I was so aware of this quote during a concert in Gisborne, New Zealand last Saturday night.
Music…gives life to everything! We all have a soundtrack to our lives, we turn to music in times of sadness or joy to express whatever emotion we’re feeling, we each can pinpoint times in our lives when a song or an artist touched our hearts forever. How blessed am I to be a conduit of some of the world’s greatest composers and lyricists, and to use that gift to connect people from all walks of life.
It felt like giving wings to the mind for many that night who didn’t think they’d like the kind of repertoire I sing or didn’t think they liked ‘opera,’ and would normally not have darkened the door for something like this. But they were coerced by friends or family to come along and the result: they absolutely loved it. Their eyes were opened and their imagination took flight.
‘I’m sorry but I didn’t know who you were. I wasn’t a believer – but now I am!’ was something I heard a few times afterwards in the foyer.
Or one lovely chap I met said he came from one of the hard-core, rugby-playing families in the Province. His wife dragged him along, he didn’t want to go. He came out shaking his head, gobsmacked, buying CDs and raving he’d ‘never seen anything like it!’ He thought he’d hate it and he ended up loving it. He couldn’t believe how much an audience could be so involved and how everyone felt connected. He’d never experienced that before.
The friendly, warm, happy, generous audience was open and receptive to me offering love, and them giving it back, and me giving it back to them, and so on and so on and so on…as it became one big, virtuous, wondrous circle of love.
BOOM!
We are not solitary beings, regardless of our incorrect assumption at times. Energy and love connect us all and I think music allows us to remember we’re interconnected.
‘Every thought, every action, matters; it all contributes to the collective energy going on in the world. When you’re mindful of that, the world turns magical’.
Laura Lynne Jackson
These days I don’t sing because I’ve been well trained to do a job or because I think I’m a great singer or to achieve some kind of career aspiration. I sing and do what I do to create a feeling, to connect people, to ignite a room, to make people feel a range of emotions, to uplift and inspire, to remind people of the magic of life, that we’re all intertwined and nothing else matters more than to love and be loved in return.
In the world we’re living in today, it’s valuable to get back to basics.
At the primary school I visited, the day before the concert, to talk about ‘living your dream life’ the kids know what’s real. They were overwhelmingly positive, no inhibitions, full-on singing, loving life, hugging me, offering high fives and no one thought about being cool. Too young to be self- conscious, not yet concerned about creating a prison in their heads of what others thought of them? They were liberated and free to be themselves, unreserved and bold.
Sim and I are so grateful for the Gisborne community’s warm, wholehearted welcome to our family and their generosity to our treating autism charity, The Sewell Foundation, which benefited from all proceeds from the concert.
Laughter, love, music are all examples of divinity
#melthearts #blowminds
Geoff
