Took a morning walk around a cold Napa and, after about three miles, this thought occurred to me:
Life is a mess of threads. Every time we discover a new thread we have to find a way to incorporate it, to loop it into our tapestry. Sometimes existing tapestry has to be unraveled, adapted, and eventually reconnected. I think it has to be so and there is no end to this. Believing that one already has a perfect tapestry, one that will last a lifetime, is not useful or realistic. Admitting new threads can be exhausting—and then there is the endless work of integrating them. But once in a while a bright new thread seems to connect and incorporate beautifully and for a moment the whole tapestry makes sense. “The rug really tied the whole room together” (The Big Lebowski)
I am reading Sapiens and find it very interesting. The author makes it pretty clear that moving from foraging to farming wasn’t the brilliant change that it was made out to be. I have highlighted so many great passages and can’t decide which one to quote. Have a look.
Jon told me that while we played “Jammin’”, at the Blue Note last night, a person near the stage tried to Shazam it. See, Shazam only works on digital music because it reads an inaudible code. Doesn’t work on vinyl and doesn’t work on live music. The same thing happened to me in Lisbon, in an amazing little restaurant called Dahlia. During dinner they were playing great 70s funk and soul music that I didn’t recognize. When Shazam did not work I looked around and discovered they were playing only vinyl LPs.
Check out comments on the post Transformation or on The Work is the Gift. I appreciated them and you. Let me pause for a moment to say that I am grateful to you, the listeners, readers, commenters. It’s a strange life, the life of a musician, but for me it’s the perfect opportunity to discover threads, to hunt for sound and light and meaning. Oh, the website remodel has not been forgotten. It will take more time, but I am excited to create something that allows a higher thread count… I have to get off this metaphor… a site that is good for viewing on the computer but also for viewing on phone or tablet, a site that beautifully combines text, imagery, video, and music.
Threads: Yes. You have captured some scattered things flying around in my life. Lately I am experiencing new threads relentlessly. I have been trying to keep track by writing them down, giving each some time during the day. I feel exhausted and turn to a distraction like a video game. I’m planning a trip to Ireland which is a good distracting activity, but now Ireland is a new thread – the music, the countryside, the horses, the cuisine, the history, the ancestry. I feel I will never have a whole tapestry. But as I get further enriched with each new thread, I seem to get better at understanding and doing the old threads. I don’t know how to unravel the unfinished muss of my tapestry so far. Living is stränge and unexpected.
sapiens – I found it very interesting….allowed my mind to roll over the past and better understand the .key shifts – from author’ point of view.
FYI – i was going through some old magazines, found this delightful article “The uncompromising passion of Carlos Santana” in What’s is enlightenment? interview by Craig Hamilton.
I found a PDF of the magazine that contains the interview with Carlos and am reading it now. Thank you.
https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wieoldissues/wie_en_weboptimized/EN_issue_28.pdf
great – (looked for it on web-site ), ..glad you found it
wie – wrote some very good articles. Not sure exactly what happened …some issues around the editor – but more to the story i am sure. ..wish they start pub. magazine again. I found many articles – well researched.