Our spiritual Master comments that sometimes when we are feeling sad, the sadness doesn’t really stem from whatever we think is making us sad. Rather deep sadness often comes from our separation from our “Original Home”; it expresses our underlying longing to merge with God as we are intended to do.

Carolyn (16 years old) practiced an aria from Carmen for months for the Bland competition which is a state music competition here in Virginia. She sang it well but without a voice teacher, she felt she couldn’t get it up to where she thought it should be for a competition. A couple of weeks ago, she worked with her choir director after school trying out a Mozart aria and then this Scarlatti arietta entitled “O cessate di piagarmi”. She was searching for something else to sing that she felt could get up to competition level quickly enough. The Mozart was delightful. She is good at Mozart and really enjoys singing his work. However when she sang the Scarlatti, the room was transformed. All of us who were there were stunned, including Carolyn herself. She seemed to step into the ocean of sadness that lies at the core of all those who crave Him and find a way to express that elemental sadness that brought it fully to our conscious attention. It was breathtaking.

What a gift.

So she dressed simply and sang Alessandro Scarlatti’s arietta for the competition yesterday. Even though she is actually a soprano, somehow the deep sadness in an Italian voice of the Scarlatti brought out the contralto in her. It was beautiful and moving. People attending who reportedly don’t even like opera were thrilled by her performance. She placed first and will go on to the next level of competition. She told me, though, that this year she doesn’t really care about winning. Last year she wanted to win but this year she wants to move people.

She succeeded.

The lighting at this venue was really difficult to work with so these photos are dark and the video below isn’t great visually either. A black dress against a black backdrop and black stage just disappears. However, the audio is pretty good. You don’t need to see anything anyway. Just sit quietly and listen. (For those with sensitive ears, the audio is significantly degraded when converted onto You Tube. Many notes are slightly sharp in a way that the actual performance is not and the timbre of the voice is changed. If anyone knows a different way to put up audio files, please let us know!)

May Carolyn go far both musically and spiritually with this gift of hers that keeps unfolding in deeper and more meaningful ways. May many hearts be touched.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,

Leslie

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