Recently, I’ve taken up sitting on my front porch in the evening with a cup of tea and my big white puppy, Joska. She sits beside me on the steps with her rear-end on the same step I’m sitting on, and her front paws on the same step as my feet. (She is part Great Pyrenees, so maybe this is how mountain dogs sit…) I wrap my arms around her and kiss her muzzle and then we wait and watch as night settles in.
She’s watching for walkers and bikers and listening for other dogs to bark so she can join in the conversation. I’m practicing the art of “seeing,” looking up at the space where three different trees come together, their branches overlapping as varied colors and shapes interweave. I’m watching their leaves flutter when a slight breeze comes through. I’m noticing how the coming darkness alters the landscape as the bright colors of the day fade to grey and amorphous shapes replace individual flowers in the front garden.
And then the show begins! Bats flit across the sky and the blinking lights of fireflies appear out of the corner of my eye. I’m living for these precious lights of life right now. My heart skips a beat when I see a bat flying in the open spaces between the tree branches and a comforting warmth fills my heart when the fireflies hover around my flower beds of native plants, or in my yard with decidedly more clover than grass. I love that they have found a home in my yard that we are working to make insect friendly.
I’m practicing deep listening on the front porch too and I’m discovering that night sounds feel at once, more distinct and more muffled.
This practice of radical listening and seeing has a deep impact on me which is difficult to quantify, feeding my art on a level I don’t fully understand, but appreciate deeply. I know it has inspired my lyrics for songs such as “Fly with Me” and “Praise Gaia.”
My evening porch ritual helps me feel more whole, more at peace with myself and more connected to the world, which all translates to a greater feeling of connection to my artistic process. This feeling of connection is critical, working its way into my compositions and compositional process, sometimes without my knowledge. The more at one with the world, the more that feeling of connection is translated to my music, to performers and to audience members. It’s this connection we feel when we have an emotional response to music, when we are touched deeply by the thread of oneness. That is the gift of living, this feeling of connection to the world and to each other.
It makes sense that it was hard for me to access this practice during quarantine. It relies on human connection and I was feeling unconnected. I’m so glad it’s back. What are the ways you deepen your connection to the world and thus to yourself?