Image: The flowering crab-apple tree in our back garden.
Wednesday, May 4
The trees are in blossom, color everywhere. The painters are almost done painting the house; the roofer plans to come, the gutter man, the caulk man. Took out the score to my Piano Quintet. Played through it once and then contacted musicians for a read through. I would like to perform and record it this summer, if possible. Now to take out the score to the Song Cycle. After these pieces are recorded and performed, the lecture concerts given - then I will write new music. At the moment I am without musical ideas; but if ideas come, I will start composing. That would wreak havoc with everything else I have planned, but one cannot really plan creativity ... Either it happens - or it does not.
The sunflowers are inches high in their little peat pots; have them under lights upstairs. The dahlias are in peat moss, in shallow cardboard boxes lined with plastic; dinner plate dahlias, and some are over a foot or two high. A few have no signs of life yet, one cannot rush these things.
Added two stories to We Meet in Dreams, two dreams sent to me by others. E-mailed them to Diana, and told her where I wanted them in the book. She intends to start formatting the interior of We Meet in Dreams in early June. Took a walk to the waterfalls down the street and wrote words for a future song.
Tuesday, May 10
The roofer has started on the small back porch; debris and noise everywhere. Next he will fix the carport next door, and the slender shed I built when we first moved here; the shed needs some propping, the roof has tumbled in. Must call the fellow to haul away the rest of the old wood pile, and the fellow to caulk. Called the painters - some of the storm windows are painted shut. Need to call Bob re mowing the lawns and installing the air conditioners.
The flowering crab tree in the back garden is in full glory - just breathtaking. Put some of the sunflowers out in the gardens next door; some of the dahlias. Will do more tonight. I have seen a few of my little friends the yellow jackets, so am mainly staying inside now. It would be wonderful to not end up in the hospital every summer; last year I got stung early on, and this year I would like to avoid the experience altogether ... It is difficult to be thrown out of Paradise, as JF puts it; but at least I can see the gardens through the windows. So I can see Paradise, even though I cannot walk there ... At least not until I am in another, safer realm ...
My beautiful student in Trinidad is still struggling to live the spiritual Teachings in his daily life. He asked me to explain further how the spiritual life applies to ordinary life. I answered: "This is the main Lesson I am bringing you: there is no separation between our daily life, our social life - and the spiritual life. It is ALL the spiritual life - if you wish to find true Life.
During the Dark Night of the soul, either you put your full attention on the soul and God - or you put it on the world. You cannot have both - and the choice is yours.
Yes, of course you must act in the world and make decisions. But WHERE is your attention - that is the Question of the Dark Night, the Question the Dark Night puts before us. During the Dark Night we must be willing to lose everything, everything, everything - if that is God's Will. And we must be willing to surrender all our negative thoughts and feelings to God, to the Light of our own soul - and let the negativity dissolve into that Light as though it never existed."
My student still sounds fairly unconvinced ... Although, he did write back to say that his ego had gotten in the way, and he would get right on it. I trust that he will, he is a very serious and devoted Seeker.
Thursday, May 12
The porch roof fellow is finishing up today; more debris and noise. The painters came and unstuck the windows. Arranged to have the windows washed. Another beautiful day, took a short early stroll through the gardens. We are expecting rain for a few days, but will ask Samantha to bring up the hoses from the basement - just in case. JF stopped by; she just returned from California. JD is coming later for duets; Wagner’s Tannhauser, Mendelssohn’s Hebrides, Tschaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet - she called to say she practiced this week. At some point we will return to Beethoven Symphonies, but for the moment we seem to be in the Romantic era. With all the commotion and noise, I have barely played the piano these past few weeks ...
Thursday, May 19
Collapsed in the heat last Friday, and then again yesterday. Cycles of freezing chills and then burning up - and then calm and having to lie down and sleep. My physician told me to stay indoors. Not a good start to summer. Linda Ruth came by to dig ferns. JF stopped by. Joseph is finishing up the gutter screens and starting in on the back garden shed; he brought a sketch of the basement covers he intends to build for us; a quote for washing the upper windows. We had a leak in the upstairs hallway yesterday; he fixed the chimney and gave us a quote for the past and future work. The painters have not yet returned to finish the back porch; called Sioux. In the midst of all this the advance copy of Visits With Angels arrived. Diana strongly and firmly objected to the final four blank pages, but the publisher has a four page rule, whatever that is - and people can use those end blank pages for notes. So between the burning and freezing and sleeping cycles of this heat exhaustion I have been trying to contact the publisher with questions, my website master, checking with Amazon, and accomplishing all sorts of other details. Still, it is nice to see my advance copy lying peacefully on the kitchen table, finally manifest ...
Interesting to think that this little volume will travel all over the world, along with the music that I write and record - while I, as a physical person, am not even able to leave the various and sundry walls of my house here on Lincoln Street ..