MUSINGS...by Beverly Rieger

In the Midwest, we are now at harvest time. Fields are brown as corn and soybeans are already out of the fields and into the bins. Most vegetables and fruits are long ago harvested. This photo comes from Salamoni State Park last Thursday on our last warm day this week. The trees are well into their winter hibernation process, and the quality of sunshine is changing. Everything is softer....preparing for the winter soon upon us. I love photos of pathways that lead into the unknown. There can be such a wonderful feeling of adventure....what might happen?....where might we go? That is my feeling when I am connected to the larger world of possibility. However, if I get caught in fear......look out! The pathway into the unknown becomes a road less traveled and life quickly becomes small. Music of abundance....all of my music has been written as celebration of The Beloved in her various forms....as lover, as mother earth, as Heart of Sky, as joyful companion, as sacred portal. Autu...

September and October so far have been very slow months for blogging and connecting through the written word in any way. I suspect this is because I have been focused elsewhere for a few weeks. Usually I avoid mentioning my personal life in this blog, but all of life is interconnected (as you know!). We have had quite a bit of serious family illness this month. Family is more important than anything else, so many of the outer parts of connecting with all of you dropped off for a couple of weeks. The love of family, and the effort that it takes me to "go the extra mile" to help out when someone needs help, is a great food for my music. Music does not exist in a sterile bubble. It emerges from the person creating it. When I have to reach inside to find strength and courage for family emergencies, that changes me and changes my music....hopefully deepens the spiritual life of me and my music. The inner world of creating music has been bubbling right along. No matte...

Marketing is an interesting thing. It can become a deal where everyone is viewed as a customer, when actually everyone is a brilliant soul walking in their own journey. Lately I have seen quite a few marketing resources.....telling me how to get my message out.....use online Facebook etc to ask people to be friends, but then try to sell them music. Obviously, if I don't get the word out about my music, no one can find it. So...the concept is valid, but the method is manipulative. I do have a Twitter account and it's time that I started tweeting. I also have a MySpace account that is just waiting for people to stop by and chat. So, to all who are reading this Musing.....you are not a "contact"....you are a friend whether we have met or not. As I write this, I am listening to a new piece of music that I have written which is called "Reaching Out". Going into the recording studio to create this music, I didn't bring my Kurzweil, my Mayan flutes, ...

This week brought many opportunities to be outdoors as September brings the change of seasons. The skies are brilliant blue and the trees still have enough green to contrast the new oranges and reds. On my computer monitor, these colors are bright and clear. On Walt's they are more muted and a little more gray...reminding me again that everything online is filtered through our own personal equipment. What I see is not necessarily (or probably) what you will see. When I send something through regular US mail as hard copy, I can be pretty sure of what you will see, although a lot of that kind of mail is thrown away before being opened. There is also the issue of sending out more paper to be thrown away and add to the pollution of the planet. On the other hand....many computer spam filters make sure that you don't even get a chance to see anything that I send online. So.....yikes! How does a person market to the larger world? That is the dilemma of someone who is marketing...

Of course it is not quite 4am and here I am with my cup of coffee and writing to all of you. As I read back on my blogs, I realize that there is mention of early morning hours in almost all of them. Obviously my biological, creative "clock" is set for being awake to enjoy the beauty of night and early morning. There is a light and steady rain this morning, and the peepers and crickets are calling outside my window. I have created so much music over the last few years that I forget what I have actually done. So I am listening intentionally to all of my albums. What do I notice especially? Lots of nature, lots of rhythm, strong melodies in some pieces, and no melody in others, but always the center point is the heart and the sacredness of all of life around us and our own personal journey for this lifetime. This last week I have had the privilege of responding to e-mail correspondence from customer/friends whom I don't hear from often. That is one of my favorite treats...

Several times in the last two weeks I have sat down to write and there was nothing to say. That is the same as how music comes to me. Sometimes there is no music to write....and when music wants to be composed, I feel it's presence. So here I am in the middle of the night again. I was awakened and there was nothing to do but get up. My mind wanted to tell me how much I had to do tomorrow and that I needed my sleep. However, this beautiful night with the movement of the moon toward full moon, and the frogs and crickets singing is supporting me to write. For the ancient Maya, frogs were a sign of new life. Linear time is a boundary for me. It binds me up into segments of days and weeks and limits me in my creativity. Who says that nights are for sleeping? Or that I need "x" amount of hours of sleep at a certain time? I am writing with my cup of hot, awesome coffee, my candle lit, and the music of the night with me. We are near the end of summer, and moving towa...

I just heard a train whistle outside my window. What is it about the early morning hours that makes the air so transparent that a train whistle will carry miles and miles and be heard by me? I love train whistles. They remind me of the wide open spaces that exist and the travel that can be had. (Don't I sound a bit like that guy on 60 minutes who reminisces for about 5 minutes at the end of the show?) These days have been very full and sometimes I wonder how it is possible to do everything that seems to be on my plate. When I find myself wondering "how? it's time to laugh a little and reconnect with all of the people that I love. Time is such a magic concept...it's very elastic...not linear....expansive.... I wrote a little piece on joy....and here it is: "Joy....running through the veins and arteries of my body....living in the smallest parts of my cells. It is there as one of the basic components of the physical body. Joy shows up in the elation felt by...