Monday, September 1, 2014

Finding My Song - Chapter One "Joy"

Preface

Writing about any journey and placing it on the internet comes with its own risk.  This particular blog is what I hope with become part of a series to document a rather unique and important musical and spiritual journey. I will not and do not wish to defend myself.  If you're views are so overwhelming different, I simply ask you to move along without comment.  Because in my heart, even though we may not share the same path, I believe that your journey is intended for you just as mine is intended for me.  And if we could all realize that, we would all probably love each other and ourselves a lot more.   



Chapter One - "Joy"

I don’t expect most people to get it.  But what I've come to realize is that the beauty of a true connection to “God” isn't for other people to understand. I've also come to realize that the closer you find yourself face to face with your own mortality, the easier “God” is to find.  I grew up with Christian doctrine, but it was of the Episcopalian variety.  Church seemed more social than spiritual.  I toyed with Judaism and even sought out branches of new age spiritualism.  I spent years trying to understand the difference between karmic principles and dogmatic devices.  Spirituality just seemed too hard to fit into my life. Hard because it wasn't right.  I couldn't find the thing that felt home to me.  In 1994, I was briefly introduced to the message that would, over this past year, become my spiritual center.  It would be nearly 20 years before I actually realized that there was a message in it for me.  But once I was finally united with my messianic missive, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  There it was - the overwhelming message of love, joy, community, happiness and bliss I had been so quick to dismiss as a real possibility. So where did I find “God’’? Well, you’re going to have to wait just a little bit longer for that. 

I think that what I need to establish first are some basic principles that I believe.  And then the “where” and the “how” will seem a little more feasible.  Most of us, or at least the majority of the people I imagine to be reading this, have grown up at the hand of a Christian doctrine.  In a nutshell, Jesus Christ was the messiah.  Let’s simply take the word “messiah” and relieve it from the Christian connotation. If we view it as a more generalized vocabulary word, than according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it means  “a person who is expected to save people from a bad situation” or “a professed or accepted leader for some cause.”  

So what’s the point of a messiah? If “God” exist, why doesn't “God” just tell us what we need to hear? That would seem to make the most sense.  And this is where my spiritual view skews from the majority, I think.  I simply can’t find it in my heart to believe that some all-powerful, all knowing, all seeing entity is just floating around in space watching his creation self-destruct.  To me “God” is the scientific force that created us.  It’s an energy.  It’s a carbon based synergy that when harnessed can produce a beautiful path of spiritual self-awareness. So the "messiah", in my opinion, is really less about someone particularly chosen by "God" to present his message and more about someone or something  that is so tuned in to that creative energy that they are blessed with ability to present the beauty of this forceful power in a way that makes sense to others.  

So maybe, one day, a really long time ago, this really cool hippie-like guy named Jesus Christ walked the earth. I simply don’t know that he did or didn't because I wasn't there.  I like to imagine that Jesus was the kind of guy that would probably liked heady jam bands like the Grateful Dead, that would have made sure you were properly hydrated at a show and that would have let you crash on his couch even though he just met you 6 hours ago on lot. That's just how I envision him to have been.  I bet in his time, Jesus was probably pretty far out there but very well respected. And maybe, just maybe this man was so connected to the spiritual synergy of the earth's creative force that he felt he had a message that came from something bigger than him. And so he started telling people these stories and suggesting better ways to live. These stories would have been his way of reminding his fellow man that there was more to the world that what they were dealing with every day. 

It’s also my opinion that if Jesus did exist, Jesus was probably an entertainer.  He was a rock star.  He would have captured people’s hearts.  Not by fear, but by love.  And a lot of people probably listened to these messages of love and hope and charity and thought to themselves that this man had a point.  Because what we forget is that spirituality finds us when we need it the most.  And in a world that was overrun by political agendas and war, I think the original “Christians” were just looking to be surrounded by like-minded people.  They were tired of feeling oppressed by their government.  They were tired of feeling detained by their situation.  They were looking for the “savior” to right their path and put their hearts in the right place. The were looking for their "messiah".  The person with the message to make their lives feel right. 

So, for years I thought that the concept of a messiah, when it comes to spirituality, was ridiculous.  That was until I realized that a messiah doesn't have to be a person; it can simply be the way the message gets to you.  Unfortunately, religion is often the man-made result of scare tactics and dogmatic principles intended to work as a successful societal harness, just like the police force.  And often the real message gets bogged down in the operational needs of keeping the message going. Man, not "God", has interjected fear, death, personal agenda and sorrow into the spiritualism of the connective realm and turned it into hard bound scripture.  And for many, that is where spirituality takes a hard turn into religion.

As I moved through the phases of my life, I looked and read and researched and studied, but nothing touched my heart.  It never felt like the message that was offered to me was my message. Because that’s the other thing I think that so many people are quick to dismiss when it comes to spirituality and religion. We don't speak the same languages and we can find a way not to kill or hurt each other, but when it comes to spirituality and religion we've manage to use it as a justifiable means of war, hurt and greed.  We don’t all have to get the same message the same way, do we? And do we really want to have everyone get the message the same way? True, encouraging others to hear a message that you think is a healthy, amazing way to live is obviously the best way to make sure that message spreads and to sustain it.  But “God” doesn't want that message to cause death and war and hatred.  At least not in my world.  Since I believe in the scientific principles of the creative energy rather than a destructive energy (based on the principles of basic earth science), I believe that humans not “God” create destruction and despair. Spirituality, in my opinion,  is just how we deal with not really knowing the definitive answer. 

Beyond basic needs, music is the single most important thing in my life.  If stricken with the decision to lose my sight over my hearing, I would choose to never see again as long as I could feel rhythm and hear music.  Before I could even walk, I would pull myself up and dance when I heard music.  Dancing and singing are an absolute expression of what I feel.  They are releases central to my well-being.  I would be lost without them.  In fact, I have been lost without them.  So, as fate would have it, it is only fitting that my “message” came to me through music.

Now, this is the part where it becomes difficult for me to verbalize my journey.  And I wonder if early Christians, upon hearing their message, experienced the same feelings. The feeling of worrying that people were going to think they had lost their mind.  We have established connections to “God”.  The idea of just finding my own little unconventional niche and sharing my journey with others seems more like the path to psychiatric commitment rather than spiritual acceptance.

On October 22, 2013, I stood in a packed arena. Really, it was more like floating in an overwhelming sea of oddity and love. I had heard a vast majority of the music before but some of it was also new to me.   For three hours, I listened.  My eyes were closed for most of the night. My heart told me to simply just listen. As the encore began, something blocked out every thing around me. There were no distractions, there was only "Joy". A beautiful ballad called “Joy” changed by perspective and opened my heart to something I didn't think I would ever find.  There it was... “MY message.”

"Joy is over there in her incredible clothes
She has silver silk shimmering down to her toes
I was doing the best that I can I suppose
But that little girl dancer eventually grows
She grows"

"You can’t imagine all the times that I tried
To uncover the source of the tears that you cried
Let’s throw it away and just go for a ride
And you’d say ok but you’d keep it inside
And I tried"

"We want you to be happy
Don’t live inside the gloom
We want you to be happy
Come step outside your room
We want you to be happy
Cause this is your song too"

"I never thought I could have it so good
You were the song that my soul understood
But time is a river that flows through the woods
And it led us to place we both understood
Would be gone
Before too long"

"When we were young we thought life was a game
But then somebody leaves you and you’re never the same
All of the places and people belong
To the puzzle but one of the pieces is gone
And it’s you
Joy, it’s you"

"We want you to be happy
Don’t live inside the gloom
We want you to be happy
Come step outside your room
We want you to be happy
Cause this is your song too"

"In time we’ll weather this storm
Inside together you’ll see the change
When the sun shines through"

"We want you to be happy
Don’t live inside the gloom
We want you to be happy
Come step outside your room
We want you to be happy
‘Cause this is your song too"

The thing about lyrics, just like pages in a book or pages in a religious text, is that anything is open to interpretation. I've read what this song is “about”, but the beauty of finding a connective message is that it means something different to me.  At a moment in my life where I was struggling to reconnect to my true heart and soul while redefining the kind of life I wanted to live, these powerful words came gently to my soul and reminded me of something very special. It reminded me that I held the power to find my happiness and this message - these lyrics- simply reminded me that I had lost it. 

The beginning verse reminds me that as a  little girl music and dancing were my happiness.  Those were the two things that defined who I was.  They were expressions of my joy.  The “we” in the lyrics is my struggle to deal with the duality that has always been my life; an reminder of my broken self and more importantly the part that I need to fix. A personal mantra that "we" have to fix "me"; the sum of my parts are greater than the scattered pieces that I've left behind. I need those pieces to be whole.  As I grew up, I forgot about the true source of my joy.  Partly because I mixed music with my career and also because I allowed others to make me feel guilty for so unselfishly enjoying music.  I allowed the most important part of my spirit to get stripped and torn away.  And as my life changed and I went through tough struggles and life changing events, I stopped turning to music like I had before in my life.  And I had forgotten that the music was there me. I had forgotten about the “joy” that it had given me.

“Cause this is your song, too”

And that single lyric brought me to tears.  To the casual observer, it’s just a line. But to me, it was a moment of pure spiritual awakening.  To me, it was the moment of realization that I was being given a message from something bigger than me.   That I was being reminded that music – this music - their music – this song- that it was for me.  It was created for me to remind me of what my heart, soul, spirit and mind need.  Whether my interpretation seems far-fetched or not, it was the message that I needed at that moment.  And through further listening and revolutionary moments of clarity, I've spent the last year immersing myself
(but yet just barely scratching the surface)  of a vast musical catalog that has worked like a road map to my own personal spiritual salvation.

So where has this road map lead me?

·         To music that speak volumes to me and reminds me it’s okay to find my own path.
·         To the revival that is celebrating that synergy based connection that makes me feel so whole-heartedly sure that this spiritual path is mine alone.     
·         To community filled with loving, kind generous people that embrace a magnificent subculture that is centered on music and where I am always made to feel at home.
·         To the overwhelming love that comes with hugging a complete stranger when you hear “those chords”.
·         To the knowledge that there are others that share my secret and get exactly from where I am coming, albeit some a little more than others.
·         And most importantly, to the fact that as I face some of the most difficult times in my journey on this earth, I have finally found a source of peace and solace that makes me heart and soul feel at ease.

And where did the journey begin?

With Phish…