The Uncarved Blog

Haiku With My Muse

You are my soul mate
With you, I can be mySelf
Together, We Are

© Ken Chawkin
With Sali at Parkview
Sunday, March 17, 2013

See Celebrating Paul Horn and his Contribution to Jazz, World Music, Meditation and Spirituality.

Last Sunday was St. Patrick’s Day. It was also Paul Horn‘s 83rd birthday and I was reading Paul’s interview in the first chapter of A Symphony of Silence: An Enlightened Vision by George A. Ellis. Paul spoke about his philosophy of music and improvisation, how he communicated musically with a killer whale at an aquarium in Victoria, BC, and in Hawaii. He also spoke about his own spiritual quest, how he started Transcendental Meditation and met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He discussed how he was invited to join a course in India with Maharishi and his experiences there. George also asked Paul questions about his becoming a TM teacher in those early days, and also playing his flute in the Taj Mahal. Paul had taught thousands of people to meditate in the 70′s. It’s a great interview, and a wonderful way to start the book! Just found out from the editor there’s an excerpt of the interview with Paul Horn in their new issue (11) of Enlightenment, The Transcendental Meditation Magazine, called The Music of Meditation.

Paul also spoke about his love, Ann Mortifee, and how he was lucky to have met his soul mate later in life. I resonated strongly with what Paul said, how he was lucky to be in a relationship where there were no fights, just a mature love. I was reading the chapter aloud to Sali at the time, and told her the same thing, how fortunate I was to have found her in my life, how easy it was to be together. (See This Quiet Love.) A jyotishi had once told us we had been together in ancient Vedic times. That’s why it felt like we were buddies, and why there was a feeling of wholeness between us. And that wholeness and joy is still there in spite of her dementia! I was inspired to write a haiku and shared it with her. Interestingly, I wrote it on Paul’s birthday and later sent it to Ann to share with him as a gift since his expression sparked the conversation in the presence of my own love and muse. Also sent the previous post commemorating his birthday.

You can see a beautiful photo of Paul and Ann during their visit to Fairfield, Iowa to participate in the Symposium on Music and Consciousness at Maharishi University of Management. Jo Ann Gesner took their picture at Café Paradiso for her interview, Paul Horn: Improvisation from the Inside Out, published in Enlightenment Magazine’s 6th issue.

Tags: Ann Mortifee, arts, Celebrities, entertainment, flute, George A. Ellis, haiku, Literature, love, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, meditation, Music, new age music, Paul Horn, Sali, Symphony of Silence, Transcendental Meditation

This entry was posted on March 20, 2013 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Music, My poems, Poetry, Sally Peden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.