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thoughts
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M a t t h e w D a l l m a n
T H E E L E C T R I C F L O W
EXTRA! EXTRA!
A FETUS IN THE FAMILY!
Current #5 - January 2005
Electric Goose Productions
CONTENTS:
I. The Bean
II. Two Highlights from MatthewDallman.com
III. New Music from Matthew
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Friends,
It's Matthew.
And this is
The Electric Flow. This is my newsletter to share my personal as well
as cyber goings-on. I have some huge news. A new Dallman is on the way!
I. The
Bean
This morning,
for the first time, Hannah and I heard the sound of a new heartbeat. It was the
heartbeat of Bean, our 15-week old fetus. The pulse was amplified crystal
clear by an instrument called a 'Doppler', used by Elise, our Nurse-Midwife at St.
Elizabeth's hospital on Chicago's northside. This morning was our first prenatal
appointment. It couldn't have been any more comforting to meet Elise, and the other
Nurse-Midwife, Martha. They are really great - we are so happy to have found them.
And it couldn't have been anymore more breath-taking and beautiful to hear the pound
pound pound of our first baby's heart. A more resonant sound than anything I've yet
heard. We were able to listen to the heart beat for no more than 30 seconds. But each
and every one of those seconds is forever burned. I'm sure the same goes for Hannah.
I'm going to compose some music at the same tempo as the heart
beat. And we now know one thing, irrevocably: this whole thing, our Bean, is
real. It is real! And round about July 12th, God
willing, the Bean will pop into the wide world with its own new kind of joy, to share with everyone.
Y'all ought
to read this post, from my blog The Daily Goose. It contains
Hannah's most recent News of the Bean email that was sent to all of our family and friends
around the country. And now to you. Enjoy her voice.
II. Two
Highlights from MatthewDallman.com
Clearly the
Bean is my biggest and most resonant news for this issue. So in leiu of a longer
story of my recent work, here are two website highlights that you ought to check out.
One is an essay, and the other showcases new photography I have created,
point and shoot with my cell phone camera.
A River of One's Own: The Flows of Art & Fear - a new essay at
Writings. Click here.
Cellph Shots - a two-page gallery of original photography from Matthew's Samsung cell phone.
Click here.
III.
New Music from Matthew
A tradition I
continue is to offer you all some brand new music. Here is a sneak peak at most
recent work, before it goes online sometime in the next two weeks.
Improvisational Suite for Monks in the World
five movements for piano
I. Inhale In C
(3:05) STREAM -- DOWNLOAD
II. Thought in E
(2:07) STREAM -- DOWNLOAD
III. Witness In Ab
(2:56) STREAM -- DOWNLOAD
IV. Release In E
(3:16) STREAM -- DOWNLOAD
V. Exhale In C
(1:03) STREAM -- DOWNLOAD
The basis of the Suite is the melody from a plainchant I composed, called A Monk in the World Plainchant. You can listen to and read about the plainchant here. Both the Plainchant and this Improvisational Suite are inspired by the late Brother Wayne Teasdale's book of the same name. His book pioneers a contemporary spirituality built upon communion of all of the world's religious tradions.
This Suite navigates three tonal centres, or keys. The shifts through the tonal centres - C to E to Ab to E to C - make for an overall tonal narrative that uses the Plainchant as a narrative thread and generative source. The only movement without this thread explicitly is Movement II. This movement is like a thought you have while in a silent meditation - you recognize it as a thought, and you let it pass by like a cloud passes through the sky. This happens in every moment we realize that our contracted selves can expand into and as our Original Voice.
Overall, the Improvisational Suite is a contemplative human narrative that meditates upon a reality of engaged spirituality, enlightened action, or as Brother Wayne so simply puts, the realities that are faced by people who aim to be monks in the world. This work is dedicated to all of the monks on Earth - which is anyone (male or female) who openly engages both spirit and the world through a planet-centric morality. We all can strive to actively use our receptivity, humble ideas, and heart in an full embrace of the spirit of the world's citizens, and of our environment.
And the fun of it is when we are able to riff with variations on the eternal play between spirit and manifest existance, and have that courageous riff open the hearts of others, as we all love, play, struggle, witness, and expand far into through night, and towards a tomorrow dawn, with love and compassion as our radiant forces that bring luminous reflections of pure spirit in each and every one of us through everything that we are.
So invite you
to enjoy the piano pieces and the plainchant. Much peace to all of you. See ya all
on the next time around. And please keep in touch.
As we begin,
we end as The Electric Flow.
Harmonic
Expanse,
Matthew
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