In Love

In Love
Photo by Jennifer Graham Photography

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Definitions

Yes, I'm about to geek out on you. That's how I roll. But I want to convey a couple of basic concepts. Namely, what do I mean by City, and won't do I mean by Love. How they can play nicely together will be the common thread to this whole bloggy exercise.

City: At one level, of course I mean dense agglomerations of humanity. That's where we live, and where we'll be spending most of our time in Europe. But I also mean it as shorthand for any place that people get together in community. Which means all of us. Because humans are inherently social creatures. Yes, yes, I'm all for rugged individualism. Because I think we are all ultimately responsible for our own shit. But how would we even know where to start without our teachers. And who are our teachers? Well, obviously the parents and professional educators and friends, etc. But also the society at large - the biggest mirror of all, if we choose to look into it. And it's there for all of us, no matter what the population density of your home town.

Love: What makes your heart sing. It could be walks in the Alps or an exquisite plate of Greenland musk ox or great friends - all of which we'll be exploring this trip (well, we're on the waiting list for the musk ox - mmm, musky). And of course we mean romantic love. I imagine you'll be getting a healthy dose of that here as well. And on the deepest level, I mean the love that arises from within and without when you get in touch with the wellspring of the Universe. Yes, I'm going to use the G word. No, not Gorf. God. Or whatever you call her/him/it/them/us/nullset. All of the things we call love are pleasing vibrations of us tuning our own instrument, and then playing with the cosmic symphony. The cosmic symphony is always playing, but most of us aren't listening. Or we pick up our instruments and they are warped or rusty, and we forgot how to play. But little by little, when we practice (this harkens back to the whole teacher thing), we can play a little, then a little more. I'd say I'm in violin lessons in the second grade, but I'm playing my instrument with all my heart. And I try to align all my actions and thoughts to keep getting better and better at my instrument. Because I want to play in that great philharmonic in the sky. Which maybe was a Pink Floyd album?

2 comments:

  1. For your exploration of city and love, a little poetry:
    Before the Beginning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt6UEyhjft8;
    Being Born http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5aIz-OFW6E.
    From a little whisker of the eternal beard.

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  2. Your rumination on the heart and learning how to play our instruments inspired my parting graduation letter to Brian. Also made me verklempt...

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