"Petals" - the journey

Diary: 11 June 2014

This story caught me by surprise on Monday, 21 April 2014. It was triggered after some shocking news reached me. Shocking in a very good sense, though – just, it’s the type that actually blows your mind away and oh boy, was mine totally blasted…….

Most compositions so far are about long ago memories and incidents but Petals was what was happening for the moment, real time. A surge as I can get them, fast and powerful, I didn’t even need to sketch it in my ‘music shorthand’, it just etched itself into my forehead, remaining there, driving me. I jumped onto this composition to finish it and not even halfway the next one already popped.

It went on like this for weeks. I’d think I’m nearly done with a track, then the next one was there - music would even wake me at night as if it is a juke box playing, loud and clear. And as all of this was happening, it would even bring awareness of another feeling (music) outside of “Petals”.

It is not over yet, a second volume is already tapping its impatient little foot in order for me to take note that the journey will go on for quite a while. Our Petals character has been challenged by her arch enemy when she was little, who even stole her treasures and kept doing that. Petals became strong in the first part of her journey and knew she has to bring peace to that awful enemy who just never wanted to learn kindness. The toughest part for Petals will be when she has to bring the truth to the evil one. The evil one never like the truth.

I don’t know if I really want to always know the truth of how things happen. Sometimes it can be scary but it was not scary to begin the journey of Petals. And Petals has a big story, very much like a fairytale, but it is a true story.

I imagined a kid, grounded by an incompetent parent who does not have the ability to understand and cares less about the child. I was thinking of more people at the time, suffering unnecessary. A lifetime played like a horror flick through my memories. I was thinking about the thunder in my own life and realized that I’ve won over it. Good rainfall can always be expected wherever there is heavy thunder....

I’ve done some maverick things since the beginning of this year…. I leapt so high that I got lost in space for a while, moving around there, doing more crazy leaps. I just vaguely hoped I would be like a cat, landing on my feet when I reach Earth again. Released my first album “African Morning Song” and I couldn’t care less what the majority think. My mentor Lorraine Mavis Tsang gave me confidence as mentioned in another post. And I went on, releasing two more albums the next two months, a few from music that would happen on the spot and some old memories.

While I was hovering in space I took yet another even more crazy leap – I thought I’d ‘share’ my first album, a seven movement symphony as I call it because I just don’t have better knowledge about these things. Tra-la-la my way. Easy way to let more people hear my song. Oh, had I really first studied what it was all about I’d never have done that! I don’t jump into a pool of hungry crocodiles, however much of a maverick I can be. I’ll only jump over it if I need to. But then, my mind was probably still absent from previous leaps…. And I had such a nice compliment from another SoundClouder at that album, a really highly qualified one that didn’t notice that I have zilch, nyada, zero music composition background. And this one taught all these at university level. I guess that was his greatest teaching ever, those few words to me about that album.

I believed his words because I listened to his creations. Stunning, most beautiful, laced with so many memories, one can listen to a track many, many times.

Okay, now back to my hovering then. Earth came in sight, this one crazy move now even has me about hanging over a mountain of fire and I hope I won’t burn my tail off when I eventually land. I cannot believe myself that I did what I did – yet now I am not sorry, for it sure had a mind blowing consequence which triggered the journey of “Petals”.

BUT I didn’t realize how phenomenal it is and I was finding out more, even the moon turned red those days and I was in total awe. IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING TO ME? I’ve reached the end of the rainbow with the seven colours of my first symphony. Painful dust is washing out of my eyes so that I can see it all again, voices began calling me back to long, long ago.

Petals is taking me on a journey. Reminding me of all the music over several decades, all the songs and little friends. As soon as I focused back on the past, it began haunting me, I became melancholic, I crumbled – it was as an avalanche of emotions.

(Fairly in the beginning of Part II I even had a flash of ET being lured with sweeties! Each time since during playback, ET pops up. Oh well, if I’m a sucker for musical sweeties, so be it).

While I have no resistance, I hear more music than I’ve ever heard before, enticing me and I begin a fight that has no winner, I only find a leader, taking ownership of my whole being - myself. I become brave and decide I shall take the path back on all my memories. This becomes the first three parts of Petals, it happened all in a matter of hours over a few days.

In Part IV Petals pushes me onwards on the path I know so well, but now it looks very strange. It is as if old spirits are around, sometimes a bit scary but I want to know what it is. I think I am getting answers as if in a dream but I am unsure. I just keep going. I think about things ahead of me that I know which are there and this becomes the real scary ones. I understand the music but am scared of facts. The more I learn, the more worried I get. Will I ever know enough? Suddenly a calmness hits me and I am tired. My great Maestro tells me to rest and meditate.

I go into a first solitude, meditation and prayer. I cannot walk alone, I need my Maestro who gave me this gift – I feel as if I cannot carry it anymore. Answers come and the greatest is to think again as I did when I was a small child. I had no fear then. I am forced to remember again….. 

(Part V). This is an awful memory…….

At around 5y old, I was abandoned in a park for many hours during which the Angels guarded me. I remained in the sandpit where I was told to stay. I never moved from there. The trees were big and filled with birds, it became late afternoon already, and the shadows were long. Eventually this evil being appeared again, shouting at me, asking where I have been. An understanding came to me then, knowing that something was terribly wrong, this evil one told me to stay right where I was – in the sandpit and then left me. I knew then his evil one was going to be unkind to me always. I accepted that because I knew the Angels will be with me forever, they have a special lullaby for me. They protected me several times against the evil one.

I become one with those memories, thinking how it is just this evil, this thunder that caused me to always stand back, that I am not good enough, that my choices are very bad. This one that stole my future in some despicable ways. I discover that the stolen goods is my property, I only need to reach out and take it back. I have the faith, the spirit of the child I once was.

Parts VI, VII, VIII: I go into a longer solitude for several days – learning to understand why I may use this gift when so many others have to pay and study for years, for theirs. I do not even know if my gift will be good for others. I am reminded by my Maestro to trust what I have learned, where I have learned. I feel bad about it, music came to me also in Angels’ songs. I have no right to think that which I learned is inferior, for it has been conducted by my Great Maestro.

Then I also wonder how can an old woman like me bring something to others and I am showed how the old tree has grown all her life, now bearing even more branches. The rain of Spring is poured onto her and she becomes covered with yet more growth and then crowned with blooms. My Maestro shows me that even the old tree shall celebrate Spring, her blossoms will become fruit. I am reminded of the morning rain which I composed in my first symphony, the freshness, the beauty and the life of it.

(In this track, abundance breaks out, even in 12 or 13 different voices towards the end. It was a lot of notes per measure before I could see even the tiniest little creature living in this tree - yet I trusted the little spirits, I learned that it is not too much, nor too many. They all have the right to live there.)

Parts IX, X: I cry a lot now, and I am reminded that sad always turn to happy, as I’ve learned when I was little, crying and the Great Maestro would conduct His Angels to sing to me and I’d be happy again. I am also reminded that each tear had been seen and used to give life, a life I now shall enjoy.

Then the conclusion comes that I have to focus on what came to me, to see the beauty, the acceptance by those who know this path so well. The mountain of fire becomes the Mountain of the Fireflies. Part XI.

I became strong. I shall be music until I sing with the Angels one day.

May this be an inspiration for all. Someone hears you, your tears are precious, and it is part of your life, and life for others. May the evil ones learn: love is the most precious and forgiving.

Thank you to the humans who mean so much to me. In a way I feel I am home already, you all make my path so much easier.

"Petals - The Journey" - extracts from album