Reading · A Gathering of Spirits

Hi Folks, I’m deep into studio work this month. I’m so excited to share these songs with you all when the record is completed!!! Because an album project needs a lot of undivided focus I’m revisited a couple of past posts with new commentary on Sundays. I’m still continuing to write my Wednesday Weekly/Studio Journal this month. Today I”m revisiting one of my favorite summer post,“Just In Case” I’ll start with some new commentary with Music Always Music & Things I Loved This Week sections. There are two really fun event announcements at the end of the post.

I LOVED collaborating with all of the musicians on this project. Every single one is an accomplished world class musician with beautiful careers and many projects of their own. So here’s some links to the works of the musicians I’ve been working with this month. I’ll be featured individuals in the next few newsletters.

Ben Sollee

Ben is an amazing performer, arranger and composer. Ben Sollee is an Emmy-winning composer, cellist, and experiential designer working at the intersection of art and social impact -blurring the boundaries between folk music, cinematic scoring, and environmental activism. You can hear his scores in movies like “Land” with Time for Three. His work is driven by a singular mission: to design experiences—be they musical, digital, or environmental—that grow a deeper sense of togetherness and collective resilience. His newest album is Time On Hold - I think you’ll love it too.

Moira Smiley

I’ve collaborated with Moira on many albums now. There is no one in the world like her. She creates some of the most stunning music I’ve ever heard. It’s an honor to feature her voice and singular style on this project. I’ve mentioned Moira in my Music Always Music section before and I hope you’ll check out her website learn more about Moiraas an accomplished solo artist, a member of the group Solas, her work as composer and arranger of original compositions for choir - especially those with her signature body percussion. Her newest touring project, Roots To Sky grows from her album of folksongs with string quartet, ‘The Rhizome Project’, accompanied by her book, The Song Rhizome. Here’s a Video of her song and performance of Bellow

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Now on to the Post - Just In Case

“There is a lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that if you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition, there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.” John O’Donohue from Anam Cara

I remember the first time I read these words by the poet/author John O’Donohue, and sensed the simple but profound truth in them. Kindness is a principle so true and essential that something deep down in us expects it. There is a sense of “ahhhhh yes” when we experience kindness. There it is, and there it is again. There is a sense of disconnect and even shock when we encounter conscious cruelty or intentional meanness. There is something out of joint, the cogs in the wheel got stuck, we are bewildered on some level.

I remember a little family run ice cream shoppe that was walking distance from the place I lived when I was pregnant with my daughter. The little shop was located on the edge of a small city park and was known for having the best, richest ice cream anywhere in that region of the state. On the hottest most humid nights, this little park with its duck and swan pond, colorful carrousel, baby swings, tetter-totters, tiny band gazebo and public pool was a favorite destination. From April through November, sweaty happy children and their parents would line up for a scoop of creamy chocolate or vanilla, butter pecan, blackberry or mint chip ice cream dropped on a sweet waffle cone or in a cardboard cup. The shoppe sported a 1950’s style neon sign that originally read, “Frozen Custard”, but many years ago a few letters had burned out, and so the sign radiantly blinked “Zen Custard”. I don’t know if it was because the family liked the bit of transcendence implied by the broken sign or because everyone who came there already knew what it was supposed to say, but the upshot is that the sign was never repaired and I always chuckled as I passed it, thinking to myself “what is the sound of one hand clapping for this ice cream shoppe?”

Anyway, the entire family worked at this seasonal endeavor including Mom-Custard, Pop-Custard, Grandfather-Custard, Grandmother-Custard and all the Tween and Teenage-Custard kids old enough to scoop and hand out paper napkins and wooden spoons. I’ll be honest, the grandmother of the family was a stern woman, scooping ice cream efficiently but rarely giving the same affable warmth the rest of the Custard-Family doled out as generously as extra sprinkles. I remember as my due date got closer (and my inner primordial sweet tooth kicked in) I began to visit the Zen Custard stand more than once a week. One day, when it was my turn at the window, Grandmother-Custard (who had been seeing me show up more frequently in the past month) took one look at my billowing and expanding dress and with the barest hint of a smile asked for my order. Grandmother-Custard had always intimidated me a bit with her general stern affect, but I sheepishly said, “I’ll have a scoop of vanilla for me” and then pointing to my belly added, “and a scoop of vanilla for her.” The corners of Grandmother-Custard’s eyes squinched up with the most wonderful and unabashed delight. She actually grinned at me and brought me my two scoops in a cup. A few days later, I was again waiting my turn at the window. Grandmother-Custard nodded and smiled, and when I asked for one scoop of vanilla in a cup, she came back with two scoops and said, “Just in case.” Every single time I returned until my daughter was born, and Grandmother-Custard was at the window, I was always given an extra scoop—just in case. It felt like such an unexpected kindness, a generous one-mother-to-another-wink-and-nod to a young woman navigating an enormous change in her life who sometimes felt a bit alone and far from family.

I don’t know if she realized how much I appreciated her crinkled eyes every time walked up to the window. I don’t know if she knew how much it meant following summer that when I rolled my little girl up to her window in a yard sale stroller for her first baby cup of vanilla Zen Custard, Grandmother-Custard literally clasped her hands to her chest and called her daughter to come and see.

Such a small thing —a smile, an extra scoop, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, the clasping of hands. And yet, all these years later I remember Grandmother-Custard and her transcendent ice cream.

“…if you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition, there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.”

I know in these troubled times it is easy to become cynical. Honestly, it’s a lot safer to be cynical. If we are cynical about things we are never disappointed. It is way riskier to lean into hope and believe in the power of goodness. It is riskier because most likely there will be times when I am disappointed, and then choose to lean back into hope and the power of goodness.

But it is my belief that the Celtic notion of the principle of kindness and goodness given and received expresses a deeper wisdom, a more powerful picture of our true and natural state. Why do I believe this to be so? Because when kindness bubbles up naturally, it feels good, it feels right, if feels like something that suppose to happen in the course of a extraordinary ordinary day. I believe it because I have seen small daily acts of goodness and love change things in profound ways. I believe it because someone, for absolutely no reason than to be kind, gave me a second scoop, just in case—and all these years later, I am still grateful.

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What do you think about the Celtic principle of kindness, love and goodness being expansive—the more you give the more comes back to you tenfold?

Revisiting - Just In Case: A Summer Story

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