Facets of a Diamond – Blog

The great Confucian philosopher Mencius stated – and I’m sure believed – that love is basic to our nature as it is the nature of water to flow downhill.

Every problem is a pebble, perhaps a rock, impeding the natural flow of chi, of our human nature, through us.

(January 2017)

At some level – superficial, shallow or deep – every work of art still transmits the basic problems of life, for example, the fear of death.  For few persons have ever really overcome them, at the deepest level.

Therefore to listen to any music, contemplate any painting, feel any sculpture – and relate to any person

Ethics is the taking responsibility for all of one’s actions — and thoughts, for they, too, radiate just as far.

How far? Every action, physical or mental, lives on for ever, resonating through its effects on all and their sequential subsequent effects on all to come.

Everyone affects everyone – for ever.

“Revelation,” Emerson wrote, “is the disclosure of the soul.”*

To go to the soul – of the composer, of the poet, of the painter, of the sufferer, of every thing and every one – this alone will lead to Revelation. To find the soul and reveal it to the world. Especially the soul of the mother,

Think back to a time just a few thousand years ago. Talking, writing (such as it was) and music-making was with friends. Now it is usually with strangers.

Who am I writing this to? I don’t know you. And who am I? You don’t know me.

How differently, more openly and lovingly, we sing to friends than

I start each day with two forms of meditation. One is quiet. The other is active: say, painting, writing or singing.

Mother is a Verb.

“Mother is a verb, while Daughter can be nothing but a noun.” ‹1›

Here am I on my birthday, thinking of, invoking, my mother. Oh, how she verbed me!

I need a son verb. More—I need to be it! To love her as I Know she loved me. Until then,

Imagine Henry Moore walking along Seven Sisters beach as he did so often. Thousands and thousands little rocks everywhere. He is drawn to one, attracted by it.

This morning, just after waking, I recalled this incident at a seminar on “medical intuition:” A doctor who admitted he used intuition in his psychiatric practice was asked by the speaker whether he had told his colleagues.

It was the beginning of a seminar I was conducting in London. I looked at the audience. To nearly all of them I was a stranger as they were to me. I could feel their tension and uncertainty as they sat there clutching their pads and pencils, ready to write down every word I