MUSINGS...by Beverly Rieger

Autumn is certainly here. The air is soft again and cool. It was dark last night around 7:45PM....almost two hours earlier than on the Summer Solstice. I will miss summer, but I love the feel of Autumn. This week a group of women will gather again here to mark this change of seasons with meditation. This week I had to look again at my own beliefs about music and it's sacred character. An acquaintance of mine had asked me to be a musician for a celebration, and then changed their mind and asked me to stay away from this celebration because this person did not want the music to interfere with the sacredness of the celebration. For this person, silence and the spoken word will be the music. I have had others also say that they prefer Silence to Sound and would not use music with their meditation or creativity. There is no right or wrong way for the sacred to manifest. The new Radiance music is coming out soon, and so this change in plans is a very happy event that allows...

Well....it's been 10 days since I have written. Life has been very, very busy but new music is coming. What a privilege! The creative process is such that the artist really doesn't know what is going to happen before he/she begins to paint, or goes into the recording studio to compose. We might have an idea, but creativity by it's definition means bringing something from the unknown into the known....something carrying the unique vibration of the artist..... I have been into the recording studio twice since September 3rd (last blog) and now we have four tracks of the upcoming Radiance album. Always it is important to actually get the music out in physical form, but then, as I listen to it and live with it, the music begins to refine and become lighter and cleaner. Yesterday I was with Tom Tempel at Tempel Recording working with the editing process. That is one of my favorite parts of the process. Music just continues to become more of what it really wants to be. ...

Tuesday I was in the recording studio again, and we now have three tracks of the total album complete: Walking Lightly on the Earth, Compassion, and Call To Joy. The fun thing about creating an album is the unpredictability of the process. The music that was "Walking Lightly on the Earth" last week is now "Call To Joy" this week, and there is entirely new music for the present "Walking Lightly on the Earth". Compassion is mostly new music, but the first part had been composed last week and I thought it would be the radiance track. Not so! Jamie Rieger has been commissioned to create the artwork for the cover of the new Radiance album. This photo is of one of his other commissioned pieces. I can't wait to see what he does with this new commission. My website was updated by Vern this week, and Earth Essence is back up as a free download because I intend to add to it. So watch for that soon! Don't forget that you probably h...