Golden Dew Drop
there is no solitude
for there is it,
all-pervading
in the sun of dance
warm as the song of rays
—enveloped—
wrapped in soothing ease
pushing far,
yet going nowhere,
returning nowhere—
in the famous
golden
dew drop
containing
a whistle of joy
Dear friends,
Last weekend, Cris and I drove to Seattle to see one of my favorite piano players — Ludovico Einaudi, someone whose music has touched my heart through the simplicity of deeply feeling. To me, his music embodies the tender strength of pure love. What I didn’t fully realize was that he’s an accomplished composer as well.
The concert was breathtaking — piano, violin, cello, bass guitar, percussion — filling the hall with magnificence under his quiet direction. Each musician held a distinct role, yet the real beauty lived in how they listened — attuned, responsive, igniting the eloquence and beauty of a treasury of sound, together as one pervasive field. It wasn’t the power of one person; it was the power of many, composed.
That harmony reminded me of something timeless — awareness itself. The same awareness that listened in that hall is the same awareness that’s been looking through these eyes since childhood. Awareness doesn’t age, doesn’t arrive or leave. It simply sees, knows — is clear, open, and alive.
On the journey home, we pulled off above the Columbia Gorge — high on a mountain where the wind carried the song of an art installation of steel horses across the ridgeline. Standing there, I felt the rhythm still moving through me. Composition turning to landscape. Sound turning to breath.
I then remembered — the same pulse that once looked through the eyes of a young child sitting in the Pryor Mountains. My dad had gone off to gather tipi poles, leaving me by the truck — alone in stillness with the mountain, meadow, sagebrush, and the quiet.
Then the ground began to shake.
A deep rumble, like thunder under the skin of the earth.
As I gazed into the distance, a herd of wild horses came running — manes flying, hooves striking, the whole ground alive beneath me, vibrating through the land.
That moment never left. It was the sound, the felt sense, the sight of embodied power — the pulse of the earth, the wild sovereignty of the collective.
Wild horses move within a greater intelligence — sensing, knowing, and feeling all at once. One field, many hearts. Breath, wind, and body moving as one.
When we breathe together — in yoga, in song, in community, in the quiet spaces of daily life — we feel that same coherence. It’s the energy of life listening to itself. The herd knew it, and the music hall knew it too: harmony arises instinctually, naturally — and we meet our very self.
That very same weekend, I sat with a teacher who spoke on dream yoga — how during sleep, the senses go offline, yet clarity and awareness remain, luminous and whole. His words echoed what I’d just felt on that mountaintop — that inherent knowing simultaneously to what sees with the eyes yet is prior, that living awareness that hums within all sound. Whether the senses are open to the world or resting in silence, awareness continues — awake within it all.
“Lucidity is a code word for awareness.”
— Andrew HolecekThe practice is to notice it — in daily life, in movement, in dreams — the same thread of knowing that runs through every state.
A Simple Evening Practice
Before sleep, take three slow inhale breaths, extend the exhale a little longer each time, and rest as awareness.
Feel the body soften into the bed, the mind open like sky.
If you wake in the night, allow yourself to simply be awake — resting, breathing, letting yourself be and feel, however you are.
In honor of Jane Goodall, I keep her reminder close: our hope depends on “changing from within,” awakening empathy for all life. The herd knows how. So does the mountain. So does the wind that carries our breath. Every living thing holds this universal intelligence — an unspoken knowing of how to live in harmony with the whole.
In the noise, suffering, and division of now, may we remember:
We are part of nature, never apart from it.
The collective is sacred.
Altruism is our sovereignty.
May our listening extend beyond words — into the quiet knowing that connects us all.
LUDOVICO LISTENING
Here’s a playlist from the concert — a little field of sound to breathe with as the season turns.