The following original drawings were created for the Musical Stories which were published as our fourth collection in 2005 under the title of “Where I Need to Be.” We’ve included a brief description of  what each drawing means to us related to that part of our journey. Just one glance and the memories come flooding back. Simply click on the drawing to go directly to the original story and lyrics along with other related links.

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This drawing is about acceptance. At times we can feel like we’re on a long and lonely road in the middle of nowhere. The famous author Byron Katie says, “Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.” We’re  on that road for a reason. However, we ultimately accept the realities and keep driving. Byron also says “Everything happens for you, not to you.”

 

This drawing is about learning our most difficult lessons. Nothing comes easy. The most valuable change requires difficult experience. Like an extreme fever, the pain is actually the healing process at work in the body. The fever breaks and we awaken in a better place—stronger and more resilient than ever..

 

This drawing is about knowing. Curiously, our entire life is made up of notes to self. We keep rolling through experiences every day, all the while writing notes in the margins about what we observed. Knowing doesn’t happen immediately. Instead it’ more like a slow process of accumulation, becoming visible with repetition. We suspect that we’re aware long before we finally accept what we already know.

 

This drawing is about spirituality in everyday life. The cloistered halls of a monastery in Italy inspired us to consider the solemn vows of the monks within. The disciplined search for higher levels of consciousness and a meaningful connection to the mystical is not confined to those stone walls.

 

This story is about the power of history to reveal. Recovering antiquities from the sea floor brings us insights into who we are. Preserved like sacred messages sent into the future, ancient relics arrive at the water’s edge as windows into both the our distant past and future.

 

This drawing is about self-reflection. Photographs have incredible power to capture, preserve and enhance who we are. We become curators of our own hand-held pictorial story. We collect only the photos we like and extract what we don’t want to remember. With a simple snip of the scissors, we create ourselves in our own image—total control of the truth, as we see it.

 

This drawing is about the awesome strength of tradition. Repetition is both a blessing and a curse, wielding significant control over our lives. The High School band parading down Main Street says it all. Marching feet in perfect unison in a celebration of a shared holiday that’s repeated over and over again. The rest of us dutifully parade like zombies to watch and applaud.

 

This drawing is about boundaries. The artist M C Escher understood the illusion of edges very well. In general, people are addicted to crisp lines of demarcation—is it in or out? Escher challenges that urge by showing the blurred edges that constantly morph—neither this nor that. Unfortunately, that phenomenon often makes us extremely uncomfortable, yet curious at the same time.

 

This drawing is about being reborn—not just starting over but rather, taking a completely new  form. We all know it’s possible, but when it comes down to acting on the impulse, there’s a resistance as one’s feet start to drag. This drawing is about the power of actually taking the leap.

 

This drawing is about falling asleep. As a companion piece to “Live Again,” we see the opposite response to radical possibility. It’s often much easier to doze off than to make a change, especially if change requires giving up our gun and fancy shoes.

 

This drawing is about true love. What if one could experience love that feels magical and other-worldly, like an incredible pearl never seen before—a once in a lifetime?

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