The Stories We Tell…
Thank You for your participation in the celebration of David’s birthday and the release of Reverence last month.
We are connected here through his contributions to our lives. The connections flow in both directions as we all contributed to his life as well, whether directly as collaborators or indirectly as audience and listeners. I know that as he gave himself and his music to the recording process, he was also nourished by it, sometimes in obvious affirmation and sometimes through a humbling of sorts. They often go together when we are gifted with such beauty that we forget the source.
My own journey through these landscapes is deeply entwined with David’s in that he was often the first person I turned to when hoping to better articulate some nearly unconscious knowing.
I think the knowing we all have is that we are part of and not separate from all of life. David and I were especially drawn into dialog with water in all its forms. Some of our earliest recordings were efforts to reflect and recreate the essence of what we were hearing in rivers and streams.
With Barry Lopez we recorded 3 pieces from his book River Notes, and near the end of the piece “Drought,” Barry says, “to put your hands into the water is to feel the cords that bind the earth together in one piece.” I think in our own way, David and I were trying to find the Chords that remind us we are all one. That journey together over some 40 years included other musicians, authors, dancers, and filmmakers in a wild confluence of ideas.
During that time we both had other seemingly full-time lives that for David included his Music For People organization, concerts, and recordings for multiple other labels with a wonderfully diverse group of artists. We were often in communication, and I assisted on some of his other projects. Our own quest to explore and find music of this oneness was ongoing. What became the album 8 String Religion began beside a Colorado stream in June of 1982 and was initially released by Hearts Of Space in 1993. During that span of eleven years David also recorded Eos and Cello for ECM, Amber with Michael Jones for Narada, and the Tao of Cello for the Relaxation Company. Through Paul Winter we had met Barry Lopez, Chungliang Al Huang, and Coleman Barks, and as the artistic family tree branched out, our connections and collaborations included immersions with Joseph Campbell, Terry Tempest Williams, Zuleikha, Jean Houston, and many others. Those were formative years for us with each new collaboration deepening our relationship and our sense of mutual purpose. We were listening for a musical language with the wisdom of water. It would become our own mythic quest.
Sometimes the thing you search for leads you to something even more important. I can’t say that we ever found the Grail of our quests, but the albums we ultimately recorded together came from our own experiences of oneness, compassion, gratitude, and reverence.
The cultural and environmental changes during the past 40 years are immense and for some of us, feeling splintered and disconnected can begin to feel normal. The beauty is still here in each moment. Finding a way into it and into the creative process is finding a way to stay connected, to be part of—rather than separate from—this vibrancy. David was a magician in these ways. His music and understanding of improvisation continue to connect so many of us.
These connections to David continue to grow. We are grateful to our friends at the Journey of the Universe project for featuring Reverence in their latest newsletter, which you can read here. Through an Emmy-award winning film, book, conversation series, podcasts, and online classes, the Journey project narrates the story of the universe, Earth, and human evolution.
In Colorado it is the beginning of spring and the Red-winged Blackbirds are some of the first to announce themselves. This short clip was filmed on the Spring Equinox.
And this from spring of 2006 Coleman Barks,
David Darling, and Ty Burhoe.
“Remember on this one thing, said Badger. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memories. This is how people care for themselves.”
― Barry Lopez, Crow and Weasel