Recently a 35,000-year-old flute was discovered in western Germany.  The meticulously carved flute was found near fragments of other musical instruments and a female figurine proving music flourished even in the earliest days of human history.

You have no idea how happy this makes me.  While I never doubted that people have always made music - lifting voices in song, clapping hands and stomping feet – to see that even from our earliest days we took the time out of our busy schedules of hunting, gathering, and running from saber-toothed tigers to make musical instruments, carve sculpture and paint the walls delights me and gives me reason for eternal optimism.

Music has always been a part of my - life from childhood songs to music lessons (violin, piano and voice) to the Boardman Orchestra to musical theater to dance classes.  My Sermons and Podcasts often include songs and music accompanies me thought my day.  Rarely a day goes my without song and I cannot imagine a world without music and birdsong and dance.

I feel rhythm and flow in my work and often hear bits of poetry in my readings and while I often resort to cheap laughs and stories in my teaching and lectures, I love a nicely turned phrase and strive for a rising crescendo when I lecture and teach.  Even now I'm trying to figure out how to shoehorn a song into my lecture at ULE (I even have the perfect song to go with my topic – Ethics and Responsibilities of the Modern Mystic.  You wouldn't think I could find a song for that topic, but you'd be wrong.).

Lately, I've been going out dancing more.  Heather and I have been hitting a new club and a few old ones trying to find a dj who will work with us.  No oldies, no radio edits and nothing too slow, thank you very much.  I love a good mix of different styles, tempos and beats.  My modern dance teacher wanted us to be able to dance to anything, so we moved to radio jingles from the 40s and 50s, aboriginal chants, Euro pop and everything in between.  Dancing in silence with nothing but your heartbeat and the sounds of your body and breath providing the beat.  Ballet and ballroom and folk and country line dancing – trying to find the limits of what you can do and what you can move to – all the while striving to hear the heartbeat of the Earth beneath you.  Moving to the sounds of nature and feeling the Connection.

Last night was for live music at the Boom Room - Jann Klose and with Chris Marolf on upright bass (Chris also had a kora, this awesome, handmade African stringed instrument made just for him) with dancing after (and why is the dance floor always empty these days?).  Jann was amazing, as ever.  I love the diversity of age at his shows and how rapt the audience is.  Usually, when you see a band in a bar half the audience is just there to drink and talk, leaving the band to fight to be heard over the noise, but the room is quiet when he plays.  People listen, you can feel the sounds soaking in as if each person is pulling the music in rather than letting it flow over or be ignored as background.

I've seen Jann play a few times now, we always talk after the show and we're on each other's mailing lists, so there's this strange sense that we know each other even though we've probably spent little more than an hour talking, total, over the last few years.  The magic of this medium is how close you can feel to someone you barely know and how even something as ephemeral as e-mail can foster the sense of Connection.

I'm teaching again and we've been talking in class about how to connect and what it feels like, how do you know when you've connected with a client?  How can you be sure you are connected to your divine source?  What does Connection feel like?  So last week I made them dance (and this time it WORKED!  Sorry first class, erk.)  I dressed it up as a psychic development exercise, but it was a waltz.  When two dance partners are Connected they move at the same time.  While one may be leading and one following, they move as one organism.  There is no pause or lag time between movements – it is a connection on the psychic level that translates beautifully into giving a psychic reading.  It also teaches you to trust your self and your instincts with another person… and not worry about looking like a fool.  You can't take yourself too seriously if you are going to be a psychic.

After the concert we went dancing.  Moving to the music.  Thinking of nothing but the other dancers and the next movement.  Fitting yourself into the empty spaces on the dance floor.  Flowing into the gaps and filling a space with motion.  Responding to other movement or escaping to your own world you become a part of the universal dance.  The flick of hair echoes the flutter of a leaf, the sinuous shake of a hip moves like rushing water wile an agile foot skips like a stone across the water.  In every movement and every beat you can feel what our ancestors felt as they made music under a different sky, danced around a fire and felt a Connection.

Brad, Lori and Ava were back in town this past week for the first time in over a month, this is the first time I've been able to see them since Thanksgiving.  It's amazing how good Ava looks.  She's walking around, smiling and doin the baby talk thing – you'd never know she was sick.

Looking at pictures from the last few months it's hard to remember this is a little girl who learned how to walk with tubes dangling from her and has spent almost a quarter of her life in the hospital.  She acts like any other one year old, happy to see family and running around at high speed with her grandmother sprinting after her.  That’s one of the great things about being home for a week, Lori knows her mother is hyper aware of everything Ava does and she can breathe for a minute.

The community response has been amazing.  Lori and Brad have received calls, letters and donations from people they've never even met as word has gone out about Ava.  The spaghetti dinner fundraise at the Canfield High School pulled in hundreds of people and over fifty baskets were donated for the Chinese Auction. It was an amazing turnout and a wonderful show of generosity from the community.

The next fund raising event will be a Dinner Dance at St. Nicholas Social Hall, Friday, April 24th from 7 – 11 pm, tickets are $20 each.  764 Fifth St., Struthers, OH.  For reservations call 330-536-2136

Brad, Lori and Ava head back to Cincinnati for the next round of chemo today.

Almost a month ago I had a car accident coming home from a fair.  I was a bit shaken, but the car was messed up and insurance declared it dead.  Thus began one of those months were every little flaw, flub, and flailing in your spiritual practice is thrown into a glaring spotlight.  So, ok, I still have first chakra issues.

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I've been dreaming about New York again.  Nothing profound this time – There was a time when I would dream about packing to leave NYC when I would get overly stressed – these are dreams of walking through my old neighborhood.  Shopping at Big Jin's market for fruits and vegetables, eating at Rice Avenue or just walking out to where I used to park my car; everyday activities that I used to love.

These are the things I miss most about living in New York City – the quite, every day moments of life.  It's what I always love best about were I live.  I love walking around the yard, poking at the garden or the compost pile, taking empty side streets and looking at my crumbling town, being alone and quite in the space.  Soaking in the energy of a place and becoming a part of it.

It's why I resist going back to visit places I used to live, especially if I no longer have real roots there.  Coming back to Ohio I could still walk the same paths because my family lived there.  For a while it was easy to go back to Virginia and hang around the A.R.E. and stay with friends, but NYC... is different.  Especially as a visitor, it can be hard to move slowly there.  To visit the markets and not buy fresh produce, what would I do with it?  To just absorb the sounds of life.

I turn 33 this month and it has me looking back at the last year.  What were the ups, the downs and the level patches.  There was a lot of good this past year as I changed my focus to that of a full time psychic 

It's a very weird job and can be hard to explain, I mean, if you introduce yourself as a carpenter no one replies, "Carpenter huh?  Idunno, I'm a skeptic.  Prove it, build be something right now!"  You get variations on that all the time as a psychic.  Also, as a younger member of the community I get a lot of un-asked for advice.  Some good, some bad, some just plain strange.  I've been told: I change too much, I charge too little, my readings are too long, I need to wear costumes or outfits, I need to wear suits, I need to be more professional, I should stand on my head at fairs more often (I did that once), I need to relax and enjoy the ride, I shouldn't put my pictures on everything, I need to be more sensitive (screw that), I need to open a shop or hang out my shingle, and best of all – I need to stop doing readings my way and start doing them your way or I'll "destroy my gift."  Strangely, no one's told me to cut my hair or respect my elders.  I think what I really need for my birthday is a shirt with that old line Elvira used to say, "When I want your opinion I'll beat it out of ya."

As you can see, I've decided to keep my own council on most of that.  The one thing I have learned is that the more people see and hear me the better I do.  Whether it be readings, lectures, teaching or just talking, passive advertising doesn’t work for me.  They need to see my face and hear my voice, so this year is all about getting as much exposure as I can with fairs, lectures and teaching.  There's a lot I want to say and a lot I want to do, so many people are wandering around and anything I can do, We can do, to help them along their perfect path would be my honor.