Why Practice

Heading out for the day, mind preoccupied and racing in a thousand directions, 
I started the car and turned on the radio.
A silent pause.
Then, out of the silence...

Two solitary notes perfectly played upon the strings of a violin.
Two notes unlike any other.
Two notes that had just found the ear of my heart.

Engine off. The master fiddler continued with the tune, yet those two notes kept repeating inside, lingering with me.
The soulful longing of a musical interval. A tear in the corner of the eye.
How is it possible that just two notes can stop us in our tracks, crack open the heart, awaken us to what is essential?

A litany of praise welled up, praise for those who practice, for those whose practice brings us into deep awareness, whose practice gives life, saves life, revives memory, helps us to feel. The long months, the years of study, dedication, repetition and sacrifice. The slow and often painstaking process of learning, and falling down, and getting back up. Devotion growing into a skillful means.

In a world that prizes the fast and furious, that comes at us with constant distraction,
could it be that the gifts resulting from lifelong practice will redeem us?

A seasoned therapist who with just two words shifts a lifetime's block of trauma.
A nurse who after years of repetition gives the vaccine and you don’t even feel it.
An artist who with strokes of dark and light enables you to feel the deepest grief you can’t otherwise express. 

The dancer, who by a seemingly simple turn of the body, reminds you that you can still live. A friend who has cultivated a practice of intentional listening holds you when the ground beneath gives way. A neighbor who always says those two words, “good morning”, to everyone. Today, for me it was Aly Baine and his fiddle.

Two words. Two notes. 
Thank you for your practice, 
whatever it may be.

Mary Busby November 16. 2021

Photo of Aly Bain by Óscar López González, 2005