Balance in the Dark | to create in peace

Dreaming | from Nocturnal by Benjamin Britten

A Distant Wind is blowing  pre-buy your copy now at Gyre Music

It’s dark outside

I got up extra early today to start my meditation and yoga, so it was still dark at the end of my session. I’ve been practicing one leg balance stands for several months now and have become quite stable – but only on one spot! Forget it if I go out on the grass or even turn directions. There is a magical bump of 200 year old knotted floor board rising into the arch of my foot that supports me. I focus on a lamp, and the light of two windows on either side engage my peripheral vision. Today dawn was still dim and I could hardly hold the pose for two seconds. I’ve been kind of low for a few days, so I must be “out of balance” and need to re-focus my attention to this pose and my psyche.

Then I realized how important light and vision are to our sense of balance. But why? I can’t give the scientific reason for it, but clearly vision is our primary sense of the world around us and it follows that it is crucial to our sense of balance. But might it be possible to develop better balance in the dark? I’ve always stumbled in the dark, tripped over my darker side. I get out of balance when the dark moods hold sway over me. My yin is overshadowed by my powerful yang, my urge to create and project.

A joy that rises (from Timid Nightingale) on A Distant Wind CD

As I said in my last blog A Time of Retreat, I need to curl up and hibernate in joy, not in shame and failure. It should be natural to accept the balance nature teaches us, but I have bucked that my whole life. Never accepting the need for rest, good ol’ R&R. I always want more. Not materially in the classic American way, but maybe I have been a victim of the materialistic instincts of our culture. Desperate to acquire more attention, more kudos, more CD releases, more repertoire, more instruments in my collection. No Mercedes or mansions in my needs, but still a sense of impatience, dissatisfaction with my life and how it’s going.

So this winter I will seek balance in the dark. Eyes closed, or cupped hands warming my eye balls, while I learn to maintain a balanced posture of peace and wonder at the goodness of life. I want to return to the indulgent sense that I make art for art’s sake because I simply have to. It’s not a question, it’s a command the universe has given me. There’s no guilt, no rush, just love of the simple gifts life has given me and the healing it brings to the world.

Thanks to Nancy Knowles for the untitled photograph at the top.

Save the date, please…

It is with great delight we announce that our dear friend and colleague Bob Ward and the Boston Classical Guitar Society will present a A Tribute to Frank Wallace this October 25th in Boston and again Oct. 26 in Hartford CT. The concert of my compositions will feature Bob with Alex Dunn playing Duo Sonata #1; Chris Ladd, guitar and Ása Guðjónsdóttir, violin, on Gryphon, Violin Sonata #1, Daniel Acsadi playing Débil del Alba, David William Ross on Cyrcles, Sonata #3 and Nick Cutroneo on Shadow of the Sun.

Friday, October 25th, Pre-concert talk at 7:30, concert at 8:00
First Lutheran Church, 299 Berklee St., Boston
BCGS calendar listing

Saturday, October 26, 8:00
Alfred C. Fuller Music Center F Berkman Recital Hall
200 Bloomfield Ave, West Hartford, CT 06117
Phone: (860) 768-4100 Hartt Calendar

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