utterly changed me. I was taking piano lessons within the week, and

was consumed for the rest of my childhood and teen years with listening

to and playing music.

 

My life turned inside out that afternoon, and I was put on a track

that my family came to utterly regret. But that's another story.

 

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I wanted to mention a musical one

similar to yours.

I was the same age as you were under your father's piano,

when my dad took me to a football game. We were making our way

through the crowd underneath the huge concrete stadium seats when the

marching band came through. My dad put me up on his shoulders so

I could see. The hugeness of the bass drums reverberating under

those bleachers was beyond anything I could imagine. Each beat was

permeating my entire being. It kind of short-circuited my

capacity to think or understand anything and all there was, was this

hugeness, beating its rhythm, filling my whole body and

consciousness.

I know you can relate. And like you, my passion for music

since that day has never ceased.

 

It is so amazing to share these stories with you (all). I

have never told anyone that last one.

 

End Part II