**enjoy this guest blog post by Barry T. Brodie
“If you are ready to accept things as they are, you will receive them as old friends, even though you appreciate them with new feeling.” (Shunryu Suzuki)
Maybe it’s because I began my earthly tour of duty at the beginning of September or the fact that the academic year became a predominant rhythm in my life but I have always felt my new year began September 1st. This January 1st, however, is the first time I am feeling a true sense of beginning. I understand that it is the beginning of a whole new cycle and that energetically there is an actual demarcation between December 31st and January 1st. At this point in my life, I don’t need fireworks to announce a new beginning, but rather a deep stirring within the soul.
But let us consider what it really means to begin. The oldest meaning to be found in the dictionary is from before the 12 century: to be at a starting point. Point after point gives us a line, and point after point gives us time. So there is a suspension in the beginning.
I have always admired orchestra musicians who are able on cue to pick up a piece from anywhere in the score. They “know the score” so they can begin anywhere.
The Zen Masters tell us to keep a beginner’s mind – one that is open, pure, and free from preconceptions. How do we do that? Sometimes we give ourselves a count of 10 before we respond to something. Yet, is that a clear and empty mind?
When we are learning a new skill or a new art and can’t quite get it right, we “begin again.” And keep doing so until the new skill is perfected. The great pianist Wanda Landowska said, “I practice a passage 10 times, 50 times, 100 times, and suddenly it comes to me.”
The paradox of music is that it lies dormant on the page until musicians come along and bring it to life. Then where is it? In our ears? Our hearts? Around us? In us? The score is written. It has been handed down from age to age or delivered just now by email. We begin to study it. We begin to get it in our body. We begin to memorize it. All this work!? And then we are ready to begin. Funny, the beginning takes practice!
The beginning no matter when it happens is always informed by our experience. In a way, the only true beginning is our arrival on this plane, but even that beginning is never really pure. The moment we choose to incarnate is informed by numberless lifetimes.
The “where you are” if considered deeply is really “all the places you are from” – all the experiences both conscious and subconscious. We are where we are by the law of our being.
So, the “begin” is highly charged; and so is the “where you are.” So where do we begin?
The one thing, to be sure, is movement. Movement in the moment “begin where you are.” There is awareness. There is a decision. There is intention. There is direction. There is will. There is daring. That moment is like a dewdrop heavy with possibility waiting to descend and yield its moisture to the world.
The dewdrop doesn’t make a conscious decision to fall. At the point of its natural fullness, it simply drops from the tip of the leaf. Its generous spirit doesn’t concern itself with where it falls – leaf, branch, soil, river, tongue. It is simply participating in the powerful, natural rhythm of the water cycle.
Here I am, conscious being, aware of what my drop holds and ready for the moment when what I have to give will drop into the world and bring refreshment. Where is the beginning?
“There is no beginning; there is no ending. There is only the now.” Are we stranded? Or are we given an extraordinary standpoint from which to watch our lives unfold?
“If you want to appreciate something fully, you should forget yourself. You should accept it like lightning, flashing in the utter darkness of the sky.” (Shunryu Suzuki) Lightning arrives before thought. Even when we are watching diligently for it to appear, it will always surprise and always illuminate.
The Canadian philosopher Kenneth George Mills said: “Let preparation be your springboard so spontaneity can be your splash.”
Let me begin,
Let me enter the moment
by fanfare or flag
Or bell or gun.
Let me commence,
Let me originate
On downbeat or cue
on upbeat or prompt.
Let me breathe,
Let me gasp.
Is it my first?
What if my last?
Let me be music,
Let me move tone to tone.
Each note a birth be;
Each silence a mortality.
Begin where you are
For where you are is
All that you are
And there . . begin.
Barry T. Brodie
February 2025
