I long for some relaxing music, but my computer is downstairs as well. I think that music might help me a lot. I decide to create some music, hoping that it helps. I begin to stamp my feet and sing African-influenced rhythms. My shaking immediately becomes the feeling of the music. Maybe the intense vibrations I felt in my body were just music that needed to be expressed? During this period, I focus intensely on the music and I don’t feel bad. I quickly tire, and stop, and the dizziness, the shaking, and the lightheadness hit me again immediately. I purposefully fall down in a controlled manner, since I can’t really use my body effectively now, and I manage to open my guitar case by squirming around on the ground to position my hands in the correct places. Forget tuning, which would be impossible now – hope for something reasonably close and begin strumming.

The music immediately helps me, and after starting with a song, I begin to improvise. The improvised music is funky as hell, with polyrhythms over polyrhythms, and a constantly changing time signature despite (subjectively) solid rhythm – the beats don’t change, but one measure has 4, the next 5, the next 7, and then back to 4. I am playing with triplets, then quarter notes, then 6 against 4 crossrhythms, going back and forth as the time signature changes, and the overall feeling created is one of bluesy and funky and African motion, without the certainty of knowing where the next downbeat is coming. Fantastic music, with a cascade of minor droplets in the high notes over a drone on the low E string. I am not aware of my body as I play. Instead, I am involved deeply in an amazingly intense head-trip. I notice that my windows are open, as it is very warm here. I live in a very quiet neighborhood, and I realize that many people might be able to hear my playing.

I begin to believe that my fantastic improvisation is actually not “from me” – it is from God. It is also not for me – I am receiving a download directly from God, but the music is for the person who is listening to me, somewhere outside my open window. They must need to hear this music, I think, this opening of the heart and spirit, this funky improvised ode to the human condition. Maybe they need to know that such improvisation is possible. Maybe they need to believe in the power of the musical experience. A thousand thoughts run through my mind, which has disconnected from both the music and my body. The music is running as it of itself, and I have the pleasure of witnessing it, as well as the pleasure of performing. My fingers are hurting, though, since I haven’t played much lately, and suddenly I am jamming as if my life depended on it. Maybe somehow, it does. The music stretches out for a long time – maybe 10 or 20 minutes of real time? I cannot possibly judge with any accuracy. The flow of the music is the flow of my spirit, the stream of my consciousness. There is no making sense of the music – it is to be felt, not understood.