15 December 2004: Zen Spoiler

I just got back from taking my last final exam of the semester. Off to teach at Studio Rasa in a few minutes, then off from there to teach at the Y. Then my Winter Break is officially underway. One month of having a social life again, and I plan to make the most of it.

Speaking of social life, I heard back from Stagewalker regarding the start time of Bone Council. I've gone back and changed it in the previous entry, but I'll save you the trouble of going and looking by posting it here as well: starts at noon; show up by 1:00 pm to avoid lateness; over by 4:00 pm at the very latest.

Had an email exchange with Yoko this morning about the Song-as-Vehicle lab. Yoko always has good insights, comments, and questions, and inspires the same in me. This morning's email exchange ended up being the most I've written about my work in this lab since my entry of September 22nd, back near the lab's beginning, so I've reprinted it below.

Spoiler warning! The later part of the exchange below gives away the solution to the zen koan "What is the sound of one hand clapping." Zen students whose spiritual practice calls for them to work this koan out for themselves should stop reading this entry now and come back to it after attaining enlightenment.

Yoko: Completely coincidentally, since I didn't read the pages off the Paratheatrical site until just now, last week, I found myself talking about movement a lot in my music teaching. I was explaining to my students how notes are not static, that they have intention and weight and movement within themselves and amongst each other. The mark of a more advanced musician is the recognition of the relationship of notes and playing/singing with this in mind.

Me: I'm not a musician at all, much less an advanced one, but I know what you mean about notes having intention and weight and movement within themselves and amongst each other, because that's how my mind works: my reality, my entire cognitive experience, consists of a constant awareness of such properties and interrelations - between words, sentences, concepts, ideas, people, bodies, archetypes, numbers, points in space/time, tarot cards, sephiroth, shapes, memories, incidents, bits of information...

One of the reasons I chose to work with a Glenn Gould piece was that everything I know about him indicates that his mind worked in much the same way (this comes across quite clearly in his radio play, The Idea of North).

In an individual song, the basic unit is the note - the song is made up of notes interacting with other notes. In this ritual lab, as I've experienced it (I can't speak for the other participants), the basic units seem to be the person and the song. Ten people, ten songs. Both the people and the songs have intention and weight and movement within themselves and amongst each other. Each person interacts with their own song, and each person/song dyad interacts with the other nine person/song dyads.

Yoko: Are you discovering interesting movements within the Gould piece you've chosen?

Me: With the approach we've been taking in this lab, I think it's more accurate to say that the Gould piece and I have interacted in a way that has led to me discovering interesting movements in me.

Playing with the interactions of sound and movement is fascinating because the distinction is illusory - sound is movement. So the nature of the movement/sound relationship mirrors the nature of the Force/Form relationship that produces all Existence: it's really all just one thing acting upon itself (as in a certain well-known zen koan).