A day of intense sunlight. A few fair weather clouds drift here and yon across the great arc of blue sky. The local birds are raising their second or third broods while the osprey appear to be feeding chicks and more forcefully guarding their nests.
We had three days of intense heat, which broke yesterday. On Tuesday we set a new temperature record of 101F, eight degrees above the old record! Wednesday’s high was in the mid-90’s and yesterday the temperature may not have gotten out of the 60’s. This early heat suggests we may well be in for a brutal summer.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court continues it’s seemingly relentless attack on civil rights, pushing us further into territory reminiscent of the disaster that was Reconstruction. It appears that rather than looking for ways to heal the profound divisions within the country, they are fostering more intense conflict. I wonder whether they are also setting the stage for their own demise and, thus, more social chaos. In any case, I am perpetually bewildered by the human, non-partisan, capacity to be stupefied by ideology.
I’ve been in the sound studio all morning. I came in with some ideas, none of which has worked out. It seems everything I try turns to a thick, non-descript porridge. I wonder how many times this week I’ve read or heard someone speaking about the difficulty they are experiencing as they seek to be creative in the midst of so much chaos, how the danger and intensity of our times forces itself into, or blocks, their work.
I try to remind myself that we are each connected to All That Is, that we are afloat on a river of love, fear, hope, passion, and joy that carries along all living beings. When we extend our senses we discover we are nodes in a vast, interconnected, landscape of sentience. Whales and microbes, people and plants are each sites of awareness and selfhood dependent on all others for our very being. Still, most of us move in and out of feeling connected; perhaps all beings feel lonely sometimes.
Having had lunch, Nori comes in and curls up near me, her desire for food having given way to a wish for companionship. We are listening to complex new music, some melodic, some not. I am surprised and pleased by the innumerable sound worlds being created by contemporary composers, and while I do not like all of this work, more often than not each piece extends my ideas about what music and storytelling may be.
This musical diversity, like the world’s thousands of human languages, reminds me that when we stop and look deeply into the world around us we may be amazed at the volume of possible ways of being on offer to us. Mystics throughout time have pointed to that immensity of possibility, noted that we cannot see it when we are afraid or bound by one definition of what’s right, and been carried away by joy, even in the face of great suffering. What a gift to have joy!
How do you encourage joy to enter your life?
Please share your thoughts and join the conversation!