Lesser Palace

I'm still contemplating the reconnection I talked about in my last entry. What with the craziness endemic to the end of the school year, I haven't really been able to do anything about it (I'll have a few hours tomorrow before the first of the Big Events of the weekend, at least I'll get something done), and I'm feeling a little like I've been pissing away a golden opportunity, but that's they way it goes sometimes. I did get a lot of other things done, including taking my bow out of the back yard (where I've been shooting at close distance, firing into all sorts of unlikely "targets") to the archery range for some distance shooting... Learned some interesting lessons there, definitely--more about that later.

Saw my Qi Gong doctor today, he did a wonderful treatment (especially nice on the legs, which have been bothering me a lot lately), but at the end of the treatment he said something to me that I didn't quite hear (some noise in the office at just the wrong time), but I'm quite sure I got his meaning: Something different happens when I talk about, and do, music. Something special. Something important.

I can't "not do" music any more. The dry spell has been too long. I have to make music. Not even if it's "just for me": especially because it's "just for me."

But the ideas are starting to flow. I'm starting to hear things again (for a composer, that's a sign of normality returning, rather than fleeing). I. Have. To. Write them down.

Just writing about this... I sure feel stupid that it has taken MS to drive this particular point home. Oh well. Another gift of MS. Go figure.

Oh yeah, the "Lesser Palace"... More acupuncture lingo. It's the Fire point on the Heart meridian, another one of those wonderful but nasty palm points. There are a lot of "palace" points, and the "Lesser Palace" is a special place of refuge and rejuvenation. A friend of mine had one of those at his workplace: Showing me a nice, large, formal and extraordinarily tidy office, he said, "This is where I bring visitors... and this" (he opened a door to a small, hidden, and delightfully cluttered, room, with a dartboard at one end) "is where I go when I really want to get things done." Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan would have called it his "place of power."

The path before me is, for now, clear. Now, we'll see if I can get off my lazy ass and walk it, bad legs and all.