Everyone and everything is mockable. Did you know that? Every single person, animal, place, item, idea: all mockable. That means that everyone and everything can be sneered at, derided, ridiculed, and criticized in ways large and small. At the same time, everyone and everything is laudable. Everyone and everything can be praised, exulted, magnified, enjoyed, [...]
Here is my setting of John Drinkwater's poem, "Moonlit Apples," a poem that reminds us how the ordinary can become extraordinary. There is mystery and a hidden life in everything, and it's the poet's pleasure to perceive that hidden life and celebrate it. I loved this poem from my very first reading and it wasn't [...]
It's the simplest thing in the world: Get up, first thing, and play the piano. Or you do your thing: paint a picture, hit the yoga mat, go for a walk. But do it first because when you do? The rest of the day shines. Ecstasy before breakfast. Fulfillment before email. Joy before chores. Me [...]
You know those moments when you are faced with a choice between what feels good and what feels smart? Choose good. I promise you will never regret it. Let me explain. You possess an unerring instinct for choosing what feels good. Heeding that instinct, you plunge happily into “the honey stream” – my name for [...]
A lady asked my mother that question a few years back. She was remembering a girl who in high school wore a black star under her left eye, converse high-tops with her long skirts, who didn’t go to the football games much, and who was perversely attached to poetry and music. A girl who seemed [...]
There’s math, and then there’s magic math. In the first kind, sums are tidy, predictable, and remain neatly where you put them. The ledger is quiet, its straight lines creating orderly little cages for the well-behaved numbers that slumber there. In the second kind, sums shimmer and disappear, reappearing in another country, another pocketbook, another [...]
Ideas, sketches, drafts, notions, hints, and creative niggles are the butterflies of our artistic lives. They flutter into view and thrill us with their color and promise. Suddenly, the world is alight and shimmering with beauty. But how quickly those delicate wings can flutter away! How many times have I, bone tired, lain in bed [...]
So much happens when you are teaching, learning, and living the arts! Here are three quick “snapshots” from recent days, each followed by a “focus” – a new clarity – which, I hope, will help you see your artistic life with refreshed eyes. Does it make you practice? “How did you get on this week? [...]
