Philomusings

New Blog on the Horizon

2011-10-17T23:30:00.000-07:00

Seeking followers and contributors: "The Kingfisher Review: A Journal of Recommended Experiences." Enjoy!

Mixing Media

2011-08-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

We do not create art from nothing but the will to do so; we tap into currents larger than ourselves and channel them individually. The currents are available to everyone; the endless road to becoming an artist is about learning to recognize these currents in contrast to mere ambition, and to be sincere and succinct in our expression of them.

But in what way? As artists, we can express ourselves through any medium: music, words, paint, clay, film, theater... Certainly some mediums are more native to some people than others – we call that talent – but sometimes a medium that is less native produces great results: it forces us into unknown territory, challenging us to be articulate without the comfort of our private clichés. It’s scary – and enriching.

My advice to myself today? Engage the muse at every turn: music, cooking, lawn mowing (yes, there is a muse of lawn mowing – Snippograsse, I think.) After all, art ain’t just things, it’s a way of living a life well lived!

Gnosis and Agnosis

2011-06-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

I often find myself at a loss to respond to the atheist videos and links that are sent to me. I feel that by objecting to them I will be viewed as being yet another frightened, desperate, religious potato head – and that is not the case (at least on the first three counts.) Frankly, the constant bickering between the atheists and the non is tiresome and lacks insight on both sides. So here, in an attempt to put to rest my annoyance and frustration, I put in my two cents.

Not everyone defines the word “God” as the bearded, fickle meanie of the mainstream. It is my personal understanding that everything comes from something; what that something ultimately is, however, I do not and probably cannot know, at least in my current form and state.

It is also, though, my personal understanding that we are, that everything is, ultimately built of the same stuff – at a quantum, vibratory sort of level. If I build a table out of wood, for example, that table, and that table’s functionality, is of the Earth, and also of my imagination, and of my efforts; similarly, I know that I, the builder of the table, am at least of the Earth. And what is the Earth “of”? I suppose I could say it is of the Sun, which was in turn parented by a Solar Cloud via a supernova. And what generated the Solar Cloud? What cosmic hoohah ejaculated a supernova? What generated the galaxies? The universe, or universes? Where does time come from, and thought, and feeling? Can anything exist without having first been created?

Dunno. I do know that an ancestor both of mine and my little table here is the universe – in which, by the way, I happen to reside. Cosmically, we share the same genes. (Hmm... perhaps “The kingdom of heaven is within you” isn’t an exclusive statement after all.) Is it possible to live my life from a deeper level, as the cosmically infused being that I truly am? Dunno.

Sacred Hebrew texts don’t spell out the word “God”– in English it is spelled “G-d.” Now, that can be seen as a fear-based thing: don’t dare to mention His name, etc. It can also, though, be seen as a way of not presuming to define the ineffable. G-d is not the answer – G-d is the question. (Now there’s a bumper sticker born to baffle!)

It is presumptuous for atheists to claim that everyone who lives these questions are idiots. It is equally presumptuous for the “spiritual” or “religious” to claim that atheists don’t ask them. Once again the big scary questions that could bind us together in a spirit of inquiry are forsaken for the comfort of a political stance.

I suppose I could be thrown into the “agnostic” camp. Firstly, however, the only “camp” I’m interested in involves cross-dressing and bawdy jokes; secondly, people often equate “agnostic” with “noncommittal” – and I am committed to my questions. (“Agnostic,” though, is a lovely word, defined as "one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known.”)

So: there’s my two cents. Do I feel relieved? No – I feel uncertain. And that’s probably for the best.

J S Kingfisher at the Fresno Psychic Faire

2010-11-22T12:55:00.000-08:00

Please join Jeff at the Brass Unicorn in Fresno on Saturday, December 4th, 2010. He'll be offering castings – which include a CD of music uniquely generated by you – from 11 am to 6 pm. At 6:30 pm, he'll be presenting a free introductory lecture with music. Details below... click image to enlarge.

John Steiner's "Impressions" CD Release Celebration!

2010-11-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

John Steiner completed his new CD Impressions last month at Hoofhaven in Northern California, with Jeff Kingfisher producing. In honor of this event, John will be performing on Sunday, December 12th at 6 pm at:

The First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael

1510 5th Avenue (at "E" Street)

San Rafael, CA 94901

(415) 456-6760

www.fpcsr.org

Come and enjoy!

The Muzoracle Addenda

2010-10-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

As explained in the sidebar, The Philomusings Blog is changing its focus a bit. It is still the place for all of the Philomuse News: the comings and goings of Philomuse artists J S Kingfisher and John Steiner, plus news and updates on Philomuse products. All of the Muzoracle specific stuff, however – things like casting examples and deeper explorations of the cards and dice – is now being chronicled on a separate new blog called The Muzoracle Addenda, which will be thoroughly integrated with the pages on muzoracle.com. This will effectively add a place for commentary and questions directly accessible from the card and dice pages.

JSK speaks on "The Spiritual Significance of Music"

2010-06-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

A dynamic New Zealander named Justin St. Vincent has spearheaded an inspiring book and web project called The Spiritual Significance of Music, which explores the connections between music and spirituality; to date he has conducted interviews with over 1000 musicians on the subject. JSK is now among them – find his profile and downloadable interview here (scroll down the page a bit).

"Introducing Muzundrum" Video Completed!

2010-06-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

JSK and Andy Markley of ART101 finished editing the first in a series of Muzundrum videos. This one's a kind of a snappy little ad; actual "how-to" videos are on their way. Many thanks to Hugh Lawson and Al Hernandez for their camera work, and to John Steiner for joining Jeff in the game!

See it on You Tube!

Upcoming Tour of the Southwest

2010-06-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Back home in California at last after 27 days on the road... yikes! The JEN Conference in St. Louis went very well: lots of Muzundrum was played, and lots of great jazz was heard. Many good connections were made regarding the Muzoracle, too, especially in the Southwest. A small tour is in the planning stages for Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado this coming fall – I'll be giving Muzoracle workshops and lectures and doing some performances in Sedona, Albuquerque, and Denver/Boulder for a start. Details forthcoming ... stay tuned!

JSK at the JEN Conference in St. Louis

Meet Me in St. Louis ... or Elsewhere

2010-04-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

My partner Hugh and I will be exhibiting the Muzundrum at the Jazz Education Network 2010 Conference at the University of Missouri, Saint Louis on May 20-22. There will be clinics galore and a whole host of jazz greats and school bands playing ... so meet me in Saint Louis, Louis!

I am actually driving out from California a couple of weeks early, and taking a couple of more weeks to return. I'll be stopping at stores and schools all along the way, showing folks all the Philomuse wares and offering some great introductory deals. I'm also booking private Muzoracle castings, complete with music. Below is a list of some of the towns on the itinerary – please contact me if you'd like to connect!

King on the Road: A Partial Itinerary

Las Vegas – Flagstaff – Sedona – Phoenix – Tucson

Las Cruces – Albuquerque – Santa Fe – Oklahoma City

Dallas – Austin – Houston – New Orleans – Saint Louis

Champaign – Chicago – Milwaukee – Minneapolis – Denver

Descending Scalepoints in Ascending Castings ... and vice versa

2010-04-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

Scalepoints in the key of C Ascending. Note that the chromatic points

form a descending major scale a tritone away, in the key of Gb.

In the Muzoracle, ascent and descent represent two very different flows of process. The ascending flow involves processes we intentionally initiate, or try to; the descending flow involves processes initiated outside of us, or within us unconsciously. Ascent is the upward flow of will; descent is the downward flow of Nature, of what comes down around us and through us.

It’s not difficult to find examples of ascending and descending flows within ourselves. I wish to make breakfast, and conscientiously set about doing so: ascent. While doing so, last night’s dream keeps running through my mind unbidden: descent. Focusing my attention, I carefully flip the eggs at just the right moment: ascent. Meanwhile my legs support my shifting weight and keep me balanced: descent. The phone rings: descent. I choose to answer it: ascent. In a descending process, I am part of the flow; in an ascending process, I make the flow. Ascent is purposeful; descent is grace.

Ascending processes from one perspective are often are descending processes from another, and vice versa. I intend to make breakfast: why? Because I’m hungry. Do I intend to be hungry? No, but my body is insisting. At whose bidding does my body insist? We see that ultimately we are in a descending flow: ultimately we serve; we are of and for Nature. From nature’s flow, though – for all things come to us through it – desires arise that move against or in spite of this downward pull, and we are called to act: to wish, to intend. Descent is realized through ascent; ascent arises from descent in turn.

The scalepoints in the Muzoracle are associated with either ascent or descent. If a casting is ascending – if the black Musician’s Die is pointing upward – do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti (the diatonic scalepoints) are traveling upward, too. The other scalepoints, the chromatic ones – se, me, ra, te, and le – are traveling downward, against that upward flow. If a casting is descending – if the black Musician’s Die is pointing downward – things work in reverse: the diatonic scalepoints, like the Musician’s Die, travel downward, and the chromatic scalepoints travel upward against them.

In the ascending casting pictured above, the diatonic scalepoints speak, of course, of the ascending process. It’s important to remember, though, that the descending points speak of the descending process, even though the casting as a whole is an ascending one.

The querent in this case was a young woman asking about a future career as a singer. She started by rolling an Ab pointing straight up, indicating that the perspective of the casting was to be that of an ascending scale. Understood: she wants to sing, and this casting is going to look at what she wants, what she intends. Right out of the gate, though, she rolls a descending point: le, the point of Dependence. Now, in an ascending casting, le is the bottom point in a descending scale: it's like the weight at the end of a pendulum, pulling things down. Even though the whole of this casting – according to the Musician’s Die – is about the mountain she’s trying to climb, she’s confronted immediately with something that’s pulling downward from below and draining her energy. So… what is this drain? She draws a card and places it below le: a Major Seventh of Percussion, Lack in the Realm of the Physical.

Gee whiz, I think. Could it be that this gal can’t carry a tune? I ask her about the nature of this lack that drains. It’s not so much a voice problem, she says. It’s a more of a vitality thing: she likes to think about singing, but actually approaching it wipes her out, like she’s trying to “run underwater”.

Interestingly enough, the next die she rolls is ra: the point of Vitality, and another descending point. Now, the point of Vitality is about energy sources and driving forces: of what here is it speaking? The source of the downward pull that’s draining her? Or an energy source she might draw on in her quest? The card she draws: Performance, which is crossed eventually by the Tritone of Strings. A paradigm shift in emotion crossed with the act of performing: a deep change in attitude, perhaps, a new emotional posture. Has she taken such a posture that’s spinning her down the tubes? Conversely, can she imagine such a posture that could take her where she wants to go?

As the rest of the casting plays out, the second position remains key: a fundamental shift in attitude is available. Position 3 and 4 are both ascending points. The Broad Challenge at hand – so – is Timbre: inhabiting her destiny, filling her shoes. The Effort Required – mi – regards “Ease in the Realm of Spirit,” the Major Third of Voices: all of her efforts need to cleanly serve that which feeds her soul. The last position contains another descending point: se, the point of Inception. Underneath it she drew the Conductor of Percussion: Leadership in the Realm of the Physical. I asked her about this. It seems she’s thinking of starting her own band – as an instrumentalist. Perhaps the seeds for such a venture have already germinated.

Wham bam, thank you NAMM!

2010-01-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

My partner Hugh and I just returned yesterday from Southern California and the NAMM show, which was exhilarating, exhausting, and overall, I believe, of great help to us. There was a great deal of buzz about all of our innovations, especially our latest one, Muzundrum: The Game of Musicians, for which we won a "Tools for Schools" award for "Coolest Game". We spoke to and played Muzundrum with countless musicians, students, and educators, which was really satisfying after being holed up creating it for the last year.

Interestingly, we also found people responding well to Muzoracle: The Tarot of Music. The only place we really exhibited Muzoracle before NAMM was at New Age shows, and the response was kind of minimal, at least in terms of numbers; we found much of the New Age crowd overwhelmed by the music theory aspects of the oracle, or simply uninterested in the level of commitment that learning an oracular system requires. With the music crowd, however, we found something quite different. Many musicians and composers are familiar with John Cage’s work with the I Ching, and with Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies; for them, the divination aspect of the Muzoracle is just gravy – it's the compositional possibilities of the system that spark their interest. In general, musicians and composers seem to grok the notion of using Muzoracle creatively instead of predictively; since I’ve been jumping through hoops since the oracle’s inception to make sure that that’s the case, the good reception we received at NAMM was good news indeed.

Many thanks to all of the musicians, retailers, students, and press who brought us such enthusiasm and support!

Muzundrum Launched!

2009-11-29T09:26:00.000-08:00

Muzundrum: The Game of Musicians was officially launched on Thanksgiving Day! A good deal of the site is up – we're still editing the videos, and I'm still tweaking the instructions for Master Level, but most of the pages are posted. Muzundrum can be ordered now by phone (888-775-4998), and will be available online at the Philomuse Store in a couple of days. We'll be shipping by December 4th, in plenty of time for the holidays.

Many thanks to all who provided their support and input during Muzundrum's development: John Steiner, Hugh Lawson, Andy Markley, Al Hernandez, Chuck Wild, Suzanne Doucet, Beth Hilton, and David and Twyla Siegel. We'll see y'all at the NAMM show in Anaheim in January – more about that coming soon!

The Influence of Gurdjieff on the Muzoracle

2009-09-17T15:07:00.000-07:00

Today I received a letter asking about the connection between the ideas of G.I. Gurdjieff and the Muzoracle; specifically, I was asked about which texts I would recommend to learn more about his influence on the system. This is not the first inquiry I’ve had along these lines. Honestly, I’ve been reticent about answering them. My experiences with Gurdjieff’s teachings have been so rich, so multi-faceted, and so interconnected, I haven’t known where to start; and I’ve been apprehensive about selling those experiences – and the work itself – short.

First, let me say that Gurdjieff’s cosmological ideas – and it is his cosmology that figures most overtly in the Muzoracle – do not and are not meant to exist in a vacuum. The cosmological ideas are thoroughly intertwined with other sorts of ideas: psychological ones, philosophical ones, alchemical ones. More importantly, the ideas as a whole function as only one part of the much larger endeavor that is “the work”; it is in the context of the other aspects of the work – the subtle forms of self-observation, the sacred dances, the music, the meditations, and above all the working with others of like intent – that the ideas bloom.

It is said that over time the combination of study and practical work can lead to a kind of inner restructuring. I believe it has for me. It’s not like I’m a different person than when I began – it’s more like I see more of the person that I am and have been. That’s not always pretty: what I see most is one set of pathologies giving way to another, precluding anything essential coming to the fore. In the process, though, I’m also gaining a sense of what that essence is: somewhere in all of the hiding, the fantasy, the fear and lies and reactivity, I am. And this fleeting sense and occasional appearance of a deeply present self, a self with a place in this world, engenders hope; and that is a most precious thing. Meanwhile, I begin relating to the world around me differently: if I am, then you are: where? All of the shifting personae within me, that parade of reactive states that call themselves I, still rush to judge whatever catches their eye – but something deeper doesn’t buy it. Something talky in me shuts up once in a while; something closed sometimes opens; a deep listening at times becomes possible. Meanwhile, the ideas in the Gurdjieff system take on greater subtlety, though not in a tidy way that I can directly trace to experience. A kind of new gestalt, a new perspective, begins to emerge: it is somehow lighter in weight. Something essential within, something mostly forgotten, is more often remembered.

It is from a broad and subtle experience, then, that the Gurdjieff work enters the Muzoracle. That being said, that experience is relatively limited: I am a novice in this work, an undisciplined greenhorn. I am compelled to reiterate here as well that the Muzoracle is first and foremost a musical project; that it is, esotericism aside, simply another song that Jeff wrote. To answer the question at hand literally, Gurdjieff’s influence on the Muzoracle is via my subjective experience as a novitiate, artistically applied.

Recommended Reading. If the real gist of the question, though, is where to learn more about the Gurdjieffian laws and concepts that the Muzoracle touches upon – and I think it is – then I know of a few good places to start. First is certainly P.D. Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous: that’s where I started. It’s a chronicle of the work presented in the way that Gurdjieff himself presented it to his students, and it articulates many of the principles that found their way into the Muzoracle, such as the Law of Three, the Law of Seven, and the Ray of Creation – for a start. The depth of information in this book seems to go on forever: I’ve been reading it for decades, and I’m always finding things I haven’t seen. In terms of the writings of Gurdjieff himself, many of the same concepts are put forth in his magnum opus, Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson. The emphasis of Beelzebub’s Tales, though, as I understand it, is more transformational than informational; the act of getting through it is a work in itself, and, to be honest, I’ve only gotten through a few parts. To many, it is absolutely essential.

There are many entrances to the Gurdjieff ideas – lots of authors, lots of books. Gurdjieff’s second book, a semi-autobiographical tale called Meetings With Remarkable Men, is a much easier read than Beelzebub; the film version of the book is a great introduction to the music and movement that is such an integral part of the work. My favorite biography of Gurdjieff is James Moore’s – it chronicles the great drama of events in Gurdjieff’s life without overshadowing what he was trying to teach. Many of the students of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky had student groups of their own, and were prolific; I was initially attracted to the writings of Maurice Nicoll, and still find much inspiration there. There’s an excellent collection of essays written by various luminaries in the work called Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and his Teaching, edited by Jacob Needleman and George Baker.

Coming Soon: The Harmonic Engine. I have also received more specific inquiries about the influence of the Gurdjieff ideas on the Muzoracle: like how the meanings assigned to the scalepoints relate to the Law of Seven, for example. I can’t really answer those kinds questions without filling in a lot of background; that background is stuff of an extended document I’m working on called The Harmonic Engine.

The Harmonic Engine demonstrates that music arises organically in the universe via the Harmonic Series, and that the structure of music, and our experience of music, is a living, breathing map of ourselves, and of the world in which we live. It is intimately tied to Gurdjieffian ideas, but has its own emphasis. Namely, it explores what I call the pitch/rhythm line – that frequency at which we stop perceiving vibration as pitch and start perceiving it as a series of events – and its connection, via all of the above, to our perception of time, our consensus reality, and our place in the universe. It looks at scales arising mathematically from harmony as process arising from being. And it further explores the musical, mathematic, and philosophic bases for much of the workings of the Muzoracle: ascent and descent, scalepoint and harmony definitions, the geometry of the design.

Musically, the Harmonic Engine has spawned a new tuning matrix, which I’ve been working with in the studio. I hope to have at least some of the document online before the end of the year, and the tuning is making its way into some of my compositions. Please stay tuned, so to speak.

A Matter of Style

2009-06-18T07:43:00.000-07:00

In the Muzoracle literature, the Style Card is said to refer to "manner and presentation". It seems to imply a kind of superficiality, a way of being or behaving that is somehow divorced from content – something "put on", something we wear as opposed to something we are. And in a casting, the Style Card can indeed point to this "divorced superficiality" – over the point of broad challenge, for example (so or ra), or over the point of unconscious behavior (re or le).

Style can, however, run deep, even though its surface is what commands attention. All surfaces derive from something, and the reasons for them tell their own story. Using a musical analogy, we might play in a jazz style because we think it's "cool"; jazz, however, has a vast history and cultural significance, and that we find it "cool" speaks of our relationship to that history and culture, to our understanding of it and biases toward it. Beyond that, of course, is the question of why we want to look cool in the first place. Apply those kinds of analogies to a real question and you might find something juicy.

In a recent casting, the Style Card appeared crossing a Perfect Fifth of Voices over the scalepoint of te: "Manner" crossing "Initiative in the Realm of Spirit" at the point of "Effort Required". This spoke of a need for the querent to align their manner with what they want at a core level, to allow what their soul is working for to be more readily seen. Here it seems that presentation was divorced from content, and that needed to be rectified.

Muzoracle Casting with Traditional Tarot

2009-05-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

The question. My question this morning dealt with money and location. I need to bring in more cash in the short term. The possibilities for accomplishing that are more numerous in the city – where I’m staying – than in the country, where I live. I love my home and its close proximity to family and friends ... but a fella’s gotta make a living. What shall I do about this? Like many folks these days, I’m anxious about money – when confronting these issues, I run into a kind of confusion and muddiness regarding how to proceed. What assumptions and fears are operating unseen within me? What am I buying into?

The casting. The Musician’s Die landed on Gb, pointing absolute south, which indicates the general perspective of the casting was to be about “what’s coming down” – or coming through – vertically, in terms of being. The first Solfége Die I rolled was fa, which indicates a time of transition.

The card I drew underneath fa was a Minor Sixth of Woodwinds: longing or hunger in the Realm of Mind. I think of this card as the "thirst for knowledge" card – and indeed, I'm dying to know what to do at this time of transition ... I am constantly distracted. Gotta know, gotta know, gotta know.

I rolled again: le, the point of mechanicality, of unconscious behavior. The card I drew above it: the Conductor of Woodwinds, a Leader in the Realm of Mind. Now, conductors, especially when operating unconsciously, can point to control issues; an unconscious Conductor of Woodwinds can indicate an attachment to being right. These first two positions together, then – the Minor Sixth of Woodwinds under fa and the Conductor of Woodwinds over le – speak of a kind of mental obsession with having things figured out.

The next die I rolled was fa again, which created a double at the first position and so formed the casting's axis. The card I then drew to cross was the Orchestration Card, which I placed horizontally across the Minor Sixth. The Orchestration Card deals with delegation and managing resources – sometimes within, sometimes without. In forming the axis, the hunger of the Minor Sixth, this need to figure things out, had become bound up with deciding who's going to do what and when. Which of my many irons in the fire should take precedence? What can I hand off, and to whom? Figure figure figure, clickety click click – put all this in the hands of a Conductor obsessed with control and you've got a guy who isn't sleeping much.

So what do I do with all of this? Get out of my head, certainly – but in what way? As sometimes happens, the casting has accurately telegraphed a situation and seems to suggest something, but hasn't pointed strongly to a particular course of action. When this occurs, I'll sometimes just roll and draw again, or maybe do a separate One-Up. The axis of a casting usually signals its end – sometimes, though, it just signals a pause, a time to take stock and do some interpreting before continuing on.

Adding in the Tarot. The course of action I decided to take in this instance was to break out my Universal-Waite Tarot. I shuffled and pulled a card from the center of the deck, and placed it face up below Position 1: the card was The Fool. What might this card mean at a time of transition, in combination with intellectual hunger and delegating responsibility? The Fool's striking difference to the Muzoracle cards above it suggest to me a balm to all this obsessive thinking, a kind of return to innocence, a simple and childlike following of one's heart and conscience. It seems a call to lighten up – the white prancing dog on the card even looks like my Havanese! The Fool also suggests the presence of the Trickster, that this pickle I'm in is a kind of cosmic joke, which, if taken correctly, can really show me some things I'd otherwise not be able to see.

I then drew another card from the middle of the deck and placed it over position 2: it was the Seven of Wands reversed. Now, last night one of the questions on Jeopardy! was "What is Pyrrhic victory?" When this card turned up, this question rang in my head. Sevens are about victory, and the Seven of Wands is about relishing the fight; but it's upside down here, and joined to an unconscious leader. The Conductor here is Pyrrhus himself: this is a battle I don't want to fight. Again, there is a call to relinquish control, to loosen this mental grip.

Looking at all this, I had an intuition to cap what I had so far with a One-Up. I rolled te ascending, and drew a Major Triad of Percussion over it: Fulfillment in the Realm of Body at the point of Effort. I then drew The Emperor over that. This position was most helpful: the triad was a call to examine what I want as an endpoint in the real physical world, and also a call to ground. The Emperor I drew next indicated order, but on the terms of the Major Triad adjacent to it; an anathema to the tyranny of thought found in position 2, it spoke of kingship over a bounteous land.

Musician's Notes. In the first position, the Minor Sixth built downward from fa creates an open voicing of a Major Triad: if we sound our Gb and then add below it Cb and the Eb below that, we hear an open Cb triad with an Eb at the bottom – very consonant, very rich. The second position in our casting involves just the one note D; in conjunction with our droning Gb, we hear an implied D Major Triad. The third position is a E Major Triad; the droning Gb sounds like an "add 2."

This casting is extraordinarily triadic and consonant. Although its key center is Gb, the key we really feel is Cb, the key of fa, sounded at the first position. Harmonically, Cb Major is the source of Gb Major; musically, this casting is centered around the notion of returning to source, as exemplified by The Fool. The E Major Triad in position 3 lifts you right out of your boots. This casting was very healing and soothing to play.

The Soloist and Boundaries

2009-05-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we exhibited the Muzoracle at the New World Fair in Pasadena. It was a pretty crazy event with lots of scattered energy, especially on Saturday.

I cast for a couple of people that can only be described as energy vampires: they bring all of their drama and baggage to the table, and seem hell-bent for leather on dragging you into it. One person in particular seemed just this side of the nuthouse, barely listening to what I was saying, grabbing cards and dice when he felt like it, and essentially yelling things like, "I WANT ANSWER! SHOULD I DO THIS OR NOT?! SO THIS THING DOESN'T WORK FOR FUTURE, ONLY FOR PRESENT AND PAST?! AAARGH! I TAKE OTHER CARD! I'M A VERY SPIRITUAL PERSON!" Oy, it was exhausting. By the time the day was done, I'd have rather ate from the catbox than do another casting. "I'm just the piano player, dammit!" I'm thinking. "Leave me alone!"

At the day's very close I had one more casting, and it was with another intuitive reader -- and she was present, immediate, and grounded as can be. Hallelujah! She gave me some very valuable tips -- stuff I'd heard about, but had no practical experience with. Most helpful was her advice on maintaining boundaries, about not making other people's stuff yours; and also about maintaining a certain authority while casting. Yes, the authority in terms of meaning belongs to the querent – but the form and flow of the casting is my job, and it is not up for grabs.

The next morning, while sitting at the booth before the show began, I cast for myself regarding the day ahead. The axis of the casting was the Soloist of Strings crossing a Perfect Fifth of Strings over the scalepoint of so: Initiative and Autonomy in the Realm of Feeling at the point of Challenge. It couldn't have been more clear: take charge of your feelings by remaining autonomous. Shortly thereafter I cast for my partner Hugh, who was also working the booth and was pretty frazzled himself. Two of the cards in his five-position spread were also Soloists: the Soloist of Woodwinds and the Soloist of Percussion.

In the Muzoracle literature, the Soloist is described as " autonomous, independent, a loner, a maverick, a star". The notion of boundaries is also implied: that which is self-contained has borders. Returning to this idea as Sunday ran its course, I saw that, in terms of energy drain, it takes two to tango. Something needy in someone else wants my support; something needy in me wants to please them, and we are drawn to each other like magnets. If I wish to avoid vampires, perhaps I should show a little less neck.

The scalepoint of so refers to broad challenges, to "life-lesson" kinds of challenges. The implications of the axis in my casting reach beyond the issues directly at hand, and beg deeper exploration of the Soloist within. When are our boundaries enforced, and why? When are they nonexistent, and why? What exactly is "autonomy", and what in us desires it? What is a "star", and who wants to be one?

Mechanicality in Castings

2009-05-10T15:05:00.001-07:00

I have come across some confusion among users regarding the scalepoints of re and le, especially in their ascending aspect. What does mechanicality mean, and how does it figure into a casting?

In the Muzoracle, mechanicality refers to unconscious behavior or beliefs. It speaks of what's operating within us without our intent, consent, or even knowledge: our habits, our reactions, our compulsions, our automaticity. Cards drawn above re or le speak of hidden forces driving things – sometimes within us, sometimes without.

Not all unconscious mechanisms are harmful. Indeed, they form as practical responses. Baby burns hand on stove; 20 years later, Baby doesn't have to think about it -- there is an unconscious mechanism that keeps its hand off the burner. If, however, Baby learns to equate abuse with love, and 20 years later finds itself in a string of abusive relationships, there may be an unconscious mechanism that needs to be addressed. When mechanicality appears in a casting, it simply speaks of things that are operating unseen; they may or may not be obstacles to what's at hand.

Sometimes the appearance of a card over re or le signals something repressed and of value coming to light: yes, it's been hidden, but the fact that it's sitting in front of us on the table means it ain't hidden no more. Cards over re/le might also indicate something that needs to be brought to light.

In the greater scheme of things, mechanicality looms large. Unconscious mechanisms within us give rise to behaviors, which in turn affect others, each of whom has their own set. How much of life is really one plane on autopilot bumping into another? What assumptions do we unconsciously make as a culture, or as a species? Who's driving this bus?

Damn, this looks complicated!

2009-05-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

So I've heard! Actually, in comparison to other oracles, the Muzoracle is not particularly difficult to use or understand – wrapping your head around the way hexagrams move through the I Ching, for example, or getting a real handle on the Tarot, is not something that can be accomplished in an afternoon. Nonetheless, there is a certain commitment involved – the Muzoracle ain't one of those fast-platitude decks geared to make you feel warm and fuzzy as you're dashing out the door. Not that there's anything wrong with simple – or warm and fuzzy, for that matter – it's just that the Muzoracle is based on the laws of vibration as they relate to music, and well... that takes a minute.

That being said, a One-Up casting -- which can be quite juicy -- can be accomplished within 5 minutes of opening the box. The best way to approach the Muzoracle is to start small and work your way into it – just roll a die, pull a card, and look it up. Once you get the hang of that, you can start checking out the Full-Layout, if you like. If you want, you can go to the web and download the Casting Engine, so you can hear what your castings sound like – but it's not necessary. You don't need to always hear a casting to derive its meaning – I keep the cards and dice in my backpack, and do castings all the time miles from a piano or computer. If esoterica is your bag, there's plenty to be had, especially on the site – but you don't need that either. Keep it simple – take your time.

In these days of multi-tasking, fast cuts, and continuous demands on our attention, even the slightest commitment can seem daunting. Nonetheless, the fact remains: the deeper the investment, the deeper the possible return. Exploring our vibrating universe through music is a rich and useful experience – it's also vast and deeply interconnected with other disciplines. S0 start small, keep it light... roll a die, pull a card... and enjoy!

Sunday's Casting

2009-05-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

As you may know, we've been really hustling around here at Philomuse to get Muzundrum, our new music theory game, released. I've been planning on packaging the game in a triangular box – getting someone to make a triangular box, however, has been like pulling hen's teeth. You wouldn't think so – I mean, they make all kinds of weird-shaped boxes for things. Anyway, after yet another bout this weekend with flake-outs and unanswered e-mails, it occurred to me that maybe the universe was trying to tell me something: maybe I should go with a square box with an insert, save some bucks, and keep the price point down on the final product. I decided to cast the Muzoracle and see if anything helpful came up. The above is what I cast.

As you can see, the casting was an ascending one: the black Musician's Die, which I rolled first, landed pointing up. The casting, then, was to build upward, with the white Solfége Dice building up from the Musician's Die, and the cards building up from the Solfége Dice in turn. In terms of meaning, ascending castings refer generally to things we're trying to accomplish, to uphill climbs, like... like trying to get these damn boxes made.

The first die I rolled was fa, which speaks of what is being revealed, what's coming to light, what's bubbling up. The card I drew above it was a Minor Seventh of Strings. Now, minor sevenths refer to retreat, return, withdrawal... or attachment. The Suit of Strings refers to the Realm of Feeling. Hmm... could some kind of emotional attachment be coming to light here? Perhaps some kind of clinginess around my precious triangle design?

I rolled again. Mi, the point of "effort required." The card I then drew above it: Al Segno: "to the sign." Working with signs, looking for portent: a suspicion about all this peculiar flakiness I'd been encountering brought me to the casting in the first place. This position suggests that I might trust those suspicions, that I might "work with the signs."

Next roll: re, the point of mechanicality, of unconscious behavior. The card then drawn above re: the Conductor of Woodwinds. Conductors are about leadership; they can also, however, be about control issues, or even bullying, especially when they occur at the point of unconscious behavior. The Suit of Woodwinds refers to the Realm of Mind, the intellect. This position indicates to me a kind of hardheadedness, an unseen but powerful pushiness in terms of ideas.

And the next roll: te. Now, te is a chromatic point – it's not do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do, in other words. That means it goes at the top of the casting, and the card we draw subsequently will go underneath it: chromatic points always travel in the opposite direction of the casting at hand. In terms of meaning, that means that this point is opposition to our upward climb: it's about what's coming down. And what is does te descending mean? Opportunity. This card's going to be about opportunities presenting themselves in the face of my difficulties. Oh boy!

The card I draw: A Major Seventh of Strings – Lack in the Realm of Feeling. How could a lack of feeling be an opportunity? It seems kind of obvious how it could be now, but at the time I had no idea. I moved on, and rolled again. Sometimes you have to do that – just let things sit a bit and come back to them.

The die I rolled next: te again. When you roll a die for a second time, it's position becomes the axis of the casting, it's center of gravity. The doubled die is placed adjacent to its mate, a card is drawn and placed across the one already there, and the casting is complete. The final position in this case, then, this point around which my story is revolving, is about opportunity in the face of adversity.

The final card I drew: Ossia, the "alternate passage". Ossia under te: opportunity in taking an alternate path. A potential meaning of the card underneath Ossia, the Major Seventh of Strings, then began to emerge as well: perhaps the lack of feeling referred to could be a letting go of the emotional attachment talked about in the first position, which is also in the Suit of Strings. The axis of my casting, then, the center of gravity of my story? Emotional Emptiness and Alternative Passage at the Point of Opportunity.

I decide I like this story. Letting go of my emotional attachment and hardheadedness regarding my original design, paying attention to an emerging intuition, exploring alternatives: I think I'll work with that.

Now: did the oracle tell me what to do? No! I used the perspective it provided to help flesh out a creative response to my situation. Will my response bring good fortune? Dunno! Prediction, fortune telling: bad! Creativity: good!

A Note for Musicians. At first glance, we might think of a Minor Seventh and a Major Seventh together – those are the two string cards in the casting – as a musical train wreck. Looking closer, though, we see that building a minor seventh up from fa and a Major Seventh down from te makes a not-so-ugly chord at all: a G Major 7 with a flat 5 (Db up to Cb, crossed with a Gb down to G). This dreamy, open chord – especially considering we're in the key of Ab – makes for an interesting exploration regarding attachment emerging and opportunity coming down. More pertinent, perhaps, is the simple relationship between the scalepoints of the first and last positions: fa and te create between them a Perfect Fourth, which points to a kind of conscious yielding that further emphasizes a need for letting go. (On a more esoteric level, the Perfect Fourth is a manifestation of the Divine Feminine; if we include our key center and think do-fa-te, we hear two stacked Perfect Fourths between three notes: the triple Goddess. Our dreamy chord is similar: it's also built of two stacked fourths, but over the fiery tritone.)

Green Days

2009-05-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

Aaah, nice to be home again, sipping a nice rosé while the house fills with the smell of roast chicken! It's been a very productive and enjoyable week mastering John Steiner's new album, Into the Green, with mastering engineer extraordinaire Lumin White up in Marin. We're all very excited about this album!

Much new material has risen to the surface since the New Living Expo last weekend. In addition to all of the inspiring co-creation with John and Lumin, I managed to make some big strides in the Harmonic Engine project, which is the book I'm writing regarding the esoterica that underlies the Muzoracle. It's mostly number stuff that's come up ... and I love number stuff!

Also bubbling up are ideas about how to interpret Muzoracle castings rhythmically. As you may know, I usually wind up improvising on the music generated by the cards and dice I cast – as I'll be doing the same on stage soon, I'm experimenting with ways to expand my ideas.

Other developments: the instruction sheets for Muzundrum go to press next week. As soon as I find someone who won't flake on making the boxes, we'll be ready to rock. There's a new Muzundrum splash page up, by the way ... the rest of the site is coming soon.

But tomorrow ... tomorrow is a day of rest. Amen.

The Muse in the Marketplace

2009-05-02T16:54:00.000-07:00

Although the Muzoracle has been available on the web since the beginning of the year, and available to stores since around the first of April, this past weekend – that of April 25th – truly marked its public debut. My partner Hugh and I spent three days at the New Living Expo in San Francisco, demonstrating and casting the Muzoracle. It was an intense, sometimes challenging, and ultimately rewarding experience. I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by and gave us a listen, especially those who stuck around for a full-layout casting.

In the 4 years that the Muzoracle was in development, and in the time since then, I cast for many people: mostly friends, acquaintances, and friends of friends. I don’t recall ever doing more than one casting in a day, except, perhaps, for myself. Over this last weekend, I probably did 30 castings – a half dozen of them full-layouts – for people I didn’t know at all. From this I learned many things.

First, I discovered that I need to be careful with my energy expenditure. Friday night – our first night there – was when that first hit home: I thought I was a-gonna die. Yes, sometimes people bring a need to engage you in their drama; just as often, something in me wants to engage. Remaining attentive, open-hearted, and grounded, and not becoming whatever’s in front of you: this is quite the challenge. I’m sure other readers know about this – I’d heard about it, but didn’t really get reality on it until faced with a stream of people. In terms of my own inner work, it was gold – a real chance to see parts of myself I don’t normally get to see.

In the Muzoracle book and on the Muzoracle website, as well as in my rap to people, I am very careful to present the system as a creative tool, and not a predictive one. The purpose of the Muzoracle is to assist the querent in gaining a new – and hopefully deeper – perspective on the situation at hand; it’s not meant to provide answers nor predictions. It’s a storytelling tool that comes with a musical underscore, and the querent – not the reader, not me, not the cards and dice – must be the author of that story. Author, authority: keep it for yourselves!

That being said, and said again, there is still a tendency for people approaching the oracle to try and hand over their authority, or to assume that they must. In the future, in order to mitigate this, I will no longer be “giving castings”; instead, I will be assisting others in casting for themselves. As I am fluent in the language of the oracle, I will help them find their story – but I will not tell it. It’s been my intention all along to do that anyway; hopefully, by naming it as such, people will approach the experience in a more empowered way.

Welcome to Philomusings: the J S Kingfisher Blog

2009-04-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

Greetings, all! Jeff Kingfisher here. This is the blog for all things Muzoracle, all things Muzundrum, and all things musical in the Philomuse world. Please feel free to post your comments and questions!