Sparks from the Fire

Picture of Peter Link???

Yesterday I contemplated the bone head of a skeleton.  I thought to myself, “Is that what I look like inside?”  Pretty weird.  Then I thought of my pancreas.  I don’t think of my pancreas very often.  In fact, I don’t even know where it is.

It’s mine.  I’ve carried it around for over 5 decades and I don’t even know where it is.  I mean, I know where my shoes are and I’ve only had them for about 3 months now.  But my pancreas!  Come to think of it, I don’t even know why I have it!  I mean I guess I’m glad I do, but why?  What’s it for?

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As I sit here this morning high up on the 38^th floor, I look out my window at New York City, 5:30 AM, just barely coming awake – the city that never sleeps.  From my perch here high up over the city I have a spectacular view all the way south from 42^nd street to the Statue of Liberty and beyond New York Harbor to Staten Island.  If you’re gonna live in NYC, live above it all if at all possible.

I’ve been fortunate.  I’ve watched the city grow and change from this perch for over 25 years.  I love NY.  It’s been a lifetime sittin’ on top of the world watchin’ 10 million people go by, but I’d leave now if I could.  40 years of concrete and glass can wear you out on certain levels and sometimes the Missus and I just want to take a walk in the woods.

But I can’t leave this wondrous city – at least not yet.  Most of it I’ve seen now and certainly experienced, but there’s one thing that still keeps me here. (more…)

Lately I’ve been feeling an inordinate amount of stress before vocal sessions in the recording studio.  As a music producer, I have spent years in the NY studios producing thousands of sessions and producing vocal sessions is one of my fortes, so why this would now happen after all these years of experience was a mystery to me. (more…)

Part 2 — As a producer:

It’s a busy time.  Spent the weekend in the studio working on two projects.  Will spend today, the day after Valentines Day, celebrating 14 year anniversary with the Missus.  I’ll actually take the day off.

The rest of the winter months and spring are loaded with music projects for Watchfire Music – so many that I must get better organized and get my arms around them all.  Here’s a list: (more…)

Sketch by Max

The great thing about blogging about Inspirational music and beyond is that every day I sit down to write, there’s something that’s just happened to talk about.

As many of you already know, my wife, Julia Wade, has been soloist at the Christian Science Center, the World Headquarters of that church for the past 5 years.  Since we live in New York City, that means that she leaves early every Saturday morning for rehearsals, takes the train to Boston and returns the same way very late each Sunday night.

It hasn’t meant exactly living the normal husband/wife weekends for these last years, but, hey, that’s show biz.

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The Art of Healing – Step 1

At a young age I was taught the art of healing by my mother. She taught me to use basically four steps. The first was a protective or preventative measure and 2-4 were the steps I should take if I were to fail to practice the first.

Because of step one I rarely get sick or have physical problems. If I, for whatever reason, get lazy, forgetful, confused or even afraid, and have to move to steps 2-4, I at least have a plan to follow. When I’m smart or prescient enough to follow that plan to a ‘T’, I have always been a successful healer.

What proof do I have of this? I’ve never taken any medicine, I’ve only had one short visit with a doctor in my life, I’ve never felt the need to carry medical insurance and never been admitted to a hospital.

This, by the way, does not make me special. It is not really what some would deem as a ‘gift’, it’s really just normal practice. If your mom taught you to look both ways before crossing the street, you got a gift from mom. I got many gifts from my mom. Healing was one of them. Besides the fact that she gave birth to me, it was probably the best one.

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Well, It happened again. It was bound to. It’s the way my life works. Last night I got into another discussion about God. This time my wife started it. It’s all her fault.

She’s fascinated with historical novels taking place on and around the time of Jesus’ life and was telling me how many divergent concepts about the meaning of the word “God” that she’s running into. We were laughing at some of the silliness of thought that some people bring to it, so many are stuck in this anthropomorphic concept of what I like to call God in man’s image as opposed to man in God’s image.

After a good laugh or two, we plunged right in. There I was, yet again, grasping at straws, trying to build a house to contain the unattainable. I went to bed with the unanswered on my mind and had to really concentrate on ‘things other than’ in order to get to sleep.

So I just woke up with the unanswered begging for attention.

On one hand I go much more these days towards the concept of God as ‘being’ – not “a being”, but rather just ‘being’. Perhaps intelligence… being. Or to get even more specific, perhaps God is the pure truth of the way it is. I like to think of God as Law, the law of spiritual life, not necessarily this mortal existence.

I try to un-humanize God as much as possible. I like the quantum physics approach where there is a connection running through all things (whatever ‘things’ are) – perhaps this connection, this allness is God. I try to un-see God as any kind of anthropomorphic being.

Michelangelo painted a beautiful picture on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of God and man, but I like to think of that as a pretty old-fashioned and, in fact, ancient human misunderstanding – the result of some pretty limited thinking and perhaps the result of some pretty egotistical thinking – God in man’s image.

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“What is this thing called love” the old song goes. The answer to that age-old question can, of course, fill volumes. Love is many things with many flavors.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about compassion – one of those flavors. My favorite definition is, “a deep awareness of and sympathy for another’s suffering”. Most dictionaries leave out the words “deep awareness”, but I think that’s really it in a nutshell. If we have that deep awareness of others, if we get our minds and thoughts off of ourselves and on to others, we’re compassionate.

Our actions follow our thoughts. I want to be more compassionate in life and so I simply must become more aware – more aware of my surroundings and balance that out with my inner focus.

I’m a driven man these days trying to make Watchfire Music into a successful entity and so I often become a bit myopic in my daily doings.  I live, breathe and eat my work and, if I’m not careful, I can get so focused on the one, that I forget the other.

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