Remembering fearless Oboe / Overcoming stage fright from the beginning / Last night's dream

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Last night's dream:

Once again I was surprised and overjoyed to find myself at the ocean, walking across a broad sandy beach to have a closer view of the waves.  Suddenly, without any warning, the ocean was far below me.  The sand and ocean in front of me had dropped hundreds of feet.  Turning in mid-air, I found a tenuous handhold and was able to hang on to the sheer cliff of hard packed sand.  Looking down, I saw that the tide had nearly reached the bottom of the cliff of sand, although there was still some beach left.  Briefly I considered letting go, confident that I would be able to sustain the fall.  Thinking again, it was clear that even though I would survive the fall, the tide was coming in and I would be in danger of drowning or at least spending a long time in the cold ocean water because there was no way to climb up the sheer cliff and no exit either way, north or south, from the beach.  I turned my attention back to the sandy beach I had just walked across with such joy.  I didn't have the strength to pull myself up onto the beach again, but I had the strength to keep holding on.   A young woman appeared out of nowhere.  I told her I needed help getting back on the beach.  She anchored herself as best she could and reached out her hands for mine.  She wasn't convinced that I could be helped and was concerned for me, but I told her not to worry.  With her help, I was able to scramble back up to the beach.  

That's when I woke up.

It's occurring to me that the ocean in my dream was to the east.  Most of my experiences of the ocean have been that it is to the west.  

Tears have been welling up with unexpected frequency in the past month.  Sacred tears.  Just in time.

Learning to play "Black Waters"

Negative Capability, that is, when [Amanda] is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
(John Keats)

That's a song written by Jean Ritchie for the Appalachian dulcimer.  I like the way it sounds on my recently purchased 1976 Oscar Schmidt 15-chord autoharp.

Green Over Blue / Simple Gifts

Green Over Blue, Mark Rothko, 1956

I don't express myself in paintings.  I express my not-self.
(Mark Rothko)

The same might be said for music.

Yesterday I made a decision and bought an Oscar Schmidt 15-chord autoharp made in 1976 and began tuning the 36 strings.  Halfway through the challenging tuning, I stopped and went out for a walk with my Canon PowerShot SD550 Digital Elph in hand because it was a pristine sunny day with blue sky, big white clouds, and yellow leaves everywhere.  To my great surprise, every photo I took was overexposed and had vertical lines covering it:

I've had that camera since shortly after I started my blog in December of 2006.  It's been a great little camera.  Interesting that it would suddenly have problems the day I bought an autoharp. The video function on the camera is still working.  Below is a view of Derby Pond from the trail at a spot close to the little dam and wooden footbridge.  You can hear the water running over the dam, and the waterfall beyond that:

  

Here is my new used autoharp with Bryan Bowers playing "Simple Gifts":

Thanks to bev for the inspiring me with her string instruments!