Lettin’ it flow today.
Woke up in a snit, dissatisfied, and anxious. We live in a trailer for god’s sake, Trump could be re-elected for shits-sake, more dear high school classmates crossed over to the other side for fuck-sake, and Lahaina - from palm-fringed paradise to smoking mass death horror in mere hours. How did that freakin happen?
Echo-dog knows the mood, looks over her paws at me drinking my morning Joe, waits for a good word. Shows me her tummy - pet me and we’ll both feel better. I do and we do.
But to flow…
There is a state of being where you become fully immersed in some activity - where the outside world does not penetrate - in the zone, some say. Flow state, say others. It is promoted nowadays as a means to enhance productivity and self-improvement - to merely become a more valuable, human. That may be, but for me, it is not so much to improve human efficiency as it is to enter a state of wonder and astonishment - grace.
I used to stumble into it when skiing - especially during weightless gravity dances in floaty powder. Or when sailing - that lift and heel when the wind gusts and you put the bow down just so, the boat quivering under your tiller hand. Or when hiking - when the golden light and quiet hum brings you to your senses, reveals the gift. Or when writing…
Flow is all that matters.
You can't try to flow. The harder you try, the further away you get. But there is a magic portal. Music. Not just any music…no…live music. Specifically, live jam-band recordings - Dave Mathews, The Allman Brothers, Big Head Todd, Phish….The Grateful Dead.
I know what you’re thinking - The Dead, Barry? Yeah, sure, fifteen minutes of live Truckin’ with a mushroom or two and you’ll flow for a week. But it ain't like that…honestly.
Not that there would be anything wrong with Truckin’ on ‘shrooms.
No, this is straight-up no-substance neuroplasticity. Brain puddling. Mind melting. Ego obliteration.
I was never a Deadhead back in the day. Sure, I knew their music, but it didn't register with me then, seemed too rough, unpolished, spontaneous, laid back yet mean as hell somehow.
But, that's exactly the point. Spontaneous…
The live recordings of these bands, when they groove together with the crowd in a communal psychedelic creation is superb and ever fresh. Innocent and free. As we all once were.
Band and crowd take flight, lift off and whirl away. It's bliss, ecstasy, myth, ceremony - old time religion.
I’ve taken to hiking through the forest lands with the Dead, or DMB or The Brothers on my headphones, walking fast, almost skipping, stepping in time to the jazzy instant electronic composition. It is deep walking meditation. It banishes loose thoughts and fleeting emotions. In syncopated time I move through the trees and break out atop bald hills to be astonished again with spectacular blue mountain and island views, just as a lead guitar riffs with bass and drums in a wild unconstrained perfect melody.
How a smokin’ hot guitar lick from forty years ago animates a vista today is beyond my ken.
Gratitude floods me. What an incredible gift it is to have senses able to appreciate this magnificent world, the spectacular music we make and the miraculous moments when it all melds together and….flows.
Peace.
