Dear Anne — thank you for such a thoughtful, and thought provoking post. They say the artists and the healers have the most advanced souls. You are one of those souls Anne. The inward journey being the most important. I’m not sure any of us feel the security you seek unless we have done the inner work. I think anything that appears to be providing the security from the outside is an illusion.

Your statement here made me think: “It might be a lifetime journey. Does anyone who is involved in building something new ever feel “done”? Or do they just get comfortable continually building, knowing they are never done? Are we here only for the finish line – or is “betwixt and between” exactly where we ought to be?”

As a professional musician and string instrument teacher, I of course relate to that above quotation! Learning to play a musical instrument is very much a life time journey. We are never “done”. Visual artists get to declare an end point by decision, putting a painting or photo in a frame. Musicians can make a CD and dancers or actors can make a video, but we have the knowledge that each expressive performance can continue to evolve.

In terms of my own career, that has put me in a tricky place. I decided not to pursue the route my family took, positioning into careers as principal players in symphony orchestras. I saw how hard that was for them, their jobs having such high skill level demands, but no say in how that skill is implemented or interpreted created so much stress. Instead I chose a freelance teaching and playing career. I was satisfied with that for a long time, as I found meeting people (like you, Michelle) so gratifying , while living in Boulder, CO, of all places!

On the other hand, I want desperately to know I have found my life path, I am forging ahead in the right way best for me, and those close to me. I struggle with financial burden, aging parents, my own security concerns. I find the arts in Colorado, with it’s scenic splendor, are not as valued as they are in coastal cities or European locations. As I age and continue to live at the threshold for federal standards of poverty, I of course feel great pressure to thrive and succeed. Betwixt and between my life’s desire and direction and how to achieve financial or self realized success , ,

As the music or any arts profession leaves so much to chance, and so little to security, I am perhaps not the best suited person to be writing on your blog.

On the other hand, the arts leave so much up to spiritual and personal development and satisfaction. After years of trying to find a way to support myself, so that I could continue my passion, through trade or business security, I have realized my mistake. One cannot and must not leave one’s passion subsidiary to supporting oneself. They are and must be the same. I can now say that, after much life experience and suffering the alternate paths, with qualified assurance. I do still watch finances carefully, taking odd jobs as needed to fulfill check book quotas. However, these positions always bite back when I forget they are not primary, but rather subsidiary, to my life’s work (I know, that that thing called one’s passion is not always clear, but there, almost in spite of oneself – ).

The important question seems to me to be: How do we find that core of ourselves apart from life’s doing, demands, “in sickness or in health” reality? For myself, that has been an inward journey, and surprisingly accessible aspect of myself. Any exploration through physical skills such as yoga, or mental foray such as in contemplative meditation practice, or emotional expressive path as through the arts, I emphatically encourage, promote, endorse. I look forward to more blog posts that will shed light on this issue in other and alternate ways. Thanks, Michelle! – Anne