Portland brought me back to harp. I took some lessons around the Cantigas de Santa Maria. I wanted to learn as I learned mbira, in the oral tradition. The teacher plays and then you play by watching their hands. I was loving this way of learning, picking up songs by watching the teacher’s hands.
I learned several songs quickly but missed something in just perfecting technique. Wanting something deeper in the resonating tones so once again put away the harp for a few months.
Then some miracle happened as here again the harp was speaking to me when I got near it. I started looking at the International Harp Program and linked to a skype teacher who was someone I had met 13 years earlier. She single handedly got me going again through positive reinforcement. Improvisation from the Christina Tourin DVD’s and Christine on skype having each note feel like a snowflake or juicy apple, brought me into the realm I was longing to enter: the realm of Frankincense and Myrrh, the realm of heart.
My mother broke her hip in Nov of 2011. Christine hooked me up with a healing harp, a lap harp that was purchased by a grandmother to play for her granddaughter and then donated to Christine for visiting anyone with a heart need. The harp traveled across from the border between Idaho and Washington to Woodland Washington. I drove to pick it up and started working with this harp called Amazing Mazie. I didn’t play the harp for my mom but played it for myself and cared for it as I needed to care for myself after several years of caregiving in Ashland.
Amazing Mazie brought me a reminder of vibrational medicine, the vibrating string across one’s heart is so comforting.
Amazing Mazie is the harp to the left. Getting ready for a skype lesson with Christine Magnussen.