Practice, beauty

More and more we realize that practicing is not forced labor; more and more we realize that it is a refined art that partakes of intuition, of inspiration, patience, elegance, clarity, balance, and , above all, the search for ever greater joy in movement and expression—this is what practice is really about.

Too many generations have been twisted into slavery and suffered the consequences of frustration, all manner of aches and pains, physical and spiritual, as well as mental depression.

-Yehudi Menuhin

The art of practicing cultivates this heightened awareness in every moment of our practicing.  We practice noticing the details of our sensory experience, letting the sensation of sound, touch, and movement saturate the body and mind from movement to movement.  By deliberately practicing with such receptiveness, one gradually becomes familiar with the experience of brilliant awareness, and we begin to feel at home in the bright light on stage.   -Madeline Bruser

When the struggle to be passionately expressive, coolly laid back or fiercely authoritative leaves us unsatisfied, a feeling of futility sets in.  We wish we could get to the heart of the music and we feel at a loss as to what to do next.  In music as in life, we don’t want to feel the embarrassment of being ordinary, foolish people.  We want to soar to the heights of making music and pretend we don’t have clay feet weighing us down.  Ironically, when we drop our guard and are just ourselves, we reveal a deep humanness and gentleness that connect us to humanity and the music we make is uplifting.  – Madeline Bruser

why Stephen Lawhead is awesome

Great Light, Mover of all that is moving and at rest, be my Journey and my far Destination, be my Want and my Fulfilling, be my Sowing and my Reaping, be my glad Song and my stark Silence.  Be my Sword and my strong Shield, be my Lantern and my dark Night, be my everlasting Strength, and my piteous Weakness, Be my Greeting and my parting Prayer, be my bright Vision, and my Blindness, be my sharp Grief, be my sad Death and my sure Resurrection!

How I spent my summer vacation

  A week of vacation in the middle of the summer in a cool town just south of the Virginia border...  With friends in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, we set our sights on our vacation spot months ago.

It started out the week before with the appropriate car problems, and hectic deadlines, and virtually no time for actually planning our vacation.  Friday night, we bought a car to replace the Volvo, and Sunday after church, we were on the road!  We thought we'd have lots of free time to meander, read, write, draw, etc, but the friends we were staying with kept us hopping busy with events and activities to go to, including some rather windey drives around Blowing Rock and surrounding mountains.  Our 5 hour drive to North Carolina in the melancholy weather, under a dark and kind of sulking sky, to the music of Enya (a Day Without Rain, ironically), began to melt the stress away.  The drive and the sky and the music were so beautiful I nearly shed tears of relief.  We arrived after a time to some warm home made crock-pot chili, bruschetta, and peach trifle for dessert.  And a wonderful glass of red wine, quite smooth.

After catching up a bit in the living room with our hosts, we headed to bed and decided to sieze the day early the next morning.  We were given a driving tour of the surrounding area and town because of the rainy weather, the clouds leaving the lay of the land as a surprise for us a day later.  We drove half an hour out, into back country North Carolina; we were being given the real tour-- i.e. real landmarks such as "that is my favorite barn" and here is "the olde country store", and anywhere you pointed, Christmas tree farms.  

 Even farther out, we visited the "fresco church" wherein frescos were painted by a guy who is now frescoing in the vatican; he frescoed for free here, to practice:

After a while, we drove back to town, and explored the local architecture; mostly very beautiful stone.  One church in Blowing Rock, St. Mary's (some demonination that was not Catholic) was the inspiration for some of Jan Karon of the Mitford books' inspiration.

By the middle of day 1 of vaction, we were delighted to no end; being on a driving tour, getting to see a fresco without travelling to Italy... and we were further delighted by our hosts who suggested dinner and a jazz concert that night.  I've never viewed such an interesting menu before as the Storie Street Cafe's menu; it included asparagus fries, gorgonzola cheese, and some really interesting combinations of flavors.  After just plain enjoying reading the menu, I decided on coconut chicken with red curry sauce over sweet potato and edamame succotash.  Our waitress spent fully 3 minutes trying to open a screw-cap bottle of wine at our table with a corkscrew until Paul whispered in my ear, "That's a screw-off cap...." "When are you going to tell her?"  She stepped away to get some help, and we saw the two waitresses laughing when they figured the trouble... 

It has been months and months since we've been talking about going to a jazz concert, and we were delighted to hear some very good blues musicians. 

It felt like a full and complete vacation already...  with 3 and a half more days to go!  We were up early again the next day, woken by more smells of sausage, scrambled eggs, buttered toast, tea..  we fortified and planned a hike or two, the first of which was Glen Burney Falls.  It was like hiking in a valley FULL of mountain laurels.  In fact, it was hiking in a valley full of mountain laurels.

I thought, as I saw native North Carolinians hiking to the falls with hiking poles... what are those for?  This is the easiest walk in the world!  UNTIL, we reached the end, and realized we had an entirely uphill hike the way back up.  We paused on a rock at the bottom of the gorge, seeing our first wildlife of the trip.  Not a huge bear, or even a gopher... or other.. wild forest animals.  It was a salamander, and it was an inch long.  We read at the bottom on the salamander's rock, some of the books we brought hiking with us. 

This waterfall gave us the opportunity to use the super awesome camera tripod Paul got me: it has bendable legs that you can wrap around trees and branches and fence posts.

We hiked twice in the day, stopping downtown in mid day for an ice cream break, for a total of almost 6 miles.  The mashed potatoes and short ribs our hosts made us in the evening were the best tasting to begin with, even though hunger is the best flavoring.  Falling asleep sooner than usual, we slept the night and began our journey early again the next morning on our canoe trip.

Things are so poetic when they happen in 3s.

We enjoyed some ginger ale while we floated downstream.  The water was shallow enough we could count fish, see frogs splashing around, race a family of ducks down the stream, and see a few birds we'd not seen before.

That night we went to Boone, NC to see their local play, as well as people in costume at their old cabins. 

Thursday, we rested a while, drove some more around windey roads, found some more ginger ale, and found ourselves at Glidewells that evening for a fiddle concert.  Not just any fiddle concert, but a fiddle concert by the family band of the cellist who wrote my cello fiddle books.  I enjoyed this immensely, to have found it quite by accident.  I think I might try to find them on purpose next year, and join in the fiddling classes. 

And and that is how I spent my summer vacation.

first one must civilize a space to play your violin with grace

    BEFORE:

AFTER!

BEFORE:

AFTER!

 On vacation, the Beckmanns make their own food every morning

And why this butter churn has an outhouse painted on the front, I will never know or guess.

and Paul reads by the fire

Our cabin had a back porch, where we read and swing and eat.

Pa Beckmann reads to us from a humorous book on Latin declensions. 

The reflection of yellow