I want it to be upbeat and hearty, and not so much in the depths of despair of my soul – it can be a dark place, my soul. I've lived in the past too long and need to move on.Goldie has had one of those lifetimes that always inspire me. Of his current incarnation, Goldie says:
This time, they decided to send me back, and they thought "Let’s make him abandoned, love music, not be able to play a musical instrument, and see if he finds his way".A very difficult lifetime. A history of a hard childhood. Drugs. What I find so inspiring is that, despite everything, and many things that would bring other men to their knees, Goldie has found a way forward. At the fork in the road he made a choice. I believe in many cases the hardest lessons are the ones that bring the greatest reward. Goldie's turning point came when he attended the Hoffman Institute.
"The moment things began to change for me was when I got back [from the Hoffman Institute] and I literally dug a hole in my garden and buried my ego in there," he says. "It was like escaping from a prison. The immense sense of rage I once had kept me full of energy but left me undisciplined. Once you leave your ego behind and let the good light in, you shine good light back. That may be a bit Buddhist but so what".Patti Digh posted a link to a welcome address by Dr Karl Paulnack of The Boston Conservatory and has blogged about it on her site. It was written by a man who recognises the profound link between music or art and the soul. For me, it's another example of the link between the divine and creativity.
Karl Paulnack tells us that the Greeks knew a thing or two:
... the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects.Music has a magic to it. I think art does as well.
Paulnack says:
Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are.To the musicians in the audience at the welcome address Karl Paulnack said:
You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the Nazi camps and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives."
