Harmony

Today Dan turned 50 and on his day today, his wish was to post this. Enjoy.

One of my favorite discoveries (besides my passion for the drums and rhythm) in my first 50 years on this planet is the discovery of harmony. This is a big word and means many things to many people. When I hear the word itself I can not define it with one meaning. In fact there would be no harmony without more than one presence. I don’t even know the definition of the word but more and more I try to feel it in my life. My most recent experience with harmony as many would know the word was last night. I was at a small bar in Costa Rica singing harmony with my songbird Laura. I was not sure how involved I would be with her Costa Rica tour but was available and as long as I was supplied rum and some local beer I was willing to join my Laura and excellent guitarist Bill. Singing songs we never sang together before and blending with my Laura in harmony is a joy. I can not put this feeling into words. It’s a ride and journey almost another sense. As I write this blog for Laura I am looking over a hillside. Tree tops and a view of the pacific. Too many creatures to count but all living in harmony. The people of this village live in harmony with this eco system. They live off the sea. They surf, they farm, they love, they deal with Mother Nature on a daily basis. Mother Nature is the melody and everything else is a parallel harmony on top or below. Sometimes everything must stop. That in itself, if everyone stops is sort of a harmony. There are many times in our human experience that there is dissonance, or we are not in a harmony that is comfortable or one that we are used to hearing. As painful or as uncomfortable as this is, this must be part of the journey so we can indeed feel the true harmony in our hearts and our human society. There are wars and waste and anger and sometime the wheels fall off and there is a bombastic crash. Know that this is part of the composition of life. There are earthquakes and oil spills and there is loneliness...There is no time for blame. There is only time right now in this moment to find the right part of a chord that fits and helps heal. At some point we must feel this so we can bring things back together in a non sharp or non flat harmonic parallel. You and I can create. We can have. Together. Harmony.