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A musical meditation: “I sing to keep up my spirits.”

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(Continued from To seek a newer world)

“When the singer is ready, the accompanist appears.”

Milton’s Sonnet 19 has long inspired me: a meditation better known as “On His Blindness,” it considers “that one talent which is death to hide, / Lodged with me useless.”

How can Milton fulfill his calling as writer if he’s blind? The near-despair leads him to a tremendous paradox: We may be expected to develop our talents, but the God who lives in general imagination has no need for our talents: “who best / Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state / Is kingly; ... .”

Ultimately what drives me is my own misery index: finding relief in some healthy or artful outlet, as when, in the summer of 2010, Connor Doran transformed his epileptic glooms on America’s Got Talent by flying an indoor kite, soaring with the wry harmonies of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel”:

Spend all your time waiting for that second chance,
for a break that would make it okay.
There’s always some reason to feel not good enough,
and it’s hard at the end of the day.
I need some distraction, oh beautiful release.

I had never heard Sarah’s song until Connor tuned his pain and four-stringed kite to the harmonies, but I hope a comparable union of writing and singing will release my whole Self.

The uppercase “Self” recalls C.G. Jung’s use of “Other” in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, where he suggests something beyond the lowercase self that most of us resign our lives to, failing to heed the soft entheos or enthusiasm that call us to a higher Self.

Besides this lower world, writes Jung, another realm exists, “like a temple in which anyone who entered was transformed and suddenly overpowered by a vision of the whole cosmos, so that he could only marvel and admire, forgetful of himself. Here lived the ‘Other,’ who knew God as a hidden, personal, and at the same time suprapersonal secret. Here nothing separated man from God; indeed, it was as though the human mind looked down upon Creation simultaneously with God.”

Jung’s vision of Divine Wonder recalls my sensation in December 1968 when Apollo 8 sent back the first photos of the Earth as seen from distant space, instantly evoking in me a favorite burst of joy from Bobby Burns: “O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us.”

The CD is a concept album that includes a 20-page booklet to hint personal high- and lowlights, and to examine song choice. I see each song as indispensable to the next song, and the booklet gives insight to the songs: to rip one from the rest loses sight and sound of the whole.

I hope listeners will understand my need to offer only the CD, not individual songs, especially since this CD is Part 1 of a larger project: Part 2 possible only if Part 1 finds an audience.

Hearing my voice is a new experience. Imperfections nag, but at least my airy nothingness has a habitation and a name. One thing is clear: Nothing good could have happened without the touch, care, and sounds of Bálint Sapszon.

By the way, when albums are mass-produced (and a thousand CDs is mass to me, especially when plunked in my apartment), productioneers lump the singers’ style into a genre. I was lumped into “New Age,” a label that may have mystical appeal, but, like all labels, defies comprehension. Other suggested labels include “Spiritual,” but my spirit ain’t what other people call spirit, and the term “Intellectual” has few happy connotations, while “Easy Listening” sure enough lives hard.

The only label that hints my aim is Musical Meditation. I hope my contemplative style makes thinking more fun, but the only true genres are Cringe, Like, and Love. To seek a newer world includes songs that are among my Loves, and I hope among yours. I’m perfectly content to hear you say, “I much prefer so-and-so’s version,” because the lyric’s true power belongs to the Muse, and how it moves you to seek a newer world.

Ever mindful: Sometimes even the most passionate seekers must find peace in blind inaction: “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Am I ready for happiness?