Spiritual pilgrimage involves solitary searching, receiving help and guidance from others, and offering help to others. It is a journey of deepening willingness and clarifying vision ... a process of reconciling will and spirit. In it, one seeks to find, and realizes with increasing certainty that one has already been found. There is company for each of us in this: of those men and women who have gone before ... of our spiritual guides and those whom we may help guide ... of our own community of faith. There is also the vast company of the rest of our contemporaries on this planet, the great body of sisters and brothers of all races, ages and faiths who seek to know and live in the Way of Ultimate Love ... And in the realm of contemplative quiet, beyond all ideas, beyond our rainbowed images of God and self, beyond belief, we share the same silence. We are rooted all together in the ground of consciousness that is God's gift to us all.
It's a wonder to behold how human beings feel after making their own music. It's been well-documented throughout history that people really put themselves on a higher spiritual level when they involve themselves in music or any of the allied arts. Our lives are so affected by what we do artistically. But too often we hold back because of our limiting image of success thinking: I don't know how to do this. We need to give ourselves the freedom to create our own sounds of music.
~ from "Playing for the Fun of It" by Jeff Wangenheim
