Informing the field:
Really nice, Seagullresting! Yes totally worth it. And I'm reminded of a joke: Knock Knock. Who's there? Bass player. Bass player who? Exactly! (rimshot
https://youtu.be/gpaOy8b8X6A)
So as to continue ... I speak here within the narrow discipline of music, yet the metaphor for all aspects of "teacher" (including "spiritual" teacher) remain intact and unadulterated.
I'll begin with the Epistle Paul. Not the one in the Bible. This Paul is the epistle of practical music theory as expressed on the fretboard of a bass guitar. A fret is the metal wire on the "playing" side of the instrument's neck that is used to ensure precise intonation. The fretboard is the whole of the playing side of the neck including the frets, the wood in which the frets are mounted, and the inlays (if any).
According to the Gospel of Paul, there are 13 (practical) ways to finger the fretboard to play a major scale over two octaves. But I'm getting ahead of the story. Let's take a moment to look at who the Epistle Paul
is, for I know him well.
Paul is a
master of the instrument. He's also a working player. If the gig pays, he plays it. It doesn't matter if it's country and western played from inside a chicken wire cage (like in
The Blues Brothers scene at Bob's Country Bunker - and that is Very Real!) or on a cruise ship or in a church. They gots moneys, Paul accepts moneys.
In my personal experience with Paul, I observe if it contains alcohol, he'll drink it, if it's pot he'll smoke it, and if need be he has no problem swearing. Oh and sex, of course, I've never seen Paul has a problem with that. HaHa. (No personal contact implied and none of your business anyway.)
In short, Paul is embodied as a human being, and enjoys the experience of a human being. Paul is
also a spiritual being of great multidimensionality in the experience of a human being. He is, as I like to say, BOTH / AND.
Oh, and he's welcome in my home any time, and has been a guest in my home more often than I would care to number. He comes and goes of his own free will. Now about that fretboard.
I sit with my bass, just noodling around, perhaps I am figuring out a fingering for the F Troop theme or The Hearse Song (... the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out ...). Which is to say I'm just playing free form, I'm
playing at playing.
And in my awareness of myself as a field being being a field ... this is not the first I speak of this ... I am also the observer as well as the do-er as well as the do-e. This is the metapoint, and there is yet another metapoint ....
The metapoint is the juncture of form and formlessness - where I bring form from formlessness that returns to formlessness.
And it is from here I am open to the Epistle Paul in the greater field that is my landscape, and here is what opens:
I now see through my own awareness and
physical presence in the field of the fretboard - which is an open descriptor of all of music theory ....
.... if I begin an ascending major scale with my first finger (index finger) on the tonic (first scale degree) and then
slide my first finger to the second degree, I can complete the scale sequence beginning on the second degree with only a single shift on the next (higher) string. If it sounds technical, it
is technical but I explain it as clearly as possible within the technical language required within the greater field of music theory. And so do I also speak of my [non-physical] observations in technical terms appropriate to the field.
There are reasons to speak technically about technical matters. It's
technical 
And something new opens up for me, it's an epiphany, a rosetta stone of the fretboard. For I always wondered how to complete a major scale beginning with my index finger on the second degree.
This is intent. This is how we
place intent. It doesn't matter if my intent is to see my fretboard in an entirely new way or if my intent is to make contact with an individual who left their embodiment. Intent is intent, and this is, I observe, how intent works. I wonder about something ....
And in my placement of intent, I "drop the reins on my horse's neck" (to borrow from
Parsifal) and
allow. I become my instrument of intent.
We are field beings being a field. And now my musical landscape is enlarged considerably! In practical terms, it means my new mastery of the Dorian Mode from my first finger opens a new way to play Scarborough Fair. Kewl. (Except a bass player's role in a group is not typically melodic -
though it sometimes can be without the Dreaded Bass Solo.)
Did Bass Epistle Paul "teach" me this? NO.
What occurred is I gave my self permission to
play - to drop all my habits of preconception - and
taught myself what Paul already learned and made accessible through his presence in my landscape.
Paul did not teach me this. I've not seen Paul in person in decades. It's not necessary! Because I
made the choice to open myself to play ....
Trust this is clear. I'm the one who teaches me, I have all I need to do so. I am the only one who, through my own embodiment in the experience of a human, who teaches me. For
we are field beings being a field.
We are creator beings.First there is intent. Then there is stepping out of the way. Then there is the creation. Some see this as a naturally occurring Fibonacci Sequence, and that is a good analogy!
Trust you (general you) see why my home is always open to Bass Epistle Paul and I offer all the hospitality at my disposal. And he's welcome to cuss and smoke and what have you anytime in my landscape. For there is no teacher, there never was a teacher,
we are in equity.
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