We're really looking forward to our show on December 5 at the historic Laurel Theater in Knoxville, TN. Those of you who listen to WDVX regularly will be familiar with the Mountain Jubilee and Live at Laurel shows on Sunday, which feature music by artists performing at the Laurel. Keep an ear out for Kindling Stone in the coming months.

Also, we'll be performing Friday evening and Saturday day sets at the 9th Annual Bristol Rhythm & Roots festival on September 18 and 19. Hope to see you there!

I've been busy working on  a bunch of new tunes, which we've been starting to add to the repertoire. Getting close to recording time again before too long I think. Also, just learned a cool new Shaker tune from Dan Patterson's book The Shaker Spiritual - it's from Pleasant Hill, KY attributed to Lovina Price, dated March 13, 1844. Like so many of these early songs, the melody is a secret window into the world of secular balladry of the day. Here are the words to the first verse:

O what is pomp and splendor
What is earth's golden wealth
With all her richest treasures
Pertaining to the earth
For like a fallen lilley
Or as a blighted rose
All earthly things will fail your
Your days on earth will close.



One of the songs I just finished is called Orchard and its spirit is certainly at home in this season of apples. Especially following our lovely trip to Pratt's Orchard in Lebanon, TN this morning. Here are the lyrics:

Orchard

Here in the orchard
We'll find a way
We will find, we will find our true reflection

On a lost ship I sailed into the bay
Pulled an oar up the tidal riverway
Heard a bell in the forest call my name
And I knew things would never be the same

Climbed a hill through a sleeping giant's dream
Speckled peak, sugar maple, mountain stream
Spinning leaves fell in crimson and in gold
I could feel a deeper story being told

At the clearing like some paradise revealed
Brilliant apple trees adorned a sloping field
Rubies hung between the shoulders of the sky
Baldwin, Rome, Blue Pearmain, and Northern Spy

Here in the orchard we'll find a way
We will find
We will find our true reflection

As I made my way around a twisting limb
I began to sing an ancient, wordless hymn
Every molecule then joined the vocal band
And our melody could see the promised land


c.2009 Chris Moore, ASCAP

Greed, hatred, delusion, conceit, doubt, restlessness, worry...all of these defilements found their way into my mind this morning, some strong and brief, some dull yet lingering. "Is this who I am?" I thought. "I'm better than this. Plus I have good reasons to be feeling this way! I don't care if I know it's wrong, I...I...I!"

Good thing I remembered that an hour hiking alone in the woods can work wonders to encourage mindfulness, and dispel "mood possession," as my friend Peter refers to it - as in 'This is my mood, it's all I've got, and I'm not letting go!'



With mindfulness present, it becomes possible to directly observe impermanence: everything which has a nature to arise, also has a nature to pass away. By observing impermanence, we can see that clinging to temporary conditions complicates the challenge of responding to change. This is true for the good stuff as well as the bad. Once we are no longer grasping at the impossible, we are available to do the real work at hand.

It's only been a week since our trip to the northeast came to an end, but it already feels like it belongs to a much more distant past.



The hedge in front of my house went wild in my absence, bringing to mind a favorite children’s book called The Plant Sitter. The story is about a boy who looks after houseplants for vacationing neighbors. Over the summer he learns what it means to have a job - the responsibility, the new skills, the anxieties, the rewards - and the differences between ideas and direct experience.

 

Traveling musicians have many opportunities to explore the differences between ideas and direct experience. Each live performance, with all the changing variables, is an opportunity to learn more about the nature of communication.

Out third annual concert in the 1794 Meeting House at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine, was a spiritually-charged experience for me, and I think for Mark too. During the past year, we've immersed ourselves more actively in the Shaker music tradition, learning songs, visiting Dan Patterson in Chapel Hill, NC, (the leading Shaker music scholar in the country and author of The Shaker Spiritual), and getting to know Diane Sasson, another fine Shaker scholar, who taught a course last spring on the Shakers at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Both Mark and I read "Shakerism: Its Meaning and Message," a history of the Shakers published in 1905, written by Anna White and Leila Taylor. It can be difficult to find in hard copy, but it's available to read online here. Also, anyone interested in the Shakers should visit Sabbathday Lake if they get a chance - it's a beautiful spot and the only remaining active Shaker community.



Performing our music, and especially Shaker tunes, at the Meeting House in New Gloucester seems to call forth the many voices that have resonated in those walls during the past 200 years. It’s and idea and a direct experience - and, though it’s difficult to say exactly how it shaped our performance, it’s clear that the space plays a significant part in the proceedings. Palpable is a sense that our role is but a small act in a sweeping continuum. It feels great just to be a part of the community, however, and it’s an honor to keep some of those beautiful Shaker melodies alive in the present day. Our thanks go out to all who made the trek to share the evening with us, and especially to Lenny Brooks, Brother Arnold, and everyone at SDL.
 

 

Kindling Stone made its first visit to Boston on this trip, where we got to play at the legendary Club Passim, another room with some fantastic history. Harvard Square still offers some of the best people-watching and it’s one of those rare places where you don’t feel like a freak for playing folk music. We had the great pleasure of my old Rust Farm band mate John McGann joining us on guitar for a few tunes – mighty and musical playing as always! John is on the faculty at the Berklee College of Music these days, a colleague of Matt Glaser and Mark Simos, two other acquaintances currently cooking in the genius music noodle kitchen. Also in the audience that night were my good friends Alan Williams and Darleen Wilson, who gave me a copy of their lovely new music, under the band name Birdsong at Morning. It has some flavors of Paul McCartney in contemplative mode, with toothsome sounds, nice images, and beautiful stringed arrangements. After the Passim show, we had a good time talking with friends and meeting some new folks, and we look forward to our next visit to the old Club 47.

 

After our day in Boston, (which included a spectacular lunch at Artu in the North End) we headed back to Portland. Our friend Jay York  (a true Mainer and a fixture for decades in Portland’s visual art and micro-brew consumption communities) opened up his house, which is a church, for an evening concert. Jay does this from time to time. Folks bring their own chairs to augment Jay’s collection, and it makes for a really nice, relaxed performance environment. And oh, how we love to play without a sound system! Folks began to arrive and sit down while Mark and I were still warming up, so we decided to forego all formality, stayed put, and played twenty minutes of fiddle tunes strung together as an overture. Our performance shirts stayed on their hangers for the evening. During our set, just outside the open window, a fat seagull sat for 30 minutes on top of a telephone pole – he actually appeared to be listening. It was a joy to see so many familiar faces that night, spanning 40 years of my connection to the Portland area. Thanks for being the conduit, Jay!

 

The next day, we headed west with a plan to visit Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshire Mountains (MA), en route to our gig that night at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. I had visited the village at Hancock once 25 years ago, but I didn’t remember much. I can now say that it needs to be right up there on the destination list for anyone interested in Shaker or early American culture.

 

Even though it’s formally a museum now, the natural setting and the physical structures are really not minimized or contained by the exhibit signs and rope barriers. One can really still feel the community there, settled between the lush green peaks - you can practically see the footsteps in the worn stone thresholds, sense the effort it took to locate, cut, and situate the massive rectangles of granite foundation. And the strength of vision and energy it took to build the structures and live that life above those foundations. Technical innovation and craftsmanship, albeit from a pre-industrial America, are everywhere you look – in the majestic round stone barn, the iron stoves in the large and sophisticated kitchen, the rocking butter churns in the dairy, the masterfully lathed and finely finished details in the woodwork, and in the visionary brush and pen strokes committed to the pages of the colorful spirit drawings. The Meeting House that stands today at Hancock is not the original – the current structure was moved from another Shaker site in Massachusetts – but, we were told, fit exactly on the existing foundation. We also observed how strikingly similar the structure is to the Meeting House at Sabbathday Lake. What a wonder it must have been to see that community in full action in the 19^th century!

 

Mountain thunderstorms and a heavy downpour accompanied our exit from Hancock village, apparently washing away any preconceptions I had about our first visit to the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, NY. As we cruised down the pastoral Taconic Parkway, I really wasn’t quite sure what to expect. As it turned out, traveling from the site of one utopian community from a bygone era directly to a currently active one was, well, quite a trip.

 

Omega is a relaxed, yet bustling retreat for health seekers of the mind, body, and spirit. People in comfortable attire appeared genuinely blissful as they strolled from the Ram Dass Library to the impressive, all-vegetarian buffet-style dining hall for dinner. The Buddha image is displayed liberally around the campus, peacefully sitting in the summer flower gardens, welcoming you at building entrances, reclining next to pathways.

 

The main hall where we were scheduled to perform featured a low stage, with backjack chairs, each with a pillow and blanket, in semi-circle rows on the floor, and some rows of comfortable folding chairs behind them. Seemed like a dream I once had about the perfect Kindling Stone performance setup. When I unfolded the reed organ, the staff told me they were used to having harmoniums, but a reed organ was unusual. Used to having harmoniums? Now that’s my type of place!

 

The rain came down hard that evening, but we had a nice crowd for our concert. It seemed the right place to try an experiment in which we asked the listeners to hold their applause until the end of the show, allowing for some silent time between the pieces. Even now, we’re still not sure how that worked out, though we received some positive comments afterwards. We also may not try it again anytime soon.  Certainly nice to be in an environment that supports experimentation, at any rate. Following the set, several people mentioned that it was serendipitous for us to be performing during Past Life Therapy Training week, considering the messages and meanings in our songs. We were in full agreement, though we had to give all the credit to our actions in a previous lifetime. It’d be nice to make it back to Omega again some day.

 

As I drove Mark to the Hartford airport the next morning, we talked some about the range of experience we had enjoyed on the trip. Mark observed that it’s as if we create a spark that somebody can pick up and keep going, and he said it would be interesting if we could encourage people to take the spark and send it back in our direction. I’ve been thinking about that, and, in web terms, I think it might be time to start a discussion board here. It’s OK if we start small, but it’s our hope that some of the things that generate a spark in us (about music, performing, spirituality, history, philosophy, etc) might generate a spark in you.

Thanks to the recommendations of Diane Sasson at the Vanderbilt Divinity School, I've read two good books recently - both highly-recommended to all ye seekers. First up was "The Barn At The End Of The World" by Mary Rose O'Reilley. It's a wonderfully honest (and funny) account of the author's spiritual journey through many traditions including Buddhist, Quaker, Sacred Harp singing, and as a shepherdess, preacher, lover, and more. It's kind of the independent, down-to-earth, documentary film alternative to that Hollywood romantic comedy blockbuster of spiritual seeking, "Eat, Pray, Love." Melissa and I had to get a second copy because neither of us could wait to finish it once we both started.



The next book is really required reading for 'Ye Seekers' as it's a history of spirituality in the United States, entitled "Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality, from Emerson to Oprah" by Leigh Eric Schmidt. Don't let the subtitle fool you though, because Oprah doesn't play a very big part here. The stars of this story, about progressive religious and spiritual thought in America, are really Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and William James. If you didn't already have towering respect for these dudes, this book will take you the rest of the way. The author demonstrates that there has been a tradition of non-traditionalist spiritual seekers in this country from the beginning. Along the way, you learn about Transcendentalism, Unitarianism, Quakerism, Spiritualists, New Thought optimists, Vedantists, Theosophists, and a lot more. If you've ever considered yourself a spiritual or religious 'outsider," this book makes it clear you're not alone.

Walking up the stairs this morning I noticed that all I was thinking about was getting to the top of the stairs. It was sunny up there, it was the end of the little journey. But why was I pushing aside, minimizing, ignoring, every other step of the way? Is it our nature to be goal-oriented like this all of the time? Is it learned behavior only, or is it innate? Some recent studies of the brain show that our subconscious may be shaping our decisions for us. Maybe this means that our conscious mind may just think it's in control. If this is true, we'd better start paying better attention, because most of us seem to believe in the decision-making certainty of the conscious mind. Setting up all the little goal-oriented actions throughout the day seems to turn us away from mindfulness. The Buddha (oh, I said it now) teaches that mindfulness is the one thing we can't have too much of. Noticing is always the first (and the next) step.

Blogging, I've been told, functions best as a virtual stream-of-consciousness expression, with a low premium on edits. I'm a notoriously slow songwriter, with lots of editing and revising. But those who know me know it's hard to get me to stop talking once I start. So we'll see if I can write here more like I talk. I doubt it. I hope that Mark (Wingate, the other half of Kindling Stone) will chime in with his own posts too. However it goes, here it goes.


Melissa had her latest in a series of utopian holiday visions as Easter approached last week. It went like this: We pack a picnic, kites (do we have kites?), and the portable reed organ (yes, we have one of those) and we drive out to Bell’s Bend park for the day. I told her it didn’t seem right to take the organ unless Mark could come with his fiddle. And so he did, with his wife Sally, their son Brian, and his two kids. We also invited our friends Adele and John and their children. And a nice surprise – Travis Book had a break from the road and showed up with his bass violin in tow. But first…
 

Bell’s Bend is a Nashville city park, west out of town, past the landfill and the prison, near the end of a winding road, along farmland and the Cumberland River, at the place where they used to run Cleece’s Ferry. On the way, we passed a large field of mustard greens with their vibrating yellow blossoms stretching far and wide. That’s also where we had seen the whooping cranes a couple of months ago when the grass was brown. But spring is full-on here now – the pink and white dogwoods, azalea, iris, myrtle, annual beds brimming with cheer, and the trees above unfurling their tender leaves of green and red.

Easter Sunday was a bit chilly, but sunny, when Lorna (age ten) and I drove to Friends Meeting earlier that morning. In the car, we talked about Jesus and the resurrection, spring, Buddha, and the Quakers. Usual stuff. She said it was sometimes difficult at school to be around people who talked a lot about God. I asked her if she believed in God. “Half do, half don’t,” she said, adding “but that question doesn’t matter really. It’s how you treat other people that matters.” She had my attention.

To the kites. On Saturday evening, realizing that we couldn’t locate any of the half dozen kites we’ve owned at one time or another over the past 20 years, I did what any good American does when they don’t have something they want - I went to Target and bought two. During a recession no less. Now Nashville doesn’t have a kite store that I know of. They did in Portland (Maine, where I’m from) and the kite store would be the obvious place to go and buy your kite – designed by some fun-loving home inventor, or an MIT grad who’d lost focus. Today, however, Target was my only choice. But yikes - I wouldn’t be forced into some mylar crap with a Disney princess or Buzz Lightyear. I was lucky to find a couple of traditional nylon and plastic jobs on the clearance shelf – one with a tropical fish, the other a small turtle with a finger spool. $8 total. Good, made it out of Target for under ten bucks – victory!

After Friends Meeting, Lorna and I pulled into Bell’s Bend about one o’ clock, Melissa and James (14) were already there setting out food, making a fire, hiding eggs, soaking in the natural surroundings. We carried instruments from the parking area to the beautiful grove of trees with picnic tables and fire pits.  The kids were immediately off and running, climbing the hay bales in the barn, circling the woodpile, running into the open field.
 

The sun was out, and there was nice breeze at my back. Good kite conditions! I grabbed the colorful fish kite, moved into the field, away from the trees and the barn, and let her loose. This nice little nylon kite with a long tail climbed straight up and I kept letting out line as it tugged and rose. Ah, that feeling, the pull at your hands, the sound of fabric in the wind. It’s like the crystal swish of fresh snow under your sled runners in the moonlight, or the buzzing of black rubber on new asphalt under your bike tires – these are the visceral mini-miracles of simple outdoor recreation. The smaller turtle kite took a little more effort, but finally found its lower place aloft, bobbing up and down, responding to each gust and shift of the wind – with an occasional nosedive into the ground below. I stood there rapt for an hour, giving the kids a turn, helping to reel in or give a tug when the breeze calmed. The birds sang, a hawk circled in the distant, upper currents. The sky was deep. Heaven on earth I thought.

It was about this time that the Wingate clan arrived, their small procession coming into view along the trail from the parking area. I was eager to share my enthusiasm and this blissful state I was in. But I need to stop here for a moment.

The day before, Mark had asked to come by the house to collect some dried bamboo stalks from our yard. He said he wanted to build his own kite. Now I know these people well, and I know that they’re always on the lookout for opportunities to teach the grandkids (who live in the house next door after all) something about something. Kites would definitely fall into this category. So I didn’t give it much thought. But what I didn’t know was this:

When he was a child, Mark’s father kept him home from school one day to build a kite. And this kite was made from the following materials: two sticks, newspaper, string, and a paste of flour and water. Now I did know that Mark’s father was born in 1913, was a minor league baseball pitcher in North Carolina who’d suffered an injury and was forced to leave baseball (his true love) to become a watch repairman. But I didn’t know about the kite.

So here they come, the Wingates, up the trail from the parking area, carrying this black and white newspaper kite glued onto a little cross of sticks. A little cross of sticks. And it’s Easter and I’m thinking, if this thing doesn’t fly, it’s going to be pretty disappointing. Maybe even symbolic. But Mark was on a mission, and he wasted no time trotting down into the field, clipped his spool of fishing line (rusty screwdriver through the hole as a handle) onto the string loop at the kite face. And there on the front of the newspaper kite was the Sudoku puzzle, unfinished, which I knew had to be driving Sally crazy because she likes Sudoku like Tennesseans like pork products. But the Sudoku sacrifice seemed appropriate even to her I think. In fact, everything suddenly seemed right about the situation.
 

And without a hitch, this small gray form, fashioned from materials that surely wouldn’t last for long, rose in the wind with a rare combination of majesty and humility. Light gray clouds had rolled in during the afternoon, and it was disarming to see this kite that matched the sky. The world was black and white. It was old-fashioned. It reminded me of the raisin spice cake that my mother makes, passed down from her grandmother – a depression-era cake without butter or eggs. “It’s not only good, it’s good enough,” a sound engineer I knew in Boston used to say. Why make do with more when we can make do with less?

But this wasn’t really about the frugality – it was about the tradition being passed across generations, it was about parents and children, ingenuity, sacrifice, simple beauty, acts of kindness, and good clean fun. This kite connected Mark to his father, to his wife and children and grandchildren, to his friends. You could see it in his face as he looked up at that object in the sky. And we felt it together with him.
 

Now it’s tempting to fill in the blanks by naming the directions these events echo from and point to. Believe me, I’ve thought about it plenty in the past week. Especially in light of what followed as the day went on - the kite grounding itself in a field of thorns, another flight in which Mark let out the fishing line so far that the kite was almost too small to see, followed by Mark actually cutting the line to let it sail free across the river, followed by the retrieval of the kite by Mark’s son Brian, brought back so it might fly again someday. I’ll also resist dwelling on some observations and comments that were made about why this was “the best kite,” or somehow superior in its simplicity, construction, etc. Instead, I’ll say that we gathered at the picnic tables beneath the trees by the fire. We ate some delicious food, and then played some music until it was time to go home. I will also say that it was a beautiful Easter.