I returned to Cape Town yet again in October 2008 after six months in my retreat in the Swiss mountain village Leysin above Lac Leman.\u00a0 The same village where Ronald and I had once rented a cheap apartment in a chalet ten years previously.\u00a0 Now, taking my leave of Ronald and Geneva with its surrounding vineyards resplendent and chokingly beautiful in their autumn colors, the moment felt profound, weighty.\u00a0 As if this was a junction in my life where the signals had shifted, and my track was now oriented in a new direction.\u00a0 This departure felt different.\u00a0 As we had a final meal together in a popular bistro with glorious sun filtering through the Titian-hued trees onto our table, we were both silent \u2013 aware that this day signified a change.\u00a0 He then drove me to the airport, and we parted.\u00a0 Again.<\/p>\n
These months in the mountains had been enriching.\u00a0 I embraced solitude, found a balance in my daily routines and spiritual practice, greeted the sun each morning as it emerged over the brim of the slumbering dragon, feeling its rays penetrate deep into my expanding heart.\u00a0 Standing barefoot on the dew-soaked grass sensing the prickling in my soles and breathing the purest of early morning mountain air, I could feel the growing presence of peace throughout my whole being.<\/p>\n
Learning to trust my intuition, the guidance I received during these months (subsequent to our travel to Egypt) left me in no doubt about the direction my life was taking and the rightness of it for me.\u00a0 I became more aware that I was \u2018growing\u2019 on several levels. So it was that in Cape Town, my feelings and practices continued.\u00a0 Growth entails embracing \u00a0change, and change seemed to get easier as I allowed and accepted this.<\/p>\n
Soon after my arrival, surprising but very clear guidance came in the form of a letter, written in my own hand and delivered through the process of \u2018free-writing\u2019 allowing the pen to move freely down the page with no editing or interference by the thinking mind.\u00a0 The letter began with the words \u201cBeloved Marilyn\u201d and contained a set of instructions having to do with my music.<\/p>\n
In essence I was to prepare myself for a series of \u2018downloads\u2019\u00a0 and to record the music coming through me on specific dates, leading up to the solstice on 21st December.\u00a0 The music, which was referred to as Liquid Light<\/em> needed to be made available to a wider public.\u00a0\u00a0 I was to trust the process.\u00a0 Specific light frequencies are held in sound, which is transmitted through the music which comes through me.\u00a0 I am an instrument.<\/p>\n I shared these instructions with Pieter, who had become a friend in Egypt.\u00a0 It was Pieter who quietly went about arranging some of the details.\u00a0 Seven people were to be present with me, some of whom I had not yet met.\u00a0 They arrived on the evening of the solstice, bringing candles, a mass of red roses and a splendid vegetarian buffet.\u00a0 We quietly got to know each other, sharing the sense of ceremony, setting the energy.<\/p>\n At some stage, when the sun had set and the room was simply candle-lit, we went downstairs to the room with my grandmother\u2019s 1901 Bechstein piano, sat quietly and meditated for some time.\u00a0 The little Sony recorder was turned on, and I felt myself slipping into the void \u2013 a space with which I was becoming more familiar.\u00a0 Eyes closed, at some point my hands rested gently on the keys in the silence.\u00a0 Slowly the notes began to sound.\u00a0 I was no longer aware of the group around me and had shifted into that other zone.<\/p>\n When the notes stopped sounding and the last harmonics stopped circling around my head, we sat still in silence for some time.\u00a0 I could still feel the vibrations in my body, my hands and fingers.\u00a0 I heaved a long deep sigh.\u00a0 The \u2018download\u2019 was complete.<\/p>\n This group of gentle souls then took their leave, drifting out into the night and streets of Kalk Bay, having come together specifically to witness and help me fulfill the instructions of the \u2018letter\u2019.\u00a0 I lay in the dark for a long time after they left, wondering, reflecting on the strange event that had just transpired in my house.\u00a0 I closed my eyes and slept soundly, waking with the early sounds of birdsong in the branches touching my bedroom deck.<\/p>\n The next morning I went downstairs and looked at the recorder, almost with trepidation, a moment of doubt about my technical abilities.\u00a0 \u2018What if\u2026.?\u00a0 Had I pressed the right button?\u2019\u00a0 A wave of insecurity flooded through me.<\/p>\n But, as if to reassure me, if any further proof was necessary, there it was \u2013 \u00a0the file of the \u2019download\u2019 recorded the night before existed!\u00a0\u00a0 It was shown in almost illegible numbers on the small display screen, which indicated the length of the music file.<\/p>\n I stared at the numbers … letting the information reach my rational mind…21:12.\u00a0\u00a0 21:12. Technically this data showed that twenty one minutes and twelve seconds of music had been recorded!<\/p>\n What does the rational mind do with this kind of information?\u00a0 21:12\u00a0 on the 21st of December 2008\u2026<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The instructions were also clear in terms of getting the recording out on a CD to be called Liquid Light<\/em> which was to be available by the spring.\u00a0 A small creative team, the young designers and musicians who lived in part of the downstairs of my house, got busy.\u00a0 The artwork was completed, the recording was \u2018mastered\u2019\u00a0 (although not much could be done with the MP3 format) and 1,000 copies of the CD Liquid Light<\/em> \u00a0was produced somewhere in Asia and dated 21 March 2009.<\/p>\n One last interesting and quirky detail to this story.\u00a0 The letter was addressed to \u2018Marilyn\u2019, which is my given name at birth, although at this time in my life I was known socially and professionally as Marni, a name given to me during my school years.\u00a0 The cover to the CD stated clearly Liquid Light<\/em> \u2013 through Marilyn.\u00a0 <\/em>Yet on the spine of the cover, where the title usually also appears in smaller letters, was through Marni.\u00a0 <\/em>Marni had slipped into this creation somehow to the total amazement of the graphic artist.<\/p>\n Clearly, this was a sign that I had some further work to do in getting to know myself.<\/p>\n In the meantime, I sent Ronald a copy of the CD to his office in Geneva where he was the \u00a0co-ordinator for the Geneva Declaration for the Reduction of Armed Violence for Development.\u00a0 He replied that he appreciated the CD a lot, and he preferred to continue with me as Marni.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Receiving instructions for the preparation and recording of my music for the CD “Liquid Light”, for the December Solstice 2008. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":484,"template":"","categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","episode_posts","type-episode_posts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-part-3-you-yourself-are-the-melody"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/episode_posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/episode_posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/episode_posts"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylisteningheart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}