Deep Listening
In the period after the concert and before the Peace Ceremony, I was sitting at Ronald’s desk going though his papers, looking at his objects neatly arranged. And Voila! a thought landed powerfully, almost burst into my consciousness, as if Ronald had tossed it to me. It felt rather brilliant. While still in Cape Town I had signed up for a Deep Listening Retreat to be held in Dartington, UK in mid-July. I was suddenly struck by the idea of asking J to join me.
I had been drawn to my large comforting piano a lot during this time, understandably, and music was everywhere. The Deep Listening Retreat held the potential for more inputs for me to go further in my voyage of discovery. I was really looking forward to this prospect. Now the idea of sharing the experience with J, as an input to the ‘deep listening’ collaboration we had discussed as a form for our evolving friendship, seemed highly appropriate. To me! Again, not a very conventional action for a new widow to consider six weeks after the death of her husband. The term ‘widow’ sat uncomfortably with me.
I put the idea to J in a telephone conversation. He was clearly stunned and said he would need to reflect deeply on my initiative over the weekend and give me a response on Monday. Meanwhile, I had a skype conversation and reading with Monica, who had had huge insights into Ronald’s astrological charts in the weeks prior to and at the time of the plane’s recorded disappearance. She had gone deeply into it, and we were both amazed, almost incredulous, at the clarity of the picture revealed in his chart. And now my own chart revealed a hugely creative phase in the ‘house of communication’, peaking on 26 June (the date set for the Ceremony for Peace). There was a strong indication of masculine energy coming in as support and a form of spiritual relationship associated with music, my music. This reading endorsed the impulsive invitation to my new unsuspecting friend. There was a greater energy prompting me in this action and, as Monica said now, while society would not fully understand, it was totally understandable from her perspective.
A few days later my sister Annie, who was flown from Cape Town by Air France to be with me for the Memorial Ceremony for Peace, hand-carried J’s letter. When I received his carefully considered handwritten almost crafted, response a few days later, I knew it was orchestrated from a higher realm. He agreed to come over in order to record my music. To capture the it pouring through me over this extraordinary time. He would bring his mobile sound recording studio with him and his visit was on this basis. Very clearly, we would have some ‘deep listening’ work to do to together after the retreat in Dartington.
My activities over these weeks were focused in such a creative way, amazing really. I can still sense, almost feel the energy as it flooded my whole being. I see myself sitting at the table looking out at the expanse of lake, silvery, with a golden path as the sun set behind the Jura mountains in Switzerland – Ronald’s fleece still over the back of one of the chairs – and talking to him. Sharing, discussing as we had done so often before.
During this time too, the Swiss Gendarmes came from across the lake with little plastic bags to collect samples of Ronald’s DNA from a hair brush, clothing not yet washed etc. In case, and in the event that identification was required. At this stage, some fifty bodies had been salvaged from the ocean in the vicinity of where the plane was presumed to have gone down off the coast of Brazil, a couple of hours after take-off from Rio de Janeiro. His body was not amongst them.
Air France was very supportive, as was Marie-Claude who headed the Geneva Airport Air France office. And as providence would have it, she was also a Thononaise! She had immediately connected with me on my arrival from Cape Town, and was trying to ease things in whatever way she could. They had flown my sister to be with me, and now they were going to fly J over to record my music. How extraordinary. What unbelievable events.
I have written about the Ceremony for Peace – wondrous it was, with Ronald’s family watching his life in other places flash before their tear-filled eyes. I realised they had never fully understood what he had been engaged in all those years or why he couldn’t spend more time in Zurich with his mother, his three siblings and his nieces and nephews. His visits were always short, and ended with ‘Pity you don’t spend more time…’
But now, I was in a kind of transition after the Ceremony, which had sent me flying. I felt as though I had been floating among people, smiling, feeling my heart well up with love as I recognised faces and was in long embraces, heart to heart. These feelings are difficult to put into words – so expansive, authentic, putting me closely in touch with my soul, my essential Self.
A couple of days prior to our departure for the UK, J arrived. Exhausted. He had been given clearance to travel by his surgeon following his hip replacement several months earlier. I had arranged a small studio apartment two floors below my own, where he could rest and recuperate. He then proceeded to create the ‘studio recording environment’ we would return to after the Deep Listening Retreat in England a week or so later.
First, we moved the piano. With the help of some willing neighbours, my great beloved Bechstein was moved out of the place, defined by the masking tape outline on the floor eight years earlier, and moved into the centre of the double volume space. It seemed to grow in stature, breathing in and expanding – especially when the lid was removed. And its sound was certainly different – welling up in the new volume it could fill.
J intended to place several microphones in various positions to capture the full resonance of the harmonics which the piano, now lidless and open to the world and space around it, would offer. He likened this to the bloom from a tumbler of good single malt whiskey. It was all set up and I was quite excited to get back to it after the musical adventure we then embarked on, flying to London and traveling by train across the green English summer countryside to the village of Dartington.
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The ‘Deep Listening Retreat’ at Dartington was the first time that J actually heard me play. Until this experience during the improvisation sessions – both individual and working in small groups – he had had no real sense of my relationship to music or to the piano. He had listened to the rough tracks for Liquid Light of course, when we had first met, and had declined to work on them as they had been recorded in MP3 format and nothing more could be coaxed from them. But now, during this week with a large group of musicians and composers, under the guidance of Pauline Oliveiros – at 80 the undisputed doyenne of experimental and electronic music – we started to explore further and to observe and listen to each other.
I was hugely impressed by the musical side of J, literally blown away with his individual improvisation, which took the form of his pounding out with his fingers and flat hands a percussive, insistent, rhythm on the wall of the studio we were in, his back to us while he rapped his ‘song’ of ‘John, John… he’s gone!’ I was not the only one who was blown away. He had a huge presence, and I felt a sense of direction coming into my life as I contemplated the future and stood next to my ‘deep listening partner’ in the great halls and refractory of the old college and even more so when we walked in the magnificent gardens and did thai chi amidst the giant trees in the early morning dew. This was a dream-like time.
I believe J was equally gratified to listen to my contributions. In the small groupwork, where I played the piano and others various instruments, I was aware that I was creating the musical framework for a very talented dancer, as she danced her dance. It was a beautiful co-creation as she expressed in form the sounds emanating from my fingers and the piano. She danced what flowed from my hands and in turn the music anticipated where her dance wanted to flow and evolve. It was breathtakingly and exquisitely beautiful. As J said later, the piano music provided the ‘glue’ which held the creation together. A creation clearly deeply appreciated by the larger group.
Much of the Deep Listening Retreat was supposed to take place in silence. A constraint we found difficult to maintain as we were getting to know each other and found ourselves frequently and guiltily whispering in corners and on garden benches. We actually left before the final closing session, citing train timetables and offering hurried thanks. This might have appeared a slightly selfish act in the view of some of the group members who later found us at the station eating ice creams. But, we were that unusual couple from South Africa, who had added a certain spice and intrigue to the week.