The following blog was posted by Blaise Kielar, after the recent “Adventures in Sound Play” workshop at Yogaville:

You can go home again!

Almost 19 years ago, I deepened my experience of freely improvised music with Paul Winter in a Living Music Village held at Omega. This past weekend he offered a shorter and similar workshop in Virginia. Again he kindled something profound in me, and an appreciation for how important it is to help others rediscover their innate spontaneous expression.  I truly enjoyed all the ways we all made music, even those who had no musical training. Given attentive listening, satisfying music can be made with 3 or 4 people without uttering one word of instruction or planning.

This idea has expanded in my experience to include all modes of expression. Viewing a sunset across a Virginia valley delivered such a profound experience that I wondered the next morning if perhaps there was a poem there. (see poem below)

When I shared my belief that the medium of expression really doesn’t matter, it struck something in Paul. He said this was the opposite of what communication theorist Marshall McLuhan said, “the medium is the message.” In my experience, to express what happens at any given moment, any medium of expression is fine. The Now can be expressed in music, words, dance, visual art, photography, or just in appreciative silence, alone or with others. The mere act of noticing and paying attention is enough. – Blaise Kielar

Exquisite Silence

Mountain ridge
panoramic view
sky draining of blue and white
and flowing
towards the brilliant orange fire
of sunset.

Distant lines
of hills and peaks
transform
from smoky gray
to an inky purple,
in sharp relief
to the pale parchment
of the sky.

The colors write
their slow moving story
on my eyes,
which find patterns
in the golds
as well as
in the wispy grays.

My ears then trump it all
with a revelation –
I am bathed in perfect silence.

No sounds
of modern life
intrude
upon this gift,
no insects buzz,
no wind sighs.

And from this well
of deepest peace
a sense of oneness
arises.

There is no veil,
no barrier,
no difference at all.
Communion is served
to all my senses,
yet those senses
have been left behind.

The silence,
the dark,
the stillness,
all profound.

In this emptiness
are anchored
all sound,
all sight,
all motion.
Every sensation
born from naught.

The wind gently
pulls me back –
the sunset and I return.
Now
less an object and observer
and more
love regarding love,
in different forms.

poem written by Blaise Kielar, March 2013