Sparks from the Fire

I am responsible.  Each of you is responsible.  Not just Adam Lanza, but we as a people are responsible.

Those who war are responsible.  Those who greed are responsible, for greed makes war.  Those who ignore are responsible.  We as a human race must take action and raise our collective consciousness up past the point where this act is impossible.

So far we have known better than to start nuclear war.  If we know better on this issue, we can know better than to ever have a repeat of Newtown, CT.  How many school shootings do we have to bear before we as a people get it?

It’s not a matter of putting more locks on the school doors; it’s a matter of raising consciousness.

But I start with myself.  So what am I going to do about it?  “It” — the most shocking act of my lifetime.  What have I done to be a part of this?  What can I do going forward to heal my grief, your grief, the grief of a nation – the shame of mankind?

I can live better, that’s what.  I can speak up and not stand for this!  We talk about gun control.  Gun Control!  We must abolish them altogether.  As a race, forget they ever existed!  Melt them down into plowshares.  They have no purpose.  Limit them to the “sport” of killing animals?  Bah!  Get another hobby.

But it’s so much more than just guns; it’s a great mistake of the human consciousness.  If we can’t overcome these notions of killing each other then we as a human race deserve to be wiped out one day.  And if that happens then we as a human race will have done it to ourselves.

Newtown, CT must be our call to action – the action of consciousness.  What do we carry each moment in consciousness?  What are we conscious of?

Raise consciousness.  I need to do whatever I can in my life, to do my part, to live more and more in the purity of thought.  To enforce a higher consciousness wherever and whenever I can.  To take a mighty stand, in whatever way possible, for the goodness and purity of thought.  And I/we must start today, right now.

Not just pray for the grieving.  That is not enough.  We must raise the consciousness of the world – through prayer, through good deeds, through sacrifice, through our thinking.

For we are all responsible.

Last night I made a house call to one of my student’s apartment.  I had to travel there by subway around 8:00 in the evening.  While sitting in the subway in a car about one third full, I noticed a Spanish gentleman literally falling down drunk standing in the doorway holding on to the pole with both hands, but trying mightily to remain erect.

He then began to talk to two African-American women sitting beneath him – one a pretty and sweet looking woman in her 30s sitting with probably her mother.  Because he was so drunk he began falling all over them.  They were obviously bothered by this and were leaning the other way so as to not be touched by this man.

One learns to pretty much to mind one’s own business in the NY subways – the dangers being obvious, but this continued intermittently for several minutes.  People were watching, but nobody was moving to help.

I stood up and walked down the car to the doorway where the man was now bothering the ladies again and heard the drunk blubber, “Aw c’mon Shweetie, I thought you was my frien’?”  The younger one and closest to him responded, “OK, we’re friends, Mister, but you have to stay at arm’s length.”

At that she held out her arm and held him gently away as he staggered and tried to keep from falling across their laps.

I watched his hands.  I just wanted to make sure he was not carrying any kind of weapon. (more…)

I was channel surfing the other night on the tube and I came across a rock concert on AXS TV, my new favorite channel on TV’s great wasteland.  It was an AC/DC concert.  For those of you unfamiliar with AC/DC, they are a high voltage rock ‘n’ roll band that has been consistently selling-out concert tours for over 40 years now with global sales totaling more than 200 million albums.

I was surprised to see an audience full of young people following this group because the group looks “old.”  The rock and roll, drug induced, no sleep lifestyle unfortunately does not produce baby faces and ever-young images.

The kids in the audience were having a ball though, and I was glad to see that groups like the Stones, Metallica and AC/DC were still happinin’ and appreciated.  After all, these are the guys that had a large hand in creating rock and roll to begin with.

The stage was replete with today’s necessary light show, fireworks and other pyrotechnic effects, and number after number went by projecting basically the same theme over and over – Hell, fire and brimstone, the devil and all things dark and spitting from the center of the earth.

Probably the typical message of many bands preaching to teenagers revolting from too much parentally enforced Sunday School.

As I watched, enjoying the power of the music, I began to tire of the same theme over and over.  They had given out little red devil’s horns for everyone in the audience to wear and even some of the musicians in the band wore them  — actually rather dopey and goofy looking …

I began to wonder, “What is this really all about?”  Devil worship?  Revolution from the good old straight and narrow?  Even worse, some sort of pagan ritual played out on a Saturday night?

The band, and especially the lead singer, screamed constantly the same message and the stage effects backed it all up, but then I began to look deeper at the whole scene.  The audience was simply having fun.  They were smiling, joyful, singing along, all standing throughout — they in their little red devil horns were one of the happiest groups of 20,000 I’d seen in a long time. (more…)

Several nights ago I woke up with a cramp in my calf.  As I lay there trying to relax both leg and mind, I knew that the pressures of my recent days had brought me to this point of dysfunction.

Finally, being unsuccessful in letting the thoughts go and the cramp worsening, I got up, put my robe on, and left the bedroom so as not to disturb my sleeping wife.

I began to first hobble groggily, then walk through the living room, kitchen, hallway, circling through my apartment praying and stretching as the pain and tension subsided.  I walked for about 10 minutes until my mind cleared and the pain went away.

On what was to be my last lap I suddenly stopped in the middle of the living room rug as I contemplated both mental condition and body and this thought came searing through my brain: We are the inventions of a far greater mind. 

I began to think once again about what a wondrous invention my body is and how it has really very little to do with me.  I didn’t create it, I don’t understand it, I don’t really maintain it, it even appears, at times, to be self healing, etc., etc. – thoughts I’ve had all to often of late.

I walked on …

I began to imagine a man sitting somewhere in another dimension, an alien from outer space perhaps, ;o) certainly a mind far greater than my own feeble flutterings, perhaps working on a hobby like a person might build a ship in a bottle.

This mind or ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or ‘being’ decides, in its spare time, to occupy his giant brain by building a universe and placing in the middle of that universe a fascinating little ball of matter called Planet Earth.

Then being bored with this universe thing, he (or she) decides to populate it with little beings – all different, with these fascinating micro bodies that are splendid inventions of technology …

You get the idea. (more…)

As a writer, which includes this blog and all my musical composition, I consider myself a bridge.  What is a bridge?  Google defines: “A structure that allows people or vehicles to cross an obstacle such as a river or canal …”

I’m interested in the obstacles that we all face in this partly human experience on Planet Earth and the crossing thereof.  The verb definition is most interesting to me: “To connect or reduce the distance between”.  That’s my goal – to reduce the distance between this human existence (mortality) and my spiritual completeness (spirituality).  To reduce it to nothing.

Many writers just write about the human experience.  The New York Times best-seller list is fill of these author’s works.

Many others write about their visions of the spiritual world and work with mostly immaculate ideas.

Both have their relevance and necessity.

I choose to work the middle ground.  It is my interest to both discover and then provide a bridge from one world to the next.  No matter how lofty my thought, no matter how impeccably I sometimes see the pure, spiritual Peter Link, I still find myself under the covers in bed the next morning waking up to life on Planet Earth.  As long as I keep doing this, I’m going to keep trying to find that bridge – and I’m going to keep writing about it.

And so my songs do not illuminate only pure and perfect worlds.  I write about the obstacles that we all face in getting there.  I try to write about the human condition approaching the divine.  That’s what fascinates me because that’s where I’m at.  I sometimes sense the divine in my life; I am sometimes touched by the divine, but I just don’t live there consistently quite yet.  After all, I live in New York City, two blocks from Times Square – a very complex and wide variety of existence.

I also live in my studio, in a most wondrously creative world surrounded by complex material technology that helps me immeasurably to express my thoughts, discoveries and feelings.  It is definitely a mixture of the material and the spiritual and in every working hour I’m looking for that bridge.  There are rough moments when I think I’m running out of time.  And then there are timeless moments when there is no time and I’m lost (strange word) in the wondrous world of creativity.

I like to tell the truth as I see it.  It’s my particular corner on life.  Perhaps it can illuminate a thought or two for you?  Perhaps it will ruffle your feathers.

And make you think … (more…)

Two bro’

Note: The following is Part 3 of a 4 part series written especially for my close family.  It is pretty personal stuff, but, in retrospect, eminently shareable with this readership family

When I had graduated from college, moved to New York City and had some early success in show business, I lived alone, a bachelor.  Every Christmas for 5-6 years I would go spend the holiday season with Jim and his family in St. Louis.  Mom and Dad lived there as well, but it was Jim’s house that I stayed in.  He had three of the sharpest kids I have ever laid eyes on – Cindy, Tina and a little red-headed ball-buster named Travis.  In those years I became the Jim to Travis’s Pete – except that I was about 25 years older than Travis rather than 5.

Jim, Travis, Tina, Pete, Cindy

We had a love/hate relationship that usually ended up with Travis going to his mom crying, but he too just could not turn from the opportunity to try to wallop Unca Pete.  Sometimes he would crawl up on the bed and wake me up with a slug to the nose or the closed eye.  Ouch!  Anyone who has ever raised a 5-year old knows that their punch can really hurt.  Sometimes I would hear him coming and just as he reared back to let one loose, I would wake up and scream “AAAAHHH” and scare him half to death so that he would run crying to Mom.

Those Christmases became the iconic Christmases for me because they were my way of hanging on to my own childhood and playing with those beautiful children that I had fallen so in love with.  Jim and I would stay up till 4 or 5 o’clock every Christmas Eve wrapping presents for the kids and often talking about our own childhood Christmases and the great times we had together as kids.  Whenever we would tell stories of when we were kids to his kids; they would gather around wide-eyed and fully concentrated, excited to hear about when we were like them.  These were their favorite stories and we had to tell them over and over.

Christmas Eve Preparation

For the next 30 years or so, Jim, the accountant, did my taxes for free each year and advised me how to take my proper deductions, organize my business life, steer clear of shady deals and stay on top of my roller coaster financial life in show biz.  One thing you can say about show biz:  It is not financially consistent.  I never had a real consistent  job until Watchfire Music.  I never knew where the next job was coming from, and yet I’m proud to say that I never had to work at any other job besides making music.  That one thing is a success story in itself in this business.  But it is an up and down life – like most entrepreneurs. (more…)

Snoopy, the famous dog, of Peanuts renown and brilliant creation of Charles M. Schulz, was famous, among many reasons, in particular for his writer’s block.  Who hasn’t giggled understandingly at the quizzical look on Snoopy’s face wondering what to write after his famous opening line “It was a dark and stormy night …” as he set out upon the writing of his novel perched upon his doghouse roof with his miniature typewriter?

We laugh because we so understand the moment.  It’s a moment that has happened to each of us as we set upon a creative task.  It is a problem of great renown for writers and creators the world over.  For most it’s very real and very much a mystery.  “Why, when I so want to create, does nothing come?  Where is the muse?  On vacation?  How do I get started?

Well, I’m here to tell ya’ that if you’ve suffered from this before, your problems are now over because writer’s block is simply not real.  It’s nothing more than a misunderstanding of the creative process.

A dear friend wrote me just the other day seeking help on just such a thing only he called it “writer’s cramp”.  No matter what you call it, cramp, block or just creative anxiety, it’s all the same big nothing.

Wikipedia states, “Writer’s block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some “blocked” writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers. Throughout history writer’s block has been a documented problem.^[1] Professionals who have struggled with the affliction include author F. Scott Fitzgerald^[2] and pop culture cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.^[3]It can manifest as the affected writer viewing their work as inferior or unsuitable, when in fact it could be the opposite. “

Writer’s Block

Interesting that Charles M. Schulz is one of the famous sufferers.

Causes: Again from Wiki, “Writer’s block may have many or several causes. Some are essentially creative problems that originate within an author’s work itself. A writer may run out of inspiration. The writer may be greatly distracted and feel he or she may have something that needs to be done beforehand. A project may be fundamentally misconceived, or beyond the author’s experience or ability.”

I say, “Bah!” (more…)

I think about truth a lot.  It’s fast becoming my life’s greatest interest – far out-pacing music, money, and the Yankees.  Daily dealings with all the various concepts of the word “Inspirational” seem to focus my life more and more on the spiritual.  I’m not resisting it; in fact, I’m opening up to it.  And it’s certainly opening up to me.

We’re in a spiritual age.  Looking back through history, these ages come in cycles.  This is the next one.  Go into any bookstore.  Books for seekers abound.  Christian music is the one genre of music that has actually grown during this terribly trying time in the music industry.  Oprah announces discussions with Eckhart Tolle on line and millions show up to partake.  Never before has content for seekers been more available.

I study my own religion, but I read voraciously Wayne Dyer, Yogananda, Ram Dass, Spalding’s Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East, Joseph Smith’s Book Of Mormon, The Gospel According to Jesus, Tolle’s A New Earth and on and on.  I like to say, “I’m getting’ it any way I can.”  Truth, that is.

Stop at Judgement; turn right on Truth

One thing strikes me along this road.  Why is it that so many people think they have a corner on truth?  How preposterous to think that the Christians are right and everybody else is wrong – that the Sunnites are better than the Shiites.  There’s gotta be truth to every religion – otherwise, why would people be drawn to it in the first place.

I suggest it’s not religion that separates us, but language.  “The words are different, so the philosophy’s gotta be different” is the mistake we humans make.  And we Christians are some of the worst offenders.  How arrogant to think that only Jesus got it right.  Jesus did get it right, but he wasn’t alone. (more…)