Prelude
The recording of Liquid Light took place on 21 December 2008, according to my ‘instructions’. Unable to locate and contact someone with technical abilities, it was another artisanal effort, with me turning on the Sony Walkman just before I went into my zone. But the material was there, a download’ of 21 minutes and 12 seconds in length, captured in MP3 format. The issue now was to transform the raw material (including a few other earlier recordings) into a CD to be called Liquid Light.
Pieter, who had orchestrated the extraordinary evening for the recording of the download, had met someone in a queue some months before by chance. Someone, who he was sure would help me with ‘technical issues’ of my music. And he had tried to contact this person prior to the solstice evening, to have him present and involved. All attempts had failed, hence my doing the recording in my usual amateurish manner. I tried again in January 2009, because the recorded data now needed to be turned into a CD, and I managed to get J on the telephone.
We had a long deeply resonant conversation of perhaps an hour, covering many topics around sound, vibration, healing and music. Clearly, a huge amount of common ground. There was a ‘charge’ in our connection, quite striking to me. He was clear that he couldn’t get involved in any big new project, as he was about to undergo a hip replacement in February and needed to prepare and get systems in place for this. But he was curious enough to want to hear my material and to advise me.
Thus, a couple of days after my birthday, J visited my home in Kalk Bay. I saw him struggling down the steps to my house and knew this was no ordinary meeting. I sensed my life was going to be impacted. Our first meeting unfolded on a Friday, a couple of days after my fifty-eighth birthday on the 4th of February. He listened to the recording with headphones – intently – and then gave me the bad news. Having recorded the music in MP3 format, there was not enough to really work with in the post-production phase. From his side, a broader range of sound was needed. MP3 compresses sound into a narrow bandwidth, and this restricts the process in post-production. But in any event, he had said he couldn’t be involved, and I had to get my CD out by April. So, I would continue with the project after my return from my second visit to Egypt taking place a week later.
J left me pondering over the afternoon’s discussions and the fact that I would not be seeing this man again for quite some time.
***
I need to describe what had transpired a couple of days before, just before my birthday. In a pre-birthday call from Ronald my emotions gave me the clear signal that I/we could not continue like this. He first told me about our bookings for our trip to Corsica after my planned return to Thonon in early June. We had planned this long-awaited for Corsica experience for the annual celebration of our marriage, which would enter its 26th year. We still had not quite let go of the ritual.
Almost in the same breath he said ‘he was off to Rio ‘on an impulse’ the following week. Despite the long absence from each other, when he said this, I felt the familiar discomfort knotting me up on the inside. He was not coming out to Cape Town in April but instead using some leave and going to Rio. Of course I knew there was a woman involved. ‘Oh.. Ronald, who is she?’ I was feeling miserable and angry with myself at the extent of the uncomfortable feelings.
That night there was a concert in my house with my tenants downstairs. A group of lovely young musicians, very appreciative of my support of their music and creative ventures. One room had been turned into a sound studio, and the large lounge held about twenty seated people listening to Guy Buttery, a talented guitarist. At midnight, there were hugs and birthday kisses, and I went back to my part of the house and my piano, and played for another hour or so. My emotions of the day profound and powerful.
Then at the beach the next morning on my fifty-eighth birthday I received a powerful message from Christa not to be ignored. The phrase which jumped out at me took us both by surprise!
‘The illusion of having someone in your life … is worse than the reality of having no one!’ Where did that spring from? She had no idea.
But suddenly I was taking action and things started happening.
I found myself in a week-long process with a sangoma around the corner in Clovelly, for the entire week before I was due to go to Egypt. He had had a cancellation from a woman stuck in the UK because of the weather. This was no coincidence. I was trusting these kinds of outcomes by now and felt sure that I had taken the right decision or been guided to do so. I knew I needed some process to cut the cords which bound me to Ronald. For five days I had sessions with the sangoma in the early morning and before sunset and had no social contact and no physical interaction with anyone. However, I did have a couple of long telephone conversations with J, as we began to explore our encounter.