A Julia Cameron Artist Date – The No Name Pops

dipping music from the well of today

LIFE

Life is full of both accords and discords, not just accord and discord. Both find multiple ways to show up. It is almost certain that each day contains at least one memorable experience of each.

Major news outlets feature mainly discordant times, while each morning a first post in my email inbox is from The Good News Network.

The Good News Network highlights ways in which people are displaying goodness, compassion, love, gratitude, creativity, generosity of heart and material supply, and newly discovered stunning facts about our natural environs.

We are a world of both kinds of news and ways in which the realities of human existence are playing out.  

AN ARTIST DATE

So, feeling both, I took myself on a Julia Cameron artist date,

“… a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly“artistic” — think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well (bolded by me)of images and inspiration. When choosing an Artist Date, it is good to ask yourself, “what sounds fun?” — and then allow yourself to try it.”

FINDING FUN

The No Name Pops is an orchestra composed of former musicians of the Philly Pops. Part of their mission is:

“…melding tradition with an innovative approach unbound by musical genre for concert experiences that will entertain and empower our entire community. …The No Name Pops embraces our potential to effect significant positive change, drawing our community together to foster a lifelong love of music.”

Currently, the professional musicians volunteer their time, an immense gift to the community of the city and surrounding areas.

As I look back at Julia Cameron’s description of an artist date, I can say that the performance was absolutely filled with imagination, whimsy, and playful moments.

It brought together an audience I have no doubt was made up of different political persuasions and varied faiths and cultural practices, to name a few.

Music, in its many forms, does this.

While in a community of relative ease, I was reminded that music also rises up out of suffering, both in composition and performance. As I watched and listened, I thought of groups that courageously perform in the midst of war as a way to uplift, resist, and hold one another in hope.

THE MYSTERY ORCHESTRA MEMBER

I kept my eye on a musician who seemed to have no role. His seat was in front of the percussion section. For most of the concert his hands were on his knees. I could see a strap across his shoulder but nothing more. When the rest of the orchestra rose to applause after a few of the pieces, he remained seated.

My curiosity kept building, looking for any sign at all of his role.

While I don’t like to admit that my mind even went to this thought, but perhaps a sign of our times, I wondered if he was a security person embedded in the orchestra.

Sometimes my imagination gets the best of me, too.

During the last number, I finally saw movement as he seemed to put his hands around a string instrument of some kind.

Ah, now the reveal … a moment when several singular notes in a row were played in a way that made me feel expectant.

The orchestra picked up the sound and the tempo. Suddenly, in the most delightful, humorous surprise, the “silent” musician stood up with his electric guitar and belted out a raucous, intricately played solo part. What fun!

I hope I can live expectantly each day, open and attuned, waiting to notice the tiniest thing or listening closely enough so I don’t miss a word or words that make all the difference.

EMOTIONS

Unsplash Photo Courtesy of Fadi-XD

Two emotions kept equal pace during the hour and a half in my comfortable seat in a beautiful auditorium with the hundreds of others.

EMOTION 1

I felt unbridled joy, pure joy, listening to music I love so much of many Broadway shows. It is music that is fun and lifts my spirits.

It is music that weaves me through the memories of so many decades and so many moments.

I thought of sitting at the piano of my youth playing many of those pieces, singing along. When I was the only sibling left at home, after my parents went to bed, I often played and sang. There was a grate in the ceiling between the living room and their bedroom that at one time allowed heat from a coal stove to rise and warm the room.

After I finished a song, my dad would call so I could hear him through the grate, “sing another one.” He and I were, I think, the only two truly romantic ones in the family.

I also thought of my days in every music organization I could be in. The moment of the curtain opening to the bands, orchestras or choruses I loved being in was always exhilarating.

EMOTION 2

The other emotion I felt keenly was a sense of sadness, even of grief. It feels like a paradox to feel joy and grief at the same time, but it is often so.

I chose to listen with my heart, to feel joy for all those around the world who can’t, millions and millions of people suffering on levels and in conditions I cannot begin to comprehend.

People where joy feels so far away, though I believe joy can be felt if only in the tiniest moment, in desperate situations.

People who cannot hear one musical note unless perhaps their own humming.

People who are held hostage or in forced labor camps or trying to escape unfathomable conditions where desperation, often paired with felt but unseen hope, is all they know.

People in war torn places where the violence seems unending, reminding me we have not as a human species yet learned to replace killing with love, compassion, kindness, cooperation, honoring differences and so much more.

Tears for them accompanied the joy as the music so beautifully flowed into my being.

REPLENISHMENT OF MY WELL

The No Name Pops replenished my inner well to overflowing.  

Even with grief coursing through, I left the hour and a half of soaring, romantic, playful, dramatic sounds feeling uplifted beyond what I had imagined.

LET’S JOIN TOGETHER

I left more committed than ever to playing whatever part I can, whatever “note,” to bring refilling of individual wells into the lives of others and perhaps refilling of communal wells.

In what I think of as “the wild and crazy world” in which we live, where there is a deep longing to be seen, heard, nourished, refueled, refilled, loved, encouraged, and to find community, I deeply desire to collaborate with others to “be the music” and “dip into and fill the wells.”

Just as Mary Oliver asked the beautiful question, “Tell me that is it you plan to do with your one precious life?” I ask of myself and of each of us:

What is it we can do in the well of today, of each day, to dip into that which brings us together, that which is as great a source of nourishment to our ways of being as water is to the body? How can we then share it bountifully?

I’d love for us to form the beginning of an unending list.

Thank you for being here - and do try an Artist Date.