“The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It’s usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.” Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces According to Joseph Campbell the elixir is a treasure to benefit yourself and others but you have to travel to the “un-ordinary” world to get it. The Elixir could be an idea, a skill, a wisdom, a new realisation, a message from the future or a message from the past, from other timelines or from some past life or ancestor.….anything really that wells up from your centre into the light of your awareness. This elixir has always been there with you and for you. And there is always more than one elixir. Maybe you have known about it since you were little. Maybe its only now being revealed because you are ready to receive it. The elixir could also present itself as a symbol or colourThe Elixir by Stephen Fearnley
This Unmapped Shore by Stephen Fearnley
Of course the best ‘letting go’ story has to be the opening of Richard Bach’s Classic book Illusions. It describes a little underwater creature clinging to a rock resisting the powerful current of the water. This is what all his fellow creatures do until one day he decides to let go. After a few bumpy starts he’s swept up by the current and is held aloft. Suddenly to the astonishment of his fellow creatures a miracle has occurred! He can fly! It’s through surrender and letting go that we transform and enter a world which I call the unmapped shore. Letting Go Month with Lori Deschene led me to find this musical combination of ocean sounds and slow, very slow cycles of synths, pizzicato bass, and beats. Letting go is not about letting go of power. It’s the reverse. Within the mystery of living we can do ourselves the favour of letting go of self judgement, the need of approval, and control. They really are not the best travel companions. Steve Stephen Fearnley is an award-winning filmmaker, artist and composer. He composes transformational soundscapes for the meditation journeys of One Mind Live – a unique worldwide online group meditation community. To sampleThis Unmapped Shore by Stephen Fearnley
Release by Stephen Fearnley
At this point I haven’t set up my own rig to photograph and make clips of the music I make for One Mind Live, but as you can see from this Vimeo link “Sonic Water Documentation” the study of cymatics is reasonably easy to do…and fascinating! The reason I want to do this is to compliment my own understanding of the sounds I’m creating for meditational and guided soundscapes and take images (like the one featured above of piano notes by cymascope.com) by vibrating water. Release, this month’s composer’s choice, contains a number of technical elements specifically aimed to compliment Lori Deschene’s “Letting Go” theme for the month of February. The Key of D, according to Vedic and yoga science, is attuned to the Sacrum area of your body. It is the second chakra and is characterised by two key words for “Letting Go”: Flow and Flexibility. The beats per minute or Tempo is at 50, below the resting heart rate but at the top end of a sleeping heart rate. Relaxed yet awake. The cycles or completed wave forms in the musical structure average about 14 cycles per minute which is just above the breathing rate of a sleeping personRelease by Stephen Fearnley
Endless Oceans by Stephen Fearnley
“Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end.” Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi While meditating on a composition specifically to start the new year, the words endless ocean came to mind. I immediately thought that it was from a Rumi quote and of course it was. I don’t have a photographic memory but more an instinctual one. Practising the creative arts all my life, I fully trust the ‘random’ thoughts and impulses that well up from ‘beneath’. This relationship is central to everything I do these days. It never lets me down and is usually instant, rarely presenting as “writer’s block”. It never used to be like this. It was more spasmodic and there was a distrust I had, probably from a western style education that treats ‘the creative’ with suspicion probably because it cant be measured. Of course, the endless oceans that we are, can easily entertain structure and measurement.There actually isn’t any conflict whatsoever here but it has taken me years of trust and practise to get there, to instantly “pull a rabbit out of my hat” as my wife so often says these days. All of these years of thinking there was someEndless Oceans by Stephen Fearnley