Summer Sun

These are beautiful summer days.  I have the time to practice several interests, the time to read, the time to sit and stare and reflect on the past year and the past years.  Having this space, filled with reflection, exploration, teaching, playing, has meant a reawakening similar to what I felt when I lived in Madison.  I was very content there, but to have a similar feeling elsewhere must imply that we can feel a certain way independent of place.  But what are the elements, what are the pathways, the relations, the practices, that lead to a certain state of mind?

One of the practices that I am undertaking now is one specific within cello practice, that of memorization.  I am trying to memorize my Suzuki teaching music as well as some far more challenging music that I had learned in the past.  I have always had a difficult, if not impossible time memorizing, even the simplest little melodies.  Fingers, ears, eyes, always got in the way and confused, fighting for control of how to produce the melody on my instrument.  But somehow now it comes.  Several years ago I started to memorize poetry that I loved as a way to get there, and then chose one piece that I loved, and now several years later I can identify numerous possible leads that might be helping me memorize large chunks of music relatively easily in addition to these practices: martial arts, improvisation, doing it for my Suzuki class, feeling the lack of pressure to prove anything with the cello (in other words, feeling a freedom of enjoyment), Feldenkrais, any other body practice that has increased and integrated my sense of awareness, not stressing about it....

There are so many things that come together to create a person.  There are so many experiences, sensations, dispositions, and openings, if we allow; and it is terrifying and liberating to realize how fragile and flexible we are.  What more can we become when we allow ourselves to be unlimited?  

I feel like the days can go on forever right now.  That feeling of limitless sun in a single instant.