Val: A Harmonious Human Orchestra of Life | Steve Beckow

By Steve Beckow, January 22, 2022

(Golden Age of Gaia)

Guest Writer

Val wrote in to share with us “A Harmonious Human Orchestra of Life.” I asked her if we could share it with you.

I notice we’re starting to hear people’s stories about fresh awarenesses, new discoveries, heart openings, visions, and breakthroughs. I take that as an indication that the energies are increasing and we’re steeping in them.

The title, above, is a quote from the great jazz artist, Herbie Hancock, toward the end of his talk at Harvard University on “Buddhism and Creativity,” which can be seen on YouTube.

As I listened to Hancock passionately talk of his approach to music and life and how everything in his life is based on his practice of Buddhism, I realized that over the past two years my perceptions about life have become very limited, stale and even rigid. My focus has been consumed by the extreme drama and noise of what seems to be falling apart in my life and in the world. Social media and information overload has dimmed my inner sensitivity.

Music was always a bridge to another world and a way out of self-limitation. For me music is the most direct connection to life. My late mother was a musician, and I grew up with classical music, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Henry Mancini and Dave Brubeck. Like breathing air.

Even though I never learned to read music, I’d borrow Gershwin’s musical scores from my high school library and try to follow the score while listening to his music. Which is an exercise in madness if you’ve ever listened to Gershwin’s music.

Again, listening to Herbie Hancock’s exuberance and joy highlighted my own loss of faith in the power of my prayer and my lack of trust in the process of life. This beautiful musician and human being reminded me that the immense life force of the universe is within me waiting to be summoned. He reminds me that true creativity lies in the “art of living.”

In a recent interview with famous jazz saxophonist, Wayne Shorter he is asked, what is your definition of success? Shorter replies: “It is to run up against so many obstacles that you break through and ask for more obstacles. Like I say: Bring it on. Bring on the resistance. If you make success your ally, it is all over. You are trapped. You have been fooled. It’s as if you have been in hell for so long you think it’s heaven. The success to me is always earthly desires equal enlightenment. That is my partner and sidekick.”

Quoting from the same interview, Shorter at age 88, together with four-time Grammy award winner Esperanza Spalding, has completed his first opera, Iphigenia, which he views as a continuation, not a culmination, of his life’s work. The New York Times named him the foremost living composer in jazz.” The full article titled “Making Resistance My Ally” is in the January 1, 2022, edition of the World Tribune on the website: sgi-usa.org.

As a side note, Shorter lost both his beloved wife, Ana Maria and his wife’s 18-year-old niece in the explosion of TWA Flight 800 in July 1996.

Taking my cue from these men leads me back to my own struggles to open “the heavy groaning door” to the depths of my own life and “make resistance my ally” to tap my own creative fire and be true to myself.