God Is Not Throwing Dice

It was a toss-up between this and "My Body is a Cage." I have had a full day of music and a certain amount of catharsis due to the songs my friend Paul was choosing for me this morning. Three in a row by Peter Gabriel- this one, then "I Grieve" and finally "My Body is a Cage". I finally told him I needed a break and couldn't spend the whole day catharting!

So, after that we did some ordinary mundane stuff, I cooked dinner and tonight I set up instruments for tomorrow's workshop on Expressive Arts Therapy and Sound Healing. I took a picture but sadly can't seem to upload it onto here. I have a friend I met the last time I was here who is also a sound healer and has a nice collection of instruments- some beautiful Himalayan singing bowls, rattles and flutes plus I brought a few bowls and a bunch of tuning forks and a couple of other small things. Paul and Jane have a Freenote they brought from me years ago and some other exotic instruemnts as well.
At the end of the day I had a very nice assortment of instruments that all sound really well together.

(My apologies that I can only post old pictures from this blog right now.)

 After getting all that organized Paul put me on their Somatron sound table, which he and Jane bought from me 15 years ago when they hosted me in Canada, and played "My Body is a Cage". Totally amazing and so nice to have someone give me a mini-treatment on the table. It has been a long time.

Oh, and one more crazy piece of synchronicity- someone called Paul today to make reservation for tomorrow to stay here via Airbnb. It turned out upon talking to him that he is a sound therapist and has a sound healing center in Rumania! He is coming here with his wife and child tomorrow and bringing a bunch of instruments with him! What are the odds that there would be two of us here at the same time? He was as blown away as we were when Paul told him that I was here and said that when these things happen it is clear, as Albert Einstein said, that God is not throwing dice.

That on top of the question Paul and I have been discussing about why I am really here, since no one was signed up for any of the workshops before I got here. Paul has said several times that obviously I am here for a reason- we just don't know what it is yet. Now people are slowly starting to come out of the woodwork!

Musical Toilets and Synchronicity

If I could have any toilet in the world, this would be the one I would want. Unfortunately it belongs to someone else.

Three years ago, when I went to Holland the first time, my friend Jane Tipping and I decided one day to go to the medieval town of Amersfoort to go shopping. Jane had heard it was great place to shop and she finally had someone to go with!
 
The tall narrow houses in Amsersfoort, which form the perimeter of the town, were built from a fortification wall that surrounded the town in the 1300's. In the 1600's another wall was built around the inner one as the town was growing rapidly and the inner one was used as the foundation for the Muurhuizen, or wall houses.

We hadn't been there but about ten minutes and were walking down the narrow street on the perimeter of the town when we were stopped by an old man who insisted we come into his house and see what the buildings look like from the inside. I think his name was Fritz (or Frans?)...

 We were mildly uneasy about going into a persistent old man's home- but he WAS persistent and we were ready for an adventure so in we went! He had a crazy little place that was FULL of knick knacks- but when I first walked in the house I looked around a corner and found myself looking in the bathroom at the toilet pictured above. I know that usually a toilet is not the first sign that you are in the right place unless you have to pee really badly, but I was there to teach a sound healing workshop. Sound and music were very much my focus, as they tend to be most days and there was this wild musical toilet. I couldn't believe it. I did indeed take it as a sign from the gods that we were in exactly the perfect place!

It turned out, needless to say, that he was a musician- a stand-up bass player- and that his whole family had all been musicians. His father had been a musician- I think maybe his mother had been a singer and his sons were both musicians. He had a picture of his father as a very young man with a group of musicians- maybe an orchestra or something. I don't remember the details but it was all just great, funny and as magical and synchronistic as anything in my life. I had the feeling I had just walked into some crazy, dreamlike, divinely orchestrated scene that I couldn't possibly have dreamed up on my own!

He tried to get us to go up the very narrow stairs to see the upstairs but we managed to escape at that point. The picture below is Jane looking slightly unnerved and clearly ready to leave at this point! I have often wondered whether it was just a weird synchronistic event or if he actually just hangs out outside of his house accosting every obvious tourist and stranger that walks by. Was he lonely or was he just an old man who was totally turned on by the heritage of his town and his family and wanted to share it? Who knows, but I am leaving for Holland on Tuesday and my guess is that very soon Jane and I will be headed for another shopping spree in Amersfoort (we found some great clothes there the last time!) and I am definitely wondering whether we will run into Fritz and his musical toilet again.

Successes and Synchronicity

Today's successes...
Completed on new flyer for Wholistic Sound
Spent hours fixing my harmonium so that I could play it at class tonight
            *Thank you Daniel Tucker for the How To Fix Your Harmonium 101 at Kirtan Camp 2011!
Taught the first class on Mindful Yoga and Sacred Chant at Sandywoods with my friend Morgan Ford Brunketurner
            *Starting with an hour of yoga and then going on to chanting is definitely a recipe for success! And the acoustics in the room are wonderful!
Set up two kirtans in Newport (March 5 and March 15)
Spread paperwork all over the floor as the first step to pulling out stuff for tax person and organizing!
            *Definitely a job for brain tuners- results will be posted!
Through random synchronicity suddenly came across my book on The Tibetan Yoga of Dreams and Sleep
            *Very exciting since I am delving into that arena right now- taking a workshop on Sound and Dreams in June with John Beaulieu and Silvia Nakkach and going to sleep each night listening to Jeff Bridges' Sleeping Tapes, which is an amazing experience. If you haven't downloaded it yet I am urging you to GET ON IT!

Speaking of synchronicity here's a little throwback to 1983 for you! Love the backup singers- those girls are great!

"Synchronicity I"

With one breath, with one flow
You will know
Synchronicity

A sleep trance, a dream dance,
A shared romance,
Synchronicity

A connecting principle,
Linked to the invisible
Almost imperceptible
Something inexpressible.
Science insusceptible
Logic so inflexible
Causally connectible
Yet nothing is invincible.

If we share this nightmare
Then we can dream
Spiritus mundi.

If you act, as you think,
The missing link,
Synchronicity.

We know you, they know me
Extrasensory
Synchronicity.

A star fall, a phone call,
It joins all,
Synchronicity.

It's so deep, it's so wide
Your inside
Synchronicity.

Effect without a cause
Sub-atomic laws, scientific pause
Synchronicity

And on that note- if you like Sting, read his autobiography. He is a good writer and it's very engaging- pretty much about his life pre-Police and leading up to that point. Really good, at least I thought so. Very thoughtful.