When I create a new piece of music, it generally comes about in one of three ways. If there are lyrics, they come first establishing the rhythm and suggesting pieces of melody. If it is instrumental only, I either create a melody on flute and build structure around it or come up with a structure on piano and flute becomes more blended with that structure.
The latest piece I’ve created started at the piano. What I heard in the piano portion was both a sense of anticipation and loss. Most often, a movement to a new phase in life (the anticipation) involves letting go something of the past (the sense of loss). And so, the title suggested itself to me as Thresholds.
There are two standard definitions for a threshold: 1. A gate, door, or boundary; and 2. a level, point, or value above which something is true or will take place and below which it is not or will not. So, it is not only a point of crossing (e.g., a doorway), but also a state that must be reached in order for change to take place (e.g., the last straw that leads you to change an aspect of your life).
We typically cross many life thresholds in our time on this planet. Being born is one, with our mothers’ bodies being the physical threshold and contractions being the catalyst. We begin to walk and talk. We start school. We graduate school. We may marry. We may have children. We work and we retire. Eventually, our bodies fail. In that last case, this life-long chrysalis containing the spirit that is us falls apart and our energetic self emerges. At the same time, what remains of that chrysalis can break down and become part of a new threshold for new life in form. When I walk in the woods, I see a great example of this in nurse trees. A tree that has died may leave behind a stump or a fallen trunk. Often, you’ll see new trees or other plants growing from that once living tree.
Some thresholds involve choice (career change); others are inevitable (birth and death). And, as in the music, there is anticipation of the new combined with sadness of leaving behind what was. But where there is sadness, there is love. I would rather have the sadness with change than not to have the experience of loving what was.
Some thresholds we may not want to cross. Death would be a great example. But if we never died in the physical, there would be two huge losses resulting. One would be the lack of room for new life. The other would be the loss of what we would have experienced in the new. When all of this is considered, I can help but look at the concept of the threshold with awe and reverence.
Now that I’ve said this, I invite you to watch the video below and consider the images and what thresholds you’ve experienced and will experience. Thank you.