Oh I do stop to listen....

(I never thought of publishing this after jotting it down on 19 July 2013 but after a recent ‘discussion’ one year later, it became clear to me that it is perfectly normal to go into a ‘state’ as I so often do. I also touched it in a previous post under "Music in the Fog" of “why is it music in the fog”, of what I experience how this happens – I was just a bit surprised that the person who suggested this, couldn’t figure out that it is exactly what I do… surely most creators do it in any case, we become absent minded from reality as we 'dream' while awake. I can spot it in an instant from another being.)

The ability to hear can only be achieved by listening, part my late Father's saying, we have to listen before we can hear, look before we can see.

My inquisitive mind has always been like that. All the reason then also for appreciating so many people and things in my life.

I learned to hear the unspoken word, I learned to see in more than three dimensions and the full force of all my senses would come together and lift to exhilarating heights, taking me with, allowing me to see and hear beyond the beyond.

Which of course lead me to see what I hear, hear what I see, and live in the magnificence of all it all. I have been applying this rule to my musical side for as long as I remember. It began the first time ‘thunder’ silenced me. I escaped into my make believe world, far more intense than just seeing characters forming in the clouds above as many people do….

What will be my biggest orchestra? It will probably stretch from one hill down a valley to another hill but thinking over how large distance two birds can talk to each other, my orchestra will still be too small.

That is the magnificence of it. To listen and hear, close my eyes and see what my ears listen to. I would look at patterns of Nature, close my ears to noise and I'll hear what I look at.

Stepping into this is yet a mystery to me has taken me on many journeys without even taking a single physical step. A simple explanation is probably that I'd hear birds, begin listening to them and would 'wake up' later! Once a friend told me "You were talking with that bird and he was talking to you - it was so nice". This happened to me with a blackbird in a public place once, and when I 'woke up' my backside was painful from sitting on a cement flower box or something, which didn't matter so much but it cleared my mind and I stared at people who stared back at me and I was feeling a bit stupid - sheepish....

But, I eventually shrugged it off, thinking that I don't really care what the people might have been thinking, maybe there were a few who liked it as the friend did, but I enjoyed it and the bird enjoyed it. We shared a lot of stories with each other, crossed great distances together.

The thing is just that this STOP to listen chooses me, it would take me so suddenly that I don't even have a moment to be surprised. It is just the most beautiful dimension that opens up, absorbs me, carries me all over, revealing things I can look at and when I 'wake up' it feels as if I have had a most pleasurable holiday, I always feel so refreshed afterwards.

Afterwards I would be writing a poem, paint or sketch and music will be in me, a whole bunch of ways to communicate it in a human way.

To be able to communicate it all in music has become my favourite medium, I can paint a much bigger picture, speak so many more words in one measure. And I always loved music.

♫ All because of the way the birds taught me ♫