Loss and Treasures

Listening to David Gans' Stanford Course from last week...

Buying a bus ticket for a ride to a circus

David Gans is now talking with Jeff Matson about Joseph Campbell visiting the Grateful Dead Phil Lesh brought his copy of the Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake to a dinner at Bob Weir’s house for Campbell to autograph. I am truly privileged to be able to attend this course and it’s giving me this “writers” prompt.

Loss and Treasures - I’m reminded of a time in the 1990s when I was listening to a man talk at Posvar Hall at the University of Pittsburgh. He said, succinctly, in a resonant voice, “Life is a continual series of losses,” and this made a “deep print” on me, right then. I found a great deal of solace in that statement. We are all on a journey from “I to Otherwise” and it can indeed be harrowing. However, it’s worth it.

This brings me back to a lyric written by Robert Hunter and collected by Bob Dylan from a table filled with lyrics by Hunter. I remember Mickey Hart mentioning how Bob just took the sheet. It became “Sylvio” and Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Brent Mydland provided back-up vocals. The lyric that relates is “I could tell you fancy, I could tell you plain / You give something up for everything you gain. / Since every pleasure has an edge of pain / Pay for your ticket and don’t complain.” Bob (Dylan and Hunter) go on to say, “I gotta go / Find out something only dead men know.

David will be holding another session this evening and late registration is possible. I registered last Friday. I’m privileged to be able to spend the time and energy to be a part of this community.

I’m part of many communities, in fact. One of the tickets that I’m going to be using on Friday is to Rhythm Monster’s program at Loyal Drums just north of Fredericksburg, VA. It continues on Saturday and then, that evening, I’ll be heading to Fairfax to muster with a small contingent of the Colonial Williamsburg Fife and Drum Alumni. Three of the tunes that we’ll be playing are new to me. At 62, I can still learn new tricks.

Another community of importance to me is the Historic Trades Preservation community. I founded a Facebook group to help bring those interested in preserving the trades of the past together, globally. We are approaching 2000 members. My other group, Fife and Drum Corps Fans, is well over 3000. I’m just grateful to be able to be a catalyst who brings people together who might not otherwise ordinarily connect.

Still, I am an imperfect vessel through which energy flows. I was spending time with my vocal coach working through some texts and letting myself sing. We began to talk a bit about “The Book - The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.” The author points out that we are all tubes that put things in one end and let them out of the other. It really does come down to that. We have all kinds of elaborate ways to get things to put in our anterior ends. One of these is by doing just this; writing.

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