Look Everywhere

Look Up, Look Down, Look Everywhere

Easter Day, Eostre pagan day christianized, first full moon after the Spring Equinox, Ramadan, Passover. I feel the shift in my body this month. The warming weather strengthens me. I am more alert. Less interested in soups, more interested in salads. The songs I want to sing are different. I sound different. I’m ready to come out and play. Spring Awakening!

I pondered this day and the multitude of ways I honored it. A lesson with my teacher chanting a gorgeous evening raga Zooming in from Pondicherry, India, reminding me that the reason is to unite with the Creator, something I tell my own students.  A gathering and hang with a group discussing jazz and spirituality, explorIng other musicians with like souls and minds. Listening to an interview with Robert Glasper and Gregory Porter on the House of Black Music, folks who have been teaching, telling, and sharing the indomitable wisdom of humans since the age of time. Music, always central to my existence and life experience. These things keep me alert, listening, and looking.

Neil deGrasse Tyson explodes with passion about the vast universe and I savor the Webb Telescope showing me glimpses of our world from the Big Bang. The stars have so much to tell us, in addition to those who love to translate their meaning of alignment. I listen to the birds as they rouse me from sleep, if the rising sun hasn’t already. When seaside, the crashing waves and the changing of tides out my window let me know where I am in time and space. Jane Goodall speaks of hope and how she learns from the animals and nature she observes here on earth. They keep adapting, improvising.

NPR tells me that my music colleagues using analog amps will no longer be able to obtain what they need due to the Russian/Ukrainian conflict situation, not to mention the war atrocities, gas prices, and  food shortages predicted. My daughter’s refrigerator needs a part from another country - no longer available - and the American replacement just isn’t working. A small thing, but a reminder of how our interconnectedness becomes more and more palpable every day.

Yet there’s a knowing I seem to possess that “hope springs eternal”. Some say I was just born this way. My dang cup runneth over. I’m a proverbial optimist. My parents made me feel secure and I grew up with a ton of advantages. All this is true. Though my life has had its share of pain and challenges, there are far many who have had it way beyond what I have had to face. To that end, I do my best to continually review, search my heart, and give back. Keep looking, keep noticing, even if it’s that weed in the crack of the sidewalk.

Wherever you are on your life journey, I implore you ~

Look up ~ and down.
Look side to side.
Look inside ~ and outside.
Look everywhere ~ and look again.  

Hope Everywhere