Monday, November 20, 2006
Surround Yourself with Beauty

My house is often pretty disorganized. I try, and sometimes I start winning, but I often get way behind. Right now my bed is covered with bills and receipts, two kalimba CDs to review, a few books I need to check before their next printing... you don't need to know all the details. My physical surroundings are not all that beautiful right now.

But inside my heart, I can still hear the echos of the kalimba music I just recorded and the music that my student and I just played in our lesson.

If I ever start to get bogged down, if I ever start to wonder why I am on this seemingly crazy path of leaving behind my day job as a radio astronomer and picking up the mantle of the King of Kalimbas, all I have to do is play the kalimba for a few precious minutes, and the beauty of the music carries me on.

It is my mission to bring this beautiful music into the world, to share it with the people I see at the post office or in the neighborhood, or the people I meet on the internet. The pure beauty of this music fills me with joy and can make me shake and tremble. And the afterglow of that beauty calms me while I drive, deal with the kids, deal with life, deal with whatever I need to deal with. And whenever I CAN'T deal, I just play a little bit of kalimba. Any problem can just wait until I'm done playing!