There’s probably no greater cause of war throughout history than religious differences.  The only thing that comes close to it is greed.  I choose to stay as far away from the human element of religion in my spiritual practice, which, of course, is rather impossible, but, for me, preferable.  We humans (and I count myself as one) have confused the study of God, consciousness, reality, our world, matter, thought, spirit and the universe by dividing into groups and along the way, shutting doors and windows to alternative thought in an effort to protect our own.

It strikes me that religions often are more limiting than creative.  They often force the thinker into a box and essentially say, “think this, study this, here is the only truth – shut the rest out.”

If there is anything that I’ve learned in my life’s study of spirituality, it’s that nobody has a corner on truth.  Truth is truth.  Everybody has access to it. Every religion I’ve ever studied captured and illuminated much truth for me.  The only thing that really ever got in my way was the differences in language or the various definitions of words that are tossed about.  Most religious differences I’ve found to be based on a confusion of semantics.

So I choose to call myself first a spiritual seeker rather than a religious person.  I hope this does not offend you as I approach the writing of this post with the objective of unifying thought as opposed to dividing it.

Wikipedia states, “A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge.  In a more restricted sense a scientist is an individual who uses a scientific method.  The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science…  Some perform research toward a more comprehensive understanding of nature, including physical, mathematical and social realms…  This is distinct from philosophers, those who use logic toward more comprehensive understanding of intangible aspects of reality that lack a direct connection to nature, focusing on the realm of thought itself.”

If we’re to accept these definitions put forth by Wikipedia, then I suppose I’m sort of a scientist/philosopher, a combination of both.  I do engage in a “systematic activity to acquire knowledge” and also I do “use logic toward more comprehensive understanding of intangible aspects of reality…, focusing on the realm of thought itself.”

All said and done, I prefer the word “scientist”.  I find spirit to be actually quite tangible the more I study it and matter to be less and less the reality.  So I call myself a spiritual scientist.

If I am pinned down to name a life religion I admit very freely to being a Christian Scientist.  For those who need a specific religious definition of the way I think, that explains it as well as I know how on the religious level.  I grew up a Christian Scientist, attended the Christian Science Sunday School and learned the principles of the religion.  In my late twenties and early thirties I decided to explore beyond and commenced a 20-year journey of examination of many of the world’s great religions.  This journey was primarily the result of some very serious and thoughtful research I participated in the first couple of years of that journey using the drug, LSD.

The controlled research that I and a few friends took part in certainly opened our minds to many things never before considered regarding life, consciousness, reality and matter and launched me into even further study of spirituality in areas that did not include drugs.  It became very clear to me that drugs were not the answer, but I will say that they did provide me a fascinating starting point for exploration and launched my bark into immediate waters of wonder and matter/mind-blowing thought.

I then spent a few years as a practicing Hindu and found that religion to be immaculate in its conception, rich in thought, radical in approach and full of truth.  Ultimately I found it difficult to practice it as a western capitalist trying to build a career in show business in NYC.  I don’t know whether that would be true for me today, but decades ago I then moved on to Buddhism.

For a couple of years I studied the Dhammapada, generally accepted to be the words of Buddha, and found these verses to be elegant truths that rarely differed from the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Studying Buddhism was a joy for me because it further substantiated my understanding of the basic truths of Christianity.  There were, of course, many unfamiliar words that in the beginning would scare me and actually put me off until I learned to simply explore the meaning of the word.  Always these strange words constructed in foreign languages revealed to me truths that I already believed and understood when translated into my own language.  Through these studies I learned not to be fearful of words that I did not use or even know and rather look at their strangeness as opportunities to shed new light on spirituality.

I finally came to understand that human language is insufficient to explain the world of spirituality.  It simply was not invented for that world.  And so looking at spirituality through the various lenses of language became a plus rather than a minus.

I studied Confucianism, Jainism, the Koran, Judaism, Taoism, and Bahá’í through those years of seeking and honestly found that basically, they all said pretty much the same thing, but used different words.

I then, while in my mid forties, began to have a number of serious physical problems for the first time in my life.  As I had never been to a doctor, taken medicine or set foot in a hospital, I decided to tackle these physical problems by healing them rather than using the medical route.

I visited a Christian Science Practitioner to elicit his help.  We commenced a three-month series of meetings – one a week – where we systematically did a “spring cleaning” on my thinking.  One visit we would discuss business ethics, the next, self-confidence, the next, sexuality, and so on.  Each week he would correct my thinking and adjust my consciousness of right and wrong.  He was merciless and I dove into this cleaning of my attic with him.  During the week I would practice what he taught.

After 3 months of these meetings I was a better man – mentally and physically.  We never discussed my physical problems at all – only my mental insufficiencies or confusions.  I cleaned these up and committed to a better way of thinking and practicing that thought – a better way of living.

In the course of those three months all of my physical problems cleared up and went away.  I was healed.  There was never any difficulty moving through this experience.  It was all completely positive and I enjoyed the challenge of cleaning up my mind and watching the physical ills disappear as a by-product of that mental purification.

I became a practicing Christian Scientist once again.  However, Christian Science was then the basis of my thinking, the central core, though not the circumference of my thinking.  Since then I have borrowed helpful corrections to thought from all the sources I studied over those years countless times.  Again, truth is truth and I had a myriad of ways to investigate it and look at it.

I have never found this mixing pot to be confusing to my practice and demonstration of truth.  My spiritual seeking continues to this day – probably more than ever as I grapple with life, and become more conscious of my own spirituality.  The more I learn; the more there is to learn.

In the last ten years I have chosen music as my central tool of exploration.  As a life work, music is probably what I’m best at.  I’ve spent a lifetime practicing, so why not use it as the means to explore the objective of utmost importance.  Exploring spirituality through music is really fascinating because music is such a universal language.  It is not limited by spellings and strange words, but is appreciated and loved by all mankind.

Music too is a fascinating science.  Again, the more I learn; the more there is to learn.  The two, music and spirituality, seem to go hand in hand for me.  One complements the other.  I am a more spiritual man when I’m creating my music and I’m definitely a better musician when I approach the creation of music spiritually.

I am also always at my best as a person when I am in the studio writing, arranging, orchestrating, etc.  There I am the happiest, the most fulfilled and the least stressful.  Trouble just seem to fall away when I walk into my studio and I find myself doing everything I can in life to get to work musically.  On days when the rest of life gets so hectic that I can’t do that work, I struggle.  On the days that I work, I am fulfilled.

Still some things to be learned here… )

So I am a spiritual scientist/philosopher/musician.  Being a human being is far too often a struggle.  Here is where I need to improve and learn to manage life.  Here is where I’m still stuck – earthbound.  Both The Missus and I now discuss daily how we can approach these issues of humanity more gracefully and productively.  Here is where the problems lay.  Here is the next plateau of concentration.

In the meantime, however, I have my joy life, my world of peace, creativity and fulfillment to enter into and explore.  My gratitude abounds for this space in thought.  I am divinely fortunate.

I don’t know what I can accomplish during the rest of my time here on Planet Earth, but I do know that I am committed to this one endeavor only – scientific spiritual seeking through music.  Everything else pales in comparison.  Eating, sleeping, the laborious minutiae of everyday life all are just things to work through so that my true commitment can be practiced.  The human experience is a stepping-stone to the divine.  We’re trying to make those steps shorter every day.

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• When Things Go Wrong
• God Is doG Spelled Backwards
• The Atheist
• Loving God
• Phoenix Rising

He was a chicken.  I don’t mean he was afraid to do things; I mean he was really a chicken.  Well, not in all actuality, but he was acting a chicken.

Let me explain.

I was performing at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel Ballroom in some unremembered benefit back in the days when I did such things, and after I had finished my act, the stage manager asked me if I’d like to see the rest of the show.  I said that I would and during the blackout and set change for the next act I was quickly led to a front row table right smack at the stage proscenium.  I was so close to the next act that the comedian could have stepped on my head if he wasn’t careful.

I was not, this time, literally ‘in the wings’, but I was so up close and personal that it felt like it.

I do not remember the comic’s name, but I will never forget his act.  It was hilarious and he kept the audience howling with hysterical laughter for a full ten minutes.

Like I said, he was a chicken.  He was totally committed to being a chicken and, of course, he had to be.  His act was so ‘out there’ that he would have bombed horribly if he had not been so committed.  In it, he chicken-scratched, he rooster-strutted, he hen-squawked, he flapped his wings, he clucked, he gave us the best “cockadoodledoo” I’ve ever heard and he chickened about the stage in a total frenzy for the full ten minutes.  What’s more, he wore no chicken costume at all.  Just a man in his pants and shirt, but he impersonated a chicken before our very eyes.  (Or perhaps he imchickenated a person when he finished his act.)

About the only thing he did that was un-chicken-like was that he sweated.  Oh my god did he sweat.  This comic was workin’ the house and was chickening so deeply that he must have lost ten pounds in ten minutes.  The sweat flew off him like he was in the shower and any number of times flew right on me as I sat, fascinated and wet.  I’ve seen men do this in the last frantic minutes of an overtime basketball game, but never such a constant shower on stage – and I’ve never had, before or since, the ‘privilege’ of taking part in anything resembling that shower of activity.

I don’t remember ever laughing.  I remember thinking that he was really funny, and being aware of the audience roaring almost continuously, but laugh myself?  Not.  I was too fascinated with the caloric burn, the intense mad workout and the tsunami-like proportion of his effort as the sweat flew off him like feathers.

I remember thinking that I was glad that I had never chosen to be a comic.  For such a funny thing, it’s just hard work!  He was a big man, which made his particular chicken character even funnier, of course.  He was so committed that I wondered how long, when he finally got off stage, it would take him to transform back into a human being.  Perhaps they had a big bowl of chicken feed and water waiting for him back in his dressing room.

After the show, as I too was a cast member, I was hanging out back stage, and had to go see him and thank him for his wondrous performance.  He took one look at me and snarled, “Oh, you’re the guy sitting in the front row who never laughed!  Wha’ja think this was, Othello?

A comic to the end.

The stage is an amazing thing.  It gives permission – permission to the performer to be the center of attention in the room.  It contains within itself the power of focus.  It says all by itself even when empty, “Here I am.  Watch me.”

And yet, get too close and sometimes you can cross the line of demarcation from audience to performer unknowingly.  When that happens, life changes dramatically and suddenly you’re on the other side.  You’ve moved from a very safe place of being entertained, to a very dangerous place indeed – if you don’t know what you’re doing.  It’s a whole other world up there and very few except the elite really understand it and can exist comfortably therein or thereon.  I’ve learned to respect it deeply and also respect the great talent, experience and know-how it takes to fill that space with magic.

Many who perform never really get it and it defeats them eventually.  Few truly succeed.  It’s one of the wonders of life on Planet Earth – the stage.  I learned early in life what it takes to be a great performer.  I often stood in the wings and watched them, the great ones, and tried to figure out just how they did it.  The best one-word answer I can come up with is ‘commitment’.  The best are totally committed to that moment in time – to the doing of that moment fully in imaginary circumstances.  It ain’t easy.  And for those who can actually get the job done, I take off my hat – and watch from the wings.

My most recent experience standing in the wings has been the longest.  For the past seven years I have stood in the wings watching my wife, Julia Wade  (affectionately known here as ‘The Missus’) change the face of music in the Christian Science Church performing as Soloist every Sunday at its world headquarters in Boston.  When she was offered the job seven long years ago she was given the direction by the Board of Directors to lead the music of that church into the 21^st century.

We used to joke that she would take it from the 19^th century leapfrogging over the 20^th and into the 21^st the music was so behind the times.

It was not an easy job.  There were many against change of any sort.  In the beginning, even some of those closest to her position were against change and fought her in subtle and not so subtle ways.  But she persisted with the loving support of the Board of Directors and though she often came under fire for her 21^st century choices of style, sound, instrumentation, techniques of performance and especially choices of material, she was a strong world leader in the movement and won over, by example, most of those who were afraid to change in the beginning.  She also, again by example, showed Christian Science churches around the world musically what they could do and how they could do it in their own churches.

The first 3-4 years were especially tough on her.  Often there was great resistance and some turmoil, but through a very high sense of prayerful integrity she led the movement of change – sensitively and definitely.

Now, seven years later, music in this church is seen and heard in a whole different landscape.  She has been able to hold on to the greatness of the past while expanding the range of music so that all would be attracted to the teachings of the church on a musical level.

Along the way also I have witnessed many who did not appreciate a more modern music in the beginning learn to first accept it and then understand and love it in the end.  Not only was she able to make the changes required, but also she was also able to educate as well – education being the panacea for revolution.

And now her time is coming to an end.  At the end of April, 2012 she will complete her job as soloist and move on to a wider sphere of audience and peoples.  Focusing more on her recording career and international concert career, she will continue to be an inspirational communicator through music and I see her taking the experience of seven years of leadership and performance to an expanded world.

These past seven years I’ve had the great privilege of being the unofficial “man behind the curtain” in this endeavor.  As her principal composer and record producer I’ve been able to watch and consult from a bit of a distance and sometimes help her through the shallows and depths of the experience.  I’ve stood in the wings and watched, fascinated, as she encountered obstacle after obstacle and moved gracefully forward.

I’ve been grateful and relieved to be able to stay behind that curtain and not have to step out on that stage with her.  She’s always been the point man (woman) and taken the heat (and gotten the applause) and I’m fine with that.  I’ve learned that standing behind the curtain is where I belong in life.  I’m good there.  It’s a comfortable place for me and it’s where I’m at my best.

The next four months, as she moves towards her time of closure, I shall stay behind that curtain and continue to encourage, suggest and yes, take notes on how she might do it better.  In the meantime, I’m still fascinated in watching greatness evolve from this up close and personal position.

I get to continue to study talent and investigate and explore the amazing craft of performance from my dark protected corner of the stage, there in those wings in the safety of my thoughts and observances.

Many people aspire to the stage.  I learned early on in my career that it’s just not my place and I’m good with that.  I’m happy to watch and learn and I’ve been very fortunate to stand in those wings.

After all, I’ve had the best seat in the house.

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Spiritual Scientist
• Wonderful
• Phoenix Rising
• Chanting/Enchanting
• My Body

Previous to this month I had only ever written one Christmas song – a song recorded by the Jenny Burton Experience called Christmas In My Soul.  They say, in the music business, that the month of June is the month to write and begin one’s Christmas album, the preparation of such to be around 5-6 months.  Who can write Christmas songs in June?  What a silly notion.

This year the Missus has come up short in her search for the perfect Christmas song for her Christmas Day performance in church.  She had decided to employ a terrific Boston harpist and together with her organist, Bryan Ashley, keep it small and delicate in accordance with the spiritual implications of the morning.  Last year she used a brass quintet plus the church four manual pipe organ and blew the roof off, so this year she wanted to do something completely different.

But no song came to mind to fit the criteria.

While watching her go through her turmoil, I happened to mention one day several weeks ago that perhaps I could write one for her.  This was said in a fit of compassion for her plight while I was in the middle of the mad dash of the final throes of my own CD, Goin’ Home.

Seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, she grabbed at the offer and signed me up.  At first I thought, “Oh no, what have I gotten myself into?”  Where would I ever find the time to do this?

Then she came up with the notion that not only should I write it and arrange it for harp and keyboard, but that we should also record it and sell it for Christmas.  Then she came up with the idea that we should also do the sheet music for it and sell that too and let others use it in their churches for their Christmas services as well.  Then she came up with the idea that as long as we were going to do all that, she may as well use the song for her musical Christmas Presence lecture that she does around the country with lecturer, Chet Manchester.  This only moved the deadline for all this up by about 2 ½ weeks!  “Egads,” thought I.  “What have I done?”

So I did it.  In the next 3 days Julia will record the lead vocal to the orchestrated track, Craig Wagner, the designer, will design all the packaging, I’ll mix the song, the WFM staff will manufacture about a hundred singles to start with and by Thursday we’ll be selling this song that will receive it’s first performance in St. Louis on this coming Sunday.  Whew!

Will we make it?  With God’s help, we shall.

It’s a new world.  Things like this can be accomplished in a matter of weeks, a matter of days now.  The power of computers – the power of Mind.

The writing was fun and accomplished in a matter of 48 hours.  Once that was done, I knew we’d be OK.  The rest was just a matter of getting’ it done.

Julia directed me to the Bible for my text and chose the tried and true – think Handel.

“And his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace
Yes his name shall be called Wonderful”

But I also wanted to shed some new light on the subject – not just rehash George Fredric.  Julia suggested that I combine the Bible text with some of the text of Mary Baker Eddy and her thoughts on the life of Jesus.  Julia and her big ideas!  Using text (non-lyrics) always makes good songwriting very difficult in that text is not metered and has a way of not particularly sounding very musical much less poetic.  On top of that the text of Mary Baker Eddy cannot be changed by even the alteration of a comma.

However the text she gave me was poetic to a certain extent so I thought I’d give it a go.  I had a great deal more content than I needed to begin with.  Julia can have her long-winded moments, so I had to do some clever editing.  Always easier to cut than to add.  While fooling around with several lyrical directions the line struck me like a lightening bolt — “And his name shall be called Wonderful,”

“What a great idea,” thought I.  Call the song Wonderful!

And so I did.

I was on my way…

Here is the finished lyric.  In another magical musical week you’ll be able to hear, sing, play, perform, buy and listen to the whole thing through the wonderful world of MIDI, LOGIC, the INTERNET and God’s gift of inspiration.

Hot off the presses!

Wonderful

Text by Mary Baker Eddy
Lyrics adapted from the Book of John
Music by Peter Link

The wakeful shepherd beholds
The first faint morning beams,
Ere cometh the full radiance
Of a risen day.

So shone the pale star
To the prophet-shepherds;
Yet it traversed the night, and came
Where, in cradled obscurity, lay
The Bethlehem babe,
And his name shall be called Wonderful,
Wonderful

The people that walked in darkness
Have seen a very great light:
For unto us a child is born,
And a son is given:
And the government shall be upon his shoulder:

And his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace
Yes his name shall be called Wonderful

Now the Son of man is glorified,
Yes and God is glorified in him.
Verily, he says unto you,
“He that believeth on me,
The works that I do shall he do also;
And greater works than these shall he do;

If ye love me, keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father,
And he shall give you another Comforter”

The prophet of today
Beholds in the mental horizon
The signs of these times,
The reappearance of the Christianity
Which heals the sick
And destroys error,
And no other sign shall be given.

When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth,
The prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled:
Saying “Unto us a child is born, . . .”
“Unto us a child is born, . . .”

And his name shall be called Wonderful.”
Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace
Yes his name shall be called Wonderful
Wonderful
Yes he is wonderful
Wonderful!

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Love Is The Reason For Living
• The Decline of Lyrical Craftsmanship – Part 1
• Nothing
• You Must Remember This!
• My Body

Note: The following is a compilation of several posts and some new updates intended for newer readers of this blog.  Much has been written about our new project, Goin’ Home.  If you’ve been following all along, you may find some redundancies here; however, if you’re somewhat new to the project, you’ll find here a summary of events and thoughts that will bring you somewhat up to date.

What if today you could go over to your neighborhood grocery, grab that cart and shop for anything your little ol’ heart desired, then, instead of getting into the checkout line, skip that and just head home with your groceries – steak, shrimp, Haagen Daz, throw in a little Kobe Beef, some chocolate truffles and perchance a tin or two of Almas Caviar.

When you got outside with your overflowing shopping cart, the police would be there, but would just look the other way as you passed by chuckling gleefully, licking your chops.

What a great idea!  Why don’t we do this?  Food should be free!  I think most of us would agree that life would be a lot easier if food were free.

Trouble is, after very little time, maybe the next time we went back to the supermarket, the aisles would be empty, the shelves bare.  “Hey, all the food is gone!” you might cry.  “Well, let’s go back to the farmers and get more,” the store manager would say.

So we’d go to the farmers and say, “Hey farmers, make more food!”  They would respond like this:  “Without getting paid, it’s just too hard.  Sorry, but there’s just no more food.  We’re gonna go do something else.”

Well, essentially that’s what just happened to the music business – except for one problem.  Of course the farmers equal the artists in this little analogy and the artists, who love to make music, are still saying, “Oh cool, you like my music? You actually want to listen to my music?  OK, I’ll give it to you for free!”

So it’s gonna take a little time before this situation is righted.  Give the starving artists a chance to really starve.   Then they won’t be able to make any more music no matter how much they love to do it.  Cuz we all gotta eat!

We are, today, living in that era of empty aisles and starving artists.  The music business has collapsed under the weight of horrible leadership. (The four majors ignored the power of the Internet for so long that now they’ve missed the boat.) File sharing and outright stealing have become the norm for millions of young people.

The unfair treatment of artists by the companies has long been legendary (the companies themselves would always make back all their investment before the artists ever saw a cent of their royalties), and now development money has completely dried up as both the major record labels and the indies struggle for survival.  Where would the pharmaceutical industry be without research and development?  Nowhere.

That’s the old record business.

But all is not lost.  Never before in the history of the world has music been more proliferate.  Everywhere we turn, there is music.  “The day the music died” is a virtual impossibility.  Music is simply that much a part of the human consciousness.

So, as part of the natural order of things, a new world emerges.  Out of the ashes of the old one rise new ideas, a more fair treatment of the artists by now paying royalties on first dollar earned, and a cutting edge approach to new ways of approaching fans and customers.

It is a renaissance time in which the artist is now asked to be both business person and artist.  Not only must he be able to play his guitar, but he must also be able to understand the constantly changing evolution of the Internet and its powers.

In most cases today, the artist must be his or her own investor, marketing department, graphics designer, videographer, accounting department and retail store.  Selling from their own websites, many artists have almost been able to accomplish the near impossible.  Where most fail is on the all-important level of promotion.  By the time the new music is finished, mastered and manufactured, there usually just isn’t enough money left to promote the product.

So the music sells to a few friends and family and sits quietly on a website among millions of other sites that perhaps receives a hundred hits a month, if they’re lucky.  And the music languishes on a virtual shelf.

One thing we know for sure: Acts who tour, sell.  Acts who don’t, don’t.  So we must tour.  Touring is expensive, however, and the money is gone.  Often, many artists don’t even get to this point, running out of money before the CD is actually completed.  It’s a frustrating scenario.

However, now there is the hope of companies like Kickstarter.com and Indiegogo.com, on-line companies where artists and entrepreneurs with creative projects can raise money through crowd-funding from leagues of possible friends and supporters from around the world.

We are exploring this very real possibility right now with a new CD, Goin’ Home – On Heaven and Beyond to be released in November of 2011 and promises to be an in-depth look at a subject that many of us spend most of our lives avoiding.  Here is a joyful, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, exploration of the transition from this world to the next.  It’s really a celebration of eternal life.

The CD’s purpose is to open our eyes to the timelessness of our future.  The vision is to take an open-eyed look at an eventuality we all will face one day and face it head on.

The music is drawn from both original compositions, and also from the rich tradition of beloved Spiritual songs and Gospel lyrics from the past hundred years of the American songbook.

Great traditional songs like In Dat Great Gittin’ Up Mornin’, When The Saints Go Marchin In, the title song, Goin’ Home, with Antonín Dvo?ák’s timeless melody, and even Spiritual classics, I Ain’t Gonna Grieve My Lord No More and I Got A Robe all receive new fresh approaches and orchestrations and tremendous performances by a powerful cast of New York session vocalists and guest artists.

The choir alone is worth the price of purchase.  Led by double gold album R&B/Gospel vocalist, Jenny Burton, it’s performers comprise an ‘A’ list of world-class back-up singers who have sung with just about every major star in the music business – from Celine Dion to Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Sting, Bobby McFerrin and even Luciano Pavarotti.  The list goes on and on.

They are flawlessly organized by vocal arranger, Margaret Dorn, (Bette Midler, Jennifer Lopez, Carly Simon, Michael McDonald, Garth Brooks, Diana Ross) and together create a sound that blends with both a rich meticulous warmth and also can get up and shout down the rafters when needed.  They are: Angela Clemmons, Keith Fluitt, John James, Kevin Osborne, Catherine Russell, Vaneese Thomas and Darryl Tookes.

Guest artists joining this gathering of superb talent include: Julia Wade, who with seven Inspirational solo CDs under her belt is Watchfire Music’s best-selling recording artist, Tom Tipton, who served for 29 years as a soloist at Reverend Robert H. Schuler’s internationally famous Crystal Cathedral and has sung for four U.S. Presidents, Barry Danielian, one of New York City’s most in-demand session players recording with such pop notables as Celine Dion, Paul Simon, Bon Jovi, Ricky Martin, and James Taylor, and AHMIR, the #1 most popular R&B group on YouTube with over 50 million views.

We also close the CD with a new song recently penned by Grammy award winning songwriter, Julie Gold, best known for Bette Midler’s version of her song From A Distance which won the Grammy for Song of the Year in 1991.  Come To Me As A Bird is a heartbreakingly beautiful new song that is sure to capture the imagination of millions.

Watchfire Music, www.watchfiremusic.com , an Inspirational music company and on-line store, will release this CD and be the machinery behind the product.  Without the machinery, it’s pretty much a dead end road no matter how talented you are.  That machinery is almost in place.  The company is now in the black and running off earnings and no longer investor monies.

However, we’re not a rich organization.  We have to find special funding for special projects.  This new Kickstarter concept is most interesting to us because we have such a loyal and appreciative customer base.  We receive letters every day from people around the world expressing their gratitude.

With the projected Kickstarter money we will hire an Internet publicist, who knows these new and far less expensive ropes very well.  We have little overhead.  We run our company from virtual offices in four cities across the country over Skype, the Internet and email with a little telephone thrown in.”

It’s a different world, but I truly believe we’re on the cutting edge of it.  The Internet is the new way and we’re using it and understanding it.  It’s an exciting new Phoenix rising that fascinates me every day.”

So, once again we mount another CD, another show, but with a stronger machinery behind us.  With the success of Watchfire Music over these past 6 years during the roughest period in the history of the music business, we have been able to put together a strong on-line presence, a smoothly working delivery system to tens of thousands of loyal customers and have an Inspirational record company and on-line store to back this project.

Let’s be honest here, however.  The future of the music business, with all the file sharing and “free music” concepts, is a very tough road ahead.  The Internet is the new Tower Records and the hope is that this new and challenging world will provide a new start and a better way.

We’re small, but nimble – perhaps not yet a supermarket, but rather an elegant deli finding it’s way through this new world.

A three-city tour and subsequent Internet webcasts of the live performances are in the planning stages for 2012.

To find out more go to:

http://kck.st/o9vUvR

Even More Inspiration

• Light At The End Of The Tunnel
• Spiritual Scientist
• Love Is The Reason For Living
• Looking Back on 2010
• I Stood In The Wings… Part 4
• The Changing Scene

Consequently we have begun a 30 day Kickstarter.com campaign to raise money to complete and promote a CD project that I’ve been working on now for over a year and a half.

It’s the making of new CD called “Goin’ Home” and a subsequent National Tour around this CD.  It involves an inspiring blend of great tradition and cutting-edge new music and deals with a very important aspect of each of our lives.

It deals with the experience at the end of our lives that we each face eventually that I like to call “transition”.

In the words of Jenny Burton, one of the project’s stars, “It’s a subject that, at first, we walk away from, but will walk towards one day, so why not walk towards it informed and without fear.”

I, personally, would like to go through that experience, when it comes, fully aware and alert, expectant joyful, and filled with spiritual curiosity.  When it comes to that transition, we Americans tend to look the other way and pretend that it doesn’t exist.  I don’t want to be like that.

What better way to prepare than to write about it.

So Goin’ Home is about Heaven and beyond.  I’ve thought from childhood that the much of the world’s perception of Heaven, though certainly idyllic, was really rather like a fairy tale or a Santa Claus story.  In a song entitled Heaven on the CD I write the following:

I don’t believe in Heaven
As a place up in the sky
A place where all the angels sit
As the clouds go passin by

I don’t believe in Heaven
Dressed in white and gold
A city in a world upstairs
Where all of our wings unfold
And a God sits upon his throne

I see it more as a state of mind
Since my body gets left behind
I see it more
As an open door
To a life of another kind

I don’t believe in Heaven
As a place this side of Hell
A place where all the good folks go
A place where the spirits dwell
An’ ol’ Peter a-rings dem bells

I see it more as a holy space
A place to pause
A spiritual base
I see it more as an open door
To a kind of a quiet grace

And when all is said and done
I think that Heaven
Like earth
Is what we make it
It’s a moment in the sun
It’s a cleansing time
In a state of grace
It’s a place where laughter reigns

Oh it’s Heaven
Heaven
It’s Heaven
Oh it’s Heaven

So this CD and eventual concert tour explores the eventuality that we all face at one time or another.

But it’s also an experience about music and great songs, and uplifting and joyful singing.  It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s rich in its depth and it definitely rocks the house.

Goin’ Home is written as a Gospel Cantata.  A cantata is simply short for “a musical composition for voices and orchestra based on a spiritual text.”

It’s performed by a mostly African American cast of top New York Session singers – great friends that I’ve worked with many years now.  In future posts I’ll tell you much more about this amazingly talented group of artists.

“So what is Kickstarter.com” you must ask.

Kickstarter is the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Every week, tens of thousands of amazing people pledge millions of dollars to projects from the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields.

A new form of commerce and patronage. This is not about investment or lending. Project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work. Instead, they offer products and experiences that are unique to each project.

All or nothing funding. On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.

We’re giving ourselves 30 days to raise the necessary $9500 of funding.  Those 30 days started October 3, 2011 and will end November 2, 2011.  I urge you to participate in this drive to not only support Inspirational music, but also Watchfire Music, the CD’s record company and on-line place of purchase.  Most of all, I ask you to support the uplifting idea behind the project.  Its purpose is to open our eyes to the timelessness of our future.

Your contribution, whether large or small, is critically important to the success of this endeavor.  Every dollar counts.  If each person on our mailing list just gave one dollar, we’d get there and beyond.

We’d love you to be a part of this very special event.

To learn much more about this endeavor please go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/174116135/peter-link-goin-home-cd-and-concert-tour

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• My Body
• WFM Listening Room — Series II Opener
• What Is A Cantata?
• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn
• Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Perhaps a song called Faith, perhaps Who Will Heal The World, perhaps Julia’s Upon The Mountain.  I’d play my ‘hood, Hell’s Kitchen, awake and stand on my terrace overlooking Lower Manhattan, the Village, Wall Street and the Statue Of Liberty and holler, “Wake up, New York!  We’re alive!

Last night I looked out on a new building springing up down where the Twin Towers once stood.  It was lit majestically in red, white and blue.  It stands where once, not so long ago, there was nothing but a hole in the ground.  Hope re-kindled.

This morning the sun rises on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

I wasn’t in NYC ten years ago this morning.  At first I counted it a blessing.  I was in my other home in Colorado sleeping with the Missus when the telephone rang to tell us of the unbelievable news.  We spent the rest of the day, just like the rest of you, glued to our TV and watching the images over and over in disbelief as they burned into our brains for all time.

We were safe, but somehow, that wasn’t enough.  We wanted to be here.  Our living room terrace and window opened up every day to us with those iconic, majestic towers.  They were part of our life.  And now they stood no longer.  Toppled by mad men Hell bent on destruction — horribly unsuccessful in their “success”.

We came back to NYC a month later to a hole in our life and a smell that still lingered – of burning metal and falling people.  The morning after we arrived, we walked down to the crash site still numb from the experience and became even more numb.

For the next ten years, as we looked out on these anniversaries, we would see only two giant shafts of light reaching into the heavens to remind us – as if we needed reminding.

This morning we seem to be threatened again.  I wake up to a day of remembrance, a day of hope, a day of new life, and yet, a day of warning.  I shall take my precautions, but I, like 8 million others of us will go on living in the face of terror because, as the song goes, “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere”.  Whether that’s true or not, that captures the spirit of New York – the spirit of America.

Today I shall write and create music.  No matter where this day takes us, I shall do what I was put on this earth, in this fair city, to do.  Nothing will stop me from doing that.  No confused minds, destructive thought or sad misguided life motives can get in the way of that.  That is my protection from evil.  Simply to do good.

Goodness reigns over evil always and forever.  I will not let this thought go.  Even the people killed ten years ago this morning still live – in spirit, in their own spiritual reality, in our hearts and memory.  Evil, in its proudest moment stands as nothing but a distant memory this morning – shallow in its intent and failed in its purpose.

Its purpose was to weaken; it made us stronger.  Its purpose was to destroy; it made us create and build again.  Its purpose was to make us hate; this morning I feel nothing but love – love for the departed, love for the world.  Its purpose was to create fear; this morning I stand in my window and face the world knowing that God is the only control.  Goodness reigns.  Evil simply loses again and does only what it knows best to do – nothing.

Now the sun is up.  The city wakes.  Many head off to church.  Many take their own moments of inner peace with their God understandings and pause respectfully before heading out on their day.  A few don’t even know what today is.  They missed it in the rush of life.

I wouldn’t miss this for the world.  It’s a day of action, a day of living, a day of dominion over evil, a day of creativity and a day of remembrance.  Tomorrow we shall simply move into the second decade and go about our business.

I hold to the understanding that God is in control, evil is nothing and life is full, rich with blessings and eternal in its nature.  I am a being.

That’s ‘being’.  I am.  I live.  My life is.  The whole concept includes nothing but the idea of continuation – the continuation of goodness.

Have a great day!

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• WFM Listening Room Series II – 2
• Breaking The Logjam
• Spiritual Scientist
• Resisting Evil
• Hitting The Wall

I’m only going to address one distressing aspect of it all in this post.  That is the most disappointing trend in of dishonesty in the reporting of the news.

Saturday night, the evening before Irene was to arrive here in NYC, I battened down the hatches of my apartment, protected the windows, filled the bathtubs, stocked in the correct food and water for the long haul and plastic-wrapped much of my equipment in my studio just in case.  The Missus was away in Boston.

I went to bed feeling prayerful and secure about 2:00 in the morning and went immediately asleep in what was now a strong rainstorm.  I awoke about 5:00 AM, the time we were told that Irene was to begin arriving and curiosity got the better of me.  Hearing no gale force winds, in fact hearing no winds at all, I got up and pealed back one of my windows and looked out into the dawning day.

It was raining.  That was about it.  I immediately figured that Irene got hung up in Philadelphia and was not as prompt as was foretold.  I started to go back to bed.  Then I decided to double-check the news on the tube.

I surfed 5 different channels for the next hour fascinated by the difference between what was going on outside my window and what was going on there on my TV screen.  They couldn’t have been talking about my city, my streets, my world – but they were.

Trouble was they just weren’t telling the truth.  Instead I watched a handful of wet newscasters in raincoats standing out in the rain trying to trump up the drama of a storm that was little more than a rainstorm at that point.  I got the eerie feeling that most of these people were somehow trying desperately to be our heroes and clearly exaggerating the conditions to somehow hold our morbid attention, scare us into staying at home, and possibly even hold each of us to their own particular channel to better their ratings.

It’s true: trees fell, leaves fluttered in the breeze, streets were wet, waves were probably bigger than normal, but the videos just did not match the incendiary language and alarming energies of the various newscasters having their moment in the sun (or should I say, “…having their moment in the clouds.”)

The storm or hurricane or tropical storm (whatever it was) ceased to be the issue for me.  The real issue here was the reporting of the truth.  This constant trying to jack up the drama of what was clearly a hurricane lover’s disappointment became laughable to me as newscaster after newscaster across all 5 networks over-acted and misreported the realities of the moment.

One wet man actually said somewhat hysterically, “We’re seeing every wave here get bigger than the one before!  Soon they’ll be 20 feet!”  The waves behind him in the sea looked to me to be 3 footers at best.  One wet woman standing in the NY street perfectly still said, “I’m having trouble standing in this wind” while the leaves of a tree waved gently behind her and the rain fell straight around her – no sheets, no buckets.

I could go on and on.  As I said, I watched all this nonsense (a most appropriate word) for the next hour, got bored with the hyped up drama, checked out my window once more to make sure something hadn’t transpired while I wasn’t watching, (it was actually calmer now outside than before as the reporters were now dire in their warnings that Irene had, in fact, now officially arrived in our fair town) and, seeing little but a rainstorm outside, went back to bed.

I slept peacefully for the next six hours, never hearing a breeze outside my window, never once being jarred from my rest by some untoward happenstance.  I awoke to a partly sunny day and dry streets.  I cannot imagine the disappointment of our heroic newscasters as their moments in the sun turned out to be just that – moments in the sun.

Oh Walter Cronkite, where are you now that we need you?  Where is the simple truth of yesteryear?  I don’t want to watch Fox for the Republican viewpoint or twist on events and I don’t want to watch CNN for the Democratic slant.  I just want to watch some simple good old-fashioned truthful news reporting.  “Just the facts, Mam, just the facts” as Sergeant Friday used to say.  I’ve lost track of where to turn for the truth.  I don’t want a newscaster’s personal point of view on an issue.  I don’t care what they think.  Just tell me what happened.  They actually used to do this on television.  One actually had the feeling that the news was unbiased.

Today, I get the feeling that it’s really more about creating sensationalism for the ratings than telling the truth.  I’m not saying anything here that you all probably don’t already know.  We’ve all seen the change.  I’m here to tell you I don’t like it.  It’s simply dishonest.

What I witnessed during the events of Irene the other morning was a silly aggrandizement of self-importance perpetuating an atmosphere of panic at a time when people needed to be reassured that, if they simply stayed home and took care of business, they could go back to bed and get a good night’s sleep.

I did anyway because I’ve learned that the news is often no longer the truth.

It’s a sad state of affairs.

Even More Inspiration

• Remembering…
• WFM Listening Room Series II – 2
• Breaking The Logjam
• Spiritual Scientist
• I Stood In The Wings… Part 4
• Even Now

My body lies over the ocean
My body lies over the sea
My body lies over the ocean
So bring back my body to me

I warned you that they were stupid.

Now today I’m writing lyrics on the same subject – hopefully with a little more content.  Here’s one drawn from a previous blog post on Sparks From The Fire.  The content, as explained in the post, has been capturing my imagination for months now and it finally all poured out in song form this past two weeks.

Both song and orchestration are now finished and will be presented in Julia Wade’s forthcoming CD, Silk Road, due to be released in early 2012.

Not her usual fare?  Perhaps, but watch for some fascinating new directions from this most special vocalist as she branches out and develops this new Classical/Crossover genre.

This song will be a guaranteed eye and ear opener.  Enjoy!

My Body
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

I am not my body
My body is not me
I mean to live beyond it
In some capacity

I believe I’ve lived before it
Though memory fails
I cannot ignore it
Everything else
Pales in comparison
This wondrous invention
Of flesh and bone technology
Only belongs to me

Ladies choir

Temporarily

I know not where it came from
I know not how it works
I took no part in its conception
Its genius or its quirks
It carries on in sleep
Requiring little of me
It is mine to keep
And cost me nothing

Yes it is the house of my consciousness
For nearly a hundred years
It manufactures babies
And laughter and tears

It’s a miracle of invention
In its breath
In its sight
In its tubes
In its muscle
In its appetite

In its pleasure
In its pain
In its taste
And its touch
In its foot
In its hand
In its amazing ability
To discern Tchaikovski
From Sargeant Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band

I am not my body
My body is not me
But me and my body
We basically agree
To live, for a time,
On this spec in space
This embrace of mind and matter
This interface

Through this vast universe of illusion
And conjecture we go
For reasons
That I’ll probably never know

Well we might as well make the best of it.

So let’s dance!
Yeah let us dance
We got to dance now
Work yo’ body
Work yo’ body
Work yo’ body
Let us dance

I am not my body
No my body is not me
But I’m amazed
By both its function
Oh and yes
Its mystery

But I go about my business
Mostly unawares
I sit in thought
I climb the stairs
So little do I think ahead
And tell it what to do
It seems to work just fine

Ladies choir

From its matter-mind

Every blink
Every step
Every breath
Every heartbeat
Every quick reaction
Every wild attraction

I am not my body
No my body is not me
It bears no real resemblance
To my true being

But hey, better make the best of it!

And let’s dance!!!

 Tag

Yeah let us dance
We got to dance now
Work yo’ body
Work yo’ body
Work yo’ body
Let us dance

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Wonderful
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• Light At The End Of The Tunnel
• The Decline of Lyrical Craftsmanship – Part 1
• Spiritual Scientist