"It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home." Rumi

David Byrne has written an interesting piece that appeared in the Guardian on Friday about the state of the music industry. Thought provoking, a little lengthy but good. Although the mode of music marketing has changed, in many ways it is still the same as it has always been with the arts in my opinion. The most aggressive creators find a way to make money and survive. There is a small percentage of artists (performing or fine arts) who find a way to make a living off of their creativity. For every one that figures this out, there are thousands more at any given time who do not or can not make it work. Many give up. One of my recent past times connected with study of classical piano has been to read biographies of great pianists. The one I am reading now is Bach by Christopher Wolfe. So take Bach for instance.....or Mozart, Horowitz, or any "successful" fine artist, you plug in the name. They all struggle(d). The point is this, you work your ass off with your art because you love it, because it is your passion, because you really have no other choice. You must express yourself creatively. Sure, there are artists that get filthy rich from their work.....but, the passion is about making the work, not becoming wealthy. So read this Byrne piece, it is pretty bitchy and I don't blame him or others who are being robbed for being cynical.  But remember, you do art because you have no other choice. If wealth is your primary objective, get a job and stop doing what you love. If you really love creating you will figure it out. The most important thing is to be relentless, absolutely relentless and committed to the thing you love. So most have stopped reading by now. That is OK, I have work to finish in the studio, am firing a kiln, have yet to practice my Chopin pieces today and would like to work on those new guitar scales....but you know what, I am going to get all of it done. I have no other choice.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world?CMP=twt_gu

Only Breath

Daphne and I sit many mornings and read Rumi to each other. This is today's reading. I thought it was particularly wonderful. Very fond of Rumi and remember attending a Coleman Barks lecture many years ago in North Carolina and meeting him. He read his poem, "How to Curse an Okra Seed". Someday I will find that.
From “A Year With Rumi” pg. 371
Reading for November 27th
by Coleman Barks

Only Breath

Ah, true believers, what can I say?
I no longer know who I am.
               Not Christian or Jew or Muslim
               Not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen
               I am not from the East or the West,
               not out of the ocean or up from ground.
               Not natural or ethereal, not composed
               of elements at all. I do not exist.

               I am not from China or India, not
               from the town of Bulgar on the Volga
               nor remote Arabian Saqsin. Not
               from either Iraq, between the rivers,
               or in western Persia. Not an entity
               in the world or the next. I did not
               descend from Adam and Eve or an origin
               story. My place is the placeless,
               a trace of the traceless, neither
               body or soul, I belong to the beloved,
               have seen the two worlds as one
               and that one call to and know,
               first, last, outer, inner, only
               that breath breathing human being.

Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness

By John Donne

Since I am coming to that holy room,

         Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore,

I shall be made thy music; as I come

         I tune the instrument here at the door,

         And what I must do then, think here before.

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown

         Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie

Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown

         That this is my south-west discovery,

      Per fretum febris, by these straits to die,

I joy, that in these straits I see my west;

         For, though their currents yield return to none,

What shall my west hurt me? As west and east

         In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,

         So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are

         The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?

Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,

         All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,

         Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,

         Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place;

Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;

         As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,

         May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

So, in his purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord;

         By these his thorns, give me his other crown;

And as to others' souls I preach'd thy word,

         Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:

"Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down."