By Gentle Paths into Deep Matters (with Beethoven, Wagner, and Löwe)

All photos by Deeann D. Mathews, taken on May 29, 2024

May breezed by and I looked up and it was June ... gently it came in, and certain issues that lingered for a year left on that sweet spring breeze in May ... affairs that I had given over as above me returned as resolved, reconciliation and forgiveness and new opportunity possible! In my mind, Beethoven's "Dankegesang" certainly would be in order for such a surprise ... and I looked back and could see how walking beyond grief and pain last week was my preparatory experience.

But for what? The question had been left open.

Now that you are no longer weighted down by grief and pain, Frau Mathews, how high can you climb in all the realms to which you are called?

ALREADY, the ending of May had told me: I had come into uncharted territory, internally and externally ... but it was safer ground, and more fertile than I could imagine.

It was peaceful ground as well, upon which I had a stunning recollection ... I met Beethoven in a gentle mood ... his "Moonlight" Sonata is the reason I discovered my gifts as pianist and composer, and in retrospect, I have always loved him best in that mood ... he introduced me to genius operating in peace and power. In retrospect, my return to Beethoven reflects my maturation in becoming comfortable loving what I love in a world that mocks gentleness and does not think power has that aspect. I know better!

@mipiano gave me a tip on Beethoven's Opus 50, and mentioned that she and her son had played it for a recital. In their honor, and in remembering my own days with my piano students, I found Beethoven's Romance in F for violin with piano accompaniment with a fine young violinist.

I heard the strong influence of Mozart's 21st piano concerto and its "Elvira Madigan" middle movement in this piece, and that is a good match of serenity new and old ... as young Ms. Ko explains, Beethoven wrote this in 1790, when he was just 19. At that time, Mozart was still alive, and was a living and powerful influence on Beethoven's early works ... but as ever, Beethoven is already himself, for his peace is different than Mozart's. He had to climb to it in a way Mozart did not, and it is precious ... something to be deeply experienced and cherished as a memory that might need to be called upon in stormier times. To me, coming through great storms, this was at last like reaching a quiet, beautiful haven.

But then again, it was time for me to recall Brahms, and his take on peace in "Mit vierzig Jahren" ... after that long climb, to take one's staff and go across the broad and peaceful plain ... something not ephemeral, and not without its challenges, but Brahms, in time in terms of German music, and in philosophy, was past the Sturm und Drang, storm and stress period of the late classical and early Romantic period (Beethoven outlived it, and Brahms came even later). The character in the song is a mature one, telling a younger one on the climb what to expect around age 40 ... upon leaving youth's strident joys and struggles for position behind, to find one's place as a person who now sees the high path to which they are called.

I am not quite halfway through my 43rd year, and to have met Beethoven in his serenity when I was young and climbing, and again to meet him in light of what I learned from Brahms and found myself just where I learned I would be ... to consider serene Beethoven from the broad, open plain of Brahms, at age 43 ... past the storm and stress, in a place too holy for the endless pain of revenge-seeking, having made a full end of grief and after that finding free-hearted reconciliation on the journey...

... but then again, 'tis the season for graduations ... I remember the strangeness of completing college ... I had been a star student at university, and of course then I was expected to translate that into a job, and all that ... but it struck me as odd ... to go from a world of knowing well how to learn and create to a world of being with people who did what they did for money and generally did other things to endure how much they hated what they were doing ... it was an odd mismatch. I succeeded in it until the Great Recession, and layoffs... but I remember the music I composed after that ... serene D major ... the mismatch had gone from my life, even though a new struggle -- being out of work in a recession -- had begun.

Now, once again I had this feeling, although the true strangeness of it was that now being out of step seemed in step ... where the world thought I should go was no longer my concern ... I had climbed to an open place, and the way would be revealed to me as I went. I had certainly had my lessons on releasing the ideas of being in control and of bringing others with me ... I still had more to learn, but what I had learned had brought me to a place where more advanced learning was possible.

The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, in his Laughing Big One mood, announced his presence with a gentle basso profundo chuckle, and then arrived at about age 55 in aspect, well suited to a spring day with hunter green hiking suit and poles.

"Ich gratuliere, Frau Mathews," he purred. "The journey of learning in life has no actual stopping point, but in this last month, you truly have crossed over to a new stage of life, and you are beginning to experience new realities. The two-year course you took was indeed schwer -- hard, in the sense of your English severe that is suggested in the older German word -- but you have been a master student in the midst of it all."

"I must say there were parts of that second year I really enjoyed," I said, "and I hope my favorite professor is not putting me out of class, just yet!"

"I reassure you, Frau Mathews, that so long as you can learn from me, I will be available, and there are some things we might profitably discuss today ... a review of the precious lessons of the spring thus far, and a preview of what may lie ahead. Is it not a glorious day to revisit Golden Gate Park? I have adjusted my route planning for your love of the side trail!

I did not even think of asking him where we were going ... I fell into step beside him as I had listened to his singing without question, and found that he had somehow translated his gentle power to carry off my heart into a walking route ... surely he had sung to those late-blooming cherry blossom trees and loved them into their spring in preparation for our passing that way ...

Our route for the day skirted the Oak Woodlands, but downhill ... I could see that he had the meadows below that portion in mind. He playfully kept my love of side trails in mind, and out we came to scenes like this, Kezar Crossover full of cars, but still a whole world away...

Down peaceful paths ... I could hear the songs of birds and buzz of bees ... honeybees and bumblebees harmonize each other about like a contralto and basso profundo, and I thought that Beethoven, even when deaf, knew the seasons of his world so well that perhaps all he lost, in the end, was the noise of the world system ... memory, when he was alone outdoors, might have filled whatever gap his own music did not ... out of step and out of hearing of the world system, but in step with and hearing what no one else would until he wrote it down.

As we passed there, my companion began to sing a gentle song by Löwe, with an ending that had surprised me when I first heard it -- "Der Feind," or "The Fiend [or Enemy]." A quiet day in the forest is thrown into a growing sense of suspense and all the creatures take cover, for a predator they all fear might be coming is indeed in route! Now, assuming a German setting in the 19th century, a bear or wolf would be expected, but I suppose most people are surprised at the end because we rarely like to think of what all the rest of Creation knows --

-- humanity is the world's top predator!

But my companion sang gently, and the birds in their harmony were not disturbed by that or his gentle words of perspective.

"For you, Frau Mathews, being out of step with 'Der Feind,' are in step, here. This song struck you with horror because you work against all human parts of you that would make of you a predator. Your vertical is all those who are loving stewards of Creation and creativity, and what has happened to you is that you have climbed beyond the people and things that urge and would constrain you to attempt to be anything but that which you have actually been called to be.

The path then opened into a meadow flooded with sunshine ...

... and down into it we went to rest a while, to hear the music of spring in all its glory, and nothing else.

Although my companion did not sleep in this phase of his existence, having no body by which he could actually do that, he still had all a human's feelings about warm sunshine and soft breezes and the company of a loving friend in a relaxed moment ... so, he could still get so relaxed that he could slip off into dreamland and thus revisit his nearly 79 years of earthly memories. The door had been left open in imagination, so I heard the orchestra playing Wagner's Good Friday Music from Parsifal. My companion was remembering singing one of his favorite roles, that of Gurnemanz, who once in a spring meadow explained the meaning of Good Friday to Parsifal and Kundry.

Wagner was certainly no Christian, but when he got things right, he got them right ... for Parsifal, when he understands and receives and believes what Gurnemanz has shared with him, forgives Kundry, and when Kundry understands and receives and believes what she hears from Gurnemanz and sees demonstrated by Parsifal, the young man whose innocence she had been sent to destroy, she rests in the safety of forgiveness also.

I considered this in light of the sweet surprise of reconciliation I had experienced that week ... how the great story of redemption and forgiveness continued on, and how I had healed in time so that there was no urging to the contrary within or around me ... and also how peace and joy had also been extended to other people that I thought were lost to me ... and then I smiled, for surely the old master teacher and singer still had much to teach me, and I delighted in having much to learn.

I no more disturbed my ethereal companion than he would have disturbed me in such a moment, so in due time the curtain closed on Parsifal and reopened to Q-Inspired and the symphony of spring here, and he opened his eyes in mild surprise.

"Wo bin ich?" he said softly, somewhere considerably below an F1, and then half-remembered he had been speaking English ... "Where am I?" ... and then saw me and gently laughed his voice out of its sleepy sub-basement.

"That's why I'm not on your actual security detail," he purred, "and why octogenarians generally don't get those kind of jobs!"

I laughed.

"To you, Frau Mathews, I am very near Gurnemanz in role, although in less serious matters than were at hand for Parsifal and Kundry -- those things you have known from your youth. But in those matters downstream from that ... these experiences that you are having, when refusing bitterness, obsession, revenge, instead seeking to look back as you look forward only in love ... and as these decisions are beginning to set forth their fruit in your life ... you have come from the winter into spring, and ahead of you lies the time of ripening and harvest ... ah, Frau Mathews ... ."

He paused, and I heard his beautiful voice approaching that edge of overjoy, though hushed ...

"We acted in that scene, Frau Mathews ... but you are walking it out ... all that you have learned in these two years, you are walking out ... you are abiding as you are called. Pardon a little old German bass his excess of joy and gratitude, that he has been permitted the honor of contributing to your understanding of the matters you are called to."

"The honor is mine to be your student out of due time, Herr Moll ... an honor that came by grace, that grace that kept the callouses off my heart so that it was not hard to the almighty Voice you echo so well in His gentleness, and for which I am also eternally grateful."

Now he had already been glowing up for joy ... it was a good thing we were down in a meadow, between Lone Mountain and Mount Sutro, because had we been in brisk motion on some breeze-swept hill that I would have chosen, we might have walked right out of gravity!

Or not!

"Not today, Frau Mathews. My usual practical challenge is actually an echo of what you experience and will experience even more in the workaday world ... the more you walk as you are called, and the higher, the more the joys here and the joys above will become alike, and the less able you will feel to remain in environments that are devoid of such joy. That is another way of thinking about why you climbed out of your environs in 2022 and 2023 ... that gravity could no longer hold you!"

"Oh, I see -- ich sehe!"

"And yet, Frau Mathews, although nothing can be permanent in this world, wherever people rejoice in the same joys, there, even in this world, joy makes room for them there together to be at home. Many times you have relaxed and slept while I sang to you, and you have grown so peaceful that I can relax just as much in your presence. You will continue to meet the people in your vertical, and you and they will find room and refreshment and refuge with one another, for you are being fitted for them now as they are being fitted for you. "

Now this was a different set of thoughts ... of the future ... of companions I did not yet know, but I would ... companions of Hive, who already shared a Web3 refuge with me ... and perhaps some companions of the past, who, like me, would be fitted to come to the place that I had. There was so much room in these thoughts, like the vast meadow around us, drenched in golden sunshine and warmth!

When at last we got up and walked on, my companion delighted me as he smiled and stepped off the main path onto a side trail that led into a living cathedral of redwoods ...

... and through it ...

... up a little hill where another great oak stood on one side...

... and a bush burning with spring and buzzing with bees ...

... flowed all the way down to a paved main path...

... upon which we went up the hill on its other side ...

... and suddenly I knew where I actually was, and cracked up laughing.

"That has to be the most roundabout route to Alvord Lake I've ever taken!" I said.

"A sweet surprise for you, like your journeys of the week," he purred. "Note well the gentleness of the route I chose; it is part of the day's lesson, as I will explain later."

I knew that winter, and thus spring, had been greatly delayed at Alvord Lake ... some of the great trees there had just begun to bloom ...

... and others, a little more advanced in their sprays of spring gold, had just begun to release their early petals, so we sat there a long time, in a light flurry like snowflakes of gold while little white flowers shone like diamonds among the jade grass, under an aquamarine sky...

... and I sat again where this scene in autumn had sent me past the edge of ecstasy for beauty, and again passed that verge as gold twinkled all around me, with diamonds and jade at my feet ... a world of riches, free to everyone! And yet there were so few there ... but at last I understood it ... to be there, and to see and feel all that, there had to be a calling, and also, a determination to prioritize these riches. Not far behind us, the busy streets of San Francisco were full and busy, literally adjacent to these realities, and few took time to cross over ... but for those of us who did, and truly drank in of these riches, nothing in that other world would ever hold sway again. Not only had I passed over to be at home facing in the direction I was, but I had made a full end of living for that other world.

Nonetheless, my companion had another surprise for me as we came out of the park.

"I remember our November sojourn here," he said, "and by the time we got halfway to your house from here, you had me having a natural San Francisco psychedelic experience on all this sunshine and autumn gold and flowers and your overjoy -- and then that man came by on that bicycle, blowing bubbles!"

"Twice!" I said. "That was crazy -- but wonderful!"

"A preview of coming attractions -- you were told in college that you were basically high on life, Frau Mathews, and that was a left-handed compliment given you by people who wished they could do that. But see here, young lady: when you were a wee one I sang here at the San Francisco Opera, and although I might not have known about Buena Vista Hill and all of the things you have prioritized, I did know about the reputation of Haight Street behind us. Since we are already having this naturally psychedelic experience, perhaps we should walk down that street and show them how it is properly done!"

I must have been laughing clear down Haight Street to a landmark that was there when he sang with the San Francisco Opera, then called Positively Haight Street, already 20-30 years old in those days, now called Love on Haight, and still the largest outlet for tie-dye in the world. Now, I wasn't laughing when I saw the prices, but this was part of the lesson ...

"Watch and learn, Frau Mathews ... not EVER will you be led rightly into the proximity of a blessing without the means to actually be blessed ... watch and learn, meine Töchterlein!"

San Francisco would never be the same ... the immovable legacy of the Summer of Love was met by the unstoppable force of the Laughing Big One, who turned on all his deep-voiced charm and Knockout Zoned that whole corner ... had those people believing I was an internationally recognized writer and author on the fabulous Hive blockchain in terms they understood, and so... the "shrooms," the scarf, the card ... I walked away adorned with all of it as everybody went out on a natural high!

(Author's Note: I actually had the scarf when I walked in ... but I did share the news of the Hive blockchain and invite the owners to come on over, and they gave me the sticker and card to post up here and on Web2, too!)

"Did I not say we were going to show Haight Street how it is properly done, Frau Mathews?"

I must have laughed all the way back down into Golden Gate Park ...

... but then I lost my breath, between that joy and finding myself again between burning bushes and flurries of golden petals...

My companion swung me right off my feet -- "Breathe, Frau Mathews -- you have gone from Beethoven Opus 50 to that Opus 111 type of moment -- breathe!" -- and carried me into the nearest meadow of calm aspect to rest, though still, diamonds twinkled in the jade carpet, deepened to emerald under the shade of emerald-leaved trees...

We sat there a long time, there being no hurry or possibility of a hurry ... at some point I realized ...

"Now this is what I call a graduation present!"

He smiled warmly, and thus I knew I had grasped his meaning.

"You did not know, twenty years ago, that this was the present you would have liked the most," he said, "nor could you fully have appreciated it then ... but you see, your grand old soldier was soon enough dispatched to introduce you to living in communion with nature, and so built on what you learned from Beethoven. Now, you are of these things by choice as you are by calling, Frau Mathews, and so it was time ... you have graduated from the expectations of living for the world system, and so you may now receive how you will be provided for by the One Who has called you, and Who provides effortlessly for all this. Even when you walk through the busy world, you see how you can bring the joy and good tidings that you know of to it, and spread them. It will not always go so easily, but where there is a meeting of understanding, joy and abundance will always flow.

"Also note, Frau Mathews, that all things came along a gentle path. I planned that to purpose as an object lesson: you did not need to strain yourself to be blessed, for while you must move along the path, in going, you will be graced, mightily. I also made it especially mild because I know you were recently injured, and I know how that occurred."

"From where you sit, those opera glasses must be really good," I said, and he laughed.

"Really good," he said, "or, at least I get briefed by those actually in charge of your security on high if there is something I should include in my lesson plan. But have no fear, my dear maiden...."

He grinned before intoning, "I do not scold you. I am your friend."

It was my turn to laugh, since that is more or less a quote from Schubert's 'Der Tod and der Mädchen' -- Death and the Maiden, at the end of which said maiden gets scooped up and carried off ... as I had already been that day!

"But we shall call this Life and the Maiden, since I've already carried you off," he said, "but you still may not come to your alto seat on high until called! Your knight on the hike has merely assisted you, fair lady, since trees and grass and flowers are almost enough to get you un-moored from gravity, too!"

I had to keep on laughing, for he was being sweetly ridiculous ... the old comedian of the opera stage had a big, gentle heart, and so did not bring this portion of his lesson down too hard.

"In brief, Frau Mathews -- you added another quarter-mile to an already long walk to try to bring happiness to a family elder. I cannot scold you for that, or for being made as you are, with a deep, deep desire to bless. I merely ask you to observe with me: when you started your walk, was the object you were pursuing actually available?"

"No, it was too late in the day. My thought was that I might check some less busy places ... but, in retrospect, accounting for the length of my walk, time was still passing, so there was no chance at all."

"And so, was anyone blessed at all?"

"No."

"Mein kind, you are a prolific creative -- you have sufficient dynamism and drive to account for more output now than most people can do in a longer lifetime -- but that is not the same as being driven by the expectations of the world to be what it wants of you.

"Also, Frau Mathews: you have developed high endurance in terms of all kinds of pain. This is good, in that life offers pain enough. Your loved ones must continue to age, and then pass -- and then you will experience your peers and yourself, doing the same. Institutions that you value, and perhaps even nations, will fall. You may face World War III. The world system will continue in its ravening way, no matter what, and its evils will put you on defense, for yourself and for those you care about. But outside of that, Frau Mathews -- outside of anything you are called to endure, why do you need to be in pain?"

That was quite a thought to consider.

"Who dares demand extra pain and labor from you, when the One Who has called you has said, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest?' Who dares contradict Him?"

"Plenty dare," I said, "but I am not beholden to obey any of them, including the unwise impulses in myself."

He arched his eyebrow, and his eyes twinkled ... the beautiful version of his stage whisper was imminent.

"I tell you now a great secret, and I will then tell you a greater one. Your elders taught you to plant food and grow it and harvest it -- but did you do that in yards not your own?"

"Not at all."

"We all have our reasons for the unwise patterns we have, and they are often deeply rooted ... but if you are no longer of that ground, are you responsible to tend those deep roots in order to keep them alive?"

"No ... all I have to do is not let them take root where I am."

"Hear now a greater secret, Frau Mathews, a corollary of the eternal wisdom that says: 'he that is faithful in little shall be faithful in much, and he that is unfaithful in little shall be unfaithful in much.' She that can abide in the calling in which she is called, and rest in the love of the One Who has called her, and can cease from over-compensating while having relatively little ... ."

"Oh," I said, "she will have little trouble doing the same when much more arrives."

"Your trials and lessons of 2022 and 2023, Frau Mathews, of course came when they did to purpose, for it is just now June 2024, and you are verging upon a new phase of your life. You know how to power through difficulty. You are now learning how to live in peace and to keep it, when the last enemy is actually yourself."

"Ah, I see why you sang 'Der Feind' today ... it is a gentle reminder!"

"A gentle sidelight to Schubert's 'Der Strom,' which I sang quite differently than bass-baritone Wout Oosterkamp did," he said.

I shuddered.

"That was terrifying," I said. "You can sing so beautifully that it is a shock when you choose not to sing so beautifully in order to make a point."

"But see, you learned the lesson as gently sung by Mr. Oosterkamp," he said, "so today I could sing 'Der Feind' gently to give you the viewpoint of the creatures in that peaceful world who fear the restlessness, the greed, the ravening in men who have not the capacity for peace and rest. They hide, and for good reason ... and now, Frau Mathews ... ."

He paused, his mood shifting dramatically, although, as ever, the clues were subtle until one picked up the impact of what he was saying.

"And now, Frau Mathews, we may understand how so many brilliant, gifted people, raised to great heights, cannot remain there -- why the long, good walk in the heights and gentle descent of life described by Brahms's 'Mit vierzig Jahren' after that long climb is never theirs, but the great tragedy of Schubert's 'Der Strom' so often fits their lot. For none, Frau Mathews, no matter how brilliant, no matter how gifted ... no matter how dearly and deeply beloved ... none may long remain at a level on which they are not prepared and determined to live.

"To great purpose I have quoted today, Frau Mathews: I do not scold you; I am your friend, for you have chosen my legacy of love and joy and peaceful power from which to learn. So if I point out to you, 'Slow down ... do not over-work ... do not over-compensate even in small matters ... that was a misstep there, and you need not make it again,' it is because I am your friend, echoing the One Who has called you to greater heights still. You must be prepared for every level to which you shall come. They who are faithful in little are the only ones who can be faithful in much, because everyone has to start practicing somewhere!"

"You know," I said, "I've been a musician this long, and I have not before made that connection to the truth -- but you are right!"

He looked at me for a long moment, and at last permitted me to see both his joy --

"You are receptive to the truth, Frau Mathews, and it is a simple matter to understand --."

-- but then also, his sorrow.

"-- yet, that is the core of the issue: even simple matters are obscured to those who refuse the truth. To combine talent and even genius with lack of practice in walking in truth, lack of practice in walking away from pride, resentment, revenge-seeking, is to have occasion to rise so high, only to fall so far."

He closed his eyes in a moment of great pain, and here we needed not share an imagination. The history of World War II and the biographies of some of the musicians he had known were known by me. I therefore knew enough of what he was remembering then, and why the pain was so deep. Now he was so much larger than I was that I could not do things like literally surround him with my embrace as he would have me had I such a moment of anguish, but, both my little hands were enough to cover one of his, clenched as it was in the effort to maintain sufficient control of his emotions.

"Close enough, Frau Mathews," he said softly as I covered his hand. "Your heart is immense, and is surrounding mine with love ... danke schön."

He took his other hand and covered mine and squeezed gently, and there we sat for a few minutes until he again opened his eyes and smiled.

"I knew I could not go unscathed through that line of thought while back in the world in which those memories reside," he said, "but I was willing to endure that pain because it is part of the process of your being blessed. As I have said to you, life has its pains, and you will still have to endure them, but inside your calling, every one of them shall merely be the advance price of future blessing and joy, to you, and those chosen around you. The day will come, Frau Mathews, when your students and your true friends and more will come around you, and bless you back -- you have chosen love, and love will overtake you! Have you not made me a witness to how that works?"

"Oh, your students and friends are still out there, blessing your memory and reeling more people in -- how do you think I got here?" I said with a laugh.

He smiled, brilliantly.

"You know, you were doing a bit better for yourself in the world when the stars in your eyes from the German horizon were Beethoven and Bach, but since you do not aspire to such zeniths, it is perhaps as well that you are observing the track some humble little German bass made across the sky of life, for his was a gentler, quieter path, full of joys which you also, now, are truly in the process of discovering because you are walking in a parallel way."

I opened my mouth and then shut it for a moment as my mind and heart caught up with the precision of what he had just said, and the gift of it.

"By the world's standards," I at last said, "you are arguably the greatest German basso profundo of the second half of the 20th century, and without equal now, even a quarter into the 21st century ... by the world's standards. But you did not let the world dictate to you who you were and how you should be, but remained a gentle, big-hearted, humble man who was as happy to sing and teach in quiet paths as on the greatest stages ... and that actually is the secret of your lasting greatness."

"And that is the reason why a gentle, big-hearted, humble woman, in route to lasting greatness, has found in me a suitable instructor," he said. "I am in your vertical, Frau Mathews, fitted to you as one of many historical connections that model why and how you have been and will be defying the world in who you can know and what you can do with much less effort than the world would see you broken for ... as you abide, and walk, as you are called."