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John Stillwell Blog

Blog

John Stillwell Blog

Subtraction and Addition

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Created: April 02 2015

A tree in a fieldIt sometimes seems to me that learning to play the Native American flute is more a matter of subtraction than addition. I don’t seem to be adding knowledge about how to play the flute. What I have been doing is subtracting all the faulty psychological programs that stand between me and freedom from fear. It is the fear of failure, of not doing it right, of what others may think that inhibits my playing. These fears keep me from allowing the flute to express itself in whatever way it chooses.

I intuit that these fears were implanted early in childhood. Unrealistic expectations. Demands to do it the right way. Testing and the fear of failure. These anxieties come between me and the freedom to play with absolute abandon. When due to some combination of intent and divine good fortune I enter the zone, playing becomes a truly creative experience. It is an experience where sounds I have never heard before are manifesting. And feelings that I seldom experience are rising to the surface.

Some of us will take our flute playing to places that others will not. This is natural and perfectly OK. Each of us has their own individual lessons to learn and songs to express. This diversity is what makes life so fascinating. How dull if we were all the same. Or how dull if we were all striving for the same goal. Perhaps there are an unlimited multitude of goals. Each one tailor made to allow the individual – you and me - to reach his fullest potential. If we let go of goals to be reached will we find that there are no goals? Will we find there are only roads to travel on? Are we each a traveler on one of an infinitely varied number of roads? With each road being a unique exploration of the evolving Universe of sound.

Why do we have to measure ourselves by some external standards of achievement? Is it not more enjoyable to simply let go and play with our flute.

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Song of Life

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Created: February 23 2015

We measure space by the six directions – North, South, East, West, Up and Down. We measure time in years, days, hours, minutes and seconds. With this mental construct we give order to the space-time continuum. We experience ourselves within space and time as a conscious awareness. I am. I am finds itself emanating form a material form we call the human body. This body, we now know, has taken billions of years to achieve its present configuration. We find ourselves to be a locus of experience within the form of a living, mobile, organic being capable of speculating on the source of its existence.

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Summer Solstice Love Flute Song

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Created: July 14 2014
The Native American style flute song is constantly changing. The flute is discovering new pathways of sound through the confusion of life. Pathways that are clearer by far than anything I have ever experienced. Pathways that light the way to a better tomorrow. If the tone of the flute is sharp or flat relative to some artificial standard – what do I care? Do the birds care? How boring to be always the same. Let freedom ring and come out of the Native American style flute. May it reach into every crevice of conventionality. Not measuring or judging anything according to some external yardstick. Knowing, always, that every note is enough in all places and at all times. My flute song unique. And yours as well. Gently blowing forth creative notes into the unknown. Not expecting to hear that same sound again – perhaps ever. Letting our life unfold and our own music go out into it. Playing our part in the grand symphony of the Universe as it is continuously transforming and discovering itself anew. The music says that in spite of every dark cloud and feeling of pain there is I – the music – I help heal all discomfort.
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Let's Play the Native American style Flute

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Created: September 02 2013

I was listening to a Love flute CD that someone had sent me. It was an exuberant, openhearted expression of pure joy. To the discerning – might I say critical – mind it did not conform to the established standards of ‘good music’. But it’s limitations in that respect was more than compensated for by its enthusiasm. The Native American style flute is helping to liberate many of us from our habit of evaluating and criticizing everything. Especially as this behavior applies to self-criticism.

Why can’t we just relax and have fun? Why are we so hard on ourselves? The pervasive culture of correctness and perfection has taken the fun out of life. Playing the flute or expressing our selves in any way must be based on freedom from fear of criticism, especially self-criticism. Otherwise we’re perpetually caught in the spot light. It’s a spotlight where everyone is looking at us. And we feel that if we don’t do it right there will be a price to pay. Holding ourselves up to impossible standards or other people’s standards means that we are always setting ourselves up to fail. We live under a dark cloud of our own creation. Actually, we didn’t create it.

 

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In an Instant - Eternity

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Created: August 24 2013

The expansion of consciousness. The expanding of awareness beyond the self-imposed limits of the socially conditioned mind. Expanding consciousness in order to see new things and experience new feelings. Expanding in order to come in contact with the living wisdom of God as it permeates every atom and every vibrating string of creation. To listen as every vibrating string is humming with love, the love that creates and sustains and guides this manifestation we call life. This manifestation we call earth; that we call heaven, Call it by any names you choose. The meaning is in all ways the same.

 

No words can never come close to describing life in a way that will bring expanded consciousness into being in a person’s life. They can only point the way. The choice to follow and find is up to the individual. Then the new discovery comes into being in a person’s life spontaneously. And then we, in turn, search for words to describe what we have experienced.

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  1. Honey is Gone
  2. Eternity
  3. Pain and Fear/Feeding Loves Desire
  4. Winter in the Desert
  5. Harmony in Life
  6. Cloud Time
  7. Mister Coyote Takes a Walk
  8. Timeless Raindrops
  9. Some Desert Ramblings
  10. Around the Bend
  11. The Rising Sun
  12. Honey is Getting Old
  13. Trust, Love, Respect and the Fabric of Creation
  14. Sunday Morning Service
  15. The Birds Fly South
  16. Drops of Summer Rain
  17. An Answer or a Question
  18. Just the Other Side of Who We Are
  19. Time, Space, Love and the Native American Flute
  20. Play and Heal With the Native American Flute
  21. Subtraction and Addition or Learning to Play the Native American style Flute
  22. Judgmental Behavior and Playing the Native American Style Flute
  23. Musical Orthodoxy
  24. A Flute Journey
  25. Follow the Flute
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