Once Music is mystical

Music seems to be very mystical. I'm always astounded by the way it can fill an otherwise still room with the most vivid, nearly tangible emotions. Depending on which emotion it is, the style of music can transport us to another place, it can cause us to change shape, or even disappear. At its best, it can take the musicians creating it and transform them into one organism.

If we reduce music down to its elements, those being (for our purposes) sound, rhythm, melody and harmony, we can see how it relates right down to the very basics of our humanity. We need life, first and foremost, which is kept thriving by the cycles in nature and governed by the order of the universe. Most every entity is greater than the sum of its parts. This is especially true for human beings. A human being, soulful and alive, is all those processes physical, mental, & emotional working in concert. The pieces are useless alone, and yet something is still missing within the mechanism of the pieces together. Music is still just a theory in this stage. It takes something more transcendent to bring music out of the void.

Creativity.

Something spiritual is necessary here. It is a giving and receiving. Just as I pointed out how music transforms a group of musicians into an entity, they must first create and nourish this thing before it gives back to them. The essence is out there, always. We give it form.

I saw Once for the second time this morning and can certainly say it is another favorite, a new favorite, of mine. It will be hard for any film to top Into the Wild for its depth of meaning as it relates to my life. But Once comes as close to that meaning as I can expect. I love, love, love how John Carney juxtaposes the down-and-out natures of the lives of both Guy & Girl with the purity and heights reached by the music they make together. This is an example of sublimation at its finest. Girl, while incredibly well-adjusted, is the picture of functional destitution. She is very poor but makes enough to feed her daughter & mother. Guy, while quite secure financially, is bereft of all social graces and romanticism. He has everything he needs, save for a crucial kick in the pants that is now necessary after losing his lover. Together in music, the Girl and the Guy live out their ideal selves in their ideal lives.

The Modern Gladiator

Often, I find that the search for an applicable mythology, hero, or symbol is better served by accepting current trends. Our warriors, our adventures, our quests are not lost. They always exist in essence. Modern society mostly finds them in spirit, but there are still places where they exist in form, as well. One of these is something I like to call the Modern Gladiator: the athlete. We resist many natural things these days, and yet we still yearn for purity in our athletics. We enjoy seeing the physical form at its height. We encourage our athletes to push themselves, and nature itself, to the limit.

Athletics even offers a physical nirvana that cannot be explained or really understood, but it can be felt by the athlete and seen by spectators. This is called the Zone. An athlete who achieves this state is said to be "in the zone". They reach a heightened awareness as time slows down. Their skill sets become near-perfect. Sports fans have witnessed basketball stars make shot after shot for a stretch, as if unconscious. Every so often, a baseball pitcher goes nine innings with flawless control and wins a perfect game. My favorite is the running back who takes hit after hit but refuses to go down, or whose speed visually shifts gears as he disregards oncoming tacklers.

In fact, the modern gladiator is best exemplified in the American college football player. This young man is the titan of our age. He is the biggest, the fastest, and the strongest of us. He is the greatest physical specimen that can be seen. He can carry a 265 pound frame 40 yards in four-and-a-half seconds, or, at 210 pounds, it can take him less than 10 seconds to run a hundred meters.

Even considering all this, he is more than physics and biology. Surely he has aspirations for success based on all the hard work over the years. But something more than that must drive him. He represents an institution. At the college, fellow students, alumni, faculty, administrators, and all the members of the community that is his school support him and depend on him. He represents a program. His team has fielded many of the greats that were considered legends long before he was even born. He has a standard to live up to, from those who have gone before him, and one to bear, for those still to come. His teammates stand by his side for years and he owes them the best of himself. His coach teaches and trains and mentors as he owes each gladiator the same. The gladiator, in turn, must honor that. He represents all these things: city, institution, program, community, family. He represents himself.

Those things matter, but then they don't. Something even more must drive him. Excellence. Competition. Pursuit. He has the week to practice and make ready for the moment of truth when he simply must reach his peak, and play. When game day comes, only his best will do. The locker room is a sanctuary, simultaneously a place of peace and tension. He cannot achieve what he is here to achieve in this... safety. His ankles are taped expertly and his cleats are laced. Sometimes, other areas need taping: wrists, knees, or fingers. Braces, rubber sleeves, and other support systems required by past scars are applied. His armor is next. The major pieces are his shell & shoulder pads, his jersey, and his helmet. Trainers prepare his body for battle. Coaches prepare his mind. The gladiator looks into the eyes of his teammates, some blackened by warpaint.

The fire is team wide. Coach delivers his final pregame speech. They jump and chant together. They leave sanctuary in unison and march down some kind of tunnel. As they approach the field the gladiator hears his marching band, which has preceded his team into the hostile environment. The roar of an opposing institution overtakes the familiar music. There are gladiators on the other side, too. And their fans are united against him, flying the colors of the opposition. Blue, green, orange... he only really sees one color: red.

Everything has come to this moment. All his time and energy, and all his effort. Every defeat and every victory has led him here. In reality, it has taken him forever to get here. His mind is focused on one thing, however.

Eternity begins at kickoff.

Stream -- I watched a long conversation.

Note: This is a stream of consciousness piece written in one session and printed with minimal revisions.

I watched a long conversation. It was on my walk through the woods. I saw the hawk speaking to the bright blue sky while the songbirds sang to the trees. I heard the sounds of the wind dancing with the leaves, and then I went down to the waterline to see the fish interpret the river's currents. I found a comfy looking tree trunk that had the right combination of sun and shade, and I sat down. I closed my eyes.

My heart rate began to quicken. I could feel my face turning red. I got hot. It became difficult to breathe. I moved back in time. I saw the nurse. She had the needle in her hand. I was at the hospital. Chemo.

I opened my eyes, and breathed a slow, relaxed sigh of relief at the sight of the bright blue sky. Not so long ago, these walks, these experiences were only dreams. Now, they were my reality. But there was a downside. I wouldn't trade what I had for anything, but a trade did occur. My old reality took up residence in my new dreams. These walks were my solution, and they may still be, but they require something difficult. I closed my eyes again.

I grew exhausted as I found myself in that gloomy examination room. I felt awful, like shit, like I couldn't help but be blunt. I was cold. I was freezing. Looking down at my hand, I saw that the IV was good to go. At this stage, it didn't matter where they put the needle, it didn't matter what kind of an artisan the nurse was, when that sucker went in, I suffered. Both hands were bruised. They felt tender and arthritic and only one person could touch them: Candy, the RN. She was the best. I learned the dream of nature from her. She was an artisan.

This day, I was in no condition to picture the trees and the birds and the sky on my own. I kept looking up at the IV bag, watching every drop of poison enter my body. It was something I could feel, like little bits of pain adding up to one big ordeal of suffering. Eventually, I dropped my head back and the tears came. But today I had Candy.

She had a healthy attractive face, a dark complexion, and hair of a wonderfully colorful brown. I won't forget telling her about my recent trip to the ER, when a nurse there gave my hand a hematoma. She jokingly fainted against my arm, her soft hair brushing against me, as if to say that a good nurse would never do that. Now, here she was, her smooth hands holding mine, talking my spirit into another nature walk.

I stood at the edge of the water. I could see the hawk rising high. He quickly finished what he was saying and went into a swift dive out of the sky. Decisive. My eyes followed him until the horizon of trees entered between us. I walked as close to the water as possible and knelt down. Placing my hands into the river, I felt connected to the fish, and watched as they chose a path through the water and followed it closely. I brought some of the fresh water out with my hands and up to my face. I splashed it on. The amazing thing while all of this was going on was that the breeze continued to move, and the songbirds continued to sing.

I knew what I had to do.