“Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself.“ ~Miles Davis

When we start, we make sounds but we’re surrounded by others who are also making sounds. We listen. They tell us how to play, tell us what we should sound like. They argue among themselves about the right way to play. So we play. If we can, we play with others. Some of us find ourselves playing in a jazz group, others in a symphony, others in an alley behind where we live, and still others play alone in the shelter of the woods.

Overtime we begin to notice what feels natural. Our music starts flowing through us. The notes start coming from deeper place, somewhere inside. And we begin to appreciate that this is what we’re here to play. It’s our music. We appreciate other’s music but we don’t try to play like them. And we don’t tell them to play like us.

We develop confidence, not because others approve or because they change but because we know it is our music to play regardless of results. This is faith.

“Only in “the cave of the heart,” as the mystics are fond of calling it—does a person come in contact with his or her own direct knowingness. And only out of this direct knowingness is sovereignty born, one’s own inner authority.” —Cynthia Bourgeault

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