The Living Room

A tree north of Howard City, Michigan

–by Paul
Last summer, when I was staying in Germany with Angelika, I had the pleasure to meet a young man, Rouven Bauer, who is a fine musician and composer. He shared a song with me that he had written called “Good Boy,” which is about the loss of his dog a couple years ago. It is a lovely song, and Rouven asked for some suggestions from me, both with the music and the English wording. I tried to do this mostly through questions and suggestions, and Rouven took to this approach of working quite well. This way the song still remained “his.” I played a flute solo in the break, and also at the end.

When Geli , Rouven and I were talking about the song, Geli pointed out how the loss of a beloved dog, or really any loved one, creates a new opening of the formless within us. It is this beauty that is shared in this song, and it points to this formless space, both in the outer world, and to the world that we sense from within.

This picture of the tree was taken by me this morning while on a bicycle ride, north of a small Michigan town, called Howard City. It is a lovely tree, standing alone, with its leaves changed to the stage that signals that growing phase of life is withdrawing and steadily moving into the winter phase.