In Latin, “corona” refers to a garland worn on the head as a mark of honor or emblem of majesty; it can also refer to a halo around a celestial body.[1] I prefer “coronavirus” to the clinical “COVID-19” because using the word, “corona,” conjures up an image of an encircling light. That encircling light is exactly what I attempt to pray into reality as I make music during the current time of pandemic.
These days I find myself bringing to mind the words of the Psalmist: “We sat by the waters of Babylon and wept when we remembered Zion. We hung up our harps on the weeping willow trees. For even in exile, we were forced to utter words of home: ‘Sing for us the songs of Zion!’ But how could we sing our songs on strangers’ soil?”
The “songs of Zion,” for us at this precise moment in history, are the songs we have spent our lives engaged in making. Whether we are musicians or farmers or academics or lawyers, our song is what we produce. We have learned how best to produce that song after a lifetime of study, careful observation and honing. But now requirements are changed. We are called to reinvent what it means to connect, what it means to create our specific song, and to do this in a strange land. A land of zeros and ones: cyberspace.
Making music is a community-building endeavor. Beyond the 10,000 hours of training that all serious artists engage in, mostly in the solitude of a practice room, we create what we create within the context of other people. That small community then performs for a larger community (the audience) in order to touch that larger community in such a profound way that their lives are changed, even minutely. They, the audience, then go out to change the world. It’s a ripple effect that begins with the heart.
Zen Buddhists use the term “koan” to mean a riddle, which is used during meditation, that helps unravel truths about the world and themselves. One of the famous ones is: If a tree falls in the woods, and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer is “no” because the very concept of sound is vibration which reaches the ear and is, in turn, perceived as “sound.”
In the same manner, taking that koan to the next level, if a pianist plays a Beethoven sonata, and there is no one to hear it, is it beautiful? The answer is complex because the pianist, him/herself is necessarily affected by the unique character of Beethoven’s description of beauty. But like the tree in the woods, beauty is only beauty when it is shared.
This time of being at home is a cocoon for me, a growth incubator. Rather than dwell on what it is that I cannot share face to face with someone else (excluding virtual sharing), rather than focus on my tendency for a FOMO response when I see what so many of my colleagues are able to do, rather than recoil into fear and dread, I believe the best option for us all is to see this time as an opportunity to go on a Vision Quest.
The shamanic practice of a Vision Quest entails deprivation (traditionally deprivation of water, food, and protection) in order to meet our demons fearlessly, honestly, and courageously. Acceptance of who and where we are in our lives can lead to the transformation of stress. A focus on gratitude can develop from this transformation, strengthening our resolve to become all that we are called to be in this life.
How do we sing our songs on strangers’ soil? This, too, becomes a koan for living life during the Coronavirus. The answer, for each of us, is there awaiting discovery.
[1] Merriam-Webster online dictionary