Here’s a little write-up I prepared for my last workshop that we picked through in detail on Sunday and which seemed to make sense to everyone at the time (although I was also accused of being too abstract). So, perhaps this will help to recall with some clarity what we shared. In reading it again now, I recognize how successfully this was accomplished over those two days…
Intent is another way to look at the idea of spirit, as in the spirit of engagement. Finally, this is really what personal spirituality is. Not concept or technique or belief or even specific project, but purposeful intent in the musicality of engaging anything at any moment. This moves from conscious motivation into the dimension of fluid qualitative embodiment — organic, spontaneous expression of virtues such as integrity, care and grace. Not for gain or even intentional influence as much as just natural personification because it’s clearly the better way to go.
It is this in full, consistent exemplification that makes for true human spiritual engagement and evolution. And the primary evidence of its existence is that these virtues show up not just within the defined arenas of personal preference and ambition but across any and every engagement — not going somewhere to find sacredness, but bringing a sense of sacredness to wherever you happen to be. Depth of conviction in intention is where the game begins to shift in new and unusual ways. This can be practiced in small, brief ways in which we lean toward more incisively generous behavior than the situation seems to call for. Over time, this sets a standard of creative quality that becomes powerfully influential. Others begin to pivot and fold into our initiatives, and the underlying tone or musicality in any shared activity moves toward a graceful unified efficiency. One begins to blend into and become a functional force of nature.
Darrell Calkins 
Is that Lost On You? … Thank you for this compassionate accompaniment of trust, embracing an inward spiral, replenishing forgotten strength to dive into values, regenerating core, recreating outward spiral of the unimaginable. Now, hearing Nature’s question … is that Lost On You?
“I feel like I’m still floating after the seminar. While I haven’t yet read through the little notes I took, preferring to just let things settle, I do have this sensation of joy and lightness as I think back on our shared time.
Monday morning I woke up to song lyrics, a musical chorus on repeat. The lyrics were foggy. I tried once to find it but the words I thought I heard were wrong. And then I thought back to the conversation about the 9 daughters of creativity and ‘don’t look them up’ so I stopped my quest to find it. But I continued to dance and float as the few phrasings I remembered played on and on.
A gift was then bestowed on me very early morning. The music of my alarm growing louder as I awoke. I heard perhaps the last 8 or 16 counts of a song and froze. Could that be the song I was looking for?! This time I had to know so I looked up the radio station and found the playlist. I picked a title I didn’t know… it was the song. Lost on You. I got chills as I listened to it, could see myself in the seminar playing with it. And then when I really heard the words, I realized what a brilliant piece of music it was.
We’ve talked many times about music and its ability to help me recall very specific moments from events; we talked about it on Sunday afternoon. It’s such a visceral connection, well beyond my intellectual understanding. The gifts I have received from you over these years are too numerous to count. I am particularly grateful for the gift of music as it connects me, reminds me of the other gifts as well.” – J.B.