The immeasurable yearning of all flat lands

As I'm at home immersing myself in what is most essential, this passage from Willa Cather's "Song of a Lark" spoke to me. Thea Kronborg, the young female protagonist and aspiring musician, is attending her first performance of Dvorak's famous Symphony No. 9 "From the New World".
Peace and blessings to you and your families,
Megan

"When the first movement ended, Thea's hands and feet were cold as ice. She was too much excited to know anything except that she wanted something desperately, and when the English horns gave out the theme of the Largo, she knew that what she wanted was exactly that. Here were the sand hills, the grasshoppers and locusts, all the things that wakened and chirped in the early morning; the reaching and reaching of high plains, the immeasurable yearning of all flat lands. There was home in it, too; first memories, first mornings long ago; the amazement of a new soul in a new world; a soul new and yet old that had dreamed something despairing, something glorious, in the dark before it was born; a soul obsessed by what it did not know, under the cloud of a past it could not recall."

Song of a Lark
Willa Cather
173

Exploring my emotional landscape

Hello all! I hope you are enjoying your Christmas preparations as much as I am. It's truly been a joy to prepare gifts for my loved ones this year.

Moving into this vocation will affect how I handle the wide array of emotions I experience. When I feel huge surges of emotion, I usually talk to friends or exercise to disperse this energy, but now I can feel myself turning inward and focusing...imagine a cluster of rambunctious particles that begin to condense into a laser (my apologies to the true physicists in the crowd).

I still think that exercise, the physical movement, will be a huge component of my process because I need that time to coalesce my energy. But now, I'm creating a space for that energy, giving it direction.

In my "free playing" on my keyboard tonight, that looked like a movement from my home key of D minor to the key of F major and the Bb major, keys I usually don't explore in this improvisational space.

I'm still terrifically impatient with the fact that I don't really have work space set-up (for example, the key screws for my keyboard stand are MIA and it's currently sitting on my desk, which is supposed to be writing space). It's ok. Now is a time for reflection and celebration, so I will celebrate that slowly but surely, I'm creating new patterns conducive to a creative lifestyle.

It's all good news. :)

In celebration!
Megan

"And still i rise..."

Just in case you were wondering: yes, I'm still alive.

One of my favorite teachers from high school was killed in a car accident last weekend, and I have been retreating into both silence and activity. His funeral is today and because of inclement weather, I will not drive to South Dakota to attend.

There is a lot working, shifting, and incubating for me emotionally. My energy is there. Writing, at this point, would be exhausting.

Instead of daily blogging, I've been posting every 5 days. That might be the way it is until after the holidays. Who knows.

Warm and safe and happy holidays to all of you.

All my love,
megan

A branch from the garden of my memory

Yay!
One grad school visit later, I return to posting. The piece that has been on my heart since yesterday is what I think will be the second of a triptych of a capella choral works. The first piece burst from me over 3 days in July, and I've been sitting on it since then.

I started the second piece while I was temporarily living in Overland Park. Unfortunately, most of my possessions are still in boxes, and I have yet to find the revised version. All I have is a rough, early version, which is enough to begin resurrecting the piece from the garden of my memory. When I played through it, there were chords that I had "already fixed" or shaped and melodies I had already developed. Not to wax philosophical, but maybe that's like so many aspects of life. There is a need to revisit aspects that we thought we smoothed out that are still rough and jagged.

My space and systems are still NOT conducive to optimal productivity, which is enough to make me pull my hair out at times!!! I have so many good things that are in haphazardly arranged in piles and scribbled on scraps of paper. AH!
It might not be flowing smoothly until February (hopefully not though).

On to more interesting topics - here is the poem for piece number 2. I will most likely adapt the text. There is also a gamble here: hopefully the estate of Pablo Neruda will allow me to use this poem. Through a series of email conversations, I have the contact information for people in Spain who can supposedly give me permission. There isn't an email address though. Ugh. So, once I set this beauty, I'll worry about letters and international phone calls. This piece is not just an exercise for me (I want it to live!), but in this case, I think writing the music and then worrying about intellectual property permission is the way to go.

Enjoy!
~megs

The Stolen Branch
By Pablo Neruda

In the night we shall go in
to steal
a flowering branch

We shall climb over the wall
in the darkness of the alien garden,
two shadows in the shadow.

Winter is not yet gone,
and the apple tree appears
suddenly changed
into a cascade of fragrant stars.

In the night we shall go in
up to its trembling firmament,
and your little hands and mine
will steal the stars.

And silently,
to our house,
in the night and the shadow,
with your steps will enter
perfume's silent step
and with starry feet
the clear body of spring.


A painting with a title inspired by the poem.
http://www.artatease.com/Paintings/Blowups/Paintings_AFloweringBranch.htm

Getting back on the horse

Hello dears.

Well, after preparations and a trip to Portland, I have been relatively unproductive (as evidenced by my lack of posting). I'm also visiting a grad school on Wednesday and Thursday (Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center - awesome!). Two full days and then another flight. Sweet.

So, the whole point is, I'm still alive, and I'll still keep posting.

As always, I think I will be infinitely more productive when all the conditions, time, environment, etc. of my life are settled (does this ever happen?); however, I was once given the very sage advice that "unsettled is a very creative space." Perhaps the creativity comes out of chaos. If that's the case, I'll take the current configuration as a gift. :)

Anyway, on the practical level, I can get a lot of stuff written out on paper and use my downtime in airports and on planes to enter it into Finale. Oh the day when I just send it off to the professional copyist when I'm done.....*sigh of longing*.

It might be time to re-read The Creative Habit by Twyla Thwarp (choreographer extraordinaire). There was some good stuff in there. My creative systems are still in the process of development.

Oh, and while I was talking to my Dad in Portland, I figured out how I'm going to organize my on-going creative elements (sheets of music, sketches, lyrics scribbled on napkins, poems, inspiring quotes and images, etc.). This is something I've been pondering for quite awhile. Solution: I'm going to put them in the clear plastic file envelopes that are sealed by a string that wraps around two circles (ya follow me?). All the functionality of a file without the spilling, clear, cheap, able to hold small objects, reusable. Great. :)

Isn't it fun when the solutions just happen? I guess I was working on more things than I thought. ;)

G'night all,
~m