"What you search for, you will find." Don't know who said it or if that saying is complete... just am struck that many systems decide a course of response to a 'problem' and then seek to first, prove the problem and then apply the solution as conceived. Generally driven by an interest who has figured out a way to engage the money. 

When the search becomes observation, the finding emerges very differently. The link between apparent outcome and how a system actually functions may not reveal itself except by just observing.

The veiling of reaction in the language of response and the searching to link the money flow to the problem... very subtle in difference with the sophisticated searcher or the sophisticated observer. The two behaviors may look much the same. The fostering of the solutions, or systems adjustments is usually not. One has a price tag and an 'expected' outcome. The other may be adjusted through new behavior which may include fallowing. Very different indeed.

To delight in doing the work that is really, really, really, really demanding, rewarding, soul-feeding, and interesting... hones the skills, draws new insight and invites the best of the 'skin' in the game. As with practicing, the getting better sometimes means casting off a way of seeing or doing that allows new ways. Even an old practiced way becomes new with the sharpening of skills through disciplined practice. The delight in the work. The really, really, really, really demanding, rewarding, soul-feeing and interesting work...

Meeting with the newest of the teachers today.  When one this good shows up it is daunting.  The level of demand, even what is being taught is sometimes hidden in the lesson.

To figure out the lesson.  To engage the teaching.  To understand the moment of clarity in that sense of 'good learning.'

In this meeting is the new observing that all may be taught in a single session.  The need to repeat and repeat may not be needed for this lesson.  It may all rush and then need to be taken and practiced.  Much as a master class ... 

The anticipation is just that, excited and as prepared as possible.  The old adage... breathing is not over rated is even a note to self... with a smile and a light step it is off, once again to school.  The delight in knowing that the more I learn, the less I know.

When the rising song line calls and we are freed from a worry, when the song line calls to dance. Then, Gathering, we dance!

He who would finish is the winner.  We all finish.  We are all first and last.  It is only how we choose that is the contrast.  For, we all finish and we are all both first and last.

The thought: How can it be fair to have he/she having all that negative power?  How can they be so mean?  How can that be fair?  How is it that they cannot see that I am working as hard as I can to do their bidding?  The answer to how is yes.  There is the answer.  Yes.

How perfect is that thinking?  How perfect is that thought?  The answer to how is yes.  The answer to how is yes.

When big and small unite there is the unified field.

There is just that little breeze.  The breeze of change.  When we step back and make room for that little breeze of change.  When the door is suddenly open, the sail suddenly raised... It is a good thing.  That little breeze.  A wind in the door.

When 'we' use something that would not be appropriate in our own house or at our own table... then we have become the terrorists.  The lizard brain.  The ... re-actor.  You should not have... What is that set of words saying?  Just as when a friend, from her perspective says... oh come on... that is easy.  In a moment when even breathing is not easy.  In a moment when even breathing is not easy.  And then, the characterization of ... you ran away.  You failed me.  You did not do that which was my expectation.  That is the moment.  The layered, reactive moment.  It calls out in the cry of a babe ... wishing for arms of care.  The moment of ... failed moment.  The rejection moment.  The moment of failure.  Later, on the other side, breathing continues; or not.  And the sun comes up, the oceans of wind roll over the earth.  Reflection in a time, perhaps as this reflection, much later, a decade later.  The warm moment from that time.  Being fed on an early morning, sitting in a stair well and letting the meat juices roll down my neck.  So good.  That taste of food.  Food for the soul.  In all of the failures that were healed in that morsel of food.  A gift from creation.  A gift from God.  In this moment, another healing.  The healing of awareness to the sense of words as the lash of the cat.  The lash of 'should' or 'should not' the lash of 'do' or 'don't' ... each in context, the expectant lash from the expectant expectation.  The 'we' or 'us' in the dance of expectational relationship.  The changing moment of link to lash or lash to link; for the shift, the healing, the change, it can go both ways in the blink of an eye.

A friend came to me and offered a pearl of great price.  That pearl, representing all that the friend was, all the great position that they held, all that was of worth to their mind.  At least that was the image that was portrayed in the pearl.  The cost to me was to walk and be servant to this 'friend' for but a series of years.  To hold up, to aid in mounting and dismounting that friend's horse.  To be mentored in those things that my friend was well practiced.

At the end of that time, my friend said that they would then pass the mantle of that pearl to me.  I would but need to enter the arena and claim the pearl from those others who would also be desiring of this mantle, this pearl.

I sank to my knees in thanks to this friend but said what was being offered, was too great a burden for me to bear for I would then be trying to serve two masters.  The friend and the fickle winds of my own desires.  In that severing two I would be no good servant, partner or friend to this friend.  In my humble failure to be on the same path as he, I would be a dis-service.

I again thanked my 'friend' and then rose and continued on that path that called to me.  The path that only I could walk.  The path that was lit by the rising sun.  With wind at my back and sorrow for not being able to serve such a great offer of gift... knowing too that the gift would demand that which I could not give... I walked into that path that was where I am going.  The dear 'friend' who was on a different path... he was not going with me.  I grieved that 'friend'  and also celebrated the path.  Knowing that who would join me would be revealed.

To life, to life ....

Rising song line. Quiet and calm the ocean of air, the ocean of wind. The morning dawn, it brings a new sense, a new feel and new... rising song line. How, with only so many lines, only so many notes, only so many combinations of rhythm... how oh how can the rising song line be different every dawn? And the answer is yes... Just yes and in that rising song line, the new texture of this dawn... called to the gathered throng... the rising song line, harmony, from different voices such harmony indeed. That is this day's rising song line. To life.

The dawn comes on this farm and all the farms that lay around us... the patchwork of this and that... this ground and that ground. To each ... the same dawn. To each and all comes the same breaking light. Here in the quiet of the calm ocean of wind. Here in the quiet and still air. The dawn comes to each and all. Linked, different, connected, separate... both at the same time. The air, the sun, the soil, the water... all linked and yet grown in different moment. The dawn comes.

Thinking some more on this conversation that is taking place from the position of different mountaintops. The shouted proclamations ... as calls to prayer from minarets...

Each call, from a separate, differentiated, tall place, above the chaos... rigid in form and verse.

That one slamming into the one from this mountain or that mountain. The problem, of course, is that it is not mountains separated by distant but mountains declared in the same house or at the same dinner table... mountains, abutting each other in the same small room.... from the same small screen. The declaiming, the gesticulating, the table pounding... all in a space where there is then little room for a quiet conversation... it is the conversation of the yelling. 

The rigid calling and counter calling. All different with little linkage except to compete in volume, bluster and to fan the flame.

In that is the system of leadership, follower-ship and even a place to lay down to rest? What an interesting conversation this is.

To have an argument in the pursuit of agreement... where the parts that are being argued begin with some agreement. When we begin to agree to disagree... the sky is blue... no it is gray. The air has a 'crisp' feel.... no it is just cold ...

When we begin in rigid position... 

When all is chaos...

Between these two is a third way. That flow of... that connected flow... linked, integrated, differentiated... that harmony of the dance ... between the rigid banks and the chaos of the elements... all the different elements. It ceases to be an argument of agreed disagreement and a harmony of a rising stream... babbling and singing in the rising song line.

What joy in that living. To Life!

Feeling pissed. Start where I am... work to better feeling thoughts.

Years ago, a quarantine response for an export partner called out a certain set of actions. With those actions, there was supposed continued assured access to the markets of that export partner. The fruit of the ranch, with a certain set of field response, would continue to flow to the high return market.

While it may have allowed access to the packing house, the market itself was closed to the ranch's product. Not because of the pest pressure but because the visual quality of the fruit of the trees that are this ranch did not meet the standards of the buyers. This was for many reasons other than the pest.

It was a teaching in the farming learning system. The marketing organization made a pitch to have all growers maintain access to the packing house by saying that growers who did the pest response would continue to have access to the value added market. That was the public 'sell' for the pest response. In fact it just meant that the packing house could defray the cost of a packing pest response by having an acceptable quarantine response happen in the field ... so that there were no adjustments needed at the house level. Why add product cost in house when it an be taken care of pre-house.

A valuable lesson in Agricultural economics and widgets... One that has served well in farming.

The more I learn, the less I know. And, when that learning causes the collapse of a set of expectations, ... once the emphasis on the wrong syllable ... moves from painful recognition to funny joke, then it is a good thing. 

The more I learn the less I know. When a crew is working on a plan, and the crew has different agendas for the various aspects, there are many ways to coordinate. When the ... crew coordinates with recognition of the agenda both for the larger plan and for each aspect of the collaborators' agendas... then, while it is a more complicated beginning, the 'where we are going' becomes clear and the re-adjustments of coordination along the way... can be less of a struggle.

The five rules of music apply... breath, posture, articulation, collaboration, and practice. The assumption that everyone already knows the form... ah, there may be some issues with the form. It makes me laugh ... the more I learn the less I know.

The more I learn the less I know.  

When something comes easily, out of the blue, and moves with the ease of a partnership, forged from long ago and put away very carefully in expectant knowing that it, strong forged blade, might be needed again one day... comes then easily from the scabbard or easily from the hammer holster, or easily from the book shelf... that little set of knowing and relationship that comes ... out of the blue ... to remind that we are all connected. And in that connection, there are strong forged bonds.

A couple of years ago, a friend, not heard from in years, tapped a message of health, care and appreciation for acts shared from a long time ago. It was out of the blue. It ripped the cover off a set of memories, long put away in a closet, dark, locked and ... I thought forgotten.

The strength of the memory gave support to do a project that had been stalled for several months. The strength of the ... out of the blue ... outreach gave that little support piece to step out, step out and take the project by the horns and move it ... with the whole team, for we had all been stuck, to a new level. To the level where it wasn't stuck any more. The parts that were jammed up started to move. The clogs fell away. The whole thing, just for a few tapped words, out of the blue... 

I was reminded... and am reminded that it, if I do believe that we are all connected, and I do, ... I have to also know that there is no, out of the blue. It is just the rise and ebb and fall of the harmony of all song lines. It was a moment of ringing in of one of the connections. Not before, not after, for I did chase after to try to hear the harmony again. 

And there is the simple set of rules. Show up. Breath. Posture. Articulation. Collaboration. Practice. Repeat.

The gratitude of the gift to be allowed to show.  After that, the practice of showing up in all aspects... that is the quid pro quo.

The coffee pot is the perfect ... it is perfect.

Yesterday's magic of rising song line, coming through many different instruments, hearing aspects of Gathering in each voice of each instrument... The combination of gathered voice and instrument even in the absence of the physical, it is that magic of harmony, sung, practiced and practiced again and again. New each moment in that rehearsed and practiced. Magic, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Even in this moment too.

I didn't put the tuner away.

... sitting here, just now, I realized that I didn't put the tuner away. After sitting and playing so many fine instruments, settling completely into the master class of the room, soaking up every aspect of the great players, the great teachers, the great builders, the minds that all come together in that place; when I left, I didn't put the tuner back where it belongs. And that ... is the thought that jumps into my mind? That is the great learning? That is the best of all that time in the master class? I didn't put the silly tuner back? Wow!

I am sure that they didn't mind... funny that I do. And I listen. It is that little voice. One must always put it all away so that the sacred place is honored. What an amazing lesson.

Thanks to both Eric and James. And to the master class that was taught yesterday. Please excuse my sacrilegious sin of not putting the tuner away. I'll say some hail Marys' a practice ... till the next time. And smile when I remember the class for the best of the teaching.

And yes, every instrument that I touched is more in tune than before I touched it. The warmth of the room, the day and the treasure of all the knowledge that was being passed on in tone, texture, and amazing teaching... that warmth remains with me always.

What, that could be absurd, has become normal? What, if taken in a context where there is time and soft breathing and a bit of distance, what? And when, in that flash, there is some anomaly that now looks absurd, what then?

In each moment of daily living, when an absurd moment is brought into light, there is a great chance to engage the moment. It is from within. When a comment, given in full understanding of the moment, is reacted to in such vehement, reactive, shouting, snarling ... reaction, is that absurd? Yes.

And, in that moment, there is a great window into the very drive of all who come into that moment. A knowing that there is not to do but just to be. A great chapter moment.

Then there was that day when, my boss asked for something which was not to be given. And on that day, there was a shift. In that shift, they graduated from boss to something else. And shortly after, it was no longer boss. And shortly after that, it was nothing. But, it has taken years to allow that 'nothing' to become a reality in each breath. And that is the gift of contemplation. The release, when it happens, is all of a sudden 'known.'