E PLURIBUS UNUM

This beautiful latin phrase on U.S. coins means OUT OF MANY ONE……..

And it means integration…..socially, musically, philosophically and in every other way…

Yes, we must cherish tradition and history and yet we also must try to find ways to make the past fit into our TODAY…..the ancient and the modern, the old and the new, it needs to come together, not stay separated. Our thinking needs to be updated yearly, weekly, daily. We need to interpret and re-interpret the world and how we fit in it. Was the discovery that the Earth was one planet of many in the universe – instead of a lone flat disc – the end of society and religion? No, people simply had to adjust and newly integrate their understanding of the universe and religion.

This integration is an endless process. Any success will be only temporary and the next hurdle will be just around the corner.

As Frank Howell told me once: the moment you stop learning you begin to die…..

And when you stop integrating you calcify, you turn into stone……Like the petrified trees on the side of the highway in Arizona……